"…Yeah, just like that. Lookin' pretty good!" Prishe took a step back, reaching her hands up to frame the scene before her. Slowly, she scrunched her face into a squint, her eyes flicking about as she studied the main actor; After a moment of consideration, she abruptly sighed, and let her arms fall back to her sides.
"…I think."
It was a refreshingly crisp morning on the peninsula. What sunlight eked through the swirling clouds above shone with fervor, warming the land just enough to be comfortable against its brisk winds; The constant ebbing and flowing of the breeze winded its way around the ruins nearby, rustling patches of dry grass as they glimmered like gold in the dawning light. Cosmos' tower gleamed off the coast of the peninsula, half its silhouette shaded against the sun while the other half shone brightly, refracting light so brilliant it practically glowed against the backdrop of its surroundings. A small slice of serenity amidst the battle of the gods, Prishe had mused, when she chose this spot for her escapades; a bright and early morning wasn't usually in her playbook, but for the prospect of training a potential student, she could afford to make an exception.
Would that it had been going better.
"Am I… doing something wrong?"
Prishe's companion spoke up softly—for the first time today, she noted—as he continued to hold the pose instructed to him. He stood motionless, gripping his sword in front of him with his knee bent forward, his back straight and his other leg being used for support. He was faced adjacent to his comrade with his head looking forward into the distance; his apparent focus was only undermined by his expression, his eyes looking intently to his side as he attempted to catch a glimpse of his companion's gestures. With his brow raised he glanced toward her curiously, still otherwise frozen in motion.
She thought he looked ridiculous.
"Well big guy I'm gonna be honest, I have no clue if you're doing it right." Prishe put her hand to her chin as she walked a circle around the posing Warrior. "I mean, it looks good, but I figured it'd be easier to tell."
The Warrior of Light continued to stand motionless as Prishe observed him, only his eyes following her as she slowly made her rounds. The stance looked correct from what limited experience she had, but Prishe's expertise lied in the direct approach rather than refined swordplay. The slightest sense of embarrassment slowly rose in her chest; She might not be able to 'wing' this lesson as well as she had thought.
"…Ah to hell with it, let's say you passed. At ease solider."
Prishe sighed in defeat as she placed one hand at her side, waving the other dismissively at the Warrior of Light. The Warrior stood still for a moment longer, before slowly letting his arms relax as he shifted his feet to a more comfortable position. He eventually stood straight up as he recollected himself to his usual posture, his movements only slightly awkward as his limbs readjusted to the realm of motion. Turning to Prishe, he looked on quietly for a moment, before seemingly remembering his weapon; he raised it up hesitantly as he looked for the scabbard at his waist, and after taking a moment to reaffirm its location, carefully placed the blade inside.
Prishe watched this exchange with just the slightest hint of contempt. When she had campaigned Cosmos to recruit the Warrior to their ranks, Doctor Shantotto had remarked that he looked a touch soft in the head; At the time, Prishe was confident she could teach the young man anything he needed to know via her prime tutelage. Admittedly however, she had not expected the situation to be so dire.
"Eh, not a problem." she said with a shrug, placing her hands behind her head. "I'm sure we can go bully that rose-boy into giving you some pointers some time. He'd be better at showing you how to use metal sticks anyhow."
The Warrior of Light looked at her with his usual blank expression, his head tilting slightly to the side. Despite a light in his eyes that was not there previously, it had recently dawned on Prishe that the dazed state she had met him in was actually his default. He was an odd cookie, with his eloquent stature and manner of speaking heavily contrasted by his awkwardness; Prishe chalked this up to inexperience, but how he had managed to develop such a distinguished persona while being so inept at everything else was baffling.
Prishe observed him for a moment before clapping her hands together. "So," she started, "If we're benching the sword idea for the moment, let's move on to something else! See that plate of metal there on your back? Grab it."
The Warrior followed Prishe's hand as she pointed towards him, eventually turning his gaze over his shoulder - he gently reached behind himself and gave the object resting there a tug. After a moment of fiddling, it popped loose with a click, and the Warrior gingerly held it in both of his hands as he looked back to Prishe.
By this point she had skipped over to him, and offered a big thumbs up. "Great! So, this thing is called a shield," she pointed at the object, drawing his eyes. "It's a big slab of metal you put between you and the bad guys. Big guy with a sword? Block 'em with a shield. Got a fireball comin' your way? Block it with a shield!"
She gave an encouraging fist pump before reaching over to the shield. It was a heavy thing despite its size, but with two hands she could confidently hold it up so the Warrior could see it on its inside.
"See, you slide this thing over your hand so you can wield it easier. Here, give me your arm."
The Warrior of Light, listening intently, quietly extended his left arm, which Prishe took with one hand while deftly slinging the shield over it with her other. After fiddling with the strap to make sure it was comfortable, Prishe stepped back and dusted her hands before putting them confidently on her hips.
"There! Try holdin' it up, howsit feel?"
The Warrior of Light gazed at the contraption held in his hand with interest. The shield had weight, but not in a disruptive way, and he looked confident wielding it. As confident as he looked with his sword earlier, at least.
Prishe held up her hands to frame the scene, and nodded sagely. "Looks great! Very knightly."
She let down her hands before continuing. "To use the thing, you just point it at whatever wants to hit ya and hold on! Shield's not gonna help if you can't keep your grip on it, so you can brace your feet like this to help distribute the weight." She shifted her stance as she spoke, assuming a defensive posture.
The Warrior of Light followed suit.
"Nice!" Prishe nodded approvingly. "Now, remember what I taught ya? If a big guy with a sword comes swingin' your way…"
She mimed the motion of swinging a sword, before looking to the Warrior and raising her eyebrows expectantly.
"…Block it with a shield."
She grinned. "Dead on! And, if you've got a fireball hurling at 'cha from a wizard down the way?"
"Block it with a shield."
"That's the ticket!" Prishe jumped in the air with a celebratory fist pump before striding back over to the Warrior. "See, that's way easier than a sword. You'll be an expert in no time. Now, we should probably do a field test-"
Her gaze wandered as she thought, before stopping abruptly, her eyes going wide.
"-HOT DOG wait a minute! You see that over there?!"
Without waiting for an answer, Prishe grabbed the Warrior's shoulder and spun him around, steadying him only so that he would be looking in the same direction as her. He blinked in surprise and let himself be maneuvered without protest, though not without offering a confused glance in Prishe's direction.
"Not at me, look over there!" Prishe gave the Warrior's shoulder a light shove downwards until they were at eye level and pointed to a pile of ruins in the distance.
The Warrior's eyes followed her gesture and he looked towards the rubble, his gaze narrowing as he scanned for her supposed find. After a moment he blinked in recognition as his eyes settled on it; a small, floating red orb poking out from behind a ruined brick wall.
"Jackpot! I just changed the lesson plan, so listen up!" Prishe gave the Warrior a sly grin, before snapping her fingers and bolting off towards the mysterious pom. The Warrior recoiled slightly as she used him as a springboard, collecting himself with a slight shake of his head. Looking up, he watched as Prishe charged forward, meeting the brick wall with full force and vaulting herself over it - he heard a surprised squeak and irritated cursing as a scuffle seemed to break out on the other side.
As quickly as it started the struggle subsided, and after a moment Prishe emerged from behind the wall looking quite pleased with herself. Under her left arm was a squeaking, fluffy creature, who protested loudly as it was carried back towards the Warrior.
"Put me down! I-I wasn't doing anything wrong! This is moogle-napping, kupo!"
"Ah shut yer trap, we ain't gonna hurt 'cha." Prishe grabbed the wiggling fuzzball under its arms and held it up to the Warrior of Light's face, close enough that he reflexively took a step back. Judging by his perplexed expression, Prishe figured she was right in assuming he'd never seen one before.
"This," she said with a flourish in her voice, "is a Moogle!"
The Warrior of Light stared at the Moogle.
"They hang around some times and try to sell you stuff, but you gotta track 'em down first. You can usually find 'em in places where there isn't a lot of fighting. Like here!"
The Moogle grumbled something under its breath and wiggled in Prishe's hands. "If you wanted me to- to sell you something, you could've just asked, kupo!"
"Hell yeah! You good with giving my friend here a quick trade tutorial?" Prishe spun the Moogle around and lowered it to her field of view.
The Moogle looked flabbergasted. "Yes, if you would only stop flinging me around, kupo!"
With a grin, Prishe released the Moogle from her grasp. It dropped a small distance before catching itself in flight, hovering before them with a distant sounding wau wau wau.
"Well, poor introductions aside, kupo, I'd be happy to trade with you. Though, I should probably admit that I just opened my shop recently. I only have one item, you see…"
The Moogle held up a small pebble.
"Uh huh." Prishe gave the Moogle a slow nod. "Well, keeps things simple at least!"
The Warrior of Light, who had been glancing back and forth between the two as they spoke, watched as Prishe began rooting around in her bag. After a moment she uttered a small "Bingo!" as she fished something out - small, nutty looking objects speckled with white dots. She then looked to him.
"These," she said as she held two up between her fingers, "are Kupo! Or KP for short. These are what the Moogles use as currency. Hell if I know why."
Prishe gently reached for the Warrior of Light's hand and placed one KP in his palm before stepping back and crossing her arms. She watched him study it for a moment, and as he looked back up at her she gave him an encouraging thumbs up.
The Moogle seemed to compose itself. "Uhm, right. So, you tell me what item you want and I name a price, which for this pebble is- is one KP, kupo. Then, you hand me the KP, and I give you the pebble, kupo."
The Warrior of Light listened intently as the Moogle spoke. When it finished, he gave a slow nod before gingerly holding up the KP in his hand.
"I would like to buy the pebble."
"Of- of course! That will be one KP, kupo."
The Warrior of Light extended his hand to his business partner, who after a moment's hesitation floated over and quickly exchanged the currency for the cobblestone. The Warrior took his hand back, inspecting the pebble, before his attention was caught by Prishe's sudden whoop of excitement.
"YEAH! Huge win for the little guys! Nice job you two!"
The Moogle blushed, holding its paws behind his back and doing a little shimmy in the air. "D'aw, thank you! Now I'll be able to expand my shop like all the other Moogles, kupo!" The Moogle gave a little shake before beginning to float away, offering a wave of gratitude behind it as it floated out of sight.
Prishe waved after it, before shaking her head with a smile. "Funny little buggers aren't they? Never know what to expect."
With a spin on her heels she turned to face the Warrior of Light, who still seemed to be absorbed with the pebble in his hand. Absent-mindedly she gave a slight roll of her eyes; he must've thought it was pretty.
"Right! Lesson complete, you passed. Let's move on to something else!" she turned once more, her hand up to her forehead as looked out at her surroundings. Humming a low tune, she took a step forward as she searched, and was about to open her mouth to speak again when she heard a quiet voice behind her.
"Prishe. May I ask a question?"
Prishe continued to look at the horizon. "Yeah sure buddy, what's up?"
"Am I a burden to you?"
Well that was not what she expected. For a moment she froze, processing his remark, before making a confused expression she was immediately happy he couldn't see. She blinked once or twice, attempting to formulate something eloquent in response, but by the time she'd turned back on her heels to face him she'd already given up on the thought.
"What?! Pfft, no, of course not! Where'd you get that wack-ass idea from?"
She offered a laugh in an attempt to alleviate the tension, but the Warrior's expression remained neutral as he continued to gaze at the pebble.
"You have spent much of your time recently instructing me in concepts that you refer to as common knowledge."
"Well, yeah, duh. You dropped out of the sky with barely a thought in your noggin. Somebody had to show you the ropes!" She waggled her finger at him. "Besides, everybody had to learn this stuff at some point."
Prishe noticed the Warrior's gaze seemed to soften.
"I struggle to envision any of our comrades in absence of their abilities. Did you truly arrive here, not possessing any combat skills or general knowledge?"
A stinging question, if an innocent one. "Er, well, I was mainly referring to the Moogle-trading thing," she said with a shrug. "But whatever the hell! So we showed up with a bit more under our belts than you did, big deal. Once we get you up to speed you'll be just as good as the rest of us. Maybe not me of course but you get the deal."
The Warrior of Light's hand closed around the pebble before he finally returned her gaze. His expression was as unreadable as ever, but… she could almost see something else behind his eyes, clouding the sliver of light gifted by Cosmos.
Doubt?
Prishe took a small breath, before matching his gaze.
"Look here, Sparkles, I'm about to give ya the honest truth. You were delt a bad a hand, but that doesn't mean those are the cards you gotta play! You could, uh, draw new ones! After discarding the old- the old ones- ugh, dammit." She shook her head as the metaphor ran away from her. "Look, what I'm trying to say is that you're not ready to go right out the box, and that's ok. You've got plenty of time to polish yourself off, and a stack of friends that'll keep ya safe 'till you do."
She rapped her fist against her chest confidently.
"So what I'm trying to say is, you're not a burden. I'm happy to give ya pointers, and we're all ready to support ya 'till you're ready to shine!"
She felt a slight hint of anxiety as he glanced away, clearly contemplating her words. There was a slight moment of silence between them, only filled by the slight rustling sound of the grass in the wind.
He looked over to her again, his expression the same.
"...Thank you, Prishe. I will remember your words."
She noted the absence of any outward change, but still gave a sigh of relief. "No problem buck, you get any other ideas like that you lemme know. I got your back." She offered him a thumbs up, but at the same moment she felt her face skew as her stomach rumbled.
"Ah, bells ringin', recess is over! Now it's brunch time." She clapped her hands greedily before offering the Warrior of Light an encouraging smile.
The light in his eyes seemed to uncloud as he looked at her with a tilt of his head.
She laughed mischievously. "Don't worry, if the Doc's around I'll make sure you're not on the menu. Onwards!"
With a confident point upwards and a flourish in her step, Prishe puffed out her chest and began striding along the ridge. After a short distance she beckoned back to the Warrior of Light with a wave and a smile.
The Warrior watched his companion go, his silver hair blowing ever so slightly in the wind. He felt the weight of his shield, still resting comfortably in his left hand, and the smooth texture of the pebble, sitting quietly in the other; with a slight sigh, he took a breath of crisp, morning air.
After only a moments hesitation, he began to follow his friend home.
