Weak To Fire

30

Y/N didn't really have much of a concept of how long three weeks were. She had started counting the days, but after a week she had gotten distracted and she soon had forgotten how many days had passed. It was one of the advantages of being a water spirit. Or maybe it was a disadvantage. But she figured to just go by her feeling and when she felt that three weeks had passed, she could start to make preparations to head back to the capital and go looking for Mereo.

Y/N had to admit that she really, really missed her. She didn't have anything more or less to do since she was gone, not really. But watching her training all day and talking to her and getting dinner with her was just nice. It was a fun thing to do and she had really enjoyed it and now she was all on her own again, with no one else around. No one else to talk to, no one to watch. It was boring.

For the first week, Y/N really regretted not coming with her to the capital. Sure, Mereo would be busy there and she'd have lots to do and wouldn't have much time to hang around her, but in the capital there were loads of other people that she'd be able to spend time with. She could have been hanging around the Crimson Lions' base, trained with Leopold or Fuegoleon, gotten to know some other people in Mereo's family... but now she was kind of stuck here with nothing good to do, except what she always did - sit around, swim, wait for time to pass.

She was bored to death and even considered to go and see Mereoleona before the three weeks were up (or rather before what felt like three weeks was up), but she decided not to do that in the end. It would take Y/N five days to get there - what if Mereo made it back while she was walking to the capital? It could end up extremely messy. It could end up with Mereo searching the entire forest while she was dying, because she didn't have access to a bathtub without Mereo around. And Y/N really wanted to avoid all of that. It wasn't going to do anyone any favours.

So all that was left for Y/N was to wait. Wait and wait and wait for Mereoleona to return or for anything interesting to happen. There were some people passing through the forest at some point and Y/N watched what they were doing to see whether anything interesting was going to happen, but they had literally just been passing through, so they only were very short-lived entertainment, unfortunately. Once they were gone, Y/N was back to being bored out of her skull. She wondered what Mereoleona was doing when she wasn't busy with some mission or something.

Then again, Mereo was always busy with something. Y/N had no idea how she even managed to keep track of all the things she had to do every single day. And thinking about it... when Mereoleona wasn't busy she'd usually be spending time with her. So there was that. And she was training. She was always busy with training and getting stronger. Y/N wasn't really sure how she managed to keep all of that up. When she was fighting it usually exhausted her.

She wasn't really sure why using magic exhausted her way more than it did Mereoleona, but maybe that was because she was used to optimising the amount of energy and mana she used up with every single spell. Y/N had pretty much an unlimited supply of mana, so she never needed to make sure to use as little as possible to have the biggest effect from it. She just used magic when she needed it without worrying about preserving mana or not having time to rest and recover. Again, it was a question of perspective on everything and Y/N's perspective was wildly different from Mereo's.

Sometimes she wondered whether that might be a problem for them in the future, but Y/N's idea of future was so different from Mereo's idea of it, that it probably wouldn't even come up. Either way, she was just going to enjoy whatever time she could get with Mereoleona. That was, if she was ever going to return. Y/N really wished that she had stuck to counting days, because she missed Mereo and she wanted to see her again. Badly. But here she was, waiting and hoping that she'd be back on time. To be honest, Mereo was good about keeping promises.

Y/N wasn't sure how many days it took until she heard familiar footsteps approaching the clearing where she lived. She hadn't been counting for a while anymore, but it felt like just about three weeks had passed. Or rather what felt like three weeks for Y/N. It wasn't like she had a clear concept of how long three weeks really were. She poked her head out of the water to see whether she was actually back or whether Y/N was just imagining things, because she missed Mereo.

But there she was, making her way to the trees where she'd normally set up her hammock, getting busy unpacking some of her things and looking around a little. She hadn't spotted Y/N yet, but Y/N figured she'd let her find her in her own time. She knew Mereo didn't like being scared or snuck up on. She always talked about how embarrassing it was when she actually got scared. Y/N didn't think it was embarrassing at all, but Mereo had some funny ideas like that at times.

After a few minutes of looking around, Mereoleona finally spotted Y/N in the water and waved at her, her face turning into a big smile as she approached. Y/N rested her arms on the shore, watching Mereo walk up to her and settle down right beside her. It almost felt like she had never even left and the thought of that was making Y/N happy. It would be great if Mereo never had to leave her ever again, but she knew that wasn't going to happen, because she had things to do.

"Hey. You look happy. How have you been while I was gone?" Mereoleona asked her, pulling her a little closer, so Y/N's head was resting in her lap instead. Y/N nuzzled against her legs and sighed quietly.

"Lonely. I missed you." she mumbled. Mereoleona started running her hands through Y/N's hair softly. Y/N really wondered whether things would always be like this... or rather for as long as Mereoleona was alive. It was hard to imagine how everything would go from here on out. With the amount of missions that Mereoleona had to go to and the amount of bad things that had happened in Clover recently, it was difficult to say whether things would be the same in a years' time.

"Missed you, too." Mereoleona said.

"How long are you going to stay this time?" Y/N wanted to know. She hoped that it was going to be longer than the weekend. Or that she would take her to the capital with her. Y/N really wanted to go back to the capital...

"I have about a week."

"Only a week? That's not long."
"No, it's not. And then I might not be back for a while, so I was wondering... would you like to come to the capital with me for a while? I promise, I'll try to be a little gentler with the broom..." she told her. Y/N smiled up at Mereo and nodded. Of course she wanted to go with her.

"Yeah, please. I almost died from boredom without you." she muttered. Mereoleona chuckled and shook her head.

"We can't have that, can we?"

"Absolutely not."

"I was also wondering... since summer is going to come to an end at some point... how about we see if we can build a little cabin by the lake? I could stay there once everything has settled down a little and I can be a bit closer to you. What do you think?"

"You want to build a house by my lake? You, like, want to move here properly?" Y/N asked. It sounded wild to her.

"Only if you'll let me. And I'd still have to spend some time in the capital, but you could come with me then. I'm hoping to be able to get back to my regular schedule of taking time out to train soon enough, but there are a few things I need to take care of first... What do you think?"

"I think it sounds great."