Lunar

Chapter 3: Training Begins

When Naddy woke up the next morning in Dill's guest room, she was surprised to find that  it wasn't just a weird dream. As Naddy rubbed the sleep from her eyes Dill walked in and handed her some toast. They ate and slowly Naddy brushed the crumbs off her pyjamas (Dill had teleported them over last night for her to get changed into).

"Dill... What if l don't want to be a marama? What if l just want to live my life in Aldcrest like none of this ever happened? I'm not sure l want to be a part of this..."

"Naddy, honestly, l don't think that's possible. I don't think you can pretend it never happened. I didn't tell you last night, because you were already over loaded with information, but... There's these creatures called shadow-walkers, they eat people. Shadow-walkers are vile creatures, they hide and absorb themselves in shadows, they typically look like black mist but they can change their form into anything however they always have a wavering smoke-like appearance so they prefer to come out at night. Because we can use our powers, we are trained from a young age in combat and we kill these beasts to save and protect both ourselves and the quotidians.
But that's not all, there are also rogues out there, magical rogues, they turn against us and help the shadow-walkers and they want to rule our world, but if they do the land would be evil, it would be chaos and the shadow-walkers would be free to eat whomever they please with no one to stop them."

~*~*~*~*~

Dill walked with Naddy to the royal's mansion but from there he wasn't allowed any further and an escort took Naddy to the royal's private training grounds. The escort left her outside the ladies change rooms with the instructions to get dressed into the clothes in there, leave her clothes in there and go down the hall and through the door at the end afterwards.

After doing so, she found herself in a room that looked like a normal gym but one side wall was covered entirely with weapons and the lines on the floor were different. Naddy crinkled her nose as the strong smell of deodorant and sweat hit her.

She walked around for a bit before through the door a guy walked in, a guy dressed in dark jeans and a navy t-shirt that complemented his muscular form. The guy looked around 19 with dark blonde hair and stunning blue eyes.

He walked over to Naddy. "Hello. You must be Nadira. My name is Darius, but you can call me Darry, l will be your mentor."

"Hi Darry! Yep, l'm Nadira, but l prefer Naddy."

"Ok, Naddy. Well, right after you left last night, the Queen went into the royal library and read up on maramas. She found out that both of the two cases that have been recorded had crescent shaped scars on their collar bone. So l ask of you now, to show me your collar bone."

"And if I don't want to show you my collarbone?"

"Then I get to nag you until you show me your collarbone."

She pulled her collar away from her neck just enough for him to see her left collar bone, he looked at it then looked away politely. The scar was milky white and silvery and stood out on her fair skin.

He grinned. "Ok, now that that's sorted. I'd better tell you the schedule.

"On Mondays you have combat training with me, Tuesdays you have gravity affecting with me, Wednesdays emotion changing with Lucy and l, Thursdays invisibility training with yours truly, Fridays combat training with me again, Friday nights you have manifestation with your boyfriend Dylan and myself, Saturdays theory and Sundays you are free to do whatever you please for the day."

"Uh ok. First of all Dylan is my best friend not my boyfriend. He's gay. Second, I'm not going to remember that, can I have it written down? And third, what about my normal school in Aldcrest?"

"There will a timetable of sorts in your locker when you go to collect your clothes, and we' spoken with your school principal ,who you should know is a psychometrist who decided to live as normal a life as she could, and you have legally transferred schools. Oh! And we've spoken with your parents who really are just quotidians and told them that you moved schools."

She narrowed her eyes. They did all that without telling me. They didn't even ask if this is what I want!

"You said parents. They're not, they're my adoptive parents. My real parents left me on the doorstep when l was 3. Am I still living with Mary and Jake?"

"Oh sorry. If Mary and Jake are the adoptive parents then yes, you are still living with them. You can go back whenever you want but you have to study here. Dylan will take you here and to home at the end and start of the day until you know the way."

"Ok. So what are we doing today, for theory seeing as it's a Saturday."

"Actually today we're just going over everything you know so far, I need to know what you know before I can even begin to start teaching you."

~*~*~*~*~

The next morning Naddy woke up in the guest room of Dill's house again. When Dill walked in this time though, he handed her a mango smoothie, knowing it was her favourite, instead of toast.

When she finished slurping her smoothie she dressed into one of her summer dresses that Dill had kindly teleported over for her. The dress was in her favourite shade of purple so hopefully that would give her a good day.

When they left his house, they wandered the streets for the morning and Dylan explained more about Wyrdhaven, mainly informing her of what he knew of the elementals.

He told her how you could only inherit elemental powers and not develop them. He told her how the water elementals could create tsunamis, breathe underwater, control water, and how they couldn't go near fire.

He told her about fire elementals and how they could control fire, form volcanoes, how they're immune to fire and how they can't go near water so they drink this red liquid to keep clean and stay hydrated. He told her how only the fire elementals knew the recipe for the drink and knew it's name -everyone else called it the 'fire' drink.

He also told her how earth elementals could control rocks, form earthquakes, how they could breathe fine underground and how they couldn't have their feet over 20 metres off the ground.

Finally, he told her of air elementals and how they could form hurricanes, use wind to lift themselves up, be anywhere and breathe fine except for space, underwater and underground and how they couldn't go underground or within a 20 metre radius of titanium.

When they finally stopped for lunch, a blue and gold macaw landed on their table and turned to Naddy. "Hi! I'm Avenner, pronounced ay-ven-er, and you must be Naddy. You seem familiar, have l met you before?"

Flabbergasted, Naddy replied, "N-no."

"Hmmm. I'm sure you look familiar." He said before he flew off.

Dylan took one look at Naddy's face and burst out laughing.

"That was Avenner, he lives here -although no one owns him. He has a special loyalty to the old royal family- the family that ruled before all the heirs disappeared and died and the current royal family took over- because the old king, King Adrian, raised Avenner and had him be given long life, the ability to communicate properly with people and the ability to predict special events. Though when he does predict future events, he speaks in riddles, it's quite disconcerting really."

For the afternoon they returned to Aldcrest and they spent the day at a lake they'd found when they were younger. They danced, ran around, talked about cute guys and just enjoyed themselves. Dancing was one of Naddy's hobbies and she was good at it so she enjoyed it more than Dill who couldn't dance very well but still thoroughly enjoyed himself.

That night Dylan went back to Wyrdhaven while Naddy went home to her adoptive parents. They greeted her like normal and they all ate together before Naddy went to bed. She wondered if things would remain this normal, she hoped so.

Author's Note
What do you think of Darry?
Did anyone expect Dill to be gay?

I love Naddy and Dill's friendship.

I hope you are enjoying the story so far! And thanks for reading this far!