Verange

Chapter 15

Hayden walked slowly back to his room with Arya. They both felt ashamed and regretful for looking into a part of Elis’s life that they clearly shouldn’t have.

However, much to his happiness, Arya decided to stay in his room with him for a little while. They talked of little things and of many things. But mostly, Arya told him about what Elis was like before. She told him loads of stories about how she and Elis used to prank Fabyli and his closest advisors. Arya’s mother had died when she was seven so Elis more or less took over. Her father was the weapons master at the time so he had little time to spend with her as she grew up.  Elis was already in charge of her training and teachings for two hours of the day so it didn’t require much change for her to just follow Elis around.

 For five years they had tons of fun together. Then, she went away to the elves for a month and was completely changed when she got back. It took a week for Arya to draw her from her room. There was no more fun, no more pranks, and no more anything besides training. By then, she was old enough to be able to train for hours at a time.  Despite it all, Arya remained quite carefree and when not with Elis, she ran around with the other children her age and had fun. None of them knew Elis as she did and during the other children’s fun, it occasionally went towards Elis. She never fell for any of it, of course, but the persistency of children is strange. They only strove harder to fool her.

Eventually, Arya stopped associating herself with the other children and became close to Elis once more. They no longer laughed together, but the calm friendship they kept up was enough to keep Elis from going crazy with loneliness and gave Arya something to look forward to.

Hayden listened closely while Arya spoke, not interjecting with questions unless he couldn’t understand something. All in all, it was more or less a story of Arya’s life and he thought it best to just listen.

“So… Whatever caused her to be different happened during her last trip to the elves home? And that was 10 years ago. Do you think it had something to do with the man in that picture?”

Arya nodded slowly. “I do. I think I remember seeing him around a couple times. Elis always saw me less when he was around. I think she really loved him. Of course, I was only 12 at the time and thought someone opening the door for me meant we would get married and live happily ever after… my judgment may not be the best.”

He laughed and shook his head. “Arya. After looking at that picture and comparing that to the looks she’s given everyone else since I’ve been here, there was something special about him.”

She gave him a smile and made for the door. “I’ll come see you tomorrow morning. We’ll go see Elis and apologize. I wouldn’t try contacting her mentally tonight. I’ve only seen her like that one other time.”

Hayden nodded and waved as she walked out the door. He then laid back on his bed and yawned. Today had been long and boring up until he wandered out. After that it was crazy, but the two hours of crazy didn’t make up for a whole day of lazy boring. His mind was wide awake and his body wasn’t tired yet either, but he couldn’t go wandering about without getting lost.

With a sigh, he got up and stood in the center of his room and drew his sword. Since he had yet to beat someone here, he might as well practice.

As he went through the motions his body had memorized, his mind drifted to Elis’s motions.  All of hers had been quick, ruthless, and nearly impossible to follow. As he went through his, he tried to incorporate hers into them. The result was much worse than he hoped for.  To break up one of her movements to fit into his, broke up his own. All of hers flowed easily together like walking down the street. To just take parts of it left him taking jagged unsteady steps mixed with jumps and skips in the middle.