Bound To; The Wish of the Witch

VIII

The dueling moons had just started to become visible in the pink and orange sky as the sun set and the forest dimmed. The bare branches of the trees, undisturbed by a nonexistent breeze, stretched above the clearing where Tori and Scinthia were setting up camp. Just as Scinthia finished setting up their fire pit, Tori realized that they once again had no more food to eat and decided that he'd go hunting before it became too dark. Before heading off through the tree line, he turned back to Scinthia and spoke.

"I'm gonna go find us dinner. I'll be back in a bit, all right? He asked.

Scinthia looked up at him.

"Sure, I'll hang here then Mr. Breadwinner." She said in a sarcastic tone with a smirk on her face.

Knowing that she was mocking him, he raised an unentertained brow at her before letting it go and quietly leaving the campsite with his longbow in hand. He walked for a few minutes, not seeing or hearing too much activity aside from the sounds of animals too small to hunt and began to wonder if there was anything worth hunting left in that forest. After a few more moments of quietly skulking through the woods, Tori heard something off in the distance. Back in the direction of the camp, he heard what sounded like Scinthia shouting through the trees. He thought back to if he had noticed any signs of them being followed and weighed the possibilities that he missed something. Realizing that it didn't matter if he noticed them or not since Scinthia was clearly yelling at something, Tori quickly made his way toward the shouting. As he got closer, his body became more and more sore and he became a bit more anxious.

Through the dark brush, he saw Scinthia hacking away at a grouping of trees, realized she was simply training, and let out a breath of relief through his nose. However, before turning away and leaving, he noticed that she wasn't stopping in between swings. She just kept swinging, using the momentum to bring her sword into the next strike. Her grunts sounded angrier now that he was closer and he wondered what could be going through her head that made her so emotional during training. He knelt down behind a nearby tree as he watched her ferociously swing her sword, a general idea of what she was thinking about floating in the back of his mind.

"What other than that day with the witch could pull such anger from her?" He thought to himself.

As he watched, he had to admit he was impressed with how quick she was with her sword. Since they had started traveling together, he'd hardly gotten the opportunity to watch her fight and attempted to get a better idea of her fighting style. From what he could tell, she used a majority of her own strength and momentum to attack quickly and with as much power as possible. It made sense considering the plate armor and shield she always wore. As he watched, he noticed that the cuts in the trees were getting deeper, her breathing was getting faster, and her grunts were getting louder. He wasn't sure if he should try to do something to stop or calm her down.

Before he had the chance to decide, she delivered what looked like an especially strong blow and stopped, holding her sword at the end of the follow-through for a moment. Tori stayed silent, waiting to see what she did next until she suddenly kicked the tree directly in front of her, sending a shocking pain jolting up his leg. The tree's chopped up trunk gave way from the kick and it fell to the ground before she straightened her posture and sheathed her sword.

"Holy shit..." Tori said under his breath, a bit bewildered.

As she began to look around at her work, Tori stood up, slung his bow over himself, and spoke aloud.

"That was quite a kick..."

She turned to him, looking unsure of what to say. He decided to keep going to make it less awkward.

"I felt that one from over here... literally." He said lifting and loosely shaking his foot.

"Sorry." She said with a sheepish expression. "What are you doing here? I thought you went to go hunt."