The Second Master of Wind

A Blow from the Past

Aeria's POV

Right before we got through the gates, I put an arm out to stop Lloyd in his tracks before directing him,

"If anyone asks who you are, don't say anything. Here, knowledge is power and not in a good way. Got it?"

"Ok." Lloyd nodded once and I put my arm down before we walked into town and made our way to the auto body shop.

Once we entered the shop and made our way to my workshop, we were greeted by Jeff scowling at Lloyd and yelling at me,

"Where you been Vi? You got three appointments waitin' for ya!" He gestured to the buggy I was fixing before I was caught, an old jalopy with a smoking carburetor, and an electric scooter with a blown-out tire.

"I'm on it." I told him, but just before he walked out I stopped him and added, "Hey, I... I might not be coming back after this, it's a Blow Over."

We each tried to stay straight faced, but he gave a smile before clapping a hand to my shoulder and telling me,

"Then, it's been a pleasure, kid. You take care of yourself, ya hear?" Before leaving my workshop as I started gathering tools from around my workshop, causing Lloyd to ask,

"What's the deal with that Jeff guy?"

"When I ran away from the Lynn's and Ronin, I got lost in the woods, he found me, took me in, and let me stay here, taught me to box to defend myself and fix anything mechanical so I could work here."

"How is that any different from working for the Lynn's or Ronin?"

"He may not look like it, but Jeff's the closest thing I have to a guardian. We may not have been emotionally close, but he gave me a place to hide, and that's been good enough for me all these years."

"Oh..." I heard Lloyd whisper as I pulled on my safety gloves to get to work fixing the vehicles.

"Shouldn't we be getting your stuff and leaving?" Lloyd asked me as he handed me a wrench after I pointed to it.

"Relax, this'll take me half an hour at most." I assured him as I finished fixing the carburetor in the jalopy after rapidly fixing the tire I had left off on the buggy.

"What did you do for fun around here?" Lloyd asked me out of the blue as I got to work souping up the engine and fixing the blown out wheel on the electric scooter.

"A little bit of tinkering here and there, ride my motorcycle through the forest, boxing training, and that's about it." I responded as I popped off a wheel, grabbed a newer one, filled it with air, and screwed it into place on the axle.

"Done." I declared after starting the engine on the scooter and it rumbled powerfully before I turned it back off.

"Wow, that was fast." Lloyd remarked as I started heading to the back of the workshop where the door to my personal room was. I opened the door, turned on the light, and practically heard Lloyd silently grimace behind me when he saw my room.

I had a rickety bed where I slept, a closet with no door where I kept all my fading and worn thin darkly colored clothes, and a small chipped desk where I worked on small projects with spare parts.

"Home sweet home." I chant to try and lighten the mood as I grabbed my black backpack and started shoving different things I might need into it, including the black boxing gloves given to me by Jeff that were the only things in my room that weren't completely falling apart. I was about to tell Lloyd that we could leave when I remembered one last thing, the little wooden box that I've kept with me since I was a kid. I grabbed it from its hiding place in my desk drawer and shoved it into my jacket pocket when,