Blink of an Eye - a Guild Wars 2 Fanfiction

Chapter 9 - of Shrimps and Dragons

„By the spirits, even a Dolyak with three legs would run faster than you!"

"That's... because you've... let me run... around this damned sea... for three hours now!" In the blazing afternoon sun. Without a break. In full armor.

I could still remember the last training, where it had only taken a few minutes until I had wanted to wring his neck, but right now there was not much missing and I really would cancel the training and pull my hammer over his head here and now. But I didn't.

Aidan's yelling faded as I made my way over the next bridge with all the strength I had left, more limping than running. While he was chasing me through the whole city of Lion's Arch, he had settled down on a rock near the water and let his feet dangle in the cool sea. Whereas I was being laughed at by most of the city's inhabitants as I wobbled around in my armor, sweating and panting, the norn in bathing trousers kept yelling at me.

It would be so easy to just throw myself down from the bridge and dive into the cool water...

I blocked out the thought and kept shifting from one foot to another, my glance hefted to the ground so I wouldn't stumble over my own shoes. All feeling from my legs had long gone, and the only thing I still felt was the racing of my blood inside my ears.

Finally I crossed the last bridge and turned left down a small path when Aidan came into my sight of view again and gave the long awaited sign to stop. I came to a stumbling stand at the small rivulet that crossed my training route and without further thoughts I let myself drop on the ground with face forward. The impact was harder than expected and I tasted sand in my mouth, but as the water found its way through the openings in my armor, I clumsily rolled around on my back and exhaled a loud sigh of relief.

"You want... to kill me... am I right?"

Aidan laughed and half-heartedly kicked after a fish that wanted to swim past his feet.

"It's my job to train you, isn't it? And before you learn how to fight with your armor, you should learn how to wear it first."

I got up and climbed the rock to sit down next to Aidan and let the sun dry my body. "I understand that, but in some points... your training comes close to torture." I mumbled and threw a glance towards the point where the lighthouse had to be. During our last training session, Aidan had chased me up the whole building, and as if this hadn't been stressful enough, he had pushed me into the sea from the highest point just for fun, and without any forewarning.

"You don't plan to throw me off something today again, do you?" My breath had calmed down once more and I watched Aidan as he took on his plain leather tunic, hiding a part of the artistic tattoos covering most of his body.

"Hah! Good idea. What do we take today? Macha's Landing?"

Distrusting as I had become, I stepped away from him a few feet. This man was so crazy that he could even be serious about that. But luckily for me, he just shook his head with a grin.

"No, I have something special planned for you to end our session today. You'll have to ascend something again, but this time the descent won't be that... sudden."

"Am I allowed to take off the armor for that?"

I knew the answer even before I had finished that question. At least dusk was falling soon, what meant that the heat would fade after all.

"Hey! I want to meet an old friend here in Lion's Arch later. A really charr-ming lady, if you get it. Necromancer at her finest, some might call her creepy, but I'm sure you will like her. Do you want to come with me?"