Alana's training (Location: Beach)

[Seth]

The cold sea air washed gently over the sands outside of the castle, it was a clear blue day, few clouds floated above in the azure sky... On the beach stood two figures, they were dressed as if they were training, and indeed they were... For Seth had brought Alana to the beach to begin her re-training with magic... Between the two of them was a pile of wood and leaves, and nothing else was on the beach... Seth spoke suddenly, and his words sounded almost difficult for him to say...

This is going to be hard... We must train you much faster than we should...

It's ok... I think I can keep up...

Seth gave her a stern glance...

I mean... I CAN keep up.

Alana then looked up into Seth's eyes with hope and newfound confidence...

Good... Let's start with fire, something fairly easy to learn...

With this he passed his hand lightly over the pile of wood; it burst into flames and began to crackle happily... The fire burned for a few seconds before another wave of Seth's hand extinguished it, leaving the wood fit to burn a second time...

Now, see if you can light the fire again... Remember; Stance, Energy and Will...

Alana now locked her focus on the wood, she stood rigidly, her arms forward and palms facing the timber...

Stance...

She focused her mind and concentrated, trying to draw in power from her surroundings...

Energy... And Will...

With this she pictured a fireplace, with a small pile of logs burning merrily, and tried her hardest to transfer this to the wood before her... But to no avail... She tried for several minutes... Slowly she became frustrated and angry with herself for not being able to do something so simple...

I... I can't do it!

She cried these words as tears began to well in her eyes, and she fell to her knees, staring at the ground in defeat...

Seth looked at her for just a second with a worried face before he strode around the pile of sticks to kneel beside Alana, and for the first time he put a caring arm around her, neither spoke for a while, and for now they were like family, no longer student and master... Alana still stared at the sand between her knees, but felt slightly more at ease, managing to fight back her tears long enough to say;

I am sorry, master... Sorry that I cannot do something even so easy...

These words sank straight to the old warlocks heart, and he remembered the little girl he had found so long ago among her dead and burning home, and he spoke quickly and softly;

I am no longer your master... I am your teacher, Seth... Do not cry, for I should not rush such training, even if time is short... It is true that your powers have faded, but they are still there... I know that you can do this... Come now, dry your tears, stand, and I will teach you something new...

Seth rose lightly to his feet, and looked down, holding out his hand as Alana looked up at him, her will had returned now and she took his hand and stood up...

I'm going to teach you about stance now...

With this Seth moved a few feet back, and turned to face her, assuming a stance with his feet wide apart, his right foot was forward and he had drawn himself up to his full height, holding his left hand behind and above his head, while his right hand was forward and his right arm straight...

This stance maximizes the pure power of a spell, there is nothing fancy about it, you can cast simple but powerful offensive or defensive spells like this, but I shall explain that properly in a moment, for now you must understand every part of the stance...

First, the feet are wide apart, to form a solid grounding, allowing more energy to flow through the caster without throwing you off balance... One hand is used to draw in power from ones surroundings, I hold mine to the sky, for I am a Sky Elf, and the power of my people comes from the limitless expanse of sky above us... Finally the other hand is forward, or in whichever direction the spell is to go, with its arm held as straight as possible, again to maximize the energy flow... For offensive magic the fingers are pointed as such to allow the spell to leap from your hand to the target...

He pointed the fingers on his left hand as an example...

And for defensive magic the palm is held flat in the direction that you wish to defend yourself from, like this...

He again moved his hand to demonstrate, this time pointing his slender fingers toward the sky and holding his palm flat ahead of him...

Do you understand so far?

She nodded slowly...

Good... Finally one must picture something in their minds... Something very powerful... A storm, an ocean, a volcano, or something similar... It doesn't really matter what it is as long as it has great power... But remember that the thing you imagine will usually dictate the element of your spell, so if I were to picture a volcano my spell would be fire, and so on...

And that's basically all that there is to it. Of course, any of these things can be altered to suit a persons own style of spell casting, but this is the style of my father, who taught it to me... But I have no child of my own flesh and blood to pass it on to, so I teach this to you in hopes that you will carry in on...

Oh, and finally, and incantation may help to increase the potency of a spell, for example, I will use 'fire' in my own tounge...

He pointed his fingers now and cried "Voh!" And at this a pillar of fire shot from his fingers, heating the air around the two of them for a second before it dissipated, and Seth lowered his arms...

He now moved away from Alana, stopping around twenty feet in front of the girl he turned, and assumed his stance...

Now then... Try to hit me with a spell...

Alana reply (No-one else)

[/b]

[Alana]

Eyes closed, hair blowing in the salty sea air. Alana kept repeating the 3 words of power in her head...

Stance.....

She stood with her feet a little wider....solid grounding

Energy.....

Take in the surroundings

Will......

Picture your element

She took in her surroundings. The breeze, whipping her cape behind her, the waves crashing on the sand and rocks, the sun warming her back. She focused all of these things and envisioned them in her sub-conscious. She held her right arm behind her back. Her left hand was half pointing toward her teacher. She could feel all of her desires welling up inside her body. She remembered Seth telling her to envision something mighty and powerful.

Her father. That was the most powerful thing she could imagine. Growing up, he was the one she wanted to be like. She remembered the night her village was raided. There was fire all around her. She remembered the heat, and the fear. She also remembered a huge sorcerer. It was advancing toward her, it's hand stretched, it's fingers long and thin. Alana hid behind what used to be some furniture. Just before he came into contact with her, her father stepped in between the two. Facing the demon-like being, her father firmly said;

" She has nothing you want, Yarah-Nage...She is just a child"

She heard the enemy mumble something and the rest was just one big fiery blur. She wasn't sure of who actually emitted this power, but whoever it was they were extremely powerful. She could feel the immense heat against her skin. But she was no longer a child cowering among burning memories of her childhood. She opened her eyes to face Seth. She could see fire surrounding her teacher. She could feel a rage over come her that she had never felt before. She wasn't scared of this, but she didn't know if she could control it. She started to panic. Her hands started to sweat and shake. Her entire body began to tremble. This had never happened before. She tried to stop it, but somehow, couldn't remember. She tried to speak, but for some reason, couldn't find her voice. She looked at her teacher for help. It was only then that she realized that he was standing right in front of her with his hands on her shoulders. He began to talk softly, and ever so slowly;

"Alana, I want you to concentrate on me
I need you to put your arms down, and close your eyes"

She only just realized her arms were still in spell-casting position. She slowly lowered them to her sides, but her face was still dead ahead and she could still see some flames dancing across her vision.

"Now, I know you are not seeing the same beach I am, what can you see?"

"I see fire"

"Good, I need you to imagine the flames being extinguished by it's opposing element, in this case, water"

Alana then concentrated on imagining the waves swallowing the fire. Steam hissing in the sound waves. There was now nothing left but a mental vision of a black patch of sand.

"I want you to open your eyes and breathe slowly"

The smell of burning wood left her senses. She slowly opened her eyes and saw that in the middle of the sand in front of her the little burning logs were indeed no longer there.

"But, I was just imagining the fire!"

She could swear it was just her imagination, but the duty charcoal logs told her different. She was so confused. She looked to her teacher, hoping that in all his knowledge that he would have an answer.....

x-x-x-Seth Reply-x-x-x

[Seth]

Seth could see that his task was a long one, and his time was short...

It will still take some time before you can cast these spells properly again, it is sometimes difficult to know when you have succeeded, I think your mind was confused, and did not see that you had actually started the fire... The only solution for that is training, magic is a tough discipline, you must train every day without fail to master the arts...

I am leaving soon, and I do not know how long I will be gone for... You may accompany me if you wish, but it will be dangerous, and I may have few chances to train you properly... It might be a better idea to find another teacher for a time...

You have made some progress today, but it is only the beginning, you may go now if you wish to rest, return to me when you are ready for another lesson.[/b]

Alana looked back at Seth with shock, and a little fear in her eyes, she did not want to loose her master again so soon, but she could not bear the thought of slowing him down... All of the thoughts swirled about in her head, and a hundred questions tried to leap out of her mouth at once, but all she managed to utter was;[/i]

You... You're leaving... Again?[/color]

A great weight seemed to fall on Seth, he looked down, closing is eyes...

It cannot be avoided... I am needed... My home... Veloria, is embroiled in war... As we speak Kyral, the Queen of the Dark Elves marches her armies toward Veloria... She seeks to claim the sacred sword Sermina from my King... But if she succeeds, balance will be lost, and the Dark Elves will take over, with the Spear Aramun, and the Blade Sermina she will be nigh unstoppable... I, like all Sky elves must travel home to fight for our lord Velos...

Forgive me, I do not wish to leave you once again... But this is bigger than either of us... Once the tournament is over I will depart... Jym is accompanying me... It is several weeks to Veloria, as the Raven flies, and many more on foot... We may be gone for many months... I am trusting you to look after things here Alana, the people here will need a voice of reason, and a defender should the need arise, and this task falls to you...

Can you do this?[/color]

Alana reply[/b]

[Alana]

Alana could hear the spectators cheers as she left the arena. Half bent over in pain she made her way slowly back to the Castle blood dripping from her as she walked. It was a few days after her last training day with Seth, but his words still rang in her ears. "I'm leaving you in charge". In charge? Her!? Seth had to be kidding! But then again,Seth has to go and defend his home.

When one is faced with something so serious, they make decisions without thinking them through....

She neared the castle and as the doors came into view, so did a small crowd that had gathered just right of the entry. No-one seemed to notice her, but she didn't mind, she lost, beaten down and slashed by someone she hardly knew, she had no idea of his fighting style at all, hardly a fair fight. But, not one to complain, she kept walking toward the castle, thinking nothing of it.

She saw a quick flash of red hair and knew instantly that the one named Pain was one of those in the middle of the crowd. As she finally became within earshot of the small gathering she could hear whispers and chatter among the people, while injured fighters lay on the cobblestone, bruised, battered and bleeding. Pushing and shoving her way into the middle of the circle, Alana turned to the villagers, "Everyone, move away please!"

The crowd, not noticing her, kept on chatting away, pointing at the injured and pushing each other for a closer look. The one called Pain stood up shakily, and gave a small glance at Alana, who was still trying to dismiss the crowd, telling them that the wounded needed air, and stepped in front of her. He was a tall being, towering over her just like Seth did. Pain raised his arms to the crowd, and there was silence.

"You people need to move along! The wounded need to be treated, and the can't very well be when you are all standing here and gossiping, they couldn't even make it into the doors! Now MOVE!"

No one in the crowd had to think twice, instantly the circle diminished, some walking away grumbling to themselves, others running, for their lives, it seemed. Pain turned to Alana, a cheeky smirk on his face, and slapping his hands together as if to dust them off,

"That, my tiny friend, is how you disperse a crowd"

Feeling slightly offended, but laughing at the same time, Alana realized that this was the first time she heard Pain speak. The moment did not last long however, as Pains eyed rolled back into his head, he fell onto the ground, hard. Alana stood there frozen for a few seconds, only just remembering that there were other wounded fighters there too. Alana could not move all of the men by herself, looking around for an aid, she saw a figure standing in the shadows behind a tree.

She walked over to the figure, and as he came into her light, she saw his clothes were cloth, shabby and dirty, he was one of the townspeople, a poor one at that. However as her eyes moved to look at his face, she saw that he was strikingly handsome. She was struck by his handsomeness for a few seconds before he said

"Are you...okay?"

Alana shook her head, snapping out of her trance, and said "Uh, yeah, ha ha, um, I was just in a fight, tournament you know. Got knocked around a little. Hey, I could really use some help, I need to get all these injured fighters into the castle, and I can't carry them all by myself, can you give me hand?" Without replying, the man walked toward the fighters and picked up Pain and flung him over his shoulder with complete ease. He then walked over to Bly, who was holding himself steady on the castle wall, offering his shoulder. Alana looked to Bly and nodded. Realizing that this man was helping Alana, Bly let the man help him into the Castle. Alana looked down to who was remaining.

Lance was laying face down, his shirt had been burned and was melted, fused with his skin, it looked so painful, Alana thought to herself. She could see another body, that of Sekuri, he was sitting upright holding his chest, which was one great slash. They were both sitting in a mass pool of blood, so large that it was hard to distinguish what blood was from which body. Not that it mattered, it was useless now. So Alana went to Sekuri and hoisted him up so that he was leaning on her, he could still walk, he just needed her help. She led him up the front stone steps to the castle. She took him to the room in which the villager had placed the other 2 wounded fighters. The man was helping Pain and Bly get comfortable on the small stretchers that were in the room or "infirmary". The man turned to Alana and told her he would go and get Lance, she nodded at him and he left the room.

Alana placed Sekuri down on a stretcher and proceeded to remove his shirt, as for a better look at his wound.

"You gonna take my pants off too?"

said Sekuri with a joking smile on his face. ...Smart ass, Alana thought to herself, smiling back at him.

"Oh, jeez, I didn't know it was this bad! Your gonna need a lot more treatment than I thought."

"I have a sister, she's the medical mage in town. She is very talented, she could help your friends"

Alana jumped in fright at the sudden sound of the villager talking behind her. She looked around to the man, whose arms were crossed over his chest, much like the way her master Seth did on many occasions. He had a steely expression on his face making her feel slightly uncomfortable. But passing this off, she agreed to let the man bring his sister in to help her friends. The villager left the room to look for his sister. Remembering that she herself was injured, Alana made her way to her room.

Alana walked up the huge staircase and down one of the long halls to find her room. She made her way to her bed and flopped down onto it, exhausted from both her fight and from helping the others. Laying there for a few minutes with her hands over her head, she heard footsteps coming toward her room. She didn't move, presuming whoever it was was just walking past. However her door creaked open and in her doorway stood the man that was Pain, he was looking at his feet, looking extremely uncomfortable.

"Uh, hi, what's up?"

said Alana, curious as to why he was there.

"He isn't happy. Brace yourself..."

And as fast as he had arrived, the man was gone, and Alana could hear yet another set of feet coming her way, she sat up this time, knowing who it was.

"You let villagers, people you don't KNOW into the CASTLE?!"

Sitting on her bed, dumb struck, wide eyed and frightened, Seth looked at Alana with a raging fire in his eyes.

XxSeth ReplyxX