Nentarli [COMPLETE]

~ Thirty-nine ~

When I woke the next morning, I knew I had slept soundly, my body was stiff and it took a few seconds to gain my bearings. I stretched out as much as possible, I didn't know how I was going to manage another session of magic if I was going to come out of them feeling so rough.

But I knew it had to be done, if Merkell was right and he usually was, we would be able to handle more magic over time. Things would be a lot easier and maybe we would start to enjoy learning magic. We were still a little ways off of that and we had barely scratched the surface, I had always thought magic would be fun and exciting to have but I seem to have skipped over the learning part.

I loved to learn new things but usually it didn't involve pain, or physical and mental workouts. I finished getting dressed and pushed away my complaints. I had to remind myself of the reason I was doing any of this. I pictured the people of Nentarli, I imagined everyone I had grown to care about and then I thought of the Dark Horrors.

I thought about how Riltresik was supposed to be worse, and he would be arriving in the Sectors soon. With that in mind I could manage some aches and pains, if it meant I could fight and do something about the bad in this world, I would do it.

I knocked on Emy's door and was glad to see she was all ready to go. The dining room was empty when we arrived. We sat down and poured ourselves some of the oat cereal; I didn't realise how hungry I was until I began eating.

By the time Blaike and Kaleb entered the dining room, I had eaten two bowls of cereal and three warm pastries with a sweet honey-like substance on them. I was drinking my blue juice as I watched them sit down, they looked well rested but hungry, they ate more than I did.

"So, is it easier for you guys to pick things back up since you've had magic for years?" Emy asked between mouthfuls of pastry.

"It is still tiring for us but it does not last long, for instance we were able to make it down to dinner last night." Kaleb said with a sly smile and both Emy and I narrowed our eyes playfully at him.

"I was out for the count last night," Emy stated despite the pastry in her mouth.

"I did not wanna see your breakfast rolling around in your mouth, thanks," I chuckled and crinkled my nose.

"What does that mean exactly?" Blaike asked with a frown.

It took me a few seconds to realise what he was confused about.

"It means she was fast asleep all night," I explained to him.

"I bet she was snoring like a Triorn as well," Kayle chimed in as he walked through the doorway and grinned at everyone.

Emy threw a pastry at him but he caught it and began to eat it. He sat down next to Blaike, smirking over at Emy. We didn't get long for breakfast as we had to keep with our schedule, a different fighting related lesson every morning and then every afternoon would be reserved for magic. Emy was still excelling at fighting and I was still failing miserably, I could manage to defend myself and I was adequate with a sword and Slinger, but everything else was pretty bad.

The magic lessons were the most interesting parts to my days in the few weeks that followed. We were progressing quickly and after the first week we barely felt any exhaustion. Merkell was definitely impressed with us and gradually gave us more difficult things to do. Emy and I were soon at the same level as Blaike and Kaleb, something Merkell said was due to the fact that we were learning together, as we were always meant to.

It made me wonder on a number of occasions, how it would have been if we had grown up together. Would we have reacted the same way to one another? There wouldn't have been the cultural barrier between us but, would we have treat each other differently because of that? My mind turned to Blaike and the way things were. I still hadn't managed to talk to him alone since we'd been interrupted by my parents.