Entering the forest with my face still clouded in anger, pushing past the last of the shrubbery, I see Apa's orange aura and her meditating with her eyes closed.
"Apa! Let's go hunt."
My voice loud and angry, uncaring what she thinks.
She opens her eyes alarmed, at my voice.
"I'm sorry?"
"You asked for me to hunt with you yesterday. Let's go hunt."
My voice unchanged. I walk toward her at the top of the hill.
"Don't…!"
She pauses to stand up.
Pointing behind me with a face that doesn't look like she needed for the tone in my voice.
"Leave."
Her voice stern about it and not backing down.
"What? You said that you needed help with your hunting."
"If this is how you want to be, then I don't need your assistance today."
"What?"
She begins to walk away and for se reason a feel a tightness in my chest.
"Wait..! Apa…"
My voice drops to become normal now.
"Don't Wait Apa me, what's wrong with you?"
I jog to catch up with her.
"I'm sorry, I just had a day…"
"And you don't think that I didn't? Why do you think I didn't want to ask for your help?!"
I lower my face.
"I'm sorry… it's just I saw someone, someone that should be put in a coffin in the ground, or at the very least a cell… but no, she's walking free, parading around town saying she's the strongest in Squea."
Apatite, stops looking at me in anger as I lower my tone to be somewhat more polite and calm to Apa.
"Are you calm now?"
I nod my head:
"Yes."
"Good, now I can be worried."
She switches her face to look at me with worry.
"WHAT THE HECK HAPPENED TO YOUR FACE?!"
Her aura Spikes heavily.
She rushes to me, stopping in front of my face as she wipes at the smeared and dried blood.
"What happened… Too much Soul Energy."
I say sounding unconcerned about it.
"Does that mean you saw another Soul Bear?"
Apa retreats slightly, gripping moving her hand to my shoulders, and tilting her legs, ready to run if needed.
"No. No, Soul Bear."
She lets out a breathe.
"Good. Then what is the matter? Why are you bleeding out of your eye? And why are you angry?"
She asked in constant worry.
"I went to watch a colosseum fight and ended up seeing Jahar."
She looks at me confused.
'Does she not remember?'
"Who's that?"
Apa asks.
'No she doesn't.'
"She's the girl that nearly killed us…"
"Us..? Like me and you?"
I nod my head.
"I don't know anyone like that?"
"Like a few years ago."
"Nope."
She shakes her head as she moves her hand to wipe the smears even more.
"You need the eye patch that bad huh?"
She says as she continues.
"Don't change the subject."
I say somewhat annoyed at her.
"Okay… when she…"
She pauses as if she finally figured out what I'm talking about:
"...are you talking about the girl that kidnapped me?"
"Yes!"
"She wasn't going to kill me."
"That's not the point."
I say in disbelief.
"She still had us and many more kids in cages, in fear, scared for our lives and she's free!?"
Apa stops wiping my face and puts her hand on my shoulder.
"You can't be angry about that, plus... the one that took me was the wolf."
"She almost ran away with my sister! I have every right to be angry!"
I let out another outburst at her.
She looks at me in disbelief of what I did.
"Apa, I'm s..."
She slaps me. Hard. Making me drop my bow on the grass, by my feet.
I grab at my face as I look down in the direction that she pushed my face to.
"I'm sorry... but you shouldn't yell at me Lazuli... And if you don't want to be my friend after this anymore, I don't care."
As she says that she looks at the slap, mark, her small fingers left an red mark that shows exactly where she hit me.
"I'm sorry. I shouldn't have raised my voice..."
My eye begin to water.
"it's just that, I've never felt this type of pain before."
I nearly buckle at my knees and fall, but I stand up.
"When I saw her face, and her black aura, My body couldn't do anything more than fall into this pit of anger."
A tear falls as my voice breaks.
"I shouldn't take it out on you, Steel, or Wes. I'm sorry."
My voice breaks as I finished the sentence, my tears fall as I remembered the pain of feeling like I couldn't be able to protect Marcilene again.
"I just don't know how to feel... I'm angry because, I couldn't even hope to beat her, even now."
Apa turns my face to her.
"It's okay Lazuli."
She ruffles my hair.
"I'm sure when the time comes, you'll be able to free yourself from this feeling of anger for her."
She smiles at me.
"And you'll see that you're not that same little kid that's weak anymore. Afterall you've grown stronger, since that time years ago."
I wipe my eyes and see Apa's orange aura, coating her hand, and the faint warmth from it.
"Thank you Apa."
"Your welcome."
We smile at each other for a moment, before she looks up at her hand and her face goes slightly red.
"I think we should get to hunting now."
She says as she spins to look into the trees, and pulling out her wand to ready herself for hunting.
"Yeah… thanks."
I say as I pick up my bow from the ground beside me.
"I guess I needed a little bit of help for me to understand where I'm wrong."
She begins into the forest, looking back to smile at me.
"That's good, your welcome for that."
She says as she moves like the wind to climb a tree.
"Whoa! You can do that?"
She gives me a cocky smile and laughs.
"I mean yeah, it's the best way to stay ahead of the big beasts in here that have such a huge advantage for seeing in the dark and stuff."
She says.
"Dude, you use clicking sounds to see in the dark."
She looks up into the air and shrugs her shoulders, then back down to me.
"I guess we just do it to be the superior when it comes to hunting I guess."
I huff and begin to try and climb the tree.
Slinging my bow over my shoulder like usual and gripping the bark as tight as I can. Just for me to make no leeway on climbing and slowly fall back down.
I try again. Slip down as Apa watches with a small hidden smile on her face.
"It's okay I did get good in the first try."
Again.
Again, again and again.
Every attempt more embarrassing than the former.
"Can't we hunt from the ground?"
I say as my ass hits the ground.
"No, if we hunt from the ground we will lose our prey before we are even able to see them."
"How's that any different from up there?"
"Because even if we manage to lose the prey we can always be able to keep up. Afterall we've got the high ground. And majority of the time, there are loud unseen things on the ground, that really makes noise, causing the prey to end up running away from us."
I tilt my head and nod.
"That… is true."
"So get on the tree."
"I can't get up."
"Lazuli, I've taught you how to use your Soul Energy, use that to just grip the bark and get up."
I roll my eyes.
"Why didn't I think of that?"
Apa laughs.
"Well it's a good thing that I'm the teacher now isn't it?"
I laugh and feel the very, faint numbness around my forearms return and I grip the bark of the tree. And it cracks under my strength as my fingers dig deep into it.
And with my next arm I pull myself up, and this time, I'm not slipping, so I continue, up and up and up and up.
My arms lift me till I'm at the top, beside Apa as she now stands up and I sit down on the really large tree branch.
"Okay."
I pause to balance myself out.
"What now?"
"You need to stand."
"That's not happening."
"You need to, unless you have a better way of managing to get to run while you're chasing something?"
I groan and, with a heavy heart and kinda shaky feet, I grab the bark once more and pull myself up to stand up.
One foot shakily, but firmly placed on the branch. As I try to get the next one up I grip the bark so hard, that my fingers dig deep into it, not just breaking the bark this time, but underneath the tree inside of the bark.
"Okay. Carefully."
Apa now helps guide me up, as I pull myself to stand on my second leg.
"Okay now let go."
"Nope."
"How else are you going to move."
"I can hunt well enough from here."
"Are you serious?"
Apa taps my shoulder which pushes me the smallest amount.
"Okay! Okay! Just don't do that again."
I turn my head to look at Apa, as my hands grip the bark.
"I'm not gonna fall?"
"No."
She holds her hand out infront of herself and pulls one hand free from the bark to grab it.
"See. You'll be safe. Now the next hand."
I feel my shaky body turn off as she holds my hand.
"Okay…"
As I put both my feet apart from each other and stand balanced. I let my second hand free of the bark.
And for a second I feel like I'll wobble back and forth, but Apa grips my hand and I find my footing.
"Okay, see you'll be fine."
I nod and with a smile:
"Okay. I got this."
Apa lets my hand go unexpectedly, but I don't fear of falling, because just like shooting a bow, I have to imagine only hitting the target, and my only objective in mind is to stay standing on the tree branches.
"See you got this."
Apa then jumps off the branch and into the darkness of the forest.
"Keep up."
She says as her orange aura is the only thing being illuminated through the darkness.
With a very scared hop, I manage to jump to the next branch, and then the next and the next, but it's to slow, so as I feel more confident with my feet, I jump across, each foot moving faster and faster.
A clicking sound is heard.
"See you got it."
Apa feels me getting better with tree hopping.
I look at her orange aura don begin to follow her footsteps, as the darkness sets in completely now.
We start doing it together now, me just slightly after Apa so I don't fall and hurt myself, but with each jump it feels like I'm beginning to understand the forest.
Apa clicks once more, then abruptly she stops.
I grab the tree to stop myself.
"What happened?"
I ask her in a whisper.
I heard a pig I think.
"We could catch that for dinner."
"Okay."
She hops again, with me following behind her, another hop, and another until she stops just after the third hop.
She clicks once more.
"On the left, be careful."
She paused.
"And remember to empower your shot."
Apatite tell me quietly.
"Okay."
I unsling my bow and pull back the string, just like every other day before this.
I tap the sigil and feel the my bow as an extension of myself, the bow managing to shine brighter and after looking around for a moment for the prey, I see the white aura of the creature. It's big and eating something, that's impossible to see with this darkness around us.
I take a breathe and blink, my fingers release the string and…
I hit the pig, killing it immediately, as I can tell by the white aura disappearing from its body.
"Yes!"
Apa begins to speak faintly as she jumps off the branch and her body begins to be covered in her faint aura, and she drops to the ground slowly.
"You can come down now."
"Really..? That was it?"
"Yeah I'm surprised too. But I guess if I don't have to speak my spells and scare the prey it begins to be an easier process."
"There is that."
I can't see any of the branches, as I relied on Apa to see where to step.
I take a deep breath and try the Soul Displace, I feel my body move to another place and appear right beside her.
"You learned how to do it even better now."
I smile as she walks beside me to the place that the pig was shot at.