Echo of a Disaster

Nefaaya's repeatedly warned Renaeril that he has to treat her like a normal kid, but the boy was still awkward and sometimes almost uncomfortable in her presence. Earlier, he had called her ma'am in front of her father!

Nefaaya froze from writing, her pen almost broke from the pressure she put into it. She looked up and found her father looking at her suspiciously. She shrugged as if she didn't mind. Nefaaya had to wonder if Dylan had always been this awkward.

"What the hell is your problem," she said when Learo left them.

Renaeril looked at her, shocked at the hardness of her voice.

"Sorry, I just can't help it."

Nefaaya looked at her. *Was he always like that?* She sighed and nodded to him. She turned back to her paper. Right now, she has to finish all the things that her father gave to her.

She picked up the grimoire and laid it at the table.

"All right," she said as she skimmed on the pages. "Just treat me like how you treat others, could you?"

She doesn't hear him respond.

"What was that?" He heard him ask instead.

She answered without looking at him, "they called it grimoire... a book about casting spells. A process that was something similar to magic."

He fell silent and slowly he moved closer to her, "are you joking right?"

She looked at him and found Renaeril looking at the book curiously. "I am not."

He gulped, "are you telling me that this... place has magic."

"Yes, a combination of visualizing and chanting words," she said and waved her hand in the air. A swirling water ball appeared before her.

She looked at him and found his mouth gaped open, "Don't tell me you didn't know?"

He shook his head.

"I almost burned the village because of this," she said, then found herself asking if she was proud of it.

"Didn't hear of it either..."

Nefaaya let the waterball fall on the ground "seriously, what have you been doing in the last six years?"

Renaeril looked at her with disbelief. At that moment, Nefaaya knew that she had said something that must be hard for him. *He said he was sickly.*

She averted her gaze and thought of something... "Do you want me to teach you?"

"You're teaching me?" He looked up at her, with a smile that she hadn't seen from him since meeting him here. *It was almost the same as the one he did back then... before the accident took place,* she thought to herself.

"Only if you want to," she smiled, raising her hand in front of him. She chanted the chant for Water Number One as she started visualizing the sound of the sea. Red Spirits started appearing around her. At the same moment, balls of water started taking form in the space between them. The small waterballs swirled in circular motion as if pulled by the unseen force of a vortex.

He nodded eagerly, "yes!"

From then on, after their language classes. Renaeril and Nefaaya would attend Nefri's casting class later. Nefaaya would teach him herself on the table beside the tree.

"Don't close your eyes," she said. "Mother told me that it was a dangerous habit. You should be able to Pull by just raising your hand."

It had taken him almost a week for the Spirits of the Pieces to appear. And another week to make a ball of water appear. The first he accomplished it, the wayer exploded on Nefaaya.

It had taken almost a week for her to be able to Merge with Creation and another week to Pull the Creation into a waterball. The first time she had done it, it had turned into a disaster. The water exploded on her and Nefri. And the same thing happened to Renaeril and her. He repeatedly apologized for what he had done. But Nefaaya found herself laughing.

"No, no!" She said, "I am much worse than that." And told the story the second time she had summoned a waterball and had loose control over it. "It moves toward my face. Not a good start."

Because Nefaaya was the one teaching him. The barrier between them slowly broke. Renaeril became more comfortable as time passed. But sometimes he still has this awkward demeanor. As the two of them get along. She noticed that he wasn't really good at communication.

She realized it one morning, when the two of them had no classes. She saw him from afar, watching a group of boys doing a swordplay using sticks. Instead of going to talk to them, he just remains there watching. And then the boys looked at him before they moved to practice in a different place...

There was something different in the way they behaved towards him, Nefaaya wondered why. As she helped her mother tend her fields of tomatoes and potatoes, Nefaaya wondered if Dylan was like that in their world. Has he always been an outcast?

She stopped watering the tomatoes and crossed her arms as she thought. "I guess, I don't remember much of him... was he always sleeping in my class?'

"Who was sleeping... in your class," Nefri spoke beside her.

Nefaaya leapt and turned towards her mother, "no, no... I was talking to myself."

"Ow, your father is really worried when you're like that," she said.

When Nefri's back was on her, Nefaaya sighed heavily. *That was close, I have to really be careful or as much as possible avoid talking to myself when there's someone.*

From the corner of her eyes, Nefaaya saw Renaeril walking aimlessly. His head downcast as if the ground was more interesting than anything around him. She didn't know what made her called him. Perhaps, it was the sudden pity and guilt that she had felt at that time.

Renaeril looked at her as if she was an apparition. A dream that had suddenly appeared before his eyes.

"Do you want to go out... to play?" She shouted.

Her mother looked at her. And from the inside of their house she heard a hard thumping of boots barging its way toward the door. It flew open with a bang, and Learo came out from it panting. Holding his sword on the right and whetstone on the left.

"Nefaaya, are you going out?" Learo and Nefri said at the same time.

"What?" She finds herself saying.

"Well, you didn't leave the house by yourself," her mother said. "You don't even join your mother when she goes to the market..."

Nefaaya looked back and saw the shock at Renaeril's face.

"Don't be so..." she started. "Don't be so... okay! I'm going out."

Nefaaya headed back to the house and picked up her grimoire. She waved her hand to her parents and headed to where Renaeril was.

"You don't go out that much," he started.

"I don't remember... Perhaps I focus too much on studying," she replied as she kicked a small stone forward.

He laughed, "that was very much like you."

Nefaaya ran towards the stone and kicked it once again. This time she raised her hand and the stone remained suspended in the air.

"I hope it doesn't offend you," he said afterwards.

She shook her head, "it's very much like me, indeed."

The two move around the small village. Nefaaya had only seen the village from the comfort of her own homes. The village slowly sloped downwards. But once in a while after crossing the stone stairs a flat area of land could be encountered. It was called Platform, the Platforms are where most of the establishments in the village were placed; a church, a school and even an inn. Most of the houses are located on the platform because the village was built in hills and was surrounded by field terraces where wheat and fruits were farmed.

"What are we doing exactly?" Renaeril asked when he thought that perhaps the two of them were walking aimlessly.

"Do you know of a place, where there are no people, a grassland perhaps."

Renaeril looked up and pointed to the huge tree to their left. "There wasn't anything there, it's a glade, I think."

She nodded and started running towards, she wanted to try something that she had seen from a book.

"Wait, Nefaaya," he said as he ran after her. But Nefaaya had no time to stop, she was eager to see the limit of what she could do. And she can only do it in a place where there was no one to harm.

She leaned on the trunk of the tree and surveyed the place, from behind she could hear Renaeril heavy panting as he chased after her.

"So. Fast," he said in between breaths. His hands on his knees.

"I think Father must train your stamina so you can keep up," she said before she looked back on the open field of grass, "this place would do."

"What are you doing?" He asked.

"I'm trying something," she said. "You could also practice here without fearing that you could harm anyone..."

Renaeril blushed, "a-"

"I know," she said. "That you're holding."

Nefaaya opened the book and reviewed the spell once again. She walked a few meters away from the tree. Renaeril watched him eagerly from behind.

She stopped and raised her both hands. The Red Spirits slowly appeared around her.

She visualized the sound of the ocean, the coldness of water as it hit his fingers and the smell of salt before a rain.

"O Lord of life, I call upon your destruction, from west to east cast the will of gods! Seek the blood of those who defy your name."

The air simmered. Slowly from either of her sides, water starts bubbling. Slowly growing, surging and lapsing as it grows into size and thickens in weight. It moves to his front before it diverged.

"Water number three!"

A tornado made out of water appeared in front of him. Nefaaya then created apushing motion that pushed the water tornado further to the glade.

It unroots grasses and flowers on its way before hitting the trunk of a dead tree. It exploded upin contact. The two shielded their face as splinters flew towards their direction.

Nefaaya looked back and saw Renaeril gaping at her.

"What was that," he asked her when she headed back.

"That," she turned. "Was a water tornado."

He nodded, "how should we fix that." Glancing at the overturned grass and the fallen trees left by the wave.

"That was hard," she said. "I'm still not adept at reversing damage. Or if damage was even possible to be reversed."

Renaeril nodded, "let me try, something that I read here."

He raised his hand. Gold Spirits appeared around him as his eyes glowed in the same light. He was swarmed with them. Nefaaya felt the wind turn cold in their presence. Renaeril crouched and touched the ground.

Using his index finger, he drew symbols in the ground as he recited a chant.

"Ground gathering, bearer of life. Seeds of Life, fruiting might. O, Mother from your hands life had come, life would return. Ebb and flow, grounds from ashes, what had been lost would be found."

Renaeril sighed before he speak.

"Way Of Recovery Number One."

The overturned soil slowly pulled itself back to the ground.

The damage was still there, and the small trees and grasses remained scattered everywhere but at least the holes in the ground were closed.

Renaeril sighed and leaned on the tree, using that kind of chant would likely take a huge toll on someone since the area that he had to recover was huge. Nefaaya immediately came to him to help but he waved her away.

"How did you learn about that," she asked.

"When you left the book, I accidently saw it. I figured it would be helpful."

Nefaaya laughed. They continued practicing in the glade that afternoon. This time Nefaaya had taught him about manipulating fire. They only stopped, when the sun started hiding behind the peaks of Adral mountains.

They spent their fifth and until their seventh year in the world of mostly playing and learning new things, be it a new sword technique or about Pulling. Before the start of winter, Renaeril had become more adept in sword than Nefaaya had. When her 8th year of winter came, Renaeril had become a regular visitor, the same as his mother Reina. Sometimes Renaeril slept in their house too when the snow was too strong for him to go home. The first time it happened, her father said firmly that Renaeril would sleep in another room.

The two looked confusedly at him. When she realized it, she became flushed. And Renaeril being Renaeril, tried to assure that it wasn't his intention. But saying it to Learo had only made her father more suspicious of the boy!

After her eight birthday, the villagers were surprised by a hard blizzard that lasted for two weeks.

His father attributed it to an omen. Renaeril was left to stay at their house for the rest of the storm. When the snow stopped and the winter finally came to an end. All the people in the village were hopeful for the coming of spring, but their hopes were soon crushed when the news of a war had reach the village

The Nortic Empire had declared war on the Southern Continent.