The cabin is loud with silence, the woman in front of me with her giant smile that feels ever so happy for herself for putting that out there.
For a second the room is in a state of pause. Like the inside of the room was hit with some type of stop time spell.
"No… I'm eightt…"
'I can't say I'm eighteen! She'd never believe me. I could tell her I'm from another world? Nah who'd believe that. Freak it illl just tell her…'
"I'm kidding."
The woman interruptes my train of thought, not making me finish my thought.
She laughs at that, like it was the funniest joke ever, along with a coughing fit at the same time.
"Ok. Ok. I gotta stop."
She says as she tries to stop laughing putting herself into another coughing fit.
She then takes a deep breath, making the laughs down to just a few here and there, but the cough is still a heavy one.
"Should have seen your face."
She paused and coughed.
"It was funny."
She looked me in the eyes and smiled, this time, not as sly.
"I'm happy though."
She tells me.
"That she'll have a friend like you. If you ever feel like it, just come along, afterall I think that there are times when she goes out to watch you anyway."
I nod, and for some reason or another.
I smile, happy for her, knowing she's had a problem going on with her as well.
"I don't mind playing or hanging out with Apatite."
She continue with her smile.
"Thank you."
She then goes wide mouthed.
"Oh goddess, I don't think that I've told you my name."
I pause and look at her.
"No, you haven't."
"Oh well, My name is Yelena."
She smiles, then adds:
"Oh yeah! And my husband's name is Prag."
She says with a smile.
"Okay, that's nice. My name is Lazuli."
She looks at me with a goofy face.
"Yeah I knew that, the people that brought you here were my daughter, who you saved. Thank you again for that, I don't know what I'd do if you didn't do that. And my husband who went along with such a stupid plan of his that it slightly irritates me because of him."
She furrows her eyebrows when she says that about Prag. As if giving him a piece of her mind mentally.
She looks at me with her angry eyes.
"Oh I'm sorry, I didn't mean for…"
She coughs, then takes a sip of her hot water.
"…didn't mean for you to see that."
I shake my head.
"It's no worries."
I say with a weird, awkward smile.
"But if I could..?"
Yelena stops looking at me with the angry eyes that were meant for Prag.
"Anything."
"How'd you and Prag mee…"
Before I could finish my sentence.
There are sounds going on outside.
Making me immediately go alert, I look around and try to find my bow.
'Shit, it's in the room.'
Just barely looking over the table.
I hop off, Yelena already looking toward the door, her body and face calm.
I take my steps toward the room we have just came from, with quick and steady pace.
Before I could even get to the door, Prag, and Apatite open the door, making me feel calm.
Then behind them, is Steel and Sply.
Steel wearing his gauntlets this time and Sply with her necklace in her hand, not dangling or swing from left to right over her neck.
Steel looks at me with eyes filled with joy as he slowly drops the gauntlets to the ground.
Making a soft thud.
He immediately moves past the others, making his way to me just as fast as he was the time he practically teleported towards Marcilene.
"Lazuli."
He kneels down in front of me, examining my up and down, to make sure that I'm fine.
I smile.
"I've never felt better."
Steel pulls me into a hug. His voice warm.
"I thought I was going to lose you."
Steel's hug is sudden, surprising, but most of all. A sign of his affection.
It brings me to a tear.
I slowly hug him back, wrapping my arms as best as I can around his neck, my tears fall very slowly. And my arms feel heavy for me.
"I'm sorry."
My voice cracks, making me drop more tears.
'Why am I crying?'
"No, why are you sorry? You did amazing, I mean Killing a Soul Bear?! You did good Lazuli."
Steel pulls away to look me in the face as he says that sentence and with a smile as well.
He brings his big hand to my face and wipes my tears as he does so, I feel a huge wash of tears rush to my eyes.
And my tears begin to spill out. I wrap my arms around Steel even tighter and I can just barely feel my hands touch each other.
"I was so scared!"
For the first time, since… forever, I've cried into someone's arms.
"I thought it wasn't going to work!"
The others all stare at me, my closed eyes spilling tears.
But Steel, he just return my hug.
I leaned into it as I slowly calmed myself.
Steel then pulls away again, a smile on his face.
"Your okay Lazuli. I will take better care of you."
Steel pressed his hand to the top of my head and patted it softly.
I nod.
"Okay… but Steel…"
He followed up my nod with his own.
"Yes?"
"You can't tell Marcilene… and…"
I wipe my tears away as Steel lets out a small chuckle at what I said.
"And what else?"
I pause, trying to catch my breathe fully.
"I still want to be learning how to use my bow with Sply."
Steel looks at me stunned by what I've said.
"Why?!"
His voice wasn't raised because of anger, but because of surprise.
"She had nearly killed you, because of the fact she had made you fight a Soul Bear, making you absorb all the radiating Soul Energy."
"She didn't know?"
"No, regardless she knew how dangerous a Soul Bear is! What would have happened if you didn't know how to correctly redirect the Soul Energy? Would you have exploded to much and cripple youself? Maybe you wouldn't have been able to at all and you… you'd just be…"
He stops himself from even thinking of finishing that sentence.
"I'm not though Steel, I'm alive. And, along with learning from Sply, I want to learn from Apatite…"
She looks at me with surprise.
"What do you want to learn from me?"
"Your mom said that you could teach me how to control Soul Energy."
Yelena jumps in, before Apatite.
"I said you know how to control your Soul Energy, because I'm teaching you Soul Magic."
Then she waves her hand over to Apatite.
Calling her over to herself, with some annoyance in her step she moves in toward her mother.
"Give me your ear."
She does.
Yelena whispers something to Apatite and She immediately goes red and looks over to me then to her mother.
"NO! THATS NOT TRUE!"
She yells out loud before her mother and runs past me to the other room in the house.
Yelena smiles and then a cough.
"That's not gonna get old."
Yelena says as she covers her mouth to cough again.
"Okay, well…"
Steel gets up as I wipe my tears completely.
Turning toward Yelena.
"How's his…"
He pauses trying to find the words.
"…everything?"
She snorts, then another cough.
"He's fine."
Prag gets closer to Yelena and puts his hands on her shoulders.
"Are you okay, Lena?"
She nods, then holds up her water.
"Been drinking this hot water, it's been soothing my throat."
She says as she turns up toward Prag.
"Good. Need more?"
She shakes her head, then turns back to Steel.
"I forgot to tell you something though, Steel. If there is ever a time that you need to strengthen yourself with your Soul Energy, please don't go all out."
She says with concern in her voice.
Steel looks down to me, then to Yelena.
"Why?"
She shakes her head.
"If you ever do so, he could go blind."
Steel looks at me and nods.
Not even asking questions, probably doesn't care about anything, but making sure that I end up safe.
"Thank you for telling me."
Yelena stands up.
As she stands she breaking into a coughing fit.
Prag immediately steps to her side.
And holds her up.
She smiles but gets up alone.
"We should eat together, I mean the trek would be useless if only to get him, and plus the boys just woken up."
'Yeah, like an hour ago.'
The thoughts kept to myself, but I roll my eyes as they do get said in my head.
Prag looks at Steel with a foreign hatred to my eyes.
Then he looks at Yelena.
"Lena, are you sure?"
Pray asks questioning.
"Yes, plus you'd have to get used to seeing the boy, he'll be Apa's buddy and protege."
Prag shake his head in a confused way.
"What?"
"He said he's going to come back and play with Apa. Right?"
Every adult in the room looks at me with curiosity.
I nod.
"I thought I'd be nice for her to have friends, afterall if a kid grows up with no friends then they become to afraid to interact with other people…"
My head shrinks into me.
"Or something like that."
Yelena snickers.
"Guess it's decided for now, Apa and Lazuli will be friends."
Yelena says and Prag turns away from Steel following Yelena into the kitchen to help her, with whatever she may need help with.
She speaks in her unknown language again and then lights the stove on fire.
Putting a pan on it.
Yelena looks around herself, then she turns to Prag.
"Grab the meat for me. Thank y…"
Cough:
"…you."
She finished her sentence.
Steel looks at me, then he looks at Prag as he now begins to head out toward the front door.
He turns back.
"I'm going to follow him, and maybe help him. Along with talk and stuff okay? I'll be right back."
Steel begins to walk over towards Prag.
"Hey, can we talk?"
Steel's voice is calm and inviting for Prag.
Prag give Steel a look, then he sees out of the corner of his eye, Yelena, nodding like, a lot.
Prag lets out a sigh and waves his hand to follow.
"Yeah, we can do that."
Both of them begin to walk out and close the door behind them.
Sply is stood in the corner looking at me.
For a second she stares, then she begins to walk over to me.
As soon as she stands in front of me she speaks:
"How do you feel?"
My eye feel a small sting, but they can see even in the monotone of her voice, that she has a small crack of emotion.
"I'm okay."
She nods.
"How sure are you in me teaching you how to use the bow and arrow?"
I open my mouth to say something, but I pause when I can't find the words.
"I just want to be able to protect Marcilene."
She nods.
"Then I'll congratulate you for that, you have done well at the test and I'll teach you. It'll start tomorrow and, we'll stop using your eye to its full advantage without being able to use it correctly."
"What?"
I ask confused of what she had just said.
"Your eye is strong but if you use it and don't control it, you'll end up deeply hurt."
"Oh."
I nod.
"Okay."
Yelena heads the conversation and drops herself in.
"Hey, can you help me set up for lunch?"
Yelena asks, not me, but Sply.
Sply, wraps the necklace around her neck with a click, and she nods.
"I'll help for the time being."
Sply follows around to the kitchen and begins to listen to Yelena as she talks about what to do.
I look around myself and there's no one to talk to.
Steel's outside and Sply is occupied with Yelena.
Yelena turns to me for a second:
"Lazuli, go check on Apa please."
She then turns back and coaches Sply on the food.
I walk over to the door that Apatite walked into and as soon as I knocked:
"The doors open."