The first thing Erik did was give me better clothes to fight in before taking me to the training grounds. There were many targets and straw dummies lined in a perfect row across a large field, with many people with bows shooting at them. Next to the archery area, there was another field, where people were scattered into pairs, dueling with various different kinds of swords.

"Here," Erik handed me one of the two swords he brought out with him. It had some weight to it and had a silver hilt, with swirling designs engraved across it. His was similar, but looked a bit heavier than mine was to better suit him. We both had long swords.

Erik twirled the sword once in his hand and looked me straight in the eyes, going into the beginning stance.

"You ready?"

I nodded, and gripped the sword tighter in my hand. I quickly put on an offensive stance and took a jab at him, that wouldn't obviously hurt him if he didn't block it. He barely had enough time to block, his eyes wide with surprise, not expecting me to have made the first move. He chuckled, and twisted his sword around me to get a hit at me. I managed to stop him with no problems. We attempted a couple more jabs at each other, both of us reacting equally well to each other. We seemed to be almost equally matched.

I planted my feet more firmly into the ground and pushed back on his sword, getting gradually closer to him, until we were almost touching, our swords clashing and sliding as we tried to overtake one another. Erik, with a surge of strength, shoved back hard and I stumbled. I tripped, falling to the ground rather ungracefully.

A sudden flash of a small memory almost made me catch my breath. Gil was standing over me as I laid on the ground, his body and head blocking the view of the sun and casting a shadow over me. His face held love, but also determination, desperation, and seriousness.

"You have to get up! If you want to be seen as a warrior, you have to get back up and keep fighting!"

I rolled to the side and hopped to my feet, and still somehow managed to block Erik's oncoming attack.

"You're quite attractive when you fight," I declared, and he looked at me, stunned.

"What?"

With him distracted and off guard, I brought my leg out to knock his out from under him, causing him to crash to the ground. I brought my sword to point right at the base of his throat, a grin on my face. He put his hands up, dropping his sword in surrender. I put the sword to my side and let Erik get up. He dusted himself off, and let out an amazed breath.

"You're really good, Misty," he eyed me. "Pretty well seasoned."

"Not too shabby yourself," I laughed. He definitely put up a fight. He was so tough and great at dueling, that I still couldn't believe I had beat him.

"Hey... Misty, did you mean--" he started, but stopped when he looked behind me.

Yelling from behind me made me turn. It was Phoenix and Flyn. Phoenix had Flyn in a tight headlock and was rubbing the boys head with his knuckles. Flyn pushed against Phoenix, trying to get away, but to no avail. Tristian was shadowing them, being the best chaperone and adult figure possible by only rolling his eyes at them. Lucian stood behind Tristian, ready to split the boys up.

"Stop it, Phoenix! Let go of me!" Flyn whined.

"No way!" Phoenix laughed.

"Hi, boys!" A girl around their age with wavy black hair halfway down her back stopped beside them as she was walking by. Her voice was sweet and innocent like an angels. Guessing from the flour on the apron around her waist, and the basket in her hands, she was most likely a bakers daughter and was selling some of their freshly made, delicious goods.

Phoenix stopped at the sound of her voice and Flyn managed to finally pull away, straightening up and holding his body as if he weren't just acting like a child. You almost might have taken him seriously if it weren't for the hair standing in every direction on the top of his head.

"H-Hi Katrine," Flyn stammered, his face growing bright red.

"Hi, Flyn," Katrine replied with a wide, endearing smile. "Would you like one of our new pastries?"

"A-Always," Flyn rummaged around for some money, and handed her some coins, his hands shaking slightly. She handed him a pastry, Flyn not being able to look at her directly, and Katrine not taking her eyes off of him.

"Thank you very much! I hope you enjoy it as much as the other ones!" She covered the basket back up, almost sadly. "I've... got to go now. I hope I see you soon, Flyn. You know you can always come visit me too, if you want. You never do."

"Sorry... but y-yeah, t-that would be nice," he said, still in his shy whisper as she walked off, a small smile on her face. Phoenix nudged Flyn hard in the arm, causing him to stumble a little.

"You've got a giiiirlfriend!" Phoenix teased Flyn, getting up in his face. Flyn swatted him away, his face still beet red.

"Stop it. I told you before, she's not my girlfriend..."

"Not yeeeet,"

"Flyn is flirting with girls now, I think we should give him more work to do. Stop him from making the worst mistake of his life." Tristian said.

"You know, you've never even been with a girl." Lucian stated.

"Oh, how would you know?" Tristian snapped. Lucian silently shook his head, sighed deeply, and silently walked past his brother and up to us. Probably to put distance between him and Tristian so he didn't end up strangling him.

"We were about to go back inside. You two training Flyn and Phoenix?" Erik asked, as Lucian stopped beside him, waiting for the others to walk over.

"Yeah, I'm training Flyn. He's making progress, but he still needs a lot of help on footwork and mastering how to make the best strikes on an opponent. And of course, Phoenix had to come along too." Lucian explained.

"And how is he doing?"

"Very well, actually. Although he tends to get over-zealous and wild at times with his attacks. It causes openings for the other opponent to strike." Lucian patted Erik on the back. "We will work hard at it, don't worry."

Erik seemed doubtful, and we shared the same raised eyebrow look at Lucian. "By... having Tristian teach him? He's as much of a hothead."

"Tristian might not seem to take much seriously, but you know as well as I do that Tristian knows how to fight as good, if not better, than the rest of us. You can't argue that he has taught Geneth almost perfectly." Lucian gave Erik a reassuring smile. Erik closed his mouth and nodded, knowing Lucian was right. Lucian turned to me and grinned, clapping Erik hard on the back, causing Erik to slowly look at Lucian as if to say "what the hell, man?", which was ignored. "So, Misty, tell me you beat this guy right here!"

"I did," I claimed proudly, almost unable to contain my excitement at having done so.

"That's what I'm talking about, good job! I knew you could do it!" Lucian usually was very calm, level-headed, and business-like, so it was nice to see some excitement from him. To see the glow in his blue-violet eyes. He winked at me but addressed Erik. "And she did it so quickly too! Better watch this one."

"Lucian! You going to train Flyn over here or not?" Tristian yelled over, about ready to spar with Phoenix. "I can take on both! Show everyone my true potential!"

Lucian groaned, but he had a smile on his face. I could see there was no capacity for how much he loved his twin, despite how completely infuriating he was every second of the day. Tristian was lucky to have Lucian. "Catch you guys later!" He turned away, now muttering, hiding his proudness and love. "As much as I know he could probably do that..."