You’re right. I guess, she replied with a heavy sigh. She brushed a patch of dirt from Marin’s coat and gave her a nod. “You’re all fixed up again.”
“Thank you, Lia,” she answered. As soon as Lia had stepped away, Marin charged toward me. “What was that all about?” she yelled, startling me with her sudden wrath. “What was I supposed to do against that? How was that fair?”
I frowned. “Fair? What do you mean?”
“Neither of you have ever trained me to fight like that before!” she yelled back. “How was I supposed to know what to do?”
“Marin, there are thousands of fighting styles out there,” I answered calmly. “It’d be impossible to learn even the basics of all of them. You have to learn to be adaptable instead; learn the style while you’re fighting it, and find a way to win.”
She huffed. “You’re not going to win that easily again,” she barked, bouncing back and forth on her heels.
I shook my head. “Later. We’ve got more important things to worry about now.”
“What, there’s more?”
“Oh, no. I’m just hungry, is all. It’s time for lunch,” I laughed. “When we’re finished, you can come back here and train with Lia on anything you want. You’ve got plenty of options to choose from after this morning, right?”
“And what are you going to be working on?” she asked as the three of us began our trip back home. “No, wait, let me guess: You’re working on your forge, aren’t you?”
“Indeed I am,” I grinned. “It’s finally time to put it through its paces and see if I remember what I’m doing.”
“Boy, you’re really obsessed with that thing, aren’t you?” she laughed, punching my shoulder.
Lia interceded before I could respond. “Don’t be mean, Marin. Personally, I think it’s kind of cute.”
I turned to glare at her. “Yes, thank you, ladies,” I glowered, feeling the heat rising in my cheeks. They both laughed at my embarrassment, and we continued the rest of our trip in relative silence. Once we arrived at the house, we indulged in a lunch of stewed bihorn and leftover bread. The break was brief but largely fulfilling, and we soon found ourselves back on the deck under an early afternoon sun.
“Marin, you go on ahead of me to the practice ring; I need to talk to Lux about something,” Lia said as we stepped down into the grass. “I’ll just be a minute. Make sure you figure out what you want to work on before I get there.”
“I already told you, I want to work on fire magic again!” Marin called back over her shoulder as she bounced her way into the woods. “Don’t take too long!”
We both stood quietly in the yard until Marin disappeared from sight behind the trees. “So,” I asked, peering down at her, “you need to talk to me about something?”
“Yeah,” she nodded, looking straight ahead. “But not right now. I was thinking, maybe Marin and I could finish our training early, and we could talk tonight.”
My stomach flipped and wove itself into a tight bed of knots as adrenaline began to course through my veins. “Is something wrong, Lia?”
“What? No!” she answered, waving her hands back and forth quickly. “It’s just something I was thinking about. Or, something I’ve been thinking about. That I wanted to talk to you...about.” She pursed her lips tightly and scrunched up her face. “Sorry, it’s really nothing. I didn’t mean to make such a big deal about it. There’s nothing wrong, I promise.”
Despite her reassurances, I could feel the anxiety tingling in the tips of my fingers. “Uh, okay. That sounds fine.”
Silence crept into the clearing as we stood together, avoiding each other’s eyes. “So, what are you going to make in the forge today?” she asked nonchalantly.
“Oh. I’m not sure,” I chuckled, scratching the back of my head. “I’ll just be testing things, mostly. I’ve probably forgotten a lot of the things I learned back in Alderea; if I can even get my stamp right, I’ll consider it a success.”
“Your stamp?
“My blacksmith’s stamp,” I nodded. “It’s like your signature. A quality blacksmith stamps everything that comes out of their forge so people can identify their work.” I grabbed a stick from the lawn and began to sketch a circle in the dirt at our feet. “Ashedown made me practice his stamp a thousand times by hand before I was allowed to take on any of his real commissions,” I babbled, my mind caught somewhere between nostalgic and flustered. “He didn’t tell me until after the fact that he had a little engraved ring that he used to make his stamp; apparently, he hadn’t done it by hand for years.”
We both stared down at the picture I had drawn in the dust: three concentric circles, the smallest of which housed a drawing of a blacksmith’s hammer engraved with the letter A. “Huh. That’s...neat,” Lia said, fiddling with her hands behind her back. The oppressive silence returned all at once, and I shifted my weight awkwardly from one foot to the other. “I should probably go after Marin now,” she said eventually, taking a small step forward. “She might burn the forest down if I take too long.”
“Right,” I chuckled. “Well...good luck with that.”
“Thanks,” she nodded. “You too.” She made it three steps towards the forest before she paused, spun on her heels, and dashed back to plant a kiss on my cheek. “Thanks,” she said again, her face a dark shade of red. Before I had a chance to reply, she ran off into the woods, leaving me alone in the clearing. I stood and watched her go with my brow furrowed in confusion.
As the adrenaline began to filter out of my bloodstream, my anxiety was slowly replaced with excitement. With a clearer head, it was easy to see that Lia’s uncharacteristically awkward demeanor was due to nerves, not because she was upset. I
