Beast Tamer

X

She parried the attack from Nico and quickly disarmed him before placing her sword against his chest.

She smiled. "I got it!"

"After me copying that same routine fifty times!" Nico retorted, mimicking her joyous tone, and she pouted.

"Don't be mean, look at these hands, the only thing they can do is draw."

"Yeah yeah," Nico smiled before he checked his wrack. "Come on I want to show you something," Nico turned his sword into a smile black ring and took Fauna's arm before leading her off.

She'd been here for about a week and she'd quickly adapted since that's essentially the story of her life: adapt as fast as you can and slip into the crowd.

She followed Nico and missed having Orion at her side but Sage and Orion had stayed in her house because they were so lazy.

She walked up next to Nico and saw how tense he was. "Are you okay?"

Stupid question. She hated it when people asked if she was okay when she clearly wasn't, it meant they cared sure but sometimes you don't want people to know you're upset because it makes you feel... weak.

He nodded. "Yeah, I just, like, I don't really... we're meeting Mat tomorrow and I guess I'm kind of nervous about it and..."

He trailed off and she quickly took his hand before resting her head on his shoulder. She hadn't been told they was meeting Mat tomorrow but she didn't think now was a good time to ask Nico about it.

She trusted him to lead her wherever they were going and as she buried her head in his shoulder.

It was nice not to have Orion barking something about how everyone is entitled to their personal space whenever Nico and her got 'too close'.

"We used to come here all the time to get away from everyone," Nico said, cutting through her thoughts.

She looked up and saw a creek with water clamly flowing past at it's leisure. Nico sat down next to the water, quickly shed his shoes and socks before dipping his feet into the water.

He sighed and for a moment a looked of content on his face before his head turned and realising Fauna was awkwardly standing behind him.

"The water's kind of cold but it's nice," Nico said, subtly prompting Fauna to join him.

She thought about it for a moment before she sat down and quickly took off her shoes and socks and hesitantly placed them in the water. She recoiled slightly at how cold the water was but kept her feet there knowing she would adapt.

She glanced over to Nico and saw him staring into the water and at their contorted reflections. She gently nudged him with her shoulder.

"What you thinking about?"

He shook his head. "Nothing."

She huffed, annoyed he wouldn't talk to her before grabbing a rose bud from her pocket since she'd been trying to make it bloom blood red for six days now. Her first job had been trying to preserve it to last longer now that it had been picked from the rose bush and it seemed to be fine so far.

Nico always asked about her whenever she was worried and pestered her relentlessly when she didn't tell him but she never pushed him when he had a problem, if he didn't want to talk about it then she didn't want to pry.

She focused her current frustration into making this stupid rose bloom but what she didn't know is that Nico was frustrated because he'd made zero progress.

He tried so hard but nothing worked, he taught Fauna the sword technique she used to love most and always used, he showed her old paintings she had done, he let her hang out in his house and now he was showing her the creek but nothing was working.