Different.

Chapter 22: Kumbaya

"Are you two really gonna fight right now?" Adam spoke up for the first time, his voice disdainfully subdued.

Alex and I looked each other over for a moment, as if we were seriously considering his question. When it passed I cooly replied, "No, we aren't."

"Good, because I was thinking maybe we could warm up or something while we're waiting for Asher to get over here."

"Great idea Adam," Alex said in a sarcastic soprano that made him sound like Mickey Mouse.

"Oh, fuck off, I don't even sound like that," I shot, flinging another one of his stones at his cheek. To Adam I said sweetly, if a bit pointedly, "It is a good idea though, thank you."

Turning swiftly on my heel before Alex could immaturely retaliate, I marched over to the equipment laid out neatly behind us. I recognized a lot of it from my own personal training sessions, but some of it was new, strange twisted metal shapes that I couldn't make heads or tails of and some weird contraptions that kinda looked like diving boards.

"These seem simple enough," I mumbled to myself, running my fingers over the smooth metal of one of many oversized balls that were clearly weighted.

Though they varied in size, each one was a dark pewter color at the base, and the handles that sprouted from the top gleaned a reflective silver. They seemed like ordinary weights to me, that is, until I picked one up. Or tried to at least.

It came up to about my knee, not the smallest but definitely not the biggest either. I figured it would be heavy, but when I tugged on it with all my strength, it wouldn't even budge. I tried again, and again, but it refused to move even a single inch.

"They're shifting weights," I heard Alex say from behind me. "Unless you're a block you're gonna have a hard time lifting them with only your arms."

"Oh yeah, I remember these," Adam reached out to one, feeling the cool material beneath his palms. "My dad would use these to train me when I was younger."

"What's a block?" I asked, turning around to look at Alex.

When I did, he was much closer than I had expected, making me jump in surprise. He looked me up and down slowly, not moving from his spot although we were so close I could feel his breath on me, and I couldn't help but think that we were close enough to kiss.

"Do you remember the first day I brought you here?" When he asked me that, something in the way he said it made it sound like he wasn't just asking if I remembered my first trip to Valerod, but if I remembered him being there too.

The double question made my mind flash back to the day I stumbled into the woods, the day I discovered my shifting. Or after, when I met him again in the same spot. How he seemed so mysterious, so dangerous. And yet, so enticing.

"I remember," I said quietly, looking up into the golden pools of his eyes.

Before he could reply, Adam cleared his throat loudly, and the spell between us was broken.

I coughed a little, maneuvering my way around the weight behind me awkwardly and fiddled with my hair, suddenly more interested in the state of my split ends than anything else. Likewise, Alex took a step back too, stuffing his hands in the pockets of his jeans and looking off at something on the other side of the gym.

"Well, uh, those people who we saw outside the inner village that day, they're blocks. Asher is one of them too. A block is basically-" But Adam cut him off before he could finish, stepping between us as he did so.

"A block is exactly what it sounds like, basically like a shield against all things magickal. They're like scanners in the sense that their ability is continuous, and they can only stop it with training. Also, they're kind of like physical blocks too, because the other part of it is they have the strength of someone around ten times their size, even though, yeah," He added on with a chuckle when he saw my disbelieving look towards Asher, "they're already pretty huge. That's part of it too."