The Day of Rest

Weeks passed and I've grown stronger and a little bit smarter.

"You've gone beyond the record time," Zepherin smirked from her perch on the sills of the barred windows inside our empty room. "... And you're still a trainee, so I won."

I flicked through another page of the worn out book. A sharp, little beak came forward, probably enticed by the smell of the old parchment, and so I baited the bird with a piece of dried fish from the pouch I had learned to always carry with me. After Birdy had flapped around to catch the bait, I continued on with my reading.

"Hey, hey," the white-haired apprentice assassin called out to me. "Come on, don't just ignore me. I know you heard me. Oh, I see... I get it now! You're just angry you didn't beat my record! It's been a little bit more than three months, hasn't it?"

"... Three months and a day," I mumbled, not bothering to talk properly since I knew her trained ears would still perfectly hear it.

"HA!" she shouted out with a whoop of victory, and jumped down from her area and onto the seat beside me. She stood there like a rude and mannerless child, which she probably was.

"Get down from there," I murmured, before getting back to my book. "Chairs are meant for sitting on, not standing upon."

Zepherin groaned from above me, but I soon felt her get down like I had told her and sat down on the chair. After a month of training with Assassin Ren, I felt something come at me. Immediately, I ducked from the girl's sudden claw, closed the heavy book in my hands, and promptly used it to hit the girl on her white head.

"Ouch!" she complained, rubbing at her scalp. "Tsk... I went easy on you."

"Oh, I know you did." My eyes trained back to my book, but I knew I had grown distracted. That little bout of fighting has made my nerves go up on end and I was itching for physical activity to let it die down.

I sighed. "Let's fight."

"Really? Really?" Zepherin immediately burst into an energetic, little bubble. I was reminded of how she was on our very first meeting. I don't really know what happened, but as time went on, her serious facade from her first months of apprenticeship has dialed down, and her childish self has started to resurface. Although, I did still sense a graveness hidden underneath her smiling face. Now, I've come to wonder if it has now come around: the energetic girl who once pretended to be serious was now truly serious and only pretended to be as youthful as she once was.

If so, does she act like this for me? Does she believe that since I am a child, she must act like one when she was with me?

That certainly irked me.

I stood up. "Yeah, let's fight. And this time, I'd like it if you don't take it easy on me."

"Oh ho~" she was grinning at me, but her eyes looked much like a contemplating adult's. I grew even angrier.

"Come on," I goaded her recklessly. "This room is barely furnished and I've been using it as a hiding spot for weeks now. No one will find us. And no one will have to know a trainee and an apprentice fought for real."

This time, her smiling facade did break down, and a troubled look filled her eyes. I knew she was about to stop this at any second...

I dashed forward with all my might, and grabbed the front of her robes. I pulled her in so we were facing each other, with our noses almost touching. "Are you, perhaps, a coward, Zepherin? Are you scared you'll lose to a mere trainee?"

Her thoughtful look broke apart, and out came a face filled with anger.

Good.

"Well?" I snarled at her, shaking her body from my hold. "Aren't ya gonna fight?"

A fist came up with a speed I knew I couldn't counter. I used my hold on her robes to my advantage and pushed her away, creating a spot for me to dodge her attack and make her lose her balance. She was back in a perfect stance before I could do anything about it, though.

Good thing? She was clearly serious this time.

Bad thing? I was probably going to lose.

A grin started to form on my lips and excitement zapped my nerves awake. "Come!" I screamed.

~~

"... You lost," she told me, back on her perch up on the window sill. She was tugging at the bars for reasons unknown.

I panted on my seat, rubbing out the soreness from my muscles. I flinched as I touched a spot just above my elbow. That's gonna leave a bruise...

"Yeah, I lost," I said, then looked up at her. She was looking at me too. I smiled. "But at least this time, it was real."

"Pft!" She flicked her head away. "You seem so sure of that."

"Well, I won't be having these bruises if you weren't serious," I grumbled.

She didn't reply at first, so I was going to leave it at that. But then, a cruel voice whispered out from her mouth, making me shudder.

"You wouldn't be alive if I was serious."

I wanted to rebut her words, but the heaviness in her tone made me think that she really meant it. I sighed a bit and called for Birdy. It hopped onto my shoulder with practiced ease, and made a little quack. Looking up, but not really staring at the girl herself, I said, "Come on, Zepherin. We'll be late for class."

She was silent at first and I couldn't see her face, but then she was grinning down at me again the next second. "Don't go changing the subject now. Me-1, You-0. Don't forget that."

She jumped down and landed right beside me with ease. She looked at me innocently. "Well, why are you just standing there? Won't we be late?"

~~

"Month of Learning is over," Madame Telly announced from her desk. Unlike the other assassin teachers who stood on podiums, she sat cross-legged and comfortably on a high seat with a gold plaited desk in front of her. "And that means... Someone has to give a brief and concise summary of our lessons."

Bubbling came from the intricate set of vials laid in a complex maze right beside me, distracting me from the lesson.

"Well, it looks like one of us is getting quite bored," I heard Madame Telly say, but I didn't think much of it. Was that... an eyeball floating around one vial? And doesn't that jar right below it look like a dismembered beak? I felt my companion animal grip at my shoulder with more force, probably seeing what I had seen too. The beak floated around the liquid, almost with a certain bounce, like it was dancing to a rhythm, and it was read to sing...

"Eleftherion!" a shout called for me, making me jump on my seat. I looked away from the vials and into the teacher's eyes.

'Ah,' I thought. 'She was referring to me.'

I quickly stood up like a soldier being reprimanded by his captain. "I-I'm sorry, Madame Telly. I got distracted by the... vials."

She glanced towards the long table beside me, and then looked back at me. "Oh, there's not much to look at, right, class? I daresay the boy simply got lost in his daydreaming. Were you dreaming of a childhood sweetheart from the ground level, dear Eleftherion?"

One of the older apprentices chuckled. "He's only six, Madame Telly."

"Oh, right!" she remembered, and lightly bonked her own ginger head. Her two, high pigtails made her look even more like a young girl. "I keep forgetting there are children in my class. How ever can a child have a child-hood sweetheart? How silly of me."

The classroom filled with light snickers. I blushed in embarrassment, my brain somehow thinking of words like "crown prince" and "brown-eyed boy", although I knew they were wholly unconnected.

"Alas!" the Madame called out. "Children will not be considered children if they're able to sit through my class, even if you are a mere six-year-old brat."

"Hey!" Zepherin shouted in indignation.

"Yes, yes," she smiled at the girl. "You're all equals in this room, so..."

She looked back at me, her green eyes the dark color of a murky swamp. "Perhaps, our dear Eleftherion can give us a little summary of the past month's lessons?"

I sighed inwardly in relief. I could at least do that.

Clearing my throat, I said, "This month's lessons have all been about the basic origins of dark magic. Ancient books have been pointing towards multiple sources, including the shamans of Western Aerim, the Manananggals of Maharlika, and the Tuktuks of the Beinoks. However, all of the information gathered from these tribes agree on one thing: Dark magic is the polar opposite of the commonly used magic in our realm.

"The Aerim Continent refers to this common magic as 'notes', and there is an ongoing theory that an area with a dense amount of notes will also have a counterpart with just as much amount of dark magic elements. The world has always been revolving around the balance between these two contrasting magical elements, so one of the duties of the Order is maintaining that balance."

"And therefore we study and use dark magic, and not simply go lost in a wonderful daydream," Madame Telly continued. "Nonetheless, good job, dear Eleftherion. That was both brief and concise. Now, on to-"

I sighed a bit before finally allowing myself to sit down. The bird hopped off my shoulder and onto my desk. It looked at me as though it wanted to congratulate me. I laughed a little bit at its flapping and its soundless quacking. I was petting it when I heard a soft sound.

"Pst!" I heard it from diagonally in front of me. Zepherin was looking at me from behind her shoulders. She glared at me, and whispered, "I could do better than that."

I grinned, and whispered back, "Of course you could."

I resumed my petting, and tried my best to keep my attention trained towards the teacher. Today's lesson was shorter since the month of learning has just ended, so it wasn't long before Madame Telly had dismissed us.

Every month, a single day would be held for both rest and reflection. On my first two months of training, it really hadn't mattered that much since I only had one true subject, but now, I've come to appreciate this day of rest. But... it's not like it was only a day meant for resting.

"Eleftherion, dear," Madame Telly stopped me from leaving the room, making Zepherin halt with me as well. She smiled at me with her red-spotted cheeks. "Eva wanted me to tell you something. You should head on up to her rooms."

Zepherin and I looked at each other almost at once. Her pale face was transforming into an expression of shock and disbelief, and I started to smile.

"Three months and a day," I mumbled in her ear, before skipping out of the room, humming a tune as I went.