I shake my head.
"I don't know how to do that."
Her father continues to walk, getting closer to the edge of the clearing.
"You need to kill the Bear right?"
He stops to tilt his head in my direction.
With a small glance in my direction, I nod.
"There's no other way for me to get stronger if I don't figure out how to kill the Soul Bear."
Her father turns to the trees again.
"Then Apatite will show you the most she can do to help you get better at controlling your Soul Energy."
I turn my head to Apatite, her figure just a bit shorter than mine.
As soon as I turn back to her father he jumps into the darkness of Warren Forest.
Apatite looks me up and down.
"You don't know how to infuse your bow with Soul Energy?"
I shake my head.
"No, it's a bit difficult to do that, last time I did it to help you, it was in the moment, and… I thought that the guy was going to kill both me and Marcilene if you didn't stop."
She squints her eyes at me.
"My father?"
I nod.
"He's not a guy that'd do that."
She tells me.
"But I will tell you, if you didn't help me he most likely would have just let that woman take the girl that was with you."
"Oh…"
'I thought he would be a good person, tells out he's not even a good person, nor bad, more like a fence sitter.'
"Anyway, can you see my Soul Energy now?"
She asks, as I eye her up and down.
I nod.
"Then that's your fist step, can you feel the soul energy?"
"Like physically?"
She nods back. As we stand face to face with each other.
I try to feel it, but my eye doesn't even sting…
"I can't feel it."
"That's bad."
She takes a deep breath.
"My mother would be able to help you better than me…"
Her voice goes low, and sullen, as her aura drops down.
"Where is she?"
I ask without thinking to deep into it.
"Not here…"
A pause.
"…she's bedridden, with less than a few months to live. She taught me magic. That's how I got taken, I was studying a spell in the forest, they were able to navigate through the dark or I get to close to the edge and they ended up taking me."
"My condolences."
She looks at me with a flash of anger, that then fades.
"Shes not dead."
Her voice was soft, looking toward the ground, passively she released Soul Emergy into the air, that come slightly be felt with my eye.
"I can feel it…"
"Which?"
She lift her head up to look me eye to eye.
"The Soul Energy that you released."
"How?"
"I think people release Soul Energy as they feel different emotions."
"Okay, okay then…"
She paused as she look at me face, she was pretty close.
Her aura spiked in a way, that looked like the center of the spike was her heart, spiking outward from their.
Her face looked flushed now.
"We… we can.. work with that."
She says as she turns away.
"How?"
I ask her.
"If you can feel the slight release of my Soul Energy, then you should be able to feel your."
"But I've never…?"
I pause remembering that first feeling of magic a few months ago.
".. no I have. When I tried water magic."
"Then we can actually work with that."
It stopped its spiking and started to gather to her heart instead.
"When my father comes he'll be chased by the Soul Bear, there no doubt he'd fear even the slightest ounce of fear, he'd release off Soul Energy, the same can be said for the Bear, but this time it'll feel hunger so, and with its uncontrollable and huge amount of Soul Energy from its hibernation it'll just be releasing it."
She was looking at the ground deep in thought, it made her look intelligent for her age.
"How old are you?"
That question slipped out of my mouth, even though I didn't mean for it.
"I'm eight."
'She older than me? Wow.'
She said without looking up from the ground.
She begins to walk, going past me in the opposite direction her dad came from, going onto a slight incline on a hill to stand on it, she turned as she got to the top.
"Follow me."
She waved her hand in a way to invite me over.
I hold my bow in my hand well and continued towards her direction.
I follow her, she stands still then points toward the direction that her dad left.
A few clicking sounds later.
"My father will come through from there."
She paused for me to look in that direction.
I do.
"When he comes through the main thing you'll have to do is, feel it through… your eye?"
She looks at me as if to confirm her.
"Yes. And?"
"Then you'll do what you did to me, feel it from your heart, through your veins down to your hands."
"That's all?"
"As simple as that."
She nods after saying that.
She reaches down and grabs her wand, it's pretty big, about the size of her entire hand, from wrist to the tip of her middle finger.
"I'm not sure how much more I can help you when it comes to being able to shoot a bow, but if push comes to shove I can use this…"
Her voice goes low again and her aura flows down. As she looks to the floor once more.
".. it was my mom's she knows how much I loved magic and when my father said he was going to teach my to hunt like an elf, and how to survive in the forest, he agreed with me owning a wand."
I empathize with her for a second.
"What's the spells that you mother has taught you?"
"Many, from the biggest spells that you can use to fight your opponent to the smallest spell to heal your closest friends… but I've never had any friends. So spell to heal people I come across."
'She reminds me of me slightly, she works hard but that's to defend herself and to make her future easier. But unlike me, she has her parents to fall to for help, her mother though on her death bed still tries her best to help her, with even the smallest of spells, my father never did that for me. And even though it looks like her father is a push over she still learns because he has her best interests at hand…'
My thoughts run wild as I look down to the ground.
'…if only they were like that. For me…"
"Hey… are you still with me?"
Apatite says as she waves her hand in front of my face.
"Yeah, sorry."
I say as I wipe my face, small amounts of tears were forming.
"I'll be fine."
"You looked like your were crying?"
I shake my head.
"No I wasn't."
My voice had a small amount of cracking in it.
She heard it, then a subject switch as she turned back.
"I'll help you as best I can, but if I can't do anything then I need you to stop the bear…"
She turned to me as if pleading.
"I can't lose my dad."
Those words struck me. Like a car going 40 miles per hour on a hot Tuesday afternoon. So oddly specific.
Then a clicking sound breaks through from the forest in front of us.
I take a small step back, not because I'm scared, though I'm not going to lie I very much am, but because, if I want to succeed at this, I'll need to see as much Soul Energy as I can.
I stay back a little my mind trying to clear but failing to do so, scared of not one but two things, if I fail, I could get him killed or worse, I could get us killed.
'No, don't think like that… focus, empty mind.'
I take a deep breath and close my eyes.
'Hit the bear.'
Opening my eyes I see it, a flow, Apatites, along with two other flows of aura. One as bright as fire, but clad in white, the Soul near and the other one, an orange aura that's being chased by the white aura.
Apatite begins to chant something, like it's an ancient language for her, it sounds like a mix of Spanish, Latin, and German. Aggressive yet, gentle.
Her aura flows around her like snow, growing icey petals around her.
My eye stings, really stings, but not enough for me to truly feel intense pain from it.
Apatite lets out a clicking sound, trying to locate her surroundings.
"They are close."
My body feels strong, rejuvenated, less hungry, most of all, calm, still with the smallest amount of fear but mostly calm.
"Ready your bow."
I tap the sigil and the arrow appears, making the bow feel full.
Not only that, I see the arrow, more now, not being as its arrow, but the aura as well.
The arrow brimming with aura, from…
'From me!'
I've just used her aura.
The beat gets closer and the aura around it, so bright, so frightening.
Its burns my eyes, like really burns it, but I force myself to leave it open.
The arrow, it doesn't just brim with aura, it burns with it, growing bright, lighting up the area in light, brightening even the darkness of the forest to a range, making it easier for me to see the bear and Apatite father.
Apatite stops and turns to me, her face full of a mix of fear and awe.
My eye bleeds, profusely. Like my eye has its own heart beat.
"Stop! You're bleeding too much."
She says, but I can't stop now, I don't know if I can.
"Move! Now!"
My voice break through.
Pulling the arrow back, it's like it's mooching off of my complete Soul Energy.
Apatite jumps away, and it's like her Soul Energy wasn't even there in the first place as the arrow still shines bright burning with Soul Energy.
Her father continues on, like her unafraid of what could happen to him.
The bear continues following him, its eyes on the elf in front of it.
My arms shake as if the bow is heavy, but I force myself to a steady.
My arms use every ounce of strength that I could ever muster with this smaller body of mine.
The string is pull as far as I can and…
I release it.
~~~
Back at the edge of the Forest
Steel walks up towards Sply who has been standing at the edge of the forest just outside the trees.
"What's Lazuli?"
He says as she just stares into the darkness the moonlight not even penetrating for them to see through.
"Inside the forest."
She says with not the slightest concern in her voice.
"By himself?"
Steel raises his voice just enough to sound angry.
"Yes."
"Why is he in there alone?"
"I'm testing him."
"You understand that elves live in this forest."
"You've never had a problem before."
"Not only that there resides other Spul Beasts in there!"
He was close to losing it.
"That's the test, he has to kill a Soul Bear."
Steel's breath became heavy to his aggression.
"If.."
Before Steel can even finish his sentence a bright light passes through the thickness of the trees illuminated both toward them to the highest tree leaf.
"I'll kill you."
Sply for the smallest of seconds looks concerned about me.
"Shit."
She says under her breath before she pulling the necklace off of her neck and begins to run into the trees, right toward the light.
Steel follows right behind her.