[A/N:
Coming up soon is a choice I have been debating since the beginning of this story, and that is the POV.
So, I was wondering what your opinions were on first (I, me, etc. This is what I currently use) and third person (He, She, They, etc.) POV.
This is more of just what you personally think of them, but if you have input on how one would be better for the story than the other then I would love to hear it.
That's it for now. More chapters are coming out recently due to an increase in my will to write and a lack of things to do now that I am mostly waiting for life to progress what I have going. Therefore, I cannot say for certain how often I will upload after everything picks up completely, but I will try to keep it reasonably often.
Once again, until next time, have a wonderful day. ]
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Narrowly ducking out of the way of an incoming wooden rapier, I had to swiftly jump back to both jump over a leg sweep and to make distance to break any combos that were running around in Trivia's head as she stood straight with her rapier by her side. Without a second to rest I had to pull my wooden katana to my side, avoiding Ivy's whip that would've wrapped around it.
"Alright, that's where we'll end it for today."
With those words from my mother, I promptly sat myself down in exhaustion from having fought both Ivy and Trivia for the past few minutes straight. I may have been training for longer, but it was more focused on a wide range of weapons, slowly making my way towards mastery of all of them, and I was a single person. On the other hand, even if the two girls have been doing something similar to my training, they have been focusing on their weapon of choice recently, and their teamwork seemed to get better every time I experienced it.
As we all rested on the floor drinking water for a few minutes, I glanced at the wall of weapons where one could see a green, wooden plank with an A on them under each weapon while some of them had another green plank with an I, and others had one that had a T on them.
Finally, after almost 6 years of training, I achieved what my father deemed an "acceptable" skill level in each weapon. Though I don't know his reasoning for this type of training, I have two guesses I've come up with.
The first being, that he wanted me well-versed in all weapons, so that when I had to fight against humanoid enemies wielding weapons I would be able to have a deeper understanding of how my enemies could fight. The second one would be to give me a little taste of all weapons, so that I know what weapon(s) I prefer, and if I were to ever be separated from my personal weapon I could pick up any other and be good enough to survive.
The first option is only there because there are a lot of bandit tribes out there, some more ruthless than others, and if I aim to be a Huntsman it makes sense to be able to fight proficiently against any possible opponent I may face, though I wonder if taking a human life would affect me?
The second option is because not everyone can literally attach their weapon to themselves, and even if I could it could still break, which would require me to improvise with another weapon.
"Argento, you with us?" Coming to with Ivy's hand waving in front of my face, I noticed my parents and closest companions looking at me like I had been spoken to.
"Sorry, I was spaced out. Did something happen?"
*Ding*
{You've been doing that a lot, are you okay?} Seeing the concerned frown on Trivia's now gently maturing face, I couldn't help but smile at her.
"I'm perfectly fine, I didn't mean to worry you." With a cute smile now replacing her frown, I couldn't help but continue to gaze into her eyes. That same dull brown color I've seen for the past 8 years didn't break eye contact as she would've back then. It was at this point I realized that if not for Ivy loudly clearing her throat behind me, I wouldn't have looked away for quite possibly forever; stuck in a loop of curiosity and attraction.
Yes, attraction. It's sadly come to that age, where my brain will slowly be overrun by hormones and raging teenage thoughts. I'm not naive enough to think myself above becoming attracted to someone I've known for the past 8 years. Then there comes the problem of our age… honestly I don't feel any older than my body age. I mean sure, I have the mental lifespan to probably rival my parents, but it seems the Argento side of me thankfully commandeered that as well.
Granted, I know I'm not the only one of us three to be going through our puberty. This is simply because of an unfortunate incident that occurred a few months ago when the girls were staying over. It was a normal sleepover, we have them at least once a week, and we did the normal games, food, and sleep.
However, I was woken up earlier than normal to feel my sheets more damp than normal. Even with the three of us, all of these years there have never been any real 'sweat spots', so I knew something was wrong, and when I got up I noticed just what had happened.
Underneath me was a spread, albeit soaked up, puddle of red, and sitting on my floor against the wall was a VERY red-faced Ivy. With her knees huddled underneath her chin and tears silently streaming down her anguished face, whether from emotions or pain was unclear, there was no doubt in my mind that she had just had her first period.
I'll be honest, it took me a few seconds for me to get my ass up and comfort Ivy. It wasn't because I was averse to periods, because with Casandra I had experienced enough of them for them to be another normal event. What made my actions lag was that this was clearly new to her, and very clearly she had not been expecting it to happen while over at my house.
The weight of a female's first period is not something I would pretend to understand, but what I did know was Ivy was crying on my floor, and she needed support. Not because some arbitrary chivalry code spurred my thought process, but because somewhere in the depths of my soul, or I guess souls plural, I felt a tug - a spark; something that hasn't happened very often since the day we met, but something I could recognize as our connection I felt that day. It was calling for support, or at least that was how I was interpreting what I can only assume to be how she was feeling and/or what she was wanting.
I heard another, even louder throat clearing from Ivy as she firmly pinched my arm. As I finally broke eye contact with Trivia I could see a lightly blushing Ivy with a look of annoyance written across her face; it was as if she could see exactly what was playing through my mind.
"Sorry." With me sheepishly grinning at her now, she finally stopped pinching my arm and just crossed her arms and turned away from me. Ignoring the sigh I was hearing from both of my parents, I finally look their way to learn what I had missed while I was in my own little world.
"Well, like I was going to say before you went all lovey-dovey with these two." Maxwell's words caused a blush to creep up both of the girls' faces as they were now both firmly keeping their gazes away from me, which got another sigh from Amelia and a chuckle from the man who caused it. "Now that you have learned all of the weapons to an acceptable level, I was thinking we could take a break from training. Your birthday is coming up soon, and I thought it would be a good chance to take that family trip your mother and I have been thinking of for a while now."
"Family trip? Where would we go that wouldn't be exorbitantly expensive with the 8 of us?" Having heard the words 'family trip' the two girls had been slightly disheartened at my soon-to-be temporary absence, but when they heard my words they both had to take a second to understand that I automatically included the two of them in the family trip plans
"Well I guess a family trip is more of an excuse, but we think it's about time you experience life outside of the big city for a little bit." My mother began as she got up and started putting our weapons back on the wall. "There is a smaller city established about a week's travel from here, and it has what I would consider some of the most beautiful trees I've ever seen. The road there is mostly safe, as Huntsmen regularly clear it, but with your dad and I there, I doubt there will be anything around here that could cause us danger."
With the idea proposed, and some extra ideas bounced around here and there, we washed up and went inside, where seemingly fresh food was awaiting us on the table. I don't know how she does it, even after all these years I can't pinpoint when she finds the time to make the food when she seems to have been occupied in the moments leading up to it. I assume it has something to do with her Semblance, which even after all of this training I have not seen either of my parents use once. I felt it was kind of rude to ask, and they would eventually show me, so I was in no rush to learn.
As the day began coming to an end, and the three of us were lying in my bed, I couldn't stop my mind from wandering. Of course, I am happy to be with my family, and those I consider close enough to be extensions of said family, but I don't have fond memories of family trips.
Each time I seemed to forget about it, the image of my sister's head would sear the back of my eyes. Each time the noises around me began to fade as I got tired I seemed to be jolted by the distant sound of my mother's bones crunching from her entangled position. Each time I licked my rapidly drying lips I could only taste the iron of blood and bits of brain from my father coating my tongue.
It took me hours longer than I would've liked to finally fall asleep, most of which I can attribute to the presence of the two people I wouldn't mind sharing the rest of my life with. But as I was finally falling asleep, one last defiant thought prevailed throughout my brain.
'It's all in the past now, and potentially a whole universe away. This isn't Earth, and my parents here are strong, in fact absurdly so. It won't happen again. It can't happen again.
I don't know what I would do if it did happen again.'