Dragons, Dystopians, and Denial

“What do you want, a trophy?” She scoffed.

Spoiler

“Just cause you’re old and tall doesn’t mean I can’t kick your ass.”

Elias stared at her blankly, wanting to roll his eyes.

"Do I have to travel with her?" he asked Aerik.

“It’s entirely up to you,” Aerik said, watching the exchange with a smirk. “You can go back to Earth right now. Or go with her to see if you can get your powers removed. I don’t particularly care one way or another... but I again suggest you stop provoking her if you’re choosing the latter.”

Well lookie here, looks like Aerik was a smart ass.

Elias sighed in defeat. He wasn't that proud.

"Jerica, may I travel with you?" he asked in a monotone voice.

Jerica smirked, pleased that Elias seemed to be finding some reserve of good sense that he’d buried deep inside him.

But then she got too excited to gloat as she realized what this meant for them. For her. She snapped her attention to Aerik. “So you’re gonna let us go?”

Aerik sighed but inclined his head.

“Yes!” She grinned. “Crevon, here we come!”

"So, Crevon—" Elias began, but Jerica was already out the door.

"Are you coming?" she shouted down the hall.

He looked up an Aerik, who offered a patient smile. "You better listen to her," he said. "And also, good luck."

Eilas sighed and followed her lead, practically having to run up the stairs to catch up to her.

"Did you say we're going to ride on a horse?" he asked when he finally caught up, ignoring the muscle aches of his body.

“Yeah. We’ll have to walk to the nearest town, though. Aerik has Kaidren so he doesn’t need a horse — and mine is back in Atraya. I never got to get him back after my capture.”

She shrugged and started pulling ears of corn off their stalks and piling them in Elias's arms before he could respond.

"And of course we'll need to get some of the basics off Aerik before we go. Weapons, bedding, all that fun stuff. But I think the nearest town will only be about a half day's walk so we should get there by tonight."

She plucked some tomatoes off the vine and plopped them on top of the corn in Elias's arms.

"And then Crevon is... I don't know how far it is. I've never been." She bent and started plucking green beans from their stems and piling them in the bottom of her tunic that she held out like a pouch. "But it can't take us that long, I imagine."

Jerica was talking fast and piling things in Elias's hands, and he followed her like a lost puppy. It was pretty annoying that he was taking orders from a kid, but there were worse things.

His mind wandered a bit while she droned on and on and zipped around the garden. The most obvious thought, of course, was what he would do if he had no powers. He dreamed of this day to happen, but it was an impossible pipedream, and honestly, he had no idea what he would do with himself.

Elias decided to shove that thought away as he tried to focus on the here and now. He'd have to be strategic with Jerica and not get on her nerves. He had plenty of practice with that in the military, and even more practice with his friends when he was a teenager. But still, she was just a kid. He couldn't help but feel sorry for her position, even though she acted cool and tough.

His mind wandered back to the discussion around the room and how she seemed to figure out his secret so fast despite his self-pity and secrecy, but then it dawned on him: she had made a joke earlier and he didn't even realize the context until now.

He felt his face warm up from embarrassment that a teenage girl had joked about this, and so had goddamn Aerik with his smirk, and he had no idea.

"So, I don't know how to ride a horse," he interrupted, trying to swat the embarrassing thought away and distract himself with something else.

"Yeah, well." Jerica started down the stairs again, taking them two at a time, not even bothering to look back to ensure he was following her. "You'll learn, I guess. I'm damn sure not walking all the way there."

She pushed her way into the house and saw Aerik in the kitchen, preparing a bundle of food for them to take on the road. "I'm taking a sword and a bow."

"Okay," Aerik answered. "You know where they are."

Jerica dumped the green beans on the table and turned around, gesturing at the table vaguely as she looked for Elias. "Sword or bow?"

Elias briskly caught up with her, deciding to not push the fact that he would probably go flying off a horse without any lessons.

"Uh," he stuttered as he dropped everything he was holding on to the table. Some items rolled over, so he bent down to pick them up and place it back on the table.

"Neither? I mean, do you have a gun?"

It did not surprise him that this world was archaic enough to use swords and bows.

She stared at him in dumbfounded silence for a moment, and when she responded it wasn't even to him. She turned towards Aerik, disgusted. "He can't ride a horse or fight."

Toddler. Fully grown man that she was going to have to teach literally everything, it seemed.

"Good thing you've got some time on the road to teach him, before he'll need to use it, huh?" Aerik answered

Jerica sighed dramatically, sulking down the hall like the teenager that she was.

"Good thing you've got such a patient person to teach you," Aerik laughed, clearly the most amused by this situation of any of them.

"Well, come on then," Jerica muttered. "Let's see what you can handle."

Elias blinked, staring between the two of them. It wasn't his fault that they used medieval weapons. He didn't need a weapon to fight, but he was trained on almost all of the guns if it came down to it. Did they even know what a gun was? He could obliterate an opponent in seconds rather than swing a pointy object around and probably get stabbed himself.

He decided to ignore the conversation and continued to keep up with Jerica.

"If I had to pick," he said slowly, "I'd pick bow and arrow."

He didn't want to get too close to other opponents.

"Oh, we're gonna suit you up with both," Jerica sighed, throwing the door to the weapon's room open. "See if you end up actually being good at either of them."

She strode past the sparring block and the odd contraptions off to the left side of the room, straight towards a huge wall that was covered in hundreds of weapons. Swords and daggers of all shapes and sizes -- bows and arrows -- maces and staffs.

She stopped in front of the wall and considered it for a long moment. Then she turned back towards Elias and silently sized him up, trying to estimate what size and weight sword he'd be able to manage. And bow.

Her eyes landed on the maces for a brief moment and she glanced back towards Elias, looking at his arms. He was muscular but nowhere near strong enough to wield a weapon that required brute strength.

"You can't handle a mace," she said, nodding her head once as she decided. She pulled a mid-sized sword off the wall and forced it into his hands. "Here, see if you can swing this."

Elias decided to completely ignore the fact that Jerica likely insulted him by saying he couldn't handle a mace. With her back turned, he looked down at his body in dismay.

When she turned back around to hand him the sword, he reached out and firmly grabbed it. It wasn't light, but it wasn't heavy either. He had no idea what was considered normal, though.

"Swing it how?" he asked, not wanting to cause accidental destruction. And, of course, not wanting to piss her off.

"Like..." Jerica hesitated a moment as she noticed for the first time that Aerik didn't have any of the training dummies she made her recruits practice on when they were learning how to use a sword.

"Okay, new plan." She took the sword from him and slid it back onto the rack, then grabbed two wooden swords instead. She handed one to him and then grasped the other in her own hand, holding it out so he could see.

"You hold it like this," she instructed. "Not too tight, but you also gotta hang on to it so you don't lose it, okay?"

She continued without waiting for a response.

"And you stand like this." She twisted so that her left foot was behind her and her hips were angled forward. She resisted the urge to kick Elias's feet into the right stance. "And then you just--" She swung the sword.

"But it's easier when you've got something to swing at." She took a step forward then turned around to face him, holding her own sword up. "So try to hit me. Right here, on my shoulder."