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The blue eyes darkened, though Henry was still smiling, something troubled him down deep.

A memory, a recollection, something past and fragmented. Whatever it was it passed as soon as his eyes left the level purple gaze of the young starchild.

"I know Sunstrike very well, I raised him...I guess you could call him my son..." Even Henry didn't sound so sure about that. "But I lost him a while ago. It's nice to hear he's been...making friends."
Powerful friends, Henry mused thoughtfully. Never did anything by halfs that boy, cept maybe chores.

"Used to have a daughter too! She was as cute as you," He grinned back at the sleepy child. "Maybe he missed her a bit when he met you." Henry knew that to be untrue, however.

Were that the case, the child would be dead.

A soft fog from the sea hung over the distant part of the forest facing the docks and even where they walked some wisps of white hovered over the ground between those old trees.

"It's a nice place, isn't it. Though it can happen that you meet an ork or other unfriendly creatures when you wander deep into the forest. Still I don't really know why it's called 'dead'. Maybe because there aren't many animals here...." Lucind shrugged. She wore the same backpack like during the trip to the monastery and there seemed to be quite some stuff in it.

Before leaving Feimurgan the woman had changed into other clothes which would provide her with enough freedom of movement during her training and into boots made of soft leather which shored her ankle joints.

She led him to the clearing which was almost circular in shape and about 26 feet in diametre.
"Okay, I train here. Guess I'll need two hours. So, I think the best is you come back here after finishing your walk. I'll wait for you^^ And be careful, okay? Even the best hunters and rangers get lost here once in their lives..."

She put her backpack down next to a felled trunk, took her coat off and placed it just over the trunk while glancing at Kraun who slowly vanished between the trees. At clearings such like this bright sunlight caressed flora and fauna, but only a few metres behind the first row of trees one was surrounded by semi-darkness, a tranquil atmosphere...or wicked, if one wasn't that lucky.

Out of the bag the woman pulled a stack of rectangular wooden pieces, coloured red from one side and pierced two times on both short sides: slim ropes ran through the small holes.
Lucind stood up and fastened pieces to eight trees along the clearing's border - some in height of her eyes, some higher.

Walking back to the trunk Lucind took out a set of eight throwing knives, those with a tiny, rotating weight in them. She shoved the knives into self-made gaps of her belt and stepped into the center of the circular place.
Her arms hanged by her sides, though not without some tension in the shoulders. The woman stared straight ahead into nothingness and concentrated on her breathing.

With the T'ai Chi like chain of fluid moves Lucind started afterwards she wanted to bring spiritual and physical engery in accord to gain utmost concentration and control over herself. All those different move combination made her slowly turn around her axis, yet she always returned to the center before beginning a new, coordinated, often practised interaction of limbs, head and torso which neatly merged into the previous exercise.

After ten minutes it seemed she was fully absorbed in her practise and without changing her rythm Lucind got hold of four knives, two in each hands, but kept on moving around, fixing each of the red, wooden pieces for a couple of seconds.

Finally the Half-Siren slowly sped up until she finally aimed at the marked trees, throwing one knife after the other as a final harmonical motion, quickly grapping the other four knives until she was done and stood in her starting stance.

But what looked pretty cool, impressive and whatnot had obviously failed as one checked the wooden marks: two blades even stuck in the bark and not in the red boards.

"..... stare "

Lucind knew why she had failed: due to lacking concentration. And why was that so?
Because bits and pieces of the conversation with Hetel wandered through her mind and she couldn't need that at all for her training.

The blue haired woman sighed and made her way over to the trees to collect the knives and start from the beginning.

If Lucind saw the monk like this, picking flowers and enjoying nature, it would have supported her dislike of the mere negative reputation all of Hetel's sources gave Kraun.

A monster.
It couldn't be. That was just...too simple.

However, she managed to block off those thoughts so that the result of the next run was much better, the third almost satisfying.
After repeating the exercise for the sixth time, Lucind took a short break and got a bottle of water out of her backpack, leaned against a tree and enjoyed the silence.

Finally, she stuffed knives and the red boards back and instead picked a kind of leather holster and when fastened on her torso it turned out to be a storing construction for her wah sikeils: two flat sheaths, forming a tight "V" and slightly broadening at the open end.

The blades themselves were hidden in the backpack. What seemed to be two boards made of plastic, worked into the fabric, to strenghten the bag's back side were in fact a box for the wah sikeils. Lucind clipped a small lid open and brought the weapons to light.

She stood up and brought the blades over her head, the pointed ends showing down and let them glide into the sheaths between her shoulder blades. Still holding the handles she pulled them outwards, her ellbows moving down a bit until a soft click indicated a simple spring mechanism engaged to make sure the long daggers wouldn't slip out even when Lucind made a flip.

Now another row of connected motions followed, containing more soft kicks and punches or swings. And Lucind would use the wah sikeils in intervals to include the blades into her exercise and to get used to putting them back in the holster just as fast as pulling them out.

Juuni blinked and cocked her head to the side slightly, looking at Mere with a mingled look of confusion and suspicion before yawning widely and knuckling her eyes wearily, her ears drooping slightly and the tip of her tail flicking slowly side to side. The tiny child was shattered. Her head nodded slightly before she woke up again with a start and a jump, looking around her in confusion as in unsure of where she was.

sweatdrop

John sat down behind the little toddler as she awoke and scooped her up in his hand, placing her gently down atop Amber's sleeping form, cuddling them both protectively in his arms as he sat by the small fire. He looked like a lion guarding his pride, and he looked over the leaping flames to inspect Mere with his cool blue eyes.

He didn't move. He didn't say a word.

He simply held them close as they slept and watched the only thing worth watching in the clearing.

He stopped in a clearing, looking around for any signs on passing. Maybe it was just luck, or maybe he knew where he was going, but he picked up a trail which belonged to him. All he had to do now was follow it backwards back the way he came.

However, it was not as simple as it sounds, especially since his own movements were usually very delicate, the trail he followed was very hard to find, he even had to go back when he went the wrong way to backtrack again to follow it. If it was hard for even himself to follow his own trail, it being so well hidden, it would be even harder for someone else to follow it.

It took longer than expected to return the the clearing, and when he did so, he was silent as always, no sound of foliage or branches cracking at his feet or the sound of shifting plants. Just a little late, he stepped into the clearing as Lucind performed her dance.