Miharu and her companion Daidai were walking through the town of Orchidia. It was chilly out and wet, and there was a light dusting of rain that had swept over the town, leaving a mulch of wet soggy ground that squished underneath their feet, a summer storm was coming. The residents of Orchidai though, was not detoured by this and packed the streets with its usual activity.

While walking through the busier parts of the streets something court Miharu’s eye, a large Notice board. She pushed her way through the crowd towards it, gaining a few nasty comets on the way.  

"Haru! Where are you going?" Daidai shouted as she tried to follow after her.

Once Miharu had reached the notice board she scanned it. There many leaflets across the board from all different areas and difficulties. A few court her eye but they weren’t in Orchidia, but she would have to travel a fear distance to get to where they needed her to be, so she flicked past them. There was only one that peak her interest that was in Orchidia. The leaflet was slightly damp and the words were smudged a bit but it was legible. It was tiled ‘Train with me’ and written upon it was a description of a girl who wished for a partner for a day of training.

Daidai by this time had finally cached up with Miharu. She puffed and wheezed as she complained about Miharu sudden intervention to their previous path.

“What are you doing?”

Miharu look down at Daidai then pointed at the leaflet. “I want to do this.”

Daidai frowned at the offending paper and quickly deciphered the human language written upon it. “You don’t need this! I’m here to protect you! You don’t have any legitimate reason to train.”

“I need to become stronger.”

“Stronger my ass! Your only 17 I can do all the fighting for you!”
Miharu sighed, she knows Daidai well enough to distinguish where this augment was going to go. She looked at the leaflet again, she noted the time, place and the contact information, then pushed Daidai onwards.

****
The day of the event.

It was late afternoon when Miharu was able to sneak out of the inn. Daidai had finally taken her midday nap leaving Miharu an opening to escape. She made her way towards the location which was at the forest outskirts. The forest itself was more like a plantation but, the wild life was teaming and the undergrowth was thick so Miharu figured that it didn’t really matter if it was a forest or not. Up a head she saw a girl with light silver hair leaning against a tree, she was looking down at the grown as she poked and probed at the dirt with her foot. As Miharu got closer she looked up and smiled.

“You must be Miharu, I’m Seheda.” She closed the distance between them and put out her hand for Miharu to shake.
“Hello” she said and took it. Shaking it left and right briskly, I’m doing this right, right?

Seheda laughed. I must be... Miharu thought, she still wasn’t quite use to humanly contact yet and found it hard to memories all the gestures her own spies had. She preferred the language of the beast of the land it was much simpler to understand. You growl you’re angry, you wag your tail you’re happy, it’s all simple. Of-course it varies with different spices though.

As Miharu got a closer look at Seheda she realised that she was possibly younger than her. Her hair was pulled back and reached down to her lower back, and it swayed in the breeze delicately. Her skin was an off white and her eyes where a grey-blue colour, similar to the sky. Miharu looked up for not the first time this morning at the threatening heavens directly above the trees that hovering over Miharu’s head. The trees where trying to hide the intimidating greys-blues the clouds where reflecting on the land but, was failing miserably. We should get on with this…Miharu thought; she could already smell the gathering of water in the sky.

“Is anyone ells joining?”

“Nope just us, you’re the only one who contacted me.” She seemed a little embarrassed by that and her cheeks flushed. “Not many people I know are at my level. I’m a mercenary you see I’ve been doing it for two years this line of work, assisting mages and other people with their mission as a guard.” she sounded like she was proud of herself and to Miharu it did seem quite an achievement she was still heavily reliant on her companion, Daidai. Seheda facial expression then changed though as she said “I’ve been trying to improve my skills in combat but I failed the test to be submitted to the combat academy for the third time in a row.” Her lip popped out in a pout, she really did remind Miharu of a bunny or squirrel, getting so easily excited then sad, it was kind of cute and it relaxed her to see something familiar in her own spices.

“You will make it.” Miharu stated with a smile.

“You think so?” Seheda smiled back. “It’s my dream you know… to succeed in my careers path.” Miharu didn’t know what to say to this as she watched Seheda’s body language. Seheda seemed to be deep in thought her shoulders hunched, her hands claps in front of her like a protective barer her face cast with streaks as she frowned. Suddenly she seemed to come to a conclusion she straiten her shoulders, placed her hands by her side and displayed a strong confident look.

“Let’s go, before we get rained on, yeah?” Miharu softly smiled at her she had a strong feeling of respected and growing admiration towards her.

“Yeah, let’s go”

Miharu took her shoes off, she found it easily to run without shoes them, Seheda gave a confused face but didn’t question it.  

With that they set off running through the forest, jumping and diving over and logs, tress, branches anything that came in their path. Miharu found it enthralling as memories of time spent with Daichi in the forest swept through her she could almost hear his soft thuds of his foot prints next to her and the huff of his breath.

Seheda on the other hand panted and wheezed as she lagged behind from Miharu she found the run a bit of a challenge. She did expected for Miharu to be able to run that fast, the whole aura around Miharu seem too changed, she didn’t seem to be the sweet kind girl she just meet. She noticed how Miharu seem accustomed to her surroundings already and was taking it on effortlessly. She reminded Seheda of how an animal runs through the forest…, elegantly, instinctively…. predatory. It was almost frightening how a small girl could suddenly look so animal like.

Miharu’s lungs burned and the lactic acid in her body made her legs and arms ache. She had never felt so close though in the feeling of Daichi being near, it made her push harder. She wanted to touch him, hear him, be with him… a little more and she could… memories came crushing in. Memories of her and Daichi running, running away from all that hatted them. The villagers that thought that they were a bad Omen, travelers that were afraid of them, farmers who thought we will destroy their crops.  They had shouted at them, threw rocks at them, shot arrows doused in flames. Their voices where so fresh in her mind…  
“Kill the beastling! Kill the child of the forest! Purify the evil placed on our land! Burn in our holy firer! Burn in hell you demons!”  

“Miharu! Miharu!” Miharu snapped out of it and look back at the puffing Seheda.

“Can you slow down?” Miharu slowed herself and stopped, waiting for Seheda to catch up.

“You run…. weez puff puff… really fast."Once she reached Miharu she lent down on her knees as she tried to recover her breath.

“Do you just want to walk the rest?”

“No… puff… I’m fine” they started a light jog.
After a while Seheda started talking, “you know I was thinking about what you said, puff puff.”

“Mmm?”

“About how I would make it, puff puff, I want to say thank you, puff, you know? Puff puff, in believing in me, puff puff, being a mercenary means a lot to me, puff, and I really wants to succeed this time, puff so thank you, puff puff.”  Miharu looked over at the exhorted, sweaty, disheveled girl next to her with a sense of pride, she knew that Seheda would make it…, there was a scream as Seheda tripped over a hidden log and face plant, Miharu internally giggled …one day she will.

Miharu went to help her up, Seheda, embarrassed by her fall stated that training was over and that she would give Miharu an award for participating.

It was good timing because by the time Miharu got back to the inn the storm had only just started to display its wrath, but to Miharu the storm seem pitiful agents her companion’s, Daidai, rage.

-------------
Complete
WC: 1,546/1000