We All Start Somewhere

Though she remained cooped up in her room for the rest of the morning, Camellia wallowed a little less after her conversation with Phoebe. Around lunchtime, as she engaged with her new favorite hobby (staring out the window), she noticed Damos approach along the street. Coming home from training early?

Curiosity won out over despair, and Camellia slunk out of bed to meet him downstairs.

“Oh, hey, Camellia! I was just coming to check in. What a coincidence,” Damos laughed.

Camellia greeted him with a wave. “Why are you home so early today? Don’t you all usually train into the late evening?”

“Yeah, about that. We took a short break for lunch, and Phoebe said something weird. Told me to run back home and see if you were up. She wanted me to say, uh,” he paused to pull out a scrap of what looked like parchment from a pouch on his belt. “‘Why don’t you start now?’ I don’t know what she’s talking about. Sorry.”

The words hit Camellia right in the chest. Her eyes flitted from the floor to Damos and then down to the piece of paper in his hand. Camellia thought back to what Phoebe had told her. Her voice echoed through her skull.

We all gotta start somewhere.

Damos stuffed the paper back into his pouch and made for the back room behind the counter. “I need to grab something anyway. Just a second.”

Standing in the middle of an emporium of sharpened steel, Camellia lost herself in her thoughts. Phoebe made it work, even if it wasn’t what she wanted.

Yes, Camellia! Yes!

Aren’t I just falling into the same pathetic state as before? I’m just allowing a simple rejection to spell the end of my life.

Remember, “There’s always a way forward.”

Camellia glanced at the weaponry around her. Why am I just letting fate tell me what’s possible for my future? Before I died, I never would have thought that reincarnation was possible. And yet here I am. She furrowed her brow. Tethys wouldn’t have given me a task if it were literally impossible, would she? She said I was ‘interesting.’ There has to be something behind that.

That’s it exactly. Keep going, Camellia.

“I give you this task for a purpose.” That’s what she told me. I had thought it was to discourage me from even trying, but what if it’s something else? Maybe this is what I’m supposed to do.

Damos reemerged from the back room, patting one of his pockets.

Whipping her head to face him, Camellia blurted out, “Damos, can I join you today?”

Damos’ expression froze in a look of shock. After a moment of processing, a toothy smile spread across his face. “You bet!”

“Oh, and,” Camellia looked around. She spotted something on one of the weaponry racks and nabbed it. “Can I use this?”

“You want one of our daggers? Why—“ Damos’ eyes widened, as big as dinner plates. “Wait, do you want to…?”

Camellia nodded. “I think it’s about time I learned to fight.”

~~~~~~

The basics were simple enough. The right way to hold a weapon, how to keep your eye on what you were fighting, the right stance for your legs — Camellia’s three friends instructed her step by step. She took to it eagerly, renewed and resolute. It was an adjustment, being physically active in the water. But then again, Camellia had already gotten a workout before with the sprint out of the Crags. Far more capable than her old body, this new form worked with ease. Muscles she didn’t even know that she had moved her arms and legs in all the various ways her friends told her to.

“You got this quickly,” Damos happily cried. “Not as quickly as me, but still.”

Phoebe punched him in the arm.

“I’m honestly impressed,” Lynn said. “You aren’t a professional or anything, of course, but Damos is right. You have a knack for the flow.” Camellia couldn’t meet her watchful gaze.

Maybe I can get this quest done with nothing but a dagger and my own two feet.

With hope in her voice, Camellia asked, “How long do we have to train? Until the trial thing?”

“Little under three weeks. Should be just enough time to whip ya into shape,” Phoebe said, cracking her knuckles. “It’ll be hard, though. You up for it?”

Camellia looked at Lynn, who gave an encouraging smile, then at Damos, whose expression looked like a pleading puppy’s. She met Phoebe’s intent stare. “I’m more up for it than you can believe.”

“That’s what I wanna hear,” Phoebe said with a huge grin.

Lynn clapped her hands together. “Then let’s not waste a single moment. You’ve still a long way to go, even if you are talented.”

With that, the four of them returned to Camellia’s combat instruction, teaching Camellia the basic moves she would need to master to have any chance of success in the Trials. They spent the day there, whittling the afternoon down to an evening as the sunlight faded from the glittering surface above. When the training grounds had mostly emptied of fellow aspiring contenders and the dark precluded them from further safe practice, they headed back into the city.

Lynn and Phoebe split off a little bit before the… Damos residence (wait, what even is his last name? Does he have one?). On the way back to the shop, Damos chatted Camellia’s ear off about the benefits and pitfalls of using a dagger.

“While the reach is just abysmal, you can really duck in and out of tight spots super quick because of how small it is. With your size and speed, honestly, it might be a perfect fit. It does mean you gotta get up close, though. You won’t be able to summon any friends like I do— Ah! Sorry, not to make you think of that or anything.”

Camellia patted him on the shoulder. “It’s okay, Damos. I’m mostly over it.”

That was a half-truth. Camellia still desperately wanted to learn magic, but decided to shelve the thought for the next few days while she learned the basics. Seems like the talk Phoebe gave to her really did help change her outlook. Perhaps this group she’s found herself in isn’t so bad, after all.

Camellia moved on, “Hey, what do you want to do for dinner, anyway?”

“I thought you’d never ask.”