APTITUDE

Chapter 2

Aleister's POV

What a tragedy! What a sham. A beautiful terra child, now a puppet of fate! Aleister simply couldn't believe it. A musa he'd love to peel the flesh off of and wear like a costume escaping The Sanctuary. They almost never knew what was best for them, and even if they did, they made their decision despite that, and it was one of the things the fae loved most about human beings.

"Why would you leave The Sanctuary, my musa?" he pleaded again, needing an answer.

"They lied to us all!" Sibyl said, exasperated, finally showing the wear of the past days events.

He sighed, putting cheek in his hand and motioning to Dominic that he was alright. Dominic always loved to feed into his theatrics.

"What lie could possibly cause you to leave? Child, you have no idea how hard me and my compatriots toil to keep eyes averted from the area," he scoffed slightly, "your kind thinks that their defenses have been enough for a thousand years to keep them hidden, but my forebears and I have quite the system in place to keep that place hidden."

Her mouth dropped open slightly and she was at a loss for words. There was nothing for her to say at all.

"It is the singular only fully safe place in this entire galaxy that human beings can now exist without constant fear. Why in the demiurge would you abandon that over lies?" he paused for a moment, looking thoughtful, then said more to himself than her, "But I cannot blame you for what you did not know…"

He wondered to himself now if he was as dumb as a rock. If the ones who came before him were as well. The cause of the escape of Sibyl was simply what he loved most about her kind: a never ending hunger for the unexplored. There was no putting the wings on a pixie after you'd pulled them off, as there was no stopping a human once they found their direction to go in.

He sighed and stared at her, tracing his eyes over her silvery hair and her muscular and toned arms, appraising her with thoughts on what to do. Normally, he and his ilk saved humans from slavery, bringing them to the Menagerie and allowing them to live their lives as they pleased as long as they hurt no one else. As a whole, most fae, who were already living on Earth when the astral rift formed, didn't agree with blatant human slavery. For them, for the most part, it was about how slavery was forced. Fae often "owned" others, whether it was by owning them with favors or actually winning their lives through pacts and promises, but this was all done by choice. No one was forced to enter into a pact or promise with a fae, but people were forced to become slaves to demons and be tortured, eaten, or worse.

He clapped his hands together, startling Sibyl from her thoughts, and said, "Well, you are here now, and nothing will change that. You cannot go back, so what would you like to do now?"

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Sibyl's POV

They sat together outside in Aleister's patio, the warm sun covering Sibyl's skin. She had never had sunlight bathe her like this. Her entire life she lived underwater in the middle of the Pacific ocean, The Sanctuary's only light was artificial, and when she ran away when she came to the surface the first time, it was dark outside. She leaned back into the steel chair, looking at the wild garden surrounding them. About a hundred feet in front of them in a clearing a group of twenty five humans stood in lines of five, each of them with a spear, doing repetitive basic movements while a lithe fae flittered between them, fixing their movements.

"So, from what I understand, your most basic goal is to…" Aleister took a sip of tea from a teacup and sighed, "go out into the world and see what is to be seen and understand what there is to be understood. Correct?"

Sibyl thought this was a wild simplification but simply nodded and replied, "Correct."

"Then your only goal should be to gain strength. Where you wish to go might makes right and being cunning is bound to run out at some point. From looking you over I see that The Sanctuary, safe as it may be, has not neglected to stay on the path of training its youth to battle. I'd like you to spar with Merle," he motioned to the black haired fae working with the spear bearers, "I want to see what you can do before I recommend a training regiment."

She stared at him for a moment, but was no longer surprised by his willingness to give. While she was changing and coming down to the patio with Aleister, he'd spoken more about himself to gain a bit of her trust. He was over five hundred years old, and had been a part of the Menagerie of Sins for a better part of over half his life. She also found out his favorite color was magenta and he despised lies and dealing with them, but had no problem with deceit.

She didn't know how the latter helped her, but the former was something she knew she would have to get used to if she was dealing with fae. From what she understood, it was a cultural bias but not something inherent to the fae themselves.

Rising to her feet she nodded, "Better now then never, right?"

Aleister clapped his hands together excitedly and stood with her, calling to the fae on the field, "Merle! Aptitude test!"

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The field was clear and the two opponents stood about twelve feet (3.6m) apart. Merle was using a pole arm waster, while Sibyl was using a sword waster. Aleister stood back from them as the referee and swung his arm down, indicating for them to start. Merle wasted no time, their medium yet lithe build shooting forward. Sibyl did not move to meet them, instead she watched their movements and calculated where they would go before they got there.

She loved hand to hand combat, it helped her bleed out all the worries that constantly haunted her mind. At the end when she still lived in The Sanctuary, after putting two and two together and seeing things not add up, she spent many nights like this with her peers. With one focus she could feel free of the tethers of the world.

Slipping under the polearm as it flung downwards towards her shoulder, she slipped to the side of Merle and thrusted her sword towards her side, but the fae was quicker, and flew away with time to spare. Merle walked from side to side around her, their black eyes darting from one place on her body to another. They came in again, swinging for the feet, but feigning and sliding themselves around Sibyl, but Sibyl had been doing basic sparring since she was six years old. A basic feign was a basic feign, and Sibyl's body turned with theirs. Merle's movement was like water, and as they were twisting behind Sibyl, they brought their pole arm upwards, then used that momentum to swing downwards. If she wouldn't have moved with the fae. Sibyl would have had the polearm directly to the back of her shoulders. Since she did follow the others movement, though, she was able to deflect the polearm with her sword, though Merle's force made her grunt.

Sibyl knew that the fae wasn't using their entire strength and it frightened her. She knew that Aleister was right, that training was going to be imperative going forward. As she made this realization her body moved instinctively, and the hand not holding her sword swung up from underneath the polearm and sword and connected solidly with the other's chin. One of the trainee's gasped. Merle lowered their polearm and Sibyl did the same.

Merle laughed loudly, putting both hands on her hips and throwing their head back slightly.

"Do you think this is what we get when a human is fed well their entire life and given actual care?" Merle chuckled to Aleister.

Aleister nodded slowly, "It is not perfect, but…"

"I know what you're thinking," Merle continued for him, "If she can learn to manipulate mana, if they can learn…"

"Yes, exactly. Merle, this war of attrition could finally be changing."