Burning Rage - 2

Dirt stained my toes, grass cutting an itching figure as I turned through the surroundings. Swiping my claws into the air and glaring at the open sun. Beating its heat over my clothed body.

My feet felt so free though. And for that reason, and that reason alone, I found no hostility in my glare.

Only an absent wonder as I turned towards the source of my mild wonder. The maiden-dressed girl. Armed with natural steel and some sort of compass held within her fingers.

Pointing her towards some nascent goal.

"Atalante" She spoke, I grunted out a response. Finding no humor in what she ultimately thought immensely amusing. All judging by that tiny smirk upon her face.

Leading me towards that same goal of hers. Yet because of the information… or lack thereof. I found myself following.

For I knew that she held no such hostile intentions. 

I trusted in that shared goal. A future where we both passed, praises held in our honor. For the simple fact that we were upon the few to garner the attention of those higher figures. In that we completed this obviously rigged test with naught but our wits.

And with cooperation unseen between what others would see as some rival. I knew, and she knew.

A shared known. That bought a certain amount of trust between the other.

"Galarna" I spoke too.

"Think." She responded, "This was to be the day of our second lesson. We both know this."

"Of course," I responded. And in my mind I thought only what that was supposed to mean. Other than that this was an extension of our previous lesson.

"But what was that previous lesson? A review of the basics?"

I tilted my head, grabbing the collar of the creature that dared to sneak up on my back, trying to claw my neck out with its sharp and deranged claws.

"It was… and an…" I trailed off, "Was that the truth?"

I… it had just occurred to me. The only other subject that had been taught. No, it was more like it was forced upon us. Thrust like some sort of afterthought, like she had planned for only half of the lesson.

At the moment, so bored by the review was I, that I didn't notice. So enamored with the glimmer of these new and exciting -read boring- lessons, that I barely noticed the oddity of it all.

"Then…" 

"Yes," She responded, her voice that same even tone that she had held this whole time. And with a swipe of her long sleeve she brought out that same cube that we had tinkered with so.

"I was playing with it just the other night. Deciphering the secrets that it held. Only I found no such pattern, not until…"

I took another look at the cube, finding the strange glint of its pieces drawing my attention so.

"A map… it was a map. A clue for the next lesson."

Galarna smiled. Nodding in my direction, "Yes… yes it is."

"But where, I didn't have the patience to finish it?"

Galarna tilted her head, pointing it to the barely visible cave. Hidden under the waterfall. A natural, yet unnatural feature. 

In that it was unnatural to be here, in this barren plains and natural in that it looked so real.

But it was an illusion was it not?

I touched my hand to the water. Reaching back not even a moment later, letting the drops fall over my hand.

"This is real… no mere illusion." I spoke, my voice barely even a whisper.

"It is."

But I was pushed into that cave, head first and startled. There was a moment of hesitance, before I ultimately decided that it was of no use.

In an act of pure pettiness. In that last moment before my body was fully consumed by water, I pulled the hand pushing me, dragging her with me under the water. Wrestling and laughing raucously against the ultimate silence.

"Asshole." Galarna muttered. Yet I found myself caring not for her opinion. Not her spoken one of course.

As that smile of hers as we strode further according to the map. Searching through hidden locations. Surviving traps made to main and injure.

Playing petty pranks against the other, in retaliation of the previous.

It was a blast. One I had thought I would never experience again.

But as we arrived at the final room. A staring professor amusedly smirking at us. I stilled. Like the cat that caught the canary she strode further and placed a hand over our heads.

"Congratulations." She spoke, a blazing fury of flames washing over us. I flinched at the heat, but all it did was wash away the grime and dirt, the water that clung to us. "You've failed."

"Wha-" I could barely even finish my sentence before I found myself sent back to that same patch of dirt I had woken up in. Another staring furiously at the stars above me.

Furiously fiddling with that cube of hers. Only to do the same move again and again. Swearing that she was right. That her calculations had been flawless.

"What if that was it…" I decided then, and only then to address the issue, "That maybe this was a red herring. Read the note in your pocket again. Did it not say Boxed Survival?"

"But what does that have to do with anything?"

"Survival. The map was a red herring, as I said, we were never meant to follow it but to…" I trailed off, not knowing how to finish my thought.

"To what!" She yelled, that previous frivolous nature of hers forgotten as she flailed in the dirt.

"I don't know!" I yelled back, equally as furious, "I'm honestly grasping at straws right now."

"GAH-" She yelled, her eyes set in that same furious look, mirroring my own. The cube thrown into the air.

"Cube…" I spoke.

"Cube?" Galarna asked.

"It said Boxed, not cubed."

"And? Boxed and cubed mean the same thing… basica-" She turned, once more looking at the cube she had thrown at the ground. At the map she had constructed from it.

"Wait… give me a moment."