-Examination-

All the grass in the backyard pushed forward and laid flat against the dirt, while one piece grew right beside Sage, a blade of grass that was now as tall as him, he then gave the blade of grass a high-five.

"Wow, that's really good, I can see you've-"

"That's nothing! Watch this!" Sage cut Aqua off, immediately showing them another trick he had learnt. This time, he spun around, extended his arms, and every plant in his mom's garden grew thorns.

"Oh that's great, you've gotten really good at doing things faster and on command which will be really useful when-" Aqua started, but Sage cut them off again.

"No, that's nothing! Watch this! Watch this!"

Sage then spun around again and all the thorns retracted, making all the plants exactly as they were before.

"Oh cool, I didn't even teach you that one."

Silence filled the backyard as Sage stared at Aqua.

"Is that it?" They asked, "No, I just didn't want to interrupt you again." Sage said.

"It's okay, I know you're just excited, and I'm happy for you, it really looks like you've learned a lot." Aqua said.

"Oh no, you haven't seen NOTHING yet." Sage said, filled with energy once again.

He bent over a flower in the garden, grew it so tall it looked like a tree, and then moved it so the tip would touch the ground again, making an arch out of it's stem that resembled a bridge, Sage then sat on it, to demonstrate he had made the stem stronger, something Aqua had also taught him to do.

"That's great, I see you finally learnt to shape plants, took you long enough." Aqua said.

"Uh...Aqua?" Sage asked.

"Yeah?"

"I don't know how to shrink it." Sage said, now realizing he had made a huge flower-bridge in his parents' garden.

"Oh don't worry about it, we'll clean up after. Anything else?"

"Well, yeah. I know you don't really like talking about my past memories..." Aqua seemed to become slightly more stiff and less relaxed after he had said that, "I learned the thing my past self did in the tunnel, where I grew a whole big plant from just a seed."

"There's no way you learnt that on your own." Aqua being skeptical was only an opportunity to prove them wrong, so Sage dashed towards the shed, and pulled out a small bag of seeds, he then reached his hand into the bag and sprinkled a couple seeds across the lawn, then he focused hard, threw his hands up, and 4 large plants immediately sprung out of the ground.

"How'd you learn that?" Aqua asked, they had taught him a lot but they weren't expecting him to master a spell like that in such a short amount of time so they had never bothered to teach it to him.

"I've been reading that book on nature fairy magic you have, it explained how to do the spell but I couldn't quite get the hang of it for a reeeeeal long while until I remembered what I did in the memory, this spell is for defence, so you cast it the same way you would for any other defensive spell, like a big ol' plant shield." Sage explained, Aqua was quite surprised that Sage had gone from not wanting anything to do with this fight to training and learning complex spells without even being asked to.

"That's impressive, looks like you're just as good at magic as you were before. And it looks like you're ready for your exam." Aqua said. "Oh, great. And that'll be tomorrow I'm guessing?"

"Why wait? We're already out here anyway, I'll just have to grab my clipboard." Aqua said casually.

"We're doing this today? But I haven't studied!" Sage argued.

"You don't need to, you've already shown me that you're prepared." Aqua said, already leaving the backyard to grab the clipboard they had prepared ages ago with all the tests for the examination. Sage paced nervously until they returned with the clipboard.

"Alright, first test. I want you to climb a tree. Without flying up there, that is." Aqua said simply.

"That's it? Honey, I climb trees all the time, even before I got my wings." Sage said confidently.

"Don't call me that."

Sage turned around to the big apple tree next to the fence of his backyard, when he walked towards it and stood beside he realized just how high up the branches were, there was a reason he hadn't ever tried to climb this tree before, it was impossible to climb. Regardless, he reached his hands above his head and reached for the branch that was too high to reach, it didn't do anything of course. He looked back to Aqua, who was observing his struggle, pencil in hand. Sage stepped on the edge of his fence, stabilizing himself by leaning on the tree, unfortunately he still was quite high enough to reach a single branch. He hopped off the fence and looked at the tree again...this was a magic test, this was a test of his magical ability, Aqua said no flying but they didn't say anything about any other type of magic, and that gave Sage an idea, it was easy enough to control one blade of grass, a little more couldn't hurt. So he started growing out the grass underneath his feet, slowly and steadily until he saw the difference, he saw himself being lifted up, getting higher and higher, it was working! He reached his hand out as he grew the grass higher, until his hand hit the branch, then he simply pulled himself up, and used the wall of grass to help stabilize himself as he sat down on the branch. He was expecting Aqua to be a bit mad at him for cheating but they weren't mad at all, in fact they applauded him and wrote something down on their clipboard.

"You've learned to use your magic in a practical way, and also how to propel yourself into the air, both will be useful to you. Two more tests and we're done, you're almost there. The next test will be a test of strength and patience, grow me a tree." Aqua said, and they sat down on the grass, indicating they expected this to take a while.

"Uh...you have any tree seeds?" Sage asked, Aqua remained quiet and still, only observing, not helping. Sage looked around the backyard and noticed his apple tree, and that gave him an idea. He picked an apple from the tree, walked up the steps, pulled back his sliding glass door, went inside, got a knife, and cut the apple in half. He then grabbed the small black seed inside and headed back out the door. He dug a small hole in the ground with his shoe, placed the seed in it, and covered the hole back up. He then stood back, and prepared to grow an entire tree from just the seed.

He hovered his hands over the seed and tried hard to grow it, it should be as easy as a stem, some grass, or a vine but it wasn't. Since the seed was in the ground he wasn't sure he was even making any progress. That is, until he saw something green, poke through the grass, it grew a couple of leaves, a couple more, then it started to look more like bark, and then there was a very tiny little tree in his backyard.

But that's where he had to stop, if he continued he feared he wouldn't have enough energy left for his final test, and that's what would really count.

"You never said how big the tree had to be, and this is, indeed, a tree." Sage said, displaying his tiny apple tree.

"I didn't expect you to grow a full one, just wanted to see how far you'd come before you gave up. I heard that trees are one of the hardest things to grow, so the fact you got any more than a sprout is very impressive, and it shows overall through your training you've strengthened your magic ability and you can try growing new things without having to practice it a bunch of times."

Aqua left their clipboard on the ground as they stood up.

"And it appears you've made it to the final test, and the final test is a battle." The water from the bird bath behind them began slowly falling out and making it's way through the grass, "You must win a fight against me." The water then pooled around Aqua's feet, Sage now knew this to be their way of preparing for battle.

"But you've been studying magic your whole life! I've only been studying magic for a month! Clearly this isn't a fair fight..." Sage argued.

"Untrue, you've had just as much training as me in your past life, you just had to remember what you could do. Not to mention you're a prince, fairy royalty are naturally more powerful. But if you can't defeat me, then you don't have even a shot at defeating Ms. Head-hunter herself."

Aqua explained, Sage looked around frantically wondering if Aqua was expecting him to strike first, if they did, he must have run out of time. Aqua raised their hands and the water at their feet came forth, wrapping around Sage like a rope and lifting him into the air. Sage struggled against the water rope, it didn't get any more loose.

"Hey Aqua, what do you call a water fairy that's not very smart?" Sage yelled out, loud enough he was sure Aqua could hear him. "Huh?" Was all Aqua could say before they fell forward, Sage had distracted them long enough to cover their feet in grass and trip them, their lack of focus dropped the water, and Sage along with it. Sage then wrapped Aqua in grass, assuring they couldn't move. "The answer is Aqua...hey...what's your last name? How come you've been living under my roof for a month and I don't know your last name?" Sage said, he immediately flew up instinctually as Aqua broke free of the grass and came charging at him, when they saw him flying, they quickly flew up even higher and kicked him to the ground. Sage hit the ground with a thud, he then grew all the grass around him like a dome to protect him. Aqua came down, and made their water into sort of a water-whip, using it to thrash against the grass dome to hopefully break the grass. When this didn't work, they decided to use their fists to pound on the grass dome, that's when Sage grew thorns from it, that barely missed Aqua's hands. Suddenly Sage felt his socks get wet, he looked down and saw a bunch of water at his feet, when Aqua hit his grass dome with all that water some must have seeped through the cracks. The water in the grass dome shot upwards, and attached itself to Sage's head, he really wished he had some time to take a deep breath before that happened, he didn't have much air now. This forced him to leave the grass dome, when he faced Aqua again he wanted to try something new, something he hadn't shown them. He used his powers to grow the leaves so much they popped off the tree he had climbed earlier, the same way he could grow flowers so much their petals would pop off. When the leaves fell, Sage grew thorns into them, stopped them from falling with his telekinesis, and threw all the thorn leaves at Aqua, forcing them to narrowly dodge the leaves and loose their focus, and all the water around Sage's head went back to being normal water and simply fell to the ground. Sage then threw the bag of seeds he had in his pocket straight at Aqua, he grew the seeds into plants that wrapped around Aqua and threw them to the ground. For good measure, Sage lifted the plants a bit only to slam them back down to the ground. "Alright, alright you got me." Aqua said, Sage got rid of the plants binding them and allowed them to move freely.

"So, how'd I do?" Sage asked, proud of himself for being able to defeat his own trainer.

"Very well, only I think you could use a little more attention to detail." Aqua said, and at that moment Sage was immediately lifted into the air by his hair. The whole time they had been fighting, Aqua had managed to soak every inch of Sage, first with the water ropes, then with the water at his feet and lastly with the water attached to his head.

"I'm not very good at telekinesis." Aqua said calmly, they used all the water on Sage to continue to float him in the air. "But I'm very good at hydrokinesis." They then threw Sage at the wall of his house, he couldn't move, every spot of him that water had touched was being controlled by Aqua. Aqua floated him into the air again, "So Sage, what do you do when someone's out-smarted you?" Sage tried to move his hands to cast a spell but the water on them forced them into fists. "What's that behind you?" Sage asked, Aqua gave him an unimpressed expression. "When you're caught in a tight situation what should you do?" Aqua continued to hint at something, but if they taught him this then he really couldn't remember it. He tried to look around his backyard for something that might help, only for Aqua to force his face to look back at them. Sage then suddenly remembered two things at once, his wings weren't wet, he had only flew once this whole fight, and that led him to remember what Aqua was hinting at, they were hinting at advice they had given him one training session. "If you're ever in a bad spot..." he said as he flapped his wings and made them appear again, "Just fly away!!" He said as he flew upwards as fast as he could, then he started flying in circles as high as he could, this would dry him off, now he was flying down as fast as he could Aqua's direction, knocking them down again. Then he stood over them and buried them in grass, vines, flower stems, and sprinkled some of those seeds over them for good measure.

Sage waited for Aqua to try breaking free or something, but the restraints stayed still. "Okay...can I let you out or are you gonna start fighting me again?" Sage said.

"Aw, I was only trying to catch you off guard. But it looks like you passed the exam." Aqua said, as Sage let them out of the grass-vine-flower-seed cocoon he had made. "Great..." Sage said, trying to say it in his normal happy tone but failing miserably. He sat down on the stairs to the door, holding his head up with his hands, otherwise he might have just fallen asleep with how tired he was after that fight.

"Hey, what's with the sad tone? You just beat me into the dirt, you should be pretty proud of that." Aqua said, sitting beside him on the stairs to the door as the sun started to set, wow, they've really been out here all day. The sky started to turn orange, and the clouds looked pink, making it all look like a pretty painting.

"I'm glad you're here." Sage said, smiling up at Aqua.

"Huh? Why?" Aqua asked.

"Because sunsets are better with you."

Aqua was looking down, making it look like they were zoning out too much to hear him.

Sage tapped them on the shoulder to catch their attention.

"Hey, I said-"

"I know what you said. I'm tired, okay? I'm gonna head up to bed." Aqua stood up and turned towards the door, but Sage stopped them.

"Am I annoying you?" Sage asked, and looked straight into Aqua's eyes when they turned back to him.

"What? Of course not..." Aqua had started feeling bad for giving Sage the cold shoulder a while ago, but the way Sage said those words just made their heart hurt.

"But you always act weird whenever I say anything nice to you...I thought I was annoying you...I do that a lot actually."

Aqua sat back down beside Sage and started to explain themself.

"Well...fairies don't usually give me compliments. I'm just not used to receiving them I guess. I dress and act really different to the way other fairies do, I'm not 'proper' like them. I don't feel bad about it at all, I like being different. But now I'm not really used to fairies being nice to me, I guess I don't know what to say. So thank you, Sage, for your compliments, for letting me stay here and for not treating me any differently."

"Whatever you say, gorgeous." Sage said, giving Aqua a wink,

"Thanks."

"Finally, you can take a compliment." Sage said, playfully giving Aqua a soft punch in the shoulder.

"Well, I actually am tired...I'll see you tomorrow?"

"Yeah of course, I'll go to bed soon too, just wanna take a couple of pictures of the sky."

Sage waved to Aqua as they left through the sliding glass door, then he picked up his phone he had left on the table and took a few pictures of the sky, and that's when it finally set in. Was he about to take on the head hunter tomorrow? Aqua wanted him to do this as soon as possible, and he just proved he could...there was really no reason he wouldn't be fighting Josephine tomorrow. He could die doing that, this could very well be his last sunset.

Well, at least it was pretty.