Samuel groaned as he woke up with massive head pain. 'That was a very mean uppercut' was the first thing that came to mind and then he realized the sun was rising on the horizon. 'Oh... that was a very very mean uppercut' was his next thought.
As he struggled to get out of bed in a drowzy state. He went to wash up his face and get some breakfast. With his mentor nowhere to be found he asumed she must be busy with something. So he quickly ate breakfast and went to do his daily job.
It was a rough day of work but it went on like usual. While Samuel was plagued by a sore mouth and chin the entire time, he still worked on like usual. When his work was finally over he went to get himself some food and ate it. It was a bit tougher than his breakfast as he had gotten more and more sore over the day.
It will pass eventually he imagined. As he went to the library for his daily studying, he spent quite a lot of time there. So much time so that he almost expected for Faleah to wait for him outside at their training spot. But alas she was not there. Making him worried for a few moments, but perhaps she had just gotten a sudden mission and had gone to take care of it.
'I will go and check that later. For now I will just train by myself.' Happy to have a break from his hardcore drill instructor. He spent the rest of the evening training by himself all he had learned so far. It wasn't until it got very late that he suddenly remembered what had happened the evening the day before.
Everything from the fight to the surprise magic from the half elven thief girl.
He had not seen Faleah for the entire day so he went to check with the guard post that checked who came and went where when leaving town. "Ah yes Ranger Captain Faleah left on a sudden mission yesterday night." Was the answer Samuel got from the post guard.
'Thats weird. She didn't tell me anything about it.' Samuel thought. After all he still had no idea of what he had done wrong. In his mind he had done nothing bad. He was not old enough yet to understand what his actions had looked like to someone without enough context to understand.
He spent the next few days just going about his days the same way as usual. Working, studying and training. When a whole week had passed he started getting worried. She had left no message, perhaps Faleah was never coming back. Those thoughts plagued his minds.
Especially after the second week of absence from his mentor. His mind started getting plagued by the images of his dead parents. What if something had happened and he would never see her again or even worse, be told that she had died somewhere on a mission.
Thankfully he was not bothered by the thugs again. Whenever they saw him he simply looked at them and they almost ran away every time.
They had certainly learned their lesson. Samuel tried to go back to the state of training of calmness, trying to find a way to activate the slow vision as he had come to call it. But he always failed to find a way to activate it no matter what he did.
The beginning of the third week of being alone he started losing it. He wondered what he was going to do. He could barely sleep and was plagued by nightmares. The second day in the evening however as he was training. A familliar face walked around the corner with a smile. "I see you have been working diligently even though I have been gone for so long." Faleah's voice echoed.
Samuel stood there for a few seconds. Before finally dropping his sword on the ground and he ran toward her and hugged her like a little child would their mother when scared and seeking comfort.
He could not stop the tears from flowing as he started sniffling.
Faleah stood there shocked for a few moments before finally hugging him and shushing him quietly. "Sorry I should have left you a message kiddo." She spoke with the warmth of a mother realizing how insecure the boy must have been on his own.
"I was just a bit angry with you because of a misunderstanding. Your friend cleared everything up for you though! I am sorry for knocking you out!" Faleah said while taking Samuel's shoulders and holding him away enough for her to take a good close look at him.
"You kept yourself busy and continued to live, I am proud of you! I hope you can forgive me for leaving you behind!" She said fixing his hair and face up a little bit. Wearing a proud smile. "You did something really good for that girl and she is going to have a much better life because of what you did! Take pride in that mr daydreamer!" She smiled again.
Samuel finally took a step back cleaning himself up. "Im sorry I didn't mean to cry on you, I was just scared I was never going to see you again. I thought you had gone and died or something." Samuel said with a final quivering breath as all insecurities faded.
"Hah Kiddo it takes a lot to get rid of me! I wont leave ya that easily!" She laughed.
Samuel had come to love her accidental slipping into her weird north accent from time to time. There was something genuine about it that gave him an extra feeling of peace.
The rest of the evening they spent eating while Faleah told him a little about her journey.
She had travelled all the way up to the Northern provincial capitol of Nicodravi bringing the girl with her there to some distant family. It had been a boring journey, but seeing a young girls eyes at the adventure of seeing places like the large city and all the different people had been refreshing.
She had brought her to live with one of her distant cousins who was a magic enthusiast. She had become a sponsored child of the family to attend one of the magical academies. Where she could one day choose her own fate.
A mage practically had a guaranteed future no matter what they did. Mages always had an easy time finding work as they were highly sought after, and extremely well paid. Apparently Ulma had great magic potential. Faleah had stayed there for a few extra days just so the girl would have a friendly face and become more confident in staying there in safety.
"So yeah kid.. you did a real good thing, at the price of nothing really. You saved her in more ways than one. So take some pride in that, mr upstart hero!" Faleah smiled at him like a proud mother while swinging slightly from side to side.
Samuel could only blush a bit as he sat there glad to have done something good, even though it didn't actually feel like he had done much. He had just defended himself and given a helping hand to a girl that really annoyed him because he wasn't heartless.
The days spent after that went back to the normality he was used to at that point.