I agreed with my Mother's words. "Yes! Let's let go of the past and make sure we all support each other from now on!"
Rob came forward and put one arm around my neck and his other arm around my Mother's neck. I was shocked by this sudden group hug for a moment because it was the first time my brother hugged me since my childhood. However, after my shock subsided, I felt an overwhelming warmth. I quickly hugged him back with one arm and used my other arm to wrap around my Mother's back.
Rob finally spoke up, "no more holding back. I love you guys. Let me know if you are ever in need of help or even just an ear to listen."
My eyes were starting to water and my voice cracked slightly as I was replying. "I love you both too…I'll try my best to be more open with you all from now on."
My Mother, on the other hand, was giggling with joy. "You two are the biggest blessings of my life. I'll do everything to support your happiness."
I was unbelievably happy to make amends with my Mother and Brother, but we still had things to do, so I pulled away after a couple minutes of hugging.
"Come on, I want to show off all my water mage skills!"
Both my Mother and Rob chuckled at my words, "yes, we can't wait to see."
I grabbed a few training dummies and put them near the center of the training grounds. Then, I walked 200 feet away to start my target practice. Usually, Nick and I do our target practice from 100 feet away, but I wanted to be extra far away to show off to my family. Since I'm a better shot than Nick, 300 feet is actually the range that I can comfortably hit shots, but I didn't want to go all the way to 300 feet since I was a little nervous shooting in front of my family for the first time.
I looked over to my Mother and Rob standing on the side. "I'm going to shoot at those targets over there as fast as I can with my basic water spell. One of my specialties is my basic spell shooting speed and accuracy. I practiced this a lot over the years, so I shouldn't miss too many."
My Mother smiled and called out, "don't worry honey, we will be impressed with you no matter what. Your Brother over here can't use any magic at all haha."
My Brother never cared for magic, so he wasn't insulted at all from my Mother's words. "Yeah Rebecca, no need to feel pressure. Just have some fun."
Regardless of their words, I still wanted to do my best so they could see how strong I really was. I took a deep breath, like I had seen Nick do countless times before to calm his nerves and focus himself, then I started shooting the targets dummies one by one in rapid succession. After the first couple of shots, my nerves disappeared as I was back in my muscle memory of shooting. After I shot each dummy 3 times without missing any shots, I stoped shooting and turned to my family with a smile.
Both of their mouths were open in awe. My Mother was the first to react, she started clapping her hands and screamed, "Becky! That was so good! You could stop all kinds of bad guys with that!"
Rob rubbed his eyes in shock before praising me. "You might be the best shot of all the mages in the County! I've never seen someone so accurate!"
While they were busy being excited about my display of prowess, a group of County mages saw the commotion and walked over.
"Is that our lady Rebecca? I had no idea you were a basic water mage!"
The muscular grey haired man that called out to me was the captain of the County mages, Arthur. Since he was in charge of protecting my family, we were very familiar with each other. He had seen me grow up, so I was happy he can also see my skills now.
I wagged my finger jokingly, "actually, I'm not a basic water mage. I'm an intermediate water mage!"
Arthur's eyes widdened, "intermediate water mage?! How is that possible? It takes several years of training to become an intermediate mage and I've never seen you come here to practice. I was already surprised you had enough training to be a basic mage…"
"I have been training for many years, but I always did it alone in my room, so you wouldn't know about it."
"Really? Could we see your ice magic? Maybe I can give you some pointers since I'm also an intermediate water mage."
"I was actually just about to show them to my family here, so you all can watch as well."
Then, a young man that looked my age spoke up, "training alone for so many years means that you lack battle experience. How about you and I have a match so you can gain some experience?"
Arthur didn't look to happy about the suggestion. "Samuel! How could you ask to have a match with our lady?! She will of course struggle against someone experienced like you and it would be really bad if she ended up getting hurt!"
I looked at the young man more closely. "Samuel? I didn't recognize you?"
"Yes, my lady, this is my son. Sorry for his rude request."
Samuel and I used to play a lot as kids since he was always around while his Father was at work and I wanted someone my age to play mage and robbers with me. You could say we were childhood friends. Samuel looked annoyed that I didn't recognize him, but I had only seen him once or twice since we became teens.
While the mood had become awkward, I didn't want to miss out on a chance to spar with someone new and get some battle experience. So far I had only sparred with Nick and James, a lightning and fire mage. I had to get used to fighting as many types of mages as possible before my Royal mage test in a few weeks.
"Alright Samuel, I'll spar with you, but I'm going to only use my ice magic, I hope you can agree to do the same."