Kaos had completely spaced out for the duration of Sepra's more colorful and charming reenactment of the events that transpired leading up to their friendship. It had been seven years, and he had kept that promise, usually only participating as a support when he felt it was truly the right thing to do.
But she was right, deep down he was a fighter. He was always hesitant to use his wish in fights, every time someone using his halo hurt someone, his mind flashed back to the tear stained face of ten year old Sepra. She was the only person he really trusted to fight with his wish.
He wanted to fight in the arenas so badly, just like Sepra predicted he would seven years ago, but even more so, he didn't want to be the person he used to be, he didn't want to hurt people purely for his own convenience, and he didn't want to use his healing wish to bring about more pain.
Since his conversation with Dael'Jun, he felt like some sort of shackles had come loose, and he was finally free to want something. He had spent so long worrying about trying to be a good person that he forgot that he could want anything for himself.
"So that's pretty much it!" Sepra said, finishing her story, and snapping Kaos out of his reminiscing and deep thoughts. "Anything you'd like to add to the story?" she asked, looking at Kaos.
"A little embellished" He said with a shrug, knowing Sepra had probably gone overboard with her storytelling, despite his lack of paying attention.
"Whatever!" she laughed, looking back around the table, "We should do this regularly, you guys are fun!"
Sepra had been quick to make enemies back in the day, but Kaos realized how much she had changed over the years, turning her burning temper into an energetic charm. He however, hadn't changed that much, instead of having an opportunity to grow, he had spent most of the time just making sure he was using his wish in an upstanding way.
He felt like he was being pulled apart in all different directions. Part of him wanted to run from every fight, the voice in his head wanted him to do whatever he had to in order to become stronger than anyone around him, and finally, deep down, something inside him wanted to fight in the arenas, not as a support, but on the front line.
There was too much going on in his head right now. He closed his eyes, and shook his head subtly as if to ward away the pestering thoughts. Everyone was paying attention to some story Vasai was telling and thankfully didn't notice or question the indication of his pseudo mental reset.
"So we kept finding more and more of these bones." Vasai continued with his story, "I'm trying to collect a couple to figure out what they are, and then my dad pulls me behind a boulder, and this huge sand snake comes by! We ended up following it pretty far, and waited outside its nest for it to leave."
Kaos realized as he got his mind around to actually listening to Vasai's story that it was really interesting, and he wished he had been paying attention through the whole thing.
Kaos tried to piece together how this story might have started, and what the setting was. The only place that sand snakes would be is in the Badlands, but while there were quite a few people who would go into the Badlands, there were far less that actually made it back. Most students of the Dek class were there to be arena fighters, and while the Arenas were fantastic for fame and fortune, the Badlands, on the other hand, were an unexplored hell of sand and monsters.
"We waited for a long time," Vasai continued, "and honestly, I wasn't too keen on waiting for the monster to leave its nest while we were outside, but my dad wanted to see the nest without anybody getting hurt, so we waited."
Kaos realized that Vasai's dad had to be fairly strong, or be in possession of an impressive stealth wish for him to not only explore the Badlands, but to bring Vasai with him. Suddenly Vasai's combat prowess seemed to make a little more sense. After all, to those that explored the Badlands, the arena games were nothing more than a collection of sports matches. True wealth, fame, danger, excitement, and power, all came from exploring that endless desert that bordered Wondant.
Vasai had momentarily paused his story to take a drink before finishing the story, "Finally, it left again, and then my dad went inside the nest, making me stand lookout. He came back out and motioned for me to come back in, and I'll say it was totally worth it. Inside of the cave were tons of fresh sandworm skeletons!"
"They eat each other?" Nolly interrupted in disgusted surprise, slightly standing out of her seat.
"That's what I thought at first!" Vasai replied, with a grin and a point, as if she had given him the exact response he wanted, "the bones were all missing their heads, and ended up being slightly different sizes. We had to come back later to confirm, but turns out, sand snakes actually shed their spines instead of their skin!"
"Okay! That's somehow worse." Nolly said with a raised eyebrow, pushing her food away in disgust, and causing a few laughs from the group.
"So you think you want to explore the Badlands again after you graduate?" Sepra asked.
"Hmm…" Vasai responded, looking up and to the left as he usually did when he was thinking somewhat deeply, "I don't particularly have a career I want to do right now, but for now, I mostly enjoy just doing stuff with friends!" He slapped Kaos on the shoulder, and continued, "You guys with clear cut goals have it easy, I gotta be good at everything until I find out what I want to do!"
Sepra and Mallyjax chuckled, and the rest of the group gave smiling nods.
Although Kaos hadn't tuned into the beginning of the story, he felt like he understood Vasai a little better.