"Hmm... is that so?" Diana said, narrowing her eyes toward Chen for a moment. Seeing through his act wasn't that hard at for her, yet she didn't have any reason to care for anyone's suspicions regarding her. Hopefully, this business would be solved quite soon, or... at least she had company for a long time.
"By the way, I hope that you guys are looking forward to dinner. It's going to be to die for, hehe!" Diana laughed heartily at the expense of the Cadets as she walked back inside the temple, ready to begin their long, arduous training.
Days turned into weeks, and weeks to months, or so the time spent with Diana would seem to the Cadets, lodged in such a place bereft of civilization. The wildlife slowly began to acclimate to Diana's present within their space, making the Cadet's living far easier, with food and drink becoming plentiful. The temple counted with ample lodgings as well as a pair of huge indoors baths that must have been purification pools of some sort in the days of old. Hot water was easy provided. Aside from the isolation —which Ires seemed to enjoy quite a lot— and Diana getting "a little too friendly" sometimes, there would be no problems at living with the dragon.
The training, however, was another whole ball game. Diana's teaching may have been cryptic and hard to follow but they would allow the Cadets —except Viola and Ires, for some reason— to tap into the powers hidden within them. Magic of the likes that no one in ages was able to use: the power of the Song Knights.
Through the chanting of an Elemental Aria unique to each of their own, the Cadets —now full-fledged Beginner Song Knights— would not only be able to improve their Vessels current powers with true Elemental Magic but also form a contract with a being from the Spirit Realm that lays beyond this reality. Phoenixes, undines, gnomes, wraiths and even (lesser) dragons, each a unique individual could answer their prayers and form a lifelong bond with the Song Knights, granting them incredible powers and abilities that no one else in the world possessed.
One day, after the harshest depths of winter had long since gone past Orello, Diana called the Song Knights to the same ruins they met at first.
"All of you have grown quite a lot in the past few weeks. I guess that there's nothing else that I can teach you. Also, 'that person' is taking way too long, I'll have to go look for them and see if they got lost inside of another paper bag... Hehehe!" Diana joked while leaning against the old church. She made a solemn pause, taking the time to gaze at the improvised cemetery in which she personally buried all of the unknown soldiers from months ago before continuing, in a grave tone,
"Times are changed. I have no doubts that our meeting wasn't a coincidence, but Fate itself at work. You guys are probably going to face a lot of hardships before you, I don't know what, or why, but you must weather the storm, that's all I have to say.""I—" Diana scratched the back of her head nervously while a faint rosy blush painted her cheeks,
"I'm not that good with partings. To say the truth, I feel like we are gonna see each other again. And... when that happens I swear that I'll let you all punch me for this, but..." Diana reach into her pocket and drew more than half a dozen music sheets, inscribed with strange scrawled characters that were painful just to watch. One could only imagine how awful such a song would be if played, almost as if it was a curse.
"To prove that you are worthy of the power I bestowed upon you... consider this your graduation ceremony," Diana said, changing back into her true form for the first time in months —revealing that she could do it without removing her armor— before taking flight, with a tremendous wing beat.
"See ya, kiddos. Someday, sometime..." The massive dragon said before flying away. On her way out, she threw the pages at them. The ungodly screams that followed were cue enough to herald the summoning of 8 of the same monster that almost killed all of them a few months ago. Now it was time to put Diana's teachings to test and see how powerful Song Knights truly are.
Talk about being bad with partings...
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