blonde woman a confused look. “Why does she do it if it’s so hard on her?”
“Well, she isn’t very good at fighting, but she wants to be helpful.”
Solomon chuckled. “That and no one else can make a weapon like she does.”
Mathieu mulled that over for a moment. “Huh.” He found her sacrifice rather noteworthy. “So, what kind of weapons do you two use, ladies?” Mathieu asked curiously.
Kiev and Avanon looked at each other, grinning. Standing, they went to the wall of cabinets together. Kiev wrapped a few of her marionette strings around her hand before pressing it to the wood; Avanon’s glowing hands opened hers. Mathieu suddenly realized that each cabinet would most likely only respond to that person’s power. It was a cleaver way to ensure privacy. That, however, was a concept that he found rather funny, considering the house they lived in.
The dark haired woman returned with a longbow, energy stones set down its arc. It was elegant, yet had a rigidity to it that was befitting the owner. In opposition, the blonde female brought back a satchel of small circlet blades.
Kiev sat first, opening her bag and holding up one circular blade. “Pretty, right?” The metal had a bright sheen to it, sparkling like starlight. “I can throw them, accurately might I add, and bring them back to me with my strings.”
“That sounds pretty damn useful.” Mathieu said, eyes slightly wider than usual. It was quite a very ingenious use of the woman’s power.
Solomon smiled. “Yes, it is. I’ve had my butt saved by them a fair few times.” The blond man leaned over and patted Kiev on the head. She beamed at him.
“And we all know that you usually need your ass saved.” The voice came from behind Mathieu and held a deep tremor to it.
“Darcia.”
“Solomon.” The men greeted each other over Mathieu’s head.
In the tension that ensued, Mathieu lazily looked over his shoulder at the newcomer. Darcia was tall, especially from this angle, and broad across the shoulder. His arms were corded with thick muscles even though he appeared to be in his mid-forties. The man’s hair was jet black and fell into his eyes, but what caught Mathieu’s attention was the mouthful of sharp, pointed teeth. They caught the light at they were bared at Solomon.
After a moment, though, Darcia’s face relaxed into a smile. “So, I wasn’t invited to the powwow?” The other three laughed while Mathieu sat there quietly as Darcia sat beside him.
Kiev bumped Darcia’s shoulder. “It wasn’t preplanned. I showed up to see how Mathieu was doing with his first day of training with that bastard.” Kiev stuck her tongue out in Solomon’s direction.”That’s when Avanon showed up to train with Solomon. We started talking about how much stronger we’d become and couldn’t resist a little scrimmage. These two showed up at the end when I was kicking Avanon’s ass, and now you’re here.”
“You were not beating me!” Avanon said indignantly.
Kiev laughed derisively. “The hell I wasn’t!”
“Ladies.” Darcia said with a small, teasing smile. “It doesn’t matter who won. But, it does seem that everyone came to fight with Solomon, myself included.”
Avanon’s eyes were full of excitement and she looked up at Solomon. “Oh, Blondie do it! You two fighting is the most badass thing. Last time,” her words were now directed at Mathieu, “they leveled our previous training building. It was phenomenal.”
“Why does that always get brought up? It wasn’t even my fault. If Darcia hadn’t busted out the Fire Sword, I wouldn’t have had to use magic, too.” Solomon huffed and blew his bangs out of his face.
Darcia chuckled and patted the blond man’s shoulder heavily. “You would’ve lost anyway, but I figured you deserved a challenge.”
“Except that Nathan put me in charge and he took it out of me, not you. Next time, you can tell him that you destroyed his building. We are not fighting today.” Solomon said resolutely.
“Afraid you’ll lose?”
“Never.”
“Got your butt handed to you last time.” The black-haired man mumbled off-handedly.
Solomon struck out with his foot, kicking the other man in the shin. “That’s crap and you know it. It was a draw. Elric complained about healing you up as much as he did me.”
Darcia rolled his eyes and huffed. “C’mon, spar with me. We’ll use those little wooden one.”
Kiev and Avanon nodded vehemently, egging him on. Mathieu sat there mutely, completely cut off from the conversation. He was somewhat invisible with these people, but sometimes he didn’t mind.
The blond man sighed, outnumbered. “Fine.