Luvi lay on her bed with her fingers laced behind her head. Her ankles were crossed and she wanted very much to get up but she’d got to thinking about magic again. She’d woken from a bad dream where she’d taken her new scythe and gone around murdering people. The ‘memory’ of being in a marketplace and hacking down person after person shook her even as the memory faded. The dream had been a reflection of how dangerous she could be, if she allowed herself to let loose. As she reflected on her consciousness she realized that she truly was afraid of hurting her countrymen and that she was clearly affected by that fear.
“I am one, but I am still mighty,” she said to herself as she finally got to her feet. It was a realization that she hadn’t truly grasped until just now. She felt mighty and looked it to. She was physically different than from before magic became an integral part of her life. She felt like her changes were ugly to an extent, especially the muscle mass she was clearly building. She didn’t have the frame capable of supporting extremely strong muscles so she figured she never had to truly worry about becoming too buff.
Luvi yawned, letting her arms stretch out to her sides before standing and grabbing the scythe that was lying against the wall. Her current living situation was rather poor after purchasing the weapon. She’d had to downgrade to shelter barely more than a room big enough for a bed and a chest for her belongings. That being said, she still felt a lot happier since making her purchases.
It was a typical Spring day consisting of Luvi doing exercises. She was in a gym today, one where people partook in all sorts of physical activities. It was a nice area to practice weaponry or hand to hand fighting as well. She was going relatively light today and not stressing herself out too much. One of the usual people she trained with was feeling under the weather today and had taken the day off so Luvi felt her eyes wander to people working on unarmed combat. She’d debated working here on several occasions as an instructor but she’d never been a good teacher for combat.
Jumping rope was a new activity that she wanted to try out. She had heard good things about it and as she hopped about, she realized that it was a good way of keeping her heart in good shape. On top of that, the fast footwork seemed like it would be helpful for fighting in general. Even though she was fairly fit, she found the activity quite strenuous to do for even a minute at a time. Recognizing her weakness in this area, she worked on it over and over again, totaling to fifteen minutes of jump rope time.
She ended up watching some fights and the morning flew by. In the mid afternoon she found that things had slowed down a lot. She still had a good amount of time until the end of the day so she was going to have to find something else to do. It also didn’t help that she was feeling the exhaustion of spending the whole morning on her feet.
“If only there was a way to reduce my exhaustion,” she said to herself with a smile. She knelt down and stroked her index fingers along her ankles, infusing her limbs with Runes of Endurance. The relief she felt was immediate and powerful. Within moments her legs didn’t feel the least bit tired.
“I’m sure I’ll regret this later, but it’s the only way I can motivate myself to stick around,” she continued as she finally turned her attention to her scythe. It’d sat in the corner so far because she’d been waiting for things to die down first. The last thing she wanted was to accidentally lose control of such a large weapon in a crowded area.
Luvi lifted it with both hands, noting that the balance was going to be an issue if she wasn’t strong. It was an entirely metallic weapon, unlike a farmer’s who would most likely have one with a wooden rod. Luvi’s reasoning was that she was probably going to be whacking people with the pole part from time to time and she didn’t want to snap the wood with a strong strike.
“Goodness, I don’t think even two hands is enough to handle this thing,” she said as she tried giving it a test swing. She felt her core strain under the effort and it was all she could do to prevent the tip of the scythe from digging into the floorboards.
“I guess it can’t be helped, I’ll have to use runes,” she sighed, scribbling a rune of strength on her arms and her stomach. She didn’t mind that much, but she was disappointed that she needed to use them. She was fairly competent at making strong runes at this point so by the time she was done, she could lift the scythe like it was nothing, despite its weight.
“Much better,” she observed with a giggle. She swung it again, noting how she had little difficulty stopping it from moving further than she wanted it to. She swung it several more times, noting the position of the blade end at all times. She knew that this was probably the most important part about learning because she could very easily injure herself. She wasn’t wearing any armor and a swing with enhanced strength was liable to chop off a limb if she wasn’t careful.
It wasn’t long before she felt like she was ready to start doing something more complicated than singular swings. It felt natural to swing over and over again instead of stopping after each one. The momentum of the swing naturally made her want to spin and follow up with another slash, or twist her body to swing in the opposite direction. It was different from swinging a sword, but the basics were about the same. What was really different was that she was using both hands to swing. When she used her sword she typically only used one hand or dual wielded. This was mostly because of her incredible strength when using magic, but she couldn’t imagine swinging this scythe with only one hand, even if it wasn’t physically difficult to do so.
Luvi was quite pleased with how things were going so far. She’d expected to fail at even simple things like swings, but she supposed her strength and skill with swordsmanship helped her overcome those beginner hurdles. She wasn’t anywhere near ready to actually fight and her form could use work, but being able to swing the weapon without hurting herself was an accomplishment in itself. She would have continued, but she was wary of tiring herself out too much. Using muscles in new ways tended to make them incredibly sore in the following days and that wasn’t something she wanted to go through.
“You make swinging that thing look like it’s easy,” someone said as they walked up to her, noticing she was wrapping up her training.
“Magic helps,” Luvi said with a smile while wiping sweat from her brow. “I’m Luvi, and you are?”
“Boyle,” he said, looking more at the scythe than the woman before him. “Mind if I give it a try?”
“Go for it,” Luvi replied, though she added, “be careful, it’s very heavy.”
The man grasped it with both hands and a low stance, expecting the weight. He lifted it and curled it a few times. “This is heavy indeed. I envy you mages.”
“I could always make you one, if you wanted,” she said as she lifted a finger. Her tone was teasing and Boyle picked up on that.
“Oh, no thank you. I envy your power but I have a family to support. Can’t have them going without food because I went off dying unexpectedly.” He laughed and handed the scythe back to its owner.
“Fair enough,” Luvi said, “so you’re married then?”
“That I am,” he said with a proud nod. “Six years come tomorrow. I’ve got a romantic evening planned and everything.”
“Oh I’m sure that will be fun for the both of you,” Luvi said with a sigh. She was hoping the man was single given he was quite a looker. She had no qualms with secretly dating a married man but she didn’t think this one was the type given how excited he seemed for his anniversary.
“Speaking of which, I should probably get going before it gets too late. I’ve still got things to do.” He waved and then hurried off.
“Lucky guy,” Luvi muttered as he left. Feeling slightly sour though she knew she ought not to be, she hefted the scythe over her shoulder and went back home. She had a lot of planning to do for the rest of her season.
