"Good Boy. Guess you're not as thick-headed as Melinda made you out to be." With that remark and Jared's book in her hands, Kaelin swiftly turned the pages to Jared's index.
Name: Jared Insight
Race: Human
Core Concept: Streams of Thought.
Titles: Problem child, The Curiosity of a Cat, Bookworm Nerd, The Strive of a Wannabe Journalist.
Understandings: Stage 1 -> 2
Stats Summary: Mental resilience, above average… for a kid.
End of index
"Yep, as expected." Kaelin glossed her hand over the book and continued.
' If his mental state is the only thing above average, then traveling slowly like this isn't going to do much. Well, at least spending time with me has gotten him past the Survival stage of his development. He's getting comfortable providing for himself, I just need to make sure that he actually can when I'm gone.'
Kaelin sat up, getting ready to move as she spoke. "It's only been a week, so I guess I shouldn't have expected too much."
'Training your body shouldn't be that hard. While in stage one, pushing his physical activities would do him justice.'
"Huh," Jared looked up, remarking with a sense of confusion and worry in his voice. "Yeah… it's only been a week, what about it?"
Kaelin nodded gently with an unnaturally soft tone. "No worries. We'll start traveling a bit."
"So get my stuff together?"
With a soft nod from Kaelin, Jared got up, preparing his things with Toast walking by his side.
Kaelin calmly looked down at Jared's Journal, as a childhood memory slowly came back to life. As if overlapped with reality, a faded image of a hand slowly appeared, brushing past her shoulder and pointing into her open Journal.
The memory of the voice spoke to her like a teacher, a caretaker, closer to a father figure than anything else. With its mild-mannered tone, a sense of comfort overcame her, like a scared daughter being consoled.
The memory- 'One's journal is like a one-sided window. As much as it can tell you about yourself, if you look through it, the closer you come to understanding the things you would rather not know, much less share with someone else.'
The hand slowly vanished.
With a sudden bite of the lip and a single drop of blood, Kaelin stood up as her ragged cloak floated with the wind.
"Alright, we have a long day of traveling ahead of us. Our destination is set, so there are going to be fewer and fewer breaks from here on out."
"Wait up?" Jared looked up from his shoes. " You're training me now?"
With a map in hand and her back facing him, Kaelin walked. She closed the map, climbing over a fallen log without a second thought, continuing forward.
"I already told you my reason. So you either catch up or get lost, but you're not going to slow me down."
"Damn! Just, Ugh!" Jared sprinted off the floor, grabbing his bag and charging after her. "You could have at least allowed me to finish tying my shoes."
Toast- "Hold up!" Toast called. The Orange fox leaped onto Jared's shoulder as Jared sped after her.
As Kaelin slowly disappeared through the swarm of trees, Jared leaped over the fallen log, vanishing right behind her.
…
"Come on, keep up!" Kaelin leaped off the ground, grabbing a hold of a sturdy branch. In one motion, her feet comfortably rested on it, trying to see if the path would open up further ahead.
Jared, out of breath and stumbling as if his legs were going to fall apart, climbed an overgrown root the size of a garden fence. With one leg over and a slip-up of balance, Jared's face planted into the dirt.
Cracking a smile, Kaelin covered her mouth. "Alright, five-minute break. Don't go anywhere."
With his face deep in a puddle of dense mud, a small air bubble formed, growing till it popped. "Thank,"
Following that, the air bubble popped with a second delay. "You"
Kaelin chuckled.
"Alright, I'm just going to take a look up ahead, so take this time to restore as much energy as possible. Staying active and moving constantly is a core building block of becoming a Journalist. So you better learn that lesson fast."
And with that, Kaelin turned away from him, looking up at the rest of the tree planning out her jumps. In a second, everything was planned, and with one strong leap, Kaelin was standing among the clouds overlooking the treetops, witnessing the birds migrate from one side of the world to the other. Although seeing for miles, nothing but trees and mountains were in sight.
Kaelin- "Alright, so we still got a good distance away."
Kaelin- "It should be fine, though. No one would even bother traveling this close to the Four Eyed Mountains, especially when those Obelisk gates are opening around this time."
" At least we have that going for us and-"
Kaelin looked down and Jared wiped the mud from his face, taking long and deep breaths, fighting the tiredness in his body.
"- It looks like the little one is going to need more training anyways."