The Systems Challenge

Elin didn't understand the purpose of the game 'bloody knuckles' but she was confident that the way things were turning out were the way Jonas had expected them to. As she doubted that he'd expected her to have used her spells to first protect her hands from his slaps, then she used a spell to improve her agility. That way she could move faster, even if only to avoid getting hit as well.

Though, when Jonas wasn't able to keep Elin from slapping his hands, she could tell that he wasn't happy. He might have excellent eyesight, but that didn't mean he had the reaction speed to match. Which in turn meant that she was able to outpace him.

However, Elin was quickly getting bored of this. While at first it was interesting to see what it was, it wasn't anything that held her attention, nor did she see the point of the game. If anything, it felt like something new recruits to her father's guards would find interesting because of how it would show just how 'tough' they were.

When the stew started to get served, Elin immediately stopped playing that game with Jonas. She doubted that Jonas would mind much, but at the same time, she didn't care. Elin had lost interest with that game already, so he'd have to make it worth her while to either continue that game or to start another. Not that she really expected for anything that Jonas could possibly offer to make her even lightly interested.

"You're not too bad at that," Jonas said to Elin when he filled a bowl of stew for himself. "Have you played that before?"

Elin shook her head. "I didn't know what that game was before, but it wasn't that interesting."

"Maybe you just weren't hitting his hands hard enough," Kim remarked, chuckling.

Elin scowled. She didn't need Kim to say anything in support of her. It wasn't like she really cared about Elin's feelings anyway.

"It doesn't matter how hard she hit my hands, it mattered that I could get out from her striking my hands," Jonas replied.

"Need me to heal your hands?" Heather offered, her voice sounding super sweet. "I mean, you did take a lot of blows."

Jonas sighed. "I'm sure my hands will recover soon enough on their own. She didn't hit that hard."

Elin didn't care what Jonas said about the matter. She didn't hit him very hard because she didn't care to. She was confident she could have hit harder if she'd wanted to, but somehow the way that Jonas said it, made her feel like he was hinting at that she wasn't able to hit him very hard.

At that point, she moved to sit by Elwin and Owen, mostly to avoid the conversation going on. She wasn't sure if it was the fact that they were talking about her like she wasn't there or the way they were talking about her. It felt like how Kim had been treating her when they'd been searching for Elmo and Jonas after killing Aquis when he'd attacked them.

Still, she did her best not to worry too much about it. As she was confident that they'd move on to some other topic soon enough. She just didn't want to hear what else they might have to say about her. At least in regards to that game that was only interesting at first. Until it started to drag on with nothing really going on when it came to her turn to hit Jonas' knuckles.

"Well, we've started eating," Elwin said after a few minutes. "Do you want to wait until we've finished before you tell us about what happened? Or are you going to start telling us while we eat?"

Elin looked towards Sonya in time to see her roll her eyes. "If you'd like, we could wait until the morning," Sonya replied, her voice sounding sweet and innocent while her eyes were showing her annoyance. "I mean, it is getting pretty late and shifting forms so much is rather tiring. Plus, you're very impatient. It might be good for you to try and learn some patience."

Elin wasn't sure why, but the way Sonya said that made her want to laugh. She didn't think that Elmo had noticed her reaction, but hoped that he wouldn't. She didn't need to be added to the center of his focus right then. Not when Sonya was clearly provoking him.

Although, Elin wouldn't help but wonder if maybe there was a reason why Sonya was acting this way. As it was possible that there was something she wasn't especially eager to tell them. Something that she might try to either gloss over or skip over entirely.

Although, Elin wasn't sure if that was accurate or not. As far as she knew, Sonya might just be reacting to Elwin's impatience, which was starting to get on Elin's nerves as well, despite the fact that it wasn't being directed at her.

"Elwin, why not just shut up and eat?" Owen asked, sounding more bored than anything else. "If she doesn't want to say just yet, let her be. She'll tell us soon enough."

Elwin sighed and Elin was confident that he wasn't going to say anything else, though she suspected that it was more because he really did want to know, but wasn't good at waiting for things like this and recognized that if he continued on with his complaints, that it likely would take even longer.

At least Elin assumed that Sonya was serious about delaying their story if Elwin continued to press the issue.

"Is it always this bright at night now?" Heather asked, suddenly, startling Elin.

"Yeah," Bart replied. "Apparently the light's coming from the stellar bear, so we at least can know where it is when we're pretty close to it."

Heather looked over in the direction that the bear was. "Why did you guys want to fight it anyway? Didn't the announcer say that we were supposed to avoid it?"

"How can we know that we can't beat it if we don't try?" Elwin asked, apparently still in good enough spirits to be pleasant about this issue. "If we take their word for everything, then we'd just be letting them do whatever they wanted to us. Which would make us no better than the monsters they've been putting us against mostly."

Elin nodded. She could understand what Elwin was getting at, though she hoped that Sonya and Heather both agreed about how the people running this competition couldn't really be trusted anyway.

"Okay, so your excuse for trying to fight the stellar bear without knowing anything about it is that you couldn't be sure that it wasn't a good idea or not?" Heather asked, sounding like she had doubts about the logic, if not intelligence, of the decision to fight the gigantic bear. "Sounds to me like someone might be a little suicidal."

Elin couldn't help but start to giggle, earning her a glare from Elwin. Not that she minded. She completely understood. Though, she also couldn't help but wonder if he is a little suicidal because of his brother having been killed.

"Doesn't matter if he is or isn't," Kim said. "There really wasn't much arguments against it, though it does seem like it is harder to kill than we'd originally thought."

"How so?" Sonya asked, sounding more interested than Elin would have thought.

"Didn't you already talk about this before you came to get us?" Elmo asked, sounding like he'd rather not deal with that subject. "I mean, you did spend time here for a while before coming to get us, right?"

"I can't remember if it was brought up or not," Sonya admitted. "If it was, we didn't get into the details about it like we are now."

"Regardless, of anything else," Patricia said, getting them back on topic from where they were going, "the point is that out of everything we were able to do, the bear seemed to only get annoyed by anything we did." Patricia paused to take a breath as she shook her head. "I can't even say that we actually hurt it, even a little bit."

Elin nodded to herself, even though she knew no one was looking in her direction. She recognized that no one was paying her any attention, but she at least felt like she really was part of this discussion, even if she didn't say anything.

"Yeah, that would make it difficult," Sonya nodded. "Though, have you thought about alternative means of trying to hurt it?"

"What're you talking about?" Owen asked. "Are you suggesting we try to poison it?"

Sonya shook her head. "Actually, what I mean is that you probably tried attacking it like any other opponent, like with the troll. But, we needed to have destroyed that thing that prevented fire from getting close to it in order to beat it. So, with this in mind, we could always try to see if it was weak maybe in its eyes, its mouth, or any other place you could think of."

"You know, that might be a good idea," Owen remarked. "Only, shouldn't we first spend time hearing your story? After all, it's clear you're done eating. Otherwise you wouldn't have been able to make such a speech yourself."

Sonya stared like she didn't know what Owen was talking about for a moment before sighing. "I guess I did, huh?"

"How about I start?" Heather offered. "That way if you're not exactly done, you can still eat a little while I tell them my side of the story?"

Sonya nodded, like she'd been defeated, though Elin wondered if she might have wanted to start it herself.

"Go ahead," Sonya said as she started eating her stew again.