Second Star (Niall Horan)

Chapter Ten

"Come on, don't forget parry number seven!"

"I'm still getting used to one through six."

"You're going to have your privates chopped clean off if you forget it."

"I won't." Niall bounced between his legs, wiping the sweat off his forehead with his active hand.

"Or worse," Peter added. "He'll slice your artery open and you'll bleed out in minutes, but you know, up to you."

"Okay, kid, I got it."

"Now that would be unfortunate."

"I hear you."

"Especially if he cut off your privates and then hit your artery, now that would--"

"Okay! I got it! Thank you!"

"You're doing great." Peter reassured him. "Just remember, Hook likes to put on a show. He's a
performer more than anything. Do you have experience with that?"

Niall crooked his neck slightly, smirking. "Yeah. A bit."

"Peter, you're distracting. I want to win." Blaise whined, holding his sword with one hand and his hip with the other.

"Alright, alright, fighters ready."

When they had found the rest of the boys, it was an immediate restart on training. Peter had taken to coaching Niall from the sidelines. The man was growing to be a quite impressive swordsman against Blaise. Whom, if you recall, was likely no more than eight or nine years old.

"Come on, ya big jerk!" Blaise laughed.

Niall was feeling more confident, more settled, and was trying his best, which was slowly improving.

"Oh, a jerk?" Swing!

Instead of being surrounded by trees, the gumtree that Peter spoke of earlier was on a hill with interesting terrain. Some areas were rocky, some were more slippery, and some were just stumped of collapsed trees. The thought was that Niall needed to get used to terrain, especially so he could at least work up to the mimicking of a pirate ship.

And being barefoot, well wasn't adding much except building up his ability to work through pain. They had brought his socks and his sword back from the beach, but Peter insisted they started right away.

The other boys were practicing as well, creating obstacles for Niall to deal with. They would bump up against him, jump around him, and on the rare occasion, disrupt is fight with Blaise by swinging at him themselves. The logic for this was that with pirates, you never know when things could turn sour.

For a while, he felt at ease. After experiencing the situation with the mermaids he felt quite unsettled, that things surrounding him had a layer of unknowing and uncertainty which had been looming over him. There was something off about everything, and while the other boys carried on loudly playing around, he would glance at Peter every once in a while to see an expression he did not know the definition for. He looked solemn yet anxious, like his mind was racing, but from what? What had Clarissa told him that he clearly didn't want to share? Wouldn't he have told him already? Why was he so contemplative all of a sudden?

"Hey." Keon lifted his sword, approaching Niall and Blaise. "Go play." He looked to Blaise, dismissing him before turning his attention to Niall. Blaise took a deep breath, almost looking relieved to be dismissed from his duties as he went to go play with the twins, who were in the middle of a limbo battle with their own swords. Kids will be kids after all.

Keon, very seriously, got in his own fighting stance before grinning at the man, "Have at thee."

He swung his sword straight towards Niall's arm as Niall tilted himself away from it, the sword swiftly cutting through the wind as Keon missed. Niall cut back, the swords clashing against each other as he lunged towards Keon.