Forest Guardians || Straykids ff

s e v e n

yeona

I was lying down on my stomach as I slept when I was woken up by something squeezing into my neck. I rose up and saw Hyunjin snuggling up on me.

I ran my hand on his furry body which he seemed to enjoy. I looked around and saw Jeongin at the end of the bed. I went to him and placed him at the center beside Hyunjin so he wouldn't fall off the bed.

I looked around more and saw the book grandma gave me. I've been learning from it for several months now, and I'm sure that I've learned all the basics of Witchcraft.

I hope that she will teach me with my wand now.

I went out of my room and walked downstairs to the kitchen. There, I saw grandma cooking breakfast.

I was yawning when I sat down at the table. "Good morning grandma." I greeted and she turned to me.

"Good morning dear. Are you ready for your first real training?" My eyes widened. I suddenly felt awake. "Really? Training with my wand?" She nodded as she chuckled.

"It won't be called 'training' if your wand is not included." She said as she gave me my breakfast.

I quickly ate my breakfast, took a shower and ran downstairs with my magic wand. I went to the mini shed to greet the little guys.

When I arrived, they were all sleeping. They all stayed with me last night, so they barely had any sleep. I left them asleep and went to the river, where grandma was waiting for me.

I saw her sitting at the bench while looking at the river. I approached her and she looked at me.

"Let's start?" She stood up and positioned herself in front of me. "Since you've already learned all the basics, we'll proceed to offensive and defensive spells." She walked to the river.

"Really? I've been waiting for this." I exclaimed while waving my wand up in the air. Grandma laughed at me.

"Okay, let's start with defensive spells. I want you to learn this first, because even if you learn a lot of offensive spells and you'll die with just a single attack from your enemy, everything will be useless." She said and pulled out her wand from her waist.

"The first one will be the Charm of Elusion. This certain spell will help you to be invisible from your enemy's sight." She taught me the motion of the wand to activate the spell.

I mimicked her and successfully did the spell at first try. She smiled at me then taught me other spells like invisible shields, protective barriers, healing spells and etc.

She trained me all day and made me memorize every spell. She was so happy the whole day, as if she was looking forward to this day.

The next day, we trained again. But that time, she threw projectile spells at me while I was just activating defensive spells.

At first, my reflexes were between a turtle and a sloth. I had a lot of injuries that day. Gladly, grandma healed me.

Weeks of training, slowly I was learning to be quick when casting spells and whenever I failed to cast a spell, I just dodged it.

The little ones also helped me train by playing hide and seek. My goal is to not get caught just by using an invisibility spell.

Then during our training, grandma suddenly stopped moving. She was roaming her eyes around as if she sensed something.

"Gran—" I was going to ask her but she shushed me. She motioned her hands, telling me to sit down and I slowly did. I held my wand tightly, preparing myself to cast a defensive spell for both of us, since that's the only spell I can do.

Moments later, we heard the trees rustling. Someone was moving behind the trees. And they're fast.

Grandma stood up, readied her wand and cast an explosion spell at the trees. Two trees fell down, and along those was a guy in a black robe.

Grandma relaxed her body and laughed. "If only I knew you were coming." She said, offered her hand to the guy to stand up.

"I'm sorry Master. I must have scared you and your apprentice. Indeed it was a surprise visit since I heard you were training someone." The guy spoke, and all I could say was his voice is so melodic.

"Ohh you mean my granddaughter? I've been training her for months now. Anyways, Elijah this is Yeona, Yeona this is Elijah my old apprentice." Elijah held his hand in front of me. I gladly took it and shook his hand.

"Nice to meet you." I said and he broke the handshake. He pushed his glasses up and smiled at me. "I say you're still a rookie. Too bad, I want to have a duel with you. You know between the apprentices." He chuckled at me. "I'll come back when you finish your training." He said and turned his back on me.

"Master, I'll take my leave. I just want to meet your new apprentice." He said and suddenly vanished without a trace. Or maybe not.

When I looked down, I saw footprints, which for sure is from him. "You know, I can see you." I said, then I looked in the air just above the footprints and there he appeared.

He slowly clapped his hands while smirking. "I must say, you're not bad." Elijah turned his back again and walked away.

"It's because you neglected your training at defensive spells." I looked at grandma smiling, then Elijah suddenly stopped.

"W-what? No master. I trained very well. It's just that I'm not really that good at defensive spells." He scratched his nape as he looked down while explaining. I just laughed at them, which made Elijah kind of mad.

"Don't you dare forget about our duel in the future. I'll haunt you even in your dreams." He stomped his way to the woods until his figure faded.

I felt a light tap on my shoulders. I looked at grandma and she was smiling at me. "Don't take him seriously, he's just a competitive guy. He always brags about being my apprentice, and since you're training under me, he wants to know who is the strongest between you two." She walked back to our house and I followed her afterwards.

"Don't worry grandma. I'll defeat him so that he can't brag anymore." Grandma laughed joyfully. "I'm looking forward to that."