"This one is zen." She points at some crushed up pink leaves. I came back   "Zen? That's Japanese right?" Meli looks at me like I had said something in a different language. "Japanese? What's that?" I mentally face palm. They don't know what Japan is... "Don't worry about it. In our universe, those are called Sakura or cherry blossom petals. Their usually grown in the country-er  region in your vocabulary, Japan." Meli's expression changed in awe. "That's so cool! Zen here helps perfect ones skin. I put it in something I call my 'pretty potion'. It's one of my specialties." So it's kinda like makeup... Hm... maybe I can get Aria to have some... Just because she wouldn't were makeup back home...Nah that's cruel. As much as she doesn't like to believe it, she is incredibly attractive... Well at least in my opinion. I think to myself. "That's awesome!" I tell her. 

She teaches me a few more and then we make some pasty stuff for Aria when she comes home with cuts and scrapes from training. "Honestly, Aria is already way to strong on her own. She doesn't need to train to protect herself." I tell Meli while I mix the potion. "I don't think she's trying to protect herself... I think she's trying to protect you." She confesses. "Listen, I don't know you girls that well, but if I were Aria and able to fight... And I had a best friend who can't exactly fight... No offence to you... I would want to protect her." She says dropping a few herbs in the bottle and taking it from me to shake it. 

"Can you fight Meli?" I ask her. "Actually yeah I can... I own a whip, but I don't use it unless I'm needed to, and I haven't used it in years. I might as well sell it... Here I'll show you." She walks upstairs and comes back down with small case in her hands. "Lets go outside. This may get messy if we stay in.." She tells me, "Ok! Let's go!" We go to the side of the building, where there was a small open area. Meli gets on her knees and opens the case. Inside was a black leather whip, "Here it is. This whip changes magic depending on the aura of the person. Mine does this weird poison thing. It's pretty cool actually." She explains. I get down on my knees as well and admire the whip. "What would it do if I wielded it?" I ask. "Only one way to find out!" She says, handing me the whip. "Really???" I ask in awe. She nods and smiles. 

I carefully take the whip and hold it up. "Now crack it!" Meli tells me. I smile and crack the whip. It lashes out and turns silver. "Woah!" Meli squeals. "I've never seen that before. It's fire.... But it's silver! Hang on, I've got to get some of this and experiment on it!" She says and runs back inside. She was right, it was silver fire. Meli came running out with an empty bottle in one hand and a healing potion in the other. "Ok first things first!" She gets my attention. "I want you to touch the fire..." She tells me. "Are you insane??" I ask her. "Just trust me, when I touch my poison it does nothing to me But sense you come from a different universe, I want to see what happens. If it hurts you i have a healing potion." She explains. 

I give the still silver burning whip to Meli, and she holds the handles. "Why didn't it change?" I ask, trying to aviod touching the fire. "Because I didn't crack it." She explains quickly. "Now touch it!" She readies her potion just in case and slowly, I reach my hand to the fire. I flinch as I touch it, but feel no pain. I nod to Meli and run my hand on the whip. I look at my hand and a small fire grows in my hand. "Oh my gosh...." I say. The fire grows larger in my hand. "What's happening?? How do I get rid of it?" I yell panicking. Meli snaps out of her shocked state, "Put your other hand on top of that one." I do as she says and the fire puts out. 

We walk back to the infarmery and Meli puts away her whip. "I've never seen anything like that happen before. It literaly grew in your hand. I got a little in the bottle so I'll probably study it before I go to bed." I nod and say goodbye. I walk home and Aria, Dixie, and I eat dinner. We go back to our room. We sit down and I examine her hands. They had blisters and cuts all over them. I could tell she overworked herself. "Aria, you have to stop fighting!" I order. "Really your going to get yourself hurt." I tell her. "Amethyst I'll be fine..." She insists. I grumble angrily and slump into a pillow. 

Aria decides to be Aria and lay across my back. I squeal and try to squirm out from under her. "Aria your heavy!"

"Too bad"

"Aria your squishing me!" 

"The be squished.." 

"I can't breathe." I squeal. She gives in and rolls back over, giving me the perfect oppertunity to smack her with a pillow. "Hey!" She yells. I proceed to attack her with pillows until we both settle down.

"How's Meli?" She asks. "She's good. She's teaching me how to identify medical herbs." I tell her, not wanting to mention the whip thing. "Sounds Cool! You gonna teach me how to do that?" She asks. "Sure! Oh yeah, I made a kind of paste thing for your cuts. I'll try it out tommarow ok?" 

"Mhm..." She agrees silently.

"Aria... Your going to get really hurt." I say worriedly. "Can you stop with the training?" I ask hopefully. "I already know your strong already." 

"It's ok... I'll stop eventually." I give a frusturated sigh  but say nothing. She pokes my head and I look over at her. "Tell you what. Sally told me theirs a hot spring out in the woods. How about we got check it out tomorrow after I'm done with looking after the bakery for Sally?" She offers. I give her a smile. "Ok, sounds fun!" 

"Good." 

"Night Aria"

"Good night Amethyst."