“I have no clue what I’m doing.” Adriel sits back on his heels, dropping Julias’s torn up hand.

“Clearly.”

“This is harder than it looks, okay!”

“I know.”

Adriel sighs and collapses backward, resting an arm over his eyes. “I’ll try again tomorrow.”

“Okay.” Julias shrugs and lays next to Adriel. “You know I’m not upset, right?”

“I know you’re not upset, I just- I don’t know.”

“It’s not like it’s gonna be incredibly easy to just do stuff with your magic. It’s not an anime where you get powers and suddenly you’re Katara at eighty years old, it’s gonna take time.”

“You were able to do cool stuff though.”

“Because we figured out a bit of how my magic works.”

“You were in water, I don’t think I can go stand in darkness and get more powerful.”

“Hey, you never know.” Julias shrugs. “Maybe you can.”

“Right, let me just do that.” Adriel jumps to his feet and closes his eyes. He raises his hands, holds them straight out in front of him, and lets out a slow breath.

Julias looks over at the tree Adriel’s facing and his mouth falls open. The base of the tree slowly vanishes. Adriel opens his eyes and the tree pops back into view.

“Dammit!” Adriel whirls around, hitting his hip.

“No, you did it.” Julias stands, looking at Adriel with wide eyes. “Part of the tree vanished.”

“It’s still there though!”

“But it wasn’t when your eyes were closed!”

“Stop trying to make me feel better, Julias! I can’t do anything with my magic!”

Julias storms over and grabs Adriel’s shoulders.

“I’m not you fucking asshole! It disappeared, you actually did it!”

“Let go.”

Julias sighs and slips his hands off of Adriel’s shoulders. “You made part of the tree vanish. You did that. I’m not lying to you.”

“You swear you’re not lying?”

“Yes!”

“You’re sure.”

“What do I have to gain from lying to you?”

“Me being happy enough to not make fun of you.”

Julias rolls his eyes and turns around, pinching the bridge of his nose. “I’m not lying to you.”

“I’m sure you’re not.”

“We don’t have time for this, Adriel. We need to move.”

“Right,” Adriel murmurs. “We need to get back to Yevue.”

“We need to figure out where we are in relation to it first.”

“I don’t think talking to the tree instead of me is going to help.”

“I don’t know, I think the tree is gonna be more help.”

“Okay, ow.” Adriel chuckles, a pang in his chest. “I know I couldn’t heal your hand but I can still help.”

“Wait, that was- I didn’t- that’s not what I meant!” Julias exclaims, turning around to face Adriel. “I’m sorry.”

“Maybe don’t imply I’m useless?”

“Yeah, we can add that to the rules.”

Adriel nods. “No saying or insinuating you’re stupid, and no saying or insinuating I’m useless.”

“Which you’ve actually been doing a really good job of, surprisingly.”

“I’ve been trying.”

“Much appreciated.” Julias smiles at Adriel. “Really.”

“You ever gonna tell me why you don’t like being called stupid?”

“Probably not, no. You ever gonna tell me why you don’t like being grabbed?”

“Nope.”

“Alright then.” Julias nods, looking away from Adriel. Adriel does the same thing, wings folded against his back and lips pursed.

“Okay, awkward,” Adriel finally says. “We should figure out where we are.”

“We should be able to find a library around here somewhere.” Julias glances back at Adriel. “It is the capital city. There’s bound to be at least one building of every type.”

“Yeah but finding it is going to be an issue.”

“We need a map of the city.”

“Do you see a flaw in that request?” Adriel starts chuckling. Julias cocks his head, then bursts out laughing.

“Well now I do.”

“Getting back home is going to be an absolute breeze.”

“Now that we’ve determined we’re both absolute dumbasses, I suggest we figure out something that we can actually get accomplished.”

“The only thing I can think of is putting as much distance between us and this hellhole as fast as possible.”

“You know what might help with that?” Julias asks, grinning and wiggling his eyebrows at Adriel. Adriel just tilts his head in confusion as a response and then it dawns on him.

“No.”

“But it would-”

“Shut up,” Adriel interrupts, no malice in his voice. “Be like Lapis Lazuli. Make water wings and fly.”

“I’m not magic, good sir.”

“You can control water, you have scales, and your eyes are all freaky-like.” Adriel rolls his eyes with an immense amount of exaggeration. “I think it’s safe to say you’re magic.”

“You’re more magic than I am!” Julias exclaims, reaching out and tapping the horns on Adriel’s forehead. “You can make illusions, and fly, and-and make illusions-”

“You’re just spouting whatever bullshit comes to your head aren’t you.”

“Oh absolutely.”

Adriel doesn’t reply and instead studies the tree he was trying to do magic on.

“Did I actually make part of the tree disappear?” he finally asks. 

“You did,” Julias answers, reaffirming his answer with a nod. “Like I said earlier, I have nothing to gain from lying to you.”

“C’mere.” Adriel reaches out and grabs Julias's wrist, startling him.

“Can I ask what exactly the fuck you think you're doing?”

Adriel doesn't answer, instead trapping Julias’s injured hand between his hands.

“Hello?” Julias calls, staring at Adriel’s eyes, which are not trained on his eyes and are trained on the cluster of hands he created.

Adriel inhales for four beats, holds his breath for three, then exhales for four and closes his eyes.

“Okay seriously though, what are you- holy fUCK!”

Adriel’s eyes fly open and he reels back, dropping Julias’s hand like it’s on fire.

“Did I hurt you more?” he asks, reaching towards Julias’s hand, stopping when Julias turns his palm toward him.

“You did it.”

“Holy shit I did it.”

“Dude.”

“I fucking did it!” Adriel lets out a loud holler, jumping up and down and grinning like a maniac. Julias watches his companion celebrate and smiles, feeling his nose crinkle.

“Good job,” Julias says, extending his hand toward Adriel, palm facing toward the sky. Adriel stops jumping and slaps it, grin extending from ear to ear when his skin meets smooth skin.

“I’m gonna get the hang of this soon,” Adriel states, looking directly into Julias’s eyes. “I swear.”

“We’ll both get the hang of it,” Julias responds. “We’ll learn how our magic works and we’ll do it together.”

Adriel’s smile slips and he gasps.

“What the hell?” Julias whirls around, pulling his hands up to his chest and clenching them tight. “What’d you see?” 

“We really are trapped in a kid’s show.”

“Are you- you asshole!” Despite the swear, Julias is smiling as he turns around. “You’re really irritating, you know that?” 

“You know you love me.”

“Don't flatter yourself.”

“Nope, too late.” Adriel’s beaming now, all teeth on display. “Totally flattering myself.”

“Your ego does not need to be any bigger than it already is.”

“No, you misunderstand. That’s a boost to my will to live, not my ego.”

Julias furrows his eyebrows. “Did you- do you need to talk to someone? You’re actually starting to worry me.”

“Nah.” Adriel flaps a hand in Julias’s direction. “It hasn't gotten quite that bad. No need to worry.”

“No need to worry yet you mean.”

“Our entire generation is borderline suicidal. If we were worried every time someone made a joke or mentioned how low their will to live was we’d never have enough time to protest.”

“We will talk about it as soon as we’re a comfortable distance away from Capital Hell.”

“Sure.”

Okay so I 100% did NOT mean to miss a shit ton of updates. I wanted to write this on a computer so I can see what page I hit and I had to turn in my laptop to the school because school ended.
That being said, I ended up writing the second half of the chapter on an iPad.

Question of the chapter: why does Adriel have a problem with being called useless? Why does Julias have an issue with being called stupid?

These things will be revealed later on but I like seeing your thoughts! They won't influence what I write but it's always nice to see people's thoughts ^-^