Zohaifa's questions
1181 Words
“Now you can ask,” said Marium after swallowing a piece of meat. They are having dinner in the open air, the campfire illuminating them in a red shade. “Mom taught me about these. I hope I will be able to answer your questions.”
“The first question, isn’t Ice just the solid form of water? And Lava the molten form of rock, that is, soil? Why are they different elements then?” asked Zohaifa.
“It has more to do with how these sixteen elements were decided. Someone decided to take approximately 1600000 Cant people and make a survey of their powers. At first, it seemed like he had a list of random abilities. But later he realized that about 100000 of their powers are related to plants. Then he tried finding more and more patterns and found these elements. So, as 100000 of them have water-related abilities and 100000 have ice-related ones, he thought he would mark them as different elements. I need to mention these numbers are approximated by the way,” answered Marium.
“I see. So, he forcefully made them fit into 16 elements, so it’s easier to find a pattern. The common human tendency. Next question, what is the vibration element?” asked Zohaifa
“Oh, many people call it differently. Other than vibration, some call it force, some call it shockwave. It’s kinda hard to choose a perfect name for it. The abilities under this element are diverse. Some users can create sounds, some earthquakes; some can just make things explode,” answered Marium.
“Cool. Next question, what’s star particles?”
“Don’t tell mom but I don’t understand it either, to be honest. I never saw a star particle user yet. But I heard some people use glowing particles and it behaves differently for each user. Some of their particles explode, some just create bright flashes of light, some burns on touch, and many more.”
“Wow, that sounds cool. And what is miscellaneous?”
“You see, after labeling 1500000 of them, he couldn’t identify the rest into one thing. So, he just named them miscellaneous. Like, some can use bones, some can make things giant, some can pop out limbs, etc.”
“Oh, I see. Another question, aren’t all these like magic anyway? Why is there a separate element such as magic?”
“Oh! That element refers to those who can heal; use teleportation, telepathy, telekinesis, enchantments, spells; make potions, etc.”
“Damn, that’s amazing!” exclaimed Zohaifa, “This world is really interesting, I feel like meeting all the users now.”
“Sounds fun!” chirped Marium.
“I have more questions,” continued Zohaifa, “Do any beings outside Cant World uses these elements?”
“No. We haven’t found any yet,” answered Marium
“One more question,” said Zohaifa with anticipation in his eyes before he even asked. “Do you feel any odd feeling in your heart whenever you use your element?”
“No, I don’t,” answered Marium, slightly confused by why Zohaifa would ask such a question.
“What about other lightning users?”
“Probably not. There was never any such complaints.”
Zohaifa sighed.
“What’s the matter?” asked Marium.
“Nothing. I just feel something weird in my heart every time I use lightning, something anomalous,” he answered, “I wonder what it means. Is it a bad sign?”
“Does it pain?” asked Marium a bit worried.
“No, it’s not painful. It’s just odd. Hard to describe. It’s like you are feeling light-headed, except instead of the head, it’s the heart.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“Well, it wouldn’t make sense to me either if somebody told me when I never felt it. Maybe you need to feel it to understand. Maybe you Cant people can control elements naturally. So, you guys don’t have a problem. Maybe for me to use such power, that I as a human being isn’t supposed to, would bring consequences,” said Zohaifa with a bit of frustration.
“So, you don’t wanna use lightning?”
“Not like I don’t want to. It’s more like I fear the consequences and maybe it’s a better choice for me to avoid it and take the safer way. I still have other powers too. Like, the training under Lapis isn’t really possible for the humans. But I can do it without any problem in my heart, ” said Zohaifa with a smile.
“Okay,” chirped again Marium, probably happy to see Zohaifa having an optimistic decision.
A chilling wind blew over the warm campfire. “I think it’s getting late. We should sleep now,” Zohaifa advised.
“Sure!”
The next day, Marium asked Zohaifa again, “Let’s do something like yesterday. We are supposed to do things we enjoy, remember?”
“Sure, let’s do it. What do you want to do?” asked Zohaifa.
“I don’t know. Yesterday I chose. You do it today.”
“Wanna spar?” Zohaifa had a creepy smile.
“Su…Sure.”
They both took a stance facing each other in an open area inside the jungle.
“Martial arts only. No lightning or light," declared Zohaifa.
Marium nodded his head while keeping her focus on the upcoming sparring.
Marium threw a jab. But Zohaifa dodged it and came back with an up jab. But at the time of hitting, he slowed down and just tapped. She kept continuing to attack. But Zohaifa dodged most of them and land light strikes in a similar way.
In the end, both were tired.
"Wow! You are so good at this. You can defeat me easily," she said.
"I don't know. Things might be different if you introduce our powers to the match. But I used to practice martial arts when I was on my planet. It was my passion," he said, "There is a lot more to it than punching and kicking. You need to sharpen your reflex too. But you can't always depend on your reflex either. You need to detect your enemy's pattern. If you know what's coming, it's easy to dodge. In a fight, if you can hit him and he can't hit you, your win is inevitable."
"Oh! You know a lot too!" exclaimed Marium, "Can you teach me these?"
"Sure.”
At the night, they were sitting together, having dinner. Lapis asked Marium not to talk to Zohaifa about his planet. They didn’t want to make him homesick or depressed. But that day, Marium's tongue slipped as she said, "How does Earth look?"
- Writer
