When Fortissax returned, he saw Nepheli running out to meet him.
"Fort, Fort, can you teach me?" Nepheli asked, bouncing on her feet.
Fortissax lowered his head to look at Nepheli. "Teach you what?"
"To fight!" Nepheli raised a pair of battleaxes. "I want to be stronger than that Irina."
A great teacher produced great students. With Malenia teaching her, Irina should be making rapid progress too.
Nepheli's competitive streak had been plain to see since she was little. It had nothing to do with anyone or anything else; she simply wanted to excel.
"Then what do you want to learn?" Fortissax asked.
"Storms!" Nepheli clashed her battleaxes together.
"Storms? Actually, since the Lands Between lost the Storm King, no one apart from those Banished Knights has used storms for a long time." Fortissax touched the battleaxes. "A good choice of weapons."
"You don't want to teach me?" Disappointment showed in Nepheli's eyes.
"It's not that I don't want to. I'm trying to think where I could find someone more qualified to teach you about storms." Fortissax scratched his chin. "But I can't seem to think of anyone else."
"Speaking of which, who was the Storm King?" Nepheli asked.
The human and the dragon found somewhere to sit. Fortissax said, "The Storm King was a vassal king under Placidusax, the former Elden Lord. He governed Stormveil Castle. Back then, true storms still existed in Stormveil."
"What do you mean by true storms?" Nepheli was very curious.
Fortissax pondered how to describe them to Nepheli. "Enormous tornadoes stretching from earth to sky. Fierce storms shrouded the castle and Stormhill, hiding the castle like a veil."
"That sounds a little like my homeland." Nepheli thought of her home.
"Well, the Lands Between are called the Lands Between because this land encompasses so