Chapter Text
1000 years before the Birth of Himmel the Hero
~
Somewhere in the middle of a vast forest, faint rumbling spread across the land as purple electricity jutted out hazardly. Birds and animals scurried away from the chaos that was now a daily routine.
"Come on Frieren, is that all you got? You've got the age for it but you shouldn't be casting like a grandma!-"
She quickly dodged to her side, electricity sparking with ravenous intensity where she stood a moment ago. Huh, that seemed to work in sparking up her student. At the other side of the clearing stood the young elf, Flamme's newly acquired apprentice Frieren. After helping nurse the girl back to health, Flamme was quick to begin her training. She was relentless, teaching her fiery spells suited for taking out demons quickly and efficiently. Frieren was quick to catch on, but even her talents couldn't spare her from the misery that was Flamme's brutal trainings, especially when they started so early in the morning...
This week Flamme had introduced her to a new spell, Judradjim. She had enjoyed the fierceness of the spell at first. It was flashy. Destructive. Though now, hours into Flamme's dreadful training session that was akin to torture, the spell no longer held the mischievous fun she had enjoyed the first time around. And Flamme's witty comments on her age certainly weren't helping. Her arms ached after practicing the same spell over and over. The mana suppression certainly wasn't helping either. Fighting back a budding headache, she focused on her opponent at hand. The faster she pleased her master the faster they would go back home and she could curl back into her comfortable bed, reading grimoires until she knocked dead.
With the thought of curling up cozily with a grimoire pushing her forwards, Frieren mustered up a bit more energy into blasting up a large cast, destructive lightning crashing into her master's steady defense. Holding her spell steady, Frieren pushing more mana into the spell, trying to brute her way through her masters' defense spell. Her headache began to creep up further but she ignored it for now. Her afternoon with a grimoire was just within sight. Successfully pushing back her master slightly, Frieren could see the cracks starting to form.
"Keep pushing it!"
How annoying. She heeded her master's words and put everything into the spell, the clearing they were in becoming an electrically charged battlefield as the strength of the spell grew.
Crack. Crack.
All she had to do was push it a bit more-
Crack.
That grimoire was practically within her reach-
Crack.
All she had to do was push through a bit longer and-!
The spell dispersed as she dropped, exhaustion hitting her in full. She had been so close to breaking through her master's defense too. Darn. She reclaimed her breath as she worked through her pulsing headache. Flamme's annoying training had really taken it out of her today.
"You were close, why did you stop?"
She could feel Flamme's shadow encompass her as she approached. Her voice held a trace of disappointment, clearly hoping for a breakthrough on Judradjim, eager as always to rush into a new spell. For a moment everything held silent as Flamme simply stood, watching with a hand on her hip - it's favorite resting place nowadays. She heard Flamme sigh as she took a seat on the grass next to her. Flamme watched as her apprentice ran a fist on each side of her head, face scrunched up in annoyance. She observed her apprentice. This behavior had started appearing a few weeks ago. At first she thought it was just the usual headache that came with the exhaustion of a hard day of training, but after watching her go through the movements for a few weeks now, as well as seeing her training capacity take a small dip in performance, she suspected it was something else. She doubted the girl would bring up what was wrong, knowing her apprentice's stubborn and reserved personality quite well. After a few minutes, she spoke up.
"You've been doing that quite a bit lately. Is your head bothering you?"
Frieren stopped her incessant head rubbing and turned to face her master, big green eyes peering up at her with a grumpy pout.
"Your training sessions have been harder than normal. It feels like you're trying to run me through the ground."
Turning away again, she watched as the young elf went back to massaging her head, still holding her grumpy expression. Honestly, Flamme should have expected that. Her apprentice had never been good with words. Perhaps she should add 'How to Properly Communicate and Not Be a Little Brat When Someone is Trying to Help' to her training regime. Regardless, she cared for the girl deeply and despite her apprentice's lack of talent with words, she genuinely wished to help her feel better. Shifting from her position on the grass, she lightly grabbed her apprentice's arms and pulled her towards herself. She placed her hands over the spot Frieren had been adamantly rubbing, behind her comically large ears.
"Is this where it hurts?" She asked as she lightly pressed on the spot.
A small flinch told her it was indeed the spot. Carefully, she began massaging the area. As she worked her hands into her temple, she could already feel the issue. No wonder the girl was complaining so much. She could feel all the tension wound up in her muscles. It was odd. She had taught the girl the proper stance for spell casting, and how to remain calm during battle, so what had her so worked up? She continued her work, officially determining that training would be done for the day as she felt her apprentice's breathing smooth out completely, fatigue clearly having taken over her as she relaxed in her hands. Concern stretched Flamme's face as she watched the girl begin to snooze off. She'd let the girl rest for now. Yes, Frieren hated waking up early -the girl would easily sleep in till noon if you let her- but her apprentice was not lazy. In fact, she couldn't have asked for a more dedicated apprentice. The girl put her all into training, and followed her orders to the letter. She was cheeky at times, terrible with words, but never truly meant any harm. Taking a deep sigh herself, she took in the gentle breeze of the afternoon, taking a moment of reprise for herself as well.
~
Dinner was a quiet endeavor. Though Frieren had never been the type to chat, the silence was palpable tonight.
After resting for a few hours outside, Flamme had woken her up and had dragged her back to the house, preparing an early dinner while Frieren bleakly read over a grimoire. It wasn't as cozy as she had been expecting. Between the dull headache and the ache in her bones from training, Frieren had felt more exhausted than ever. Her headaches had become troublesome in the past few weeks, but she had thought they would eventually fade out. It had happen a couple times in her past, and had never been a seemingly large issue. Now however, it had become a seemingly constant presence, waking her up at random hours of the night and pulsating during training. She hadn't spoken to Flamme about it. There was really no reason to, since it should have faded away by now. But now as she struggles to find the strength to keep her head up, she thinks it might be time to reluctantly accept help. As Flamme called out that dinner was ready, she clumsily got up from where she'd been reading, pin needles shooting straight through her brain. Honestly, she was just happy she could finally eat dinner and go to sleep.
They ate in silence, neither ready to start up conversation.
Truthfully the meal was quite delicious. Even as Frieren went through the motions, not really all that present in the moment, she could feel herself relaxing a bit. The soup was warm, the vegetables were perfectly cooked and the broth was deliciously savory. As she enjoyed each bite, she could feel the tension easing off slightly. Even her headache had dulled down quite a bit. She closed her eyes and let herself savor all the flavors. Had she been in a better mood, she might've even complimented Flamme on the wonderful meal.
Having enough of the silence, Flamme decided it was finally time to address the matter of the evening. She looked up from her meal, ready to try and make some progress with her apprentice when-
...Were her ears always that... droopy?
As Frieren continued to eat in oblivion, Flamme couldn't take her eyes off her apprentice and her drooped ears. This wasn't the usual "I'm in a fussy mood" type of low ears she had seen before, they looked totally - flopped.
...It was kind of adorable.
Sensing her master's gaze, the young elf opened her eyes, exhaustion evident on her expression.
"What?" She spoke with her mouth full, clearly too fazed out for manners.
"Your ears... have they always been able to go so... low?" Flamme questioned.
"Hm?" Frieren lazily glanced to her side, seeing that her ears had completely plopped down, as Flamme said. It was like a melted over ice cream cone, unable to hold it's shape after being left in the sun for hours. She lazily looked back at Flamme, too tired to even make up an excuse.
"They do that sometimes, usually I can hold them until I go to sleep but lately it's been harder". She rubbbed her eyes as she concentrated on pressing on the muscles of her temple. With a plop! they were back up to their normal spot.
Flamme had to cover up her grin as she watched her poor apprentice struggle with holding up her ears. Out of all things, this was not the issue she was expecting. It was terribly adorable, and she could feel her apprentice's not-so-happy glare on her. With her ears plopped back down.
She had to hold in her laugh.
"Are you making fun of me?" Frieren mumbled into her dinner. She had been enjoying it up until now. This is why she didn't talking about things. Humans were weird and she didn't understand why her master was laughing so much. It upset her a bit honestly. She didn't like being the joke.
"I'm sorry Frieren, no I'm not laughing at you so get that pout off your face. I really just didn't expect this to be the issue of all things... Is this an elf thing? Master Serie never complained of having to hold her ears up, but then again she is practically ancient..." Flamme mumbled outloud. As Flamme tried to mentally decipher whether she had ever heard Serie complain about her ears, Frieren uncomfortably kicked her feet under the table. She didn't know of any other elves that had this issue back in her village, and her mother would simply scald her to "Put your ears back up like a proper elf". She really didn't know what was wrong with her ears, and she was beginning to grow frustrated.
Noticing her apprentice's distraught gaze, she made a decision. She stood up from her chair and put a hand on the small elf's head.
"Alright Frieren. Truthfully, I don't know how to fix this, but it's clearly bothering you and it's impacting your training. Thankfully we know just the person who could help."
Frieren had an idea on who she was talking about and already had a bad feeling about this.