Stranger in a stranger land

"Hehe,your a perceptive one aren't you?" This'll be fun.He caught the mistakes I threw at him right away.This kid has huge potential.

Gajeel doesn't appear to be slipping.He learned to balance his weight over different terrains and...combat boots made for all terrain helps as well.
"Nice.There is a lot of stuff you can do after you launch Floor.And your limit is only limited by your magic power.Which can be increased.Like so,"
He assumes the stance and looks at the sky.
"Ice Make:Eagle!"
He launches what appeared to be eagles made out of ice!They were fast and were headed towards Stephan.
"If you can counter this,I'll give you a little present."He says with a confident smile.
You can do it.C'mon say Ice Make:Shield or anything else that you think is correct.Be creative.That's the whole post.He thinks to himself while the icy eagles dive bomb from the sky."Don't worry I didn't make 'em strong but it will still hurt."

From the edge of the clearing, Stephan frowns at the sight of his teacher's creation. Dynamic control and articulation. Didn't expect that from a magic ice sculpture. Still, to make it move, it can't be that thick. And he made it a bird, and a big one at that...

"You made it easy." With a quick smirk, Stephan backs up to the point where he is pressed against a tree, eying the icy eagle as it keeps diving straight towards him, gravity drawing it faster in it's descent. As the avian artillery draws near, he rolls behind the tree as the bird still hurtles forward and shatters against the trunk.

"Well it didn't quite act like a real bird, but it's about as sturdy. My compliments on your attention to detail."

Good.He didn't even use magic."Don't get cocky now.That was a good move on your part.Do you feel we should stop for the day or do you think you have the energy to keep going?"He crosses his arms and looks at Stephan.

"Well considering how we've yet to see the sun over the forest, I would think that we should do more today. However I'd like to wait until after breakfast, if only to make sure I can see everything in the clearing. I already know the kinds of things that come out in the dark, and I wouldn't like to be any more familiar with them."

He chuckles and walks inside."Help yourself to anything you'd like.I'll make myself some breakfast.You can make your own since I have no idea what you like."He start a fire in the fire place and places a pot with water on the stove.(the old timey ones >->)He lays down and stares into the fire place while he wait for the water to boil in the stove.It was snowing outside and it was very cold.It's a good idea to stand near the fire.For a second he worried about his crops but then simply ignored it.He had previously moved them to a newly built greenhouse.The fire danced in place and the crackling of burning wood soothed his ears.

For Stephan, breakfast was short: just a bit of bread and some water melted from the snow just outside. But the morning was still quite cold, so on his best judgement, Stephan decided to spend the rest of it bundled up considering everything he had seen and done until Gajeel came for him.

It was around 7:30am and it was still cold.He didn't think Stephan could take much of the cold if he went outside and continued training.Instead when he walked over to Stephan he handed him a cup of hot chocolate."I don't think you should train until it gets less cold.I think it was a mistake to go out today in the first place.Just stay here and warm up for the rest of the morning."He walked up to a window and rubbed the fog off of it.I hate when blizzards come.They can be brutal.

"Alright, I think I've given you plenty of time with your thoughts. Why do you always look so sullen?"

This kid is a bit nosey.He lets out a disappointed sigh."It's a long story that I'm not quite ready to talk about yet.Lets just say I had to do with someone else I taught before you."His expression saddened and his ears drooped at the memory.It's been seven years,Kraine.

... Whatever.

And with his dismissal, Stephan settles back down in the blankets until conditions improve, inside the cabin or out.

He looks at Stephan and then walked over to the window.He breathed on it to get rid of the fog and wiped the window clean.All he saw outside was a snowstorm and bare trees."Wow,this storm is really tough.I hope it ends soon."

Stephan rested comfortably for a time as the blizzard raged on. It was around noon, though, when he was disturbed by a large crashing noise from the side of the cabin. "What was that?"

"I don't know,the snow muffled the sound."He looks out the side of the window and couldn't see anything because of the snow."I can't see anything.I'll check outside.Thank god I have thick fur."He walks over to the cabin door and opened the door as a blast of wind and snow blows through the door.Gajeel pushes through it and closes the door behind him."I wonder what that noise was.More than likely something fell because of the wind."

As Gajeel trudges through the howling blizzard around the corner of his cabin, he is astounded at the sight of a great bird of sapphire plumage atop a snow drift, preening fractured feathers out of it's wings.

"Hey a bird.What is it doing way out here especially in the snow?I think I should take it inside,if not...it will die since birds can't handle this type of cold.Well except for a few."He reaches into his coat and takes out piece of bread and waves it at the bird.The bird turned around and followed Gajeel trying to pick at the bread.He slowly made his way back into the cabin as the bird followed.He dropped the bread on the floor as the bird started picking at it."It was just a bird."

"A bird, huh? Well that's ok I guess, but can you shut the door? I know you have fur, but even you have to be freezing in this," Stephan stammers, shivering.

"I'm used to this level if cold,I don't mind it."He walks over to the cabin door and closes it.He then kneels down and carefully picks up a bird."You need a little place to get rest and eat."He walks back over where Stephan is and grabs one of the sticks that fueled the fire.He grabbed a knife and began whittling the stick to make it smooth and even.Then,he set the wooden stick in the small hole in support beams.It was a tight fit but it was sturdy."There,now it has a place to perch itself."

The large, elegant bird flaps up onto it's new perch and continues to preen it's fractured feathers as the cabin grows ever colder, even as the winds outside begin to die down. Stephan can only find another blanket to stave off the bitter chill in the air.

Gajeel watched as the bird cleaned itself.It then tucked it's head into it's own wing for warmth and fell asleep.Gajeel turned back to Stephan who was shivering more than a chihuahua.He went into his room and grabbed a large bear skin blanket and covered him with it.He then threw 3 medium sized logs into the flames to fuel the fire.

And so time passed, with Gajeel tending the fire, Stephan steadily turning blue, frost forming on every surface away from the stove, and the sapphire bird sleeping on its increasingly icy perch.

Gajeel clapped his hands and slammed them onto the ground.He used his alchemy to sublimate the ice into vapor and heating the cabin up.He didn't wan't the risk of anyone getting sick."Is that better?"

As the steam rose about the house, Stephan and Gajeel heard a thud as the bird, now plumed a ruddy brown, fell dead from it's perch in a heap.

"Actually, that does feel quite a bit better. What's with the bird?"

"I don't know.Is it dead?"He said as the steam cleared.He poked the bird and it did not respond."That's strange,it was just fine a minute ago..."

"Here, let me see."

The rust colored bird continued to lay still as Stephan shed the blankets and bearskin and walked over, gently holding his hand over the motionless fowl before gently pressing his palm against it's wing as it's feathers cracked and crumbled at his touch.

"Well I can't be sure, but with the iron colored plumage and how suddenly brittle it is, I'd say this fowl seems to have been steamed from the inside. The curious thing is that the feathers themselves seem to have shriveled up a bit as well, even though feathers normally don't retain water. The iron color would clearly be blood, so even if I would have recognized the bird before, there's no way to tell what it was by looking at it now. Anyway, I guess there's no point in letting this go to... Ummm... How powerful was that spell you used to warm me up?"

"The power of the spell really depends on what I create.But I would say that it is not much since all I did was melt that ice into steam which slowly warmed us up.Do you think that bird thrives in cold temperatures?"He stares at the bird curiously.

This is really weird.It just dropped like a rock. "What if I froze the area around it?"He stared at the motionless bird.