Once Tavras had healed himself and their idle chatter had died down, this left them with the rest of the day for him to continue to push her in the establishment of a training regimen. “Firstly, since you do not know any hand-to-hand combat, we are going to start with this.”

Over-reliance on her magical abilities would only get her so far, so she waited attentively for Tavras’s next instruction.

Rather than leading off with any kind of introduction, he took out her legs.

“Ow!” Val fell back onto her butt. “Hey…” she began, though she shut her mouth before she could make any further complaint.

“You at least need to have your feet squared in a readied stance,” Tavras said with a roll of his eyes. “Consider that lesson number one. Get back up. Let’s not waste time.”

In the end, Tavras taught her how to throw and dodge punches with a rhythm to each blow that she attempted. Her head snapped back on a many of occasions from Tavras’s fist landing in her face. Eventually, she tasted more blood than saliva in her mouth. Golden blood even threatened to intrude on her vision by some cut over her brow. This only gave her a harder time in lobbing her fist at Tavras and trying to evade his punches.

“Stop making those girly whimpers,” he said as he slugged her in the face. “As a boy, you should either lower your voice, or stay silent if you can’t do that.”

From where she had staggered back, Val wiped the blood away from her nose at the back of her hand. Her eyes narrowed, because this already felt more like a beating than a training session. The last thing that she needed was for him to add insult to injury.

Maybe Tavras really was a sexist, old god who thought that only men could possibly fight well. At least he thought that she was worth training, so Val obeyed and tried harder.

By the end of it all, at least Tavras could heal the wounds that he had inflicted on her face. Even so, Val sat as still as stone at the edge of the tide pool, unamused. While he used the same magic to heal her as always, some of the magic that she usually felt around him had gone away in this particular moment.

“Don’t pout so much,” Tavras cooed. “You did good today. Once you progress enough with hand-to-hand combat, I will let you start swinging around some weapons.”

This seemed to be her price to pay for learning from one of the most ancient gods in the world. Val would have to learn everything from the basics. Once she advanced to weapons, she would probably have to use a wooden club before a sword, never mind even letting her touch a gun. It did not particularly matter though, since all of those things paled in comparison to the abilities that she would develop.

The day progressed with a break for lunch, also known as introductory spearfishing lessons. First, Tavras made her obtain the wood and carve it with a stone into a point for her own spear.

“You have a knife,” Val moaned, remembering how he had cut her hair into this unsightly bob. The ends of her hair never failed to tickle at the back of her neck as a reminder. A wild shake of her head sent her hair ruffling either which way. “At least let me make this spear with a better tool.”

“Unless you want to craft a knife for yourself, no can do,” Tavras said with an overly dramatic shake of his head, almost mimicking her. To further taunt her, he twirled the blade around in his palm.

“Is that how you got your knife?” By the looks of it, the knife appeared to be something found on an archeological dig. It probably belonged in a museum themed around ancient human civilizations, and Tavras could stand on exhibition as a still-living member of one.

Tavras laughed. “Of course! I made my own knife when I was a boy to fulfill a ritual in my tribe. It probably would have disintegrated from use over the years if not for its enchantment.”

That confirmed Val’s suspicions: the knife did belong in a museum. By the time that she had made a knife of her own, she could have made twenty spears. Without wasting her energy on any further grumbles, she continued to scrape away at the stick with her blunt rock.

With a completed spear in hand, Val stood in the surf of the ocean. Her pants rolled up to her knees and her bare feet tickled against the smooth rocks. For the hundredth time, she flung her spear down hard and fast, yet the fish still slipped away from the sharpened point.

“Ah!” she yelled, kicking and splashing at the water in a fit. Hopefully, Tavras would take offense to that, her lashing out at his ocean.

At this rate, she might just finish a lap around the entire island and scare away all of the fish before she would catch a single one. “You know what? I’m not that hungry.” Val turned to walk away, but Tavras stopped her with an arm.

“You will be by the time that you manage to catch a fish around dinnertime,” he jeered. “Besides, look at Foofy! He says that he would really appreciate it if you would catch some fish for him.”

Val rolled her eyes, but in truth, it bothered her deeply that Foofy might have to go hungry due to her incompetence. While Tavras seemed like the type to enjoy the company of animals better than humans, Val did not trust him enough that he would feed her dog any supper. If Foofy had some slimy scales instead of fur and some fins or flippers instead of legs, she would not worry so much. What with the way that Tavras seemed to prefer sea creatures over land animals, the only person that she trusted to take care of Foofy was herself.

This thought only put her in an even fouler mood. It had been Tavras’s fault that they had been washed overboard without Foofy’s dog food in the first place. Even if she had it with her, his kibble would have been soaked, anyway.

If mortal humans could spear fish like this, then Val most definitely had the speed and reflexes to catch a dozen fish. With renewed focus, she walked carefully through the water in search of a new school near the surface.

Eventually, she ended up carrying two decently sized fish by their tails.

“Great job,” Tavras praised her. “Now you just have to cook them.”

“Let me guess: I also need to start a fire by myself?”

“You better believe it!” Based on his broad smile, Tavras seemed to be enjoying this far too much. “Come on. I’ll give you some pointers for this too.”

Before he could lead her off toward the forest, Val trudged over there for herself. Once more, she had to resist the urge to whine all the while.

Much to her annoyance, Tavras followed her around. “You should walk in a way that’s more masculine. Lengthen your strides with confidence, and don’t swing your hips!”

Val swore that she did not swing her hips when she walked. With a roll of her eyes, she put her anger into walking the way that he had said. She moved faster, just wanting to get away from him for a little bit.

He stalked her with his grin as bright as ever, of course. At least he did provide some much-needed instruction on how to strip bark from a tree and start a fire. After rubbing sticks together near the tinder, Val’s hands felt hotter than any heat from the sticks. Starting a fire always looked easy enough in movies and such, but she simply could not get a spark to light.

Val cried out and threw her sticks, spitting a curse before she could stop herself. “Crap, this is hard.” Her gaze lifted to watch Tavras carefully, but he did not reprimand her like her mother would have for the mild curse.

Rather, he said something even more unwelcoming. “You should make a habit of swearing more often. It makes you less ladylike, you know. That really helps support your guise as a man if no one can see you as a woman.”

Val’s temper flared like she only wished that her pathetic attempt at a campfire could have. “What is wrong with you? Just shut up with the sexist remarks already!” Swearing did not make her any less of a woman, so she directed a string of colorful curse words at him to prove her point. “Screw you, sexist shithead.”

Her mouth felt weird, uttering so many foul words at once. Val did not normally swear so much, but Tavras earned it in this case.

Did this also happen to be another disadvantage of dealing with an old immortal? Women’s equality may have just gathered support in the past hundred years or so, but that did not excuse Tavras from failing to modernize his worldview.

This time with Divine Judgement, Val tried to imagine fire. Beyond just being cussed out, Tavras deserved his hair set ablaze, especially given how his hair was now longer than Val’s had ever been. She could also use that fire to light up her campfire—two birds with one stone.

Nothing happened, despite Val calling upon her power.

“Aw, no punch? No spear raining down from the sky? I will be disappointed if you have grown a thicker skin so soon.” Leaning back, Tavras clutched at his heart as though she had wounded him.

Her ability had not been working anyway, and now Val gave up on it entirely. With a sigh, she realized how far she had fallen from her ideal. Letting her temper go once had made her want to fly off of the handle again and again.

“You know what?” she said. “We’re having sushi tonight. Does that sound good to you, Foofy?”

This decision let Val skip building a fire and start the disgusting task of preparing the fish with some help from Tavras. At least the raw meat did not taste as bad as she had dreaded.

“Pupper supper!” Val sang.

Foofy lay down beside Val and snapped at everything that she threw his way.

Once dinner had concluded with the raw fish, the day had aged to the late evening.

“I will let you have some time to yourself now,” Tavras said, getting up and turning back to the ocean. “You’ve had a good start today, but I expect a lot more from you once you have adjusted.”

"Thank you." Val put aside her frustration with Tavras and offered him a deep nod of her head.

Truly, she appreciated all of the time that he was willing to invest in her training. As far as misogynists went, at least Tavras would still mentor her as a female, so maybe he was not a completely lost cause. His personality was too quirky for her to truly understand his intentions with making her act like a boy.

When she lifted her bowed head, Tavras had already disappeared to the waters.

As soon as he had gone, Val felt a twinge of loneliness. This entire day, she had spent with Tavras since the moment that he had appeared on the back of the sea serpent with her, bringing Foofy back to her. Many moments between them had caused anger and frustration to swell up within her, but all in all, she felt grateful for the way that he had come into her life.

Even the loss of her hair, she could forgive.

Her fingers tugged at the necklace which hung at her chest. The silver chain pressed against the back of her neck, while Val opened up her fist to reveal the charm. It was the sweet shape of angel wings. To some extent, the necklace reminded her of Ross, because they had each purchased a charm from the same vendor.

The charms were said to have magical properties, but Val did not trust that the seller had been entirely honest in her wares. If real, the necklace's enchantment should make other people respect her more.

Val wondered whether or not her interactions with Tavras proved the necklace's authenticity. On one hand, cutting off her hair had been the definition of disrespect. On the other hand, his willingness to train her was incredibly kind—more respect than she deserved. Of his actions towards her, one of these things was vastly more important than the other.

Already, it felt like she had learned more from him in a day than she had in the past seven years of trying to figure out her powers with Ross. Forever, Val would feel indebted to his kindness in taking him under his wing.

The light, fluttery feeling returned to her chest in thinking of these positives that came along with Tavras. Val settled down to sleep on the beach with Foofy who snuggled up alongside her.