*Tristan sat on a rock in a clearing not too deep into the forest, waiting. It was 4, and he had promised Erika to meet her here so she could help him with self defence. He tried not to think about the fact that he was in the forest...alone.*

"Damn him," Erika cursed to herself as the clock hit about 4:05. She told him to be there four o'clock sharp and he hadn't. Though the thought came to her that he was afraid of the forest. Shaking her head she walked more towards the clearing guessing he probably didn't come that far in.

Seeing him she knew she was right but still said as she walked coser to him, "It's five minutes after four. Where were you?"

*He looked up* "I've been here, waiting for you...." *He said, sliding off the rock, cringing as he put weight on his left arm*

Erika raised an eyebrow but let it go. She was curious to his answer and as she didn't feel he was lying she didn't ask anymore. "Come on," she told him suddenly and began walking back to where she had been waiting before she came looking for Tristan.

*Tristan walked with her, walking behind her, but not too far back, not wanting to walk far from her. He held onto his bandaged arm, being hidden under a light jacket. Tristan kept his head down, watching where he was going.*

Erika felt him close behind her and wanted to laugh but couldn't bring herself too. She glanced back at him and noticed he was holding his arm. Stopping she turned towards him asking simply, "What happened?"

*Tristan almost ran into her she stopped so suddenly.* "What do you mean?" *He asked, not really aware that he was holding his arm anymore, just doing it out of habit to attempt to ease the pain*

Erika raised an eyebrow and gestured toward his arm. She wondered how in the hell he didn't know what she was talking about. It was obvious he had gotten hurt somehow by the way he held his arm. She knew they needed to get started but she wanted to get this out of the way first.

"Oh..." *He said, letting go of his arm and wincing slightly as he did so* "Holly...." *He said simply, not looking at Erika* "She used the imperius curse...and I cut my arm up with a broken bottle behind the three broomsticks...." *He didn't want to tell her the second half, that he had lost too much blood to think straight and hadn't found Mme. Pomfrey and cleaned it properly and now it was infected and very painful, and according to Noah, didn't even look like a normal wound, more like one inflicted by something venominous.* "It's ok....." *He lied. It wasn't ok at all. It was panful and hot from the infection, and he'd lost a great amount of sleep due to it over the past few days*

Erika could tell right off the bat it was not alright. Just the way he kept his eyes adverted and the way he kept trailing off. She remembered what Asura had told her. Not to go easy and she knew that. Glancing at his arm then back into his face she said, "I know your lying, Tristan. I can tell and your going to have to use your pain as motive or something because I'm not going easy." She hoped he'd understand that....if not she didn't know what to tell him.

After a moment she turned around and started walking but called out to him her eyes looking straight ahead. "You should get it taken care of."

*Tristan sighed and continued to follow her* "Yeah, probably...." *He said, holding his arm steady against his body as they walked. He had understood what she ment, but just decided not to comment on it* "Noah looked at it the other night. He said it's infected" *He added, the second part about it being infected he said much quieter*

Erika glanced at him as he spoke while they continued walking, they were close. When she heard him speak a second time, but didn't get what he said she asked, "What did you say?"

"Noah looked at it the other night....on the astronomy tower." *He repeated so she could hear him clearly*

"And....what did he say?" Erika asked the boy as she finally stopped walking and glanced over at him wondering what the answer could be.

"That it looked pretty bad, I was stupid for not cleaning it, and that any idoit could tell it was infected.......and that it seemed like there was possibly some venom of some kind on the bottle, which would explain why it won't heal and some of the pain..." *He explained, finding a string on his jacket to pick at instead of looking at Erika*

Erika raised an eyebrow. She did wonder why Tristan had not noticed it was infected...it was after all very noticable. After a moment she sighed and spoke up. "Alright now that I know what happened let's get on with the training, we don't have all day," she told him as her eyes locked onto him. "One of the most important things you need to be able to do is endure pain."