Another peaceful day was reaching its end in Hung Town and warm golden rays of light bathed the heads of the eager apprentices marching behind the town's governor. Marimo was probably the sweatiest apprentice of all... true, most other kids were chosing town-related professions... and he felt confortable around magic mostly... but then again, he felt he couldn't perform anything more complicated than frying an egg with a wand flick... but the eagerness for achieving and the fantasies of rescuing maidens in distress from evil wicked monsters kept him going... the very moment the governor ordered the apprentices to stand still and listen carefully. So Marimo got scolded. Then he laughed out incredibly loud out of pure and shear anxiety. Then he was taken out for punishment. Instead of the traditional one to one duel, he was made to take the ancient rite of passage called "Get the Hell out of Town and Call Yourself Lucky if You Survive". The cheers of the first duel broke Marimo's grim thoughts. He was in the middle of the forest entrance, a grayish dark place, unfriendly as a duck sitting on your food, when a loud, acute and disturbing voice scared the living snots out of him:
-So, another expelled fool has come to join the forsaken souls! HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!
As he turned over to watch the creature this came from, he found a distorted face, with a wicked, unnatural smile topped by two orange catlike pupils. On top of that -ad maybe this was just the effect of light and shadows- two pointy cat ears. Every single hair in Marimo's head rose as if they were trying to get out of there crawling. Marimo himself was one second short of doing something stupid...
To be continued...
