There are two things that must come together to create "fate"; location and opportunity. These two objectivities meet on a day-to-day basis, occurring consequently, second after second. But for "fate" to become completely material, another objectivity must be present. It is unknown what its form is and whether it can be emulated. It is also unknown whether this objectivity is a desirable trait or not, but for the young maiden Kiya, it was not her choice to possess it.
It was also not her choice to run through the forest, or more precisely, run from it.It was all a cruel trick, and what more, its maker was fate.
"Someone grab her!" yelled a 10 foot ogre.
"Don't you give out orders, Stumpy," its companion replied. Stumpy was, in ogre size, quite stumpy as an ogre of its age was at least 15 feet.
"You should have held her when you had the chance, but you just love playing with your food," Stumpy growled.
"Knock it off you two," the third and final ogre said. It was much larger, much uglier, which in ogre terms made for a fine specimen.
Kiya held the hem of her red dress up as she ran through the forest. It was partly torn by the wild shrubs, but it was not of the utmost importance. Not when three hungry ogres were chasing at your heels.
"Should have stayed home today, but no, I just had to go out to walk by the river and I just had to nonchalantly kick the rock and it just had to hit the ogre." Kiya rambled on and on. It was true though. She was at home all day, all week even because she had everything she needed inside. Everything except for excitement and at the moment she had a surplus of that.
"Kyaaaah!" she yelled.
"Here we go, one little human," the largest of the ogres proclaimed.
"Just because you got her first doesn't mean you get the largest piece. I was the one who got hit by the rock," Stumpy complained.
"Well, I was the one who spot her," the other ogre said.
Kiya kicked and screamed as strongly as she could but within the iron grips of the orcish green beasts it was all so very futile. Her red bow bounced on her hair with her flailing. It bounced and bounced until it was loose and with one final bounce fell off her head.
"Oh, how pretty," said a quiet voice from below.
"Stumpy, I knew you were a moron, but a priss as well?" the largest ogre said.
"That wasn't me, Lumpy!" Stumpy replied.
"Grumpy?" said Lumpy.
"Nope," the middle ogre replied.
"That would leave me," said the quiet voice again.
Kiya and the three ogres looked below. In the middle of them, sitting on a root of one of the great trees was a boy, or was it a man? If he was older, his face had retained his boyishness and if he was younger, he had a mature air about him. "Well, hello there," he said again.
"Another human," said Lumpy.
"A very stupid one at that," said Grumpy.
"He looks tasty," said Stumpy.
"Help me!" Kiya screamed.
"This is yours, right?" he said, raising the red bow he had caught earlier into the air. "It's very pretty.
""Who cares about the stupid bow! Just help me!" she yelled once more.
"Don't you get any ideas now, Lumpy..." Stumpy growled.
"Too late," Grumpy sighed. "He's got that stupid grin on his face again."
"Shut up you two. You know I like meat pre-heated," he snapped back. "Now listen here, human. Do you want to help this little girl?"
"I suppose," the boy replied.
"You suppose? YOU SUPPOSE?!" she yelled.
"Eh maybe not then?" the boy said inquisitively.
"Help me, idiot!"
"Maybe if you say please," the boy said a little more loudly.
"Puh-lease!" she cried. "I'm not begging some no name magician to help me. I'd rather be eaten."
"Suit yourself," the boy said. He started walking away, just as calmly as he walked in. There was no hint of remorse in his stride.
"Wait... wait, you're not just going to leave me here! Really?!" Kiya screamed.
The boy didn't turn around when he was called. There were more important places to be. More grateful people who could be saved.
Kiya’s desperation grew worse when Lumpy’s deformed index finger wrapped around her thigh. Cold, morbid fear crept up her body and seized her throat. The ogres seemed to have forgotten about the boy’s presence with her fresh new screams. All five and a half hungry eyes were on her.
“I’ll pay you your weight in gold if you save me!”
The young magician’s legs immediately halted. Without changing his earlier tone he said, “You give me
your weight in gold and it’s a deal.”
“F-fine!” she yelled before she realized his disguised insult.
“It’s settled then,” he replied. “Your weight in gold... that should be more than enough...”
“Wait! What do you mean MY weight in gold?”
“Simple mathematics,” the magician replied. “More weight equals more gold.”
Her face reddened in both embarrassment and fury. Had she not been so helpless at the moment, she would have wiped that smirk off the boy’s face with a well deserved slap.
“Ey’ Lumpy, look who’s back,” said Stumpy as the magician approached. To other magical creatures, his return would have not been a surprised. Any simple-minded person would have understood what had just transpired between the magician and the damsel in distress, but ogres were never known for their outstanding intelligence.
“Came back to play?” Lumpy asked the magician boy excitedly, shaking Kiya up and down in the process.
“Well, who doesn’t love a good ogre fun once in a while?” he replied.
“The rules are simple!” the ogre began. “I’ll toss this little human here into the forest as far as I can and you have to try and catch her. Easy, right!?” As mentioned before, ogres are not the brightest of magical creatures. They are, in fact, somewhat crude(if you hadn’t figured that out by yourself yet).
Kiya’s horror-stricken face was accompanied by her horror-stricken complaint. “What a stupid game! What do you ogres think I am? Some sort of human bean bag? It’s obvious he’s not going to catch me and even if he does we’ll both be splattered! Think of something else or let me down this instant!”
Lumpy’s already contorted face became an angry sort of contorted. The crooked, chipped and blunt yellow teeth in his mouth were in full display. His acrid breath lapped on Kiya’s face. “I’m going to enjoy licking your brains off the grass,” he barked.
“I think it’s a splendid game,” the magician boy replied.
“Don’t encourage them, you fool!” Kiya screamed. Her scream was prolonged by Lumpy’s sudden movement. He cocked his humungous ogre hand back and flung the human in his grip as far as ogerly possible. As far as ogerly possible is a rather long distance.
“Go chase her now,” the largest ogre commanded.
The magician saluted the three ogres and began walking in the direction Kiya had been flung. He didn’t bother running. For one it was too tiresome, but it was also quite obvious that he would never reach her in time. Instead he produced an unnecessarily large navy colored book from his cloak and began to leisurely flip through the pages.
“Hmm... not here... not here...” he muttered out loud as he leafed through the book. Unsatisfied, he shut the navy leather bound book. “Perhaps the spell is in another one... Time is running out too. Might just have to give up on the gold then,” he said calmly.
Way above, up in the sky, Kiya’s face was buffeted by the wind as she flew at unknown speeds through the air. This was definitely the end for her. There was really no other way out of the situation. “
Think positively,[i]” she thought. “[i]At least I won’t have to pay that magician that ridiculous sum of money... and I’ll die instantly... probably.” Not having to pay
was a consoling thought, but given the reason why, she couldn’t help but be depressed.
“SCREW YOU, FATE!” she yelled at the top of her lungs.
“You sure love to scream, don’t you?” The calmest, most annoying voice she had ever heard whispered in her ear.
“
I must be going crazy—now of all times.” Death was so cruel. Out of all the things that could flashed before her eyes, it had to be the sight and voice of that bratty no-name magician.
“I am actually here, you know,” the hallucination repeated. “And I’m not a hallucination.”
“Wait—but how!? and why?!”
“Well, I was leafing through my tome, looking for the teleportation spell—ah my memory is pretty bad so I forget things, it happens—and I couldn’t really find it so I just sort of gave up, but then I suddenly remembered that I recently saw Yuuki flipping through it so I thought to myself, what could she have wanted with my tome? She’s always playing tricks on me so I knew it had to be something silly and then it hit me. I saw this “Poofy spell” when I was flipping through it that I didn’t remember seeing before and tried it and it turned out to be the teleportation spell.”
“WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING EXPLAINING ALL THIS NEEDLESS CRAP TO ME RIGHT NOW?! CAN’T YOU SEE WE’RE SPIRALING TO OUR DEATHS?!” Kiya screamed in frustration.
“Correction,” the boy said. “You’re spiraling to your death. I’m just spiraling.”
“YOU’RE GOING TO BE SPIRALING AND PENILESS IF YOU DON’T SAVE ME RIGHT NOW!”
“There’s that too... now how did that spell go again...”
“YOU FORGOT?! ALREADY?!”
“Could you be a bit more silent? I’m trying to remember.”
If Kiya could have stomped the air she would have, but she settled with making the most disgruntled face she could muster. The magician was muttering strange words under his breath, stopping and shaking his head seconds after. He was about to reach into his cloak when he suddenly exclaimed. “Ah that’s right!”
“What’s ri—ahh!” Kiya exclaimed as the young boy embraced her. He did not ask or explain. He simply reached out held her back and pulled her to his chest. He was surprisingly strong. “What are you doing?! Unhand me!” she yelled.
“Do you want to live or die?” The magician’s eyes met hers with a cold uncaring stare.
“I... I... just warn me next time. You can’t just embrace a woman and expect her to not react.”
“The embrace is necessary to simplify our teleportation coordinates. Normally, I’d be able to do the calculations for both but at this speed it’d be best to teleport together. “
“Of course...”
“
sylpha canti mov” The magician whispered the incantation and his brown eyes glowed an ethereal blue. Wisps from his mana supply flowed into the wind, consumed by the very air. A giant green magic circle formed below the two and as they flew through the center the magician yelled, “BREAK!”
From the magic circle a gust of white smoke overtook them and after the wind whipped away the smoke they were no longer there.
“
Did it work? Kiya had closed her eyes as soon as the smoke hit her. She could still not feel the solid ground beneath her feet as if she was still falling. Mortifying thoughts ran through her head. Forgetting her earlier embarrassment, she clenched the magician even tighter.
“It’s ok now,” he whispered softly.
She opened her eyes slowly. Everything was green blur at first but she could tell it was the forest backdrop. As her eyesight recovered she could distinguish individual shapes. Her head turned until her eyes met the magician’s once more. They were still glowing with a blue hue, but the intensity from earlier had diminished. She wanted to know why she could still not feel the ground even though she had reached it. “We’re safe...?” she whispered.
He nodded and, tentatively, she looked down. The magician’s and her feet were inches from the mossy earth. They were floating within the sea of tree trunks and the only light that that caught them came from the sun above that filtered through the leaves.
“Ah...” she exclaimed. Slowly, they began to descend onto the ground. Her toes touched first and then the rest followed.
“Mmm... there you go,” the boy said with a kind smile he had not revealed before. “Oh, there’s something missing though.”
“
There is?” Kiya thought.
He reached into his cloak and pulled out a neat red bow. Gently he placed it on her head and clipped it where she had put it this morning.
“Thank you,” she said. A tinge of rose played on her cheeks as she became conscious of his proximity. “Er...”
“Kyo,” said the magician. By then the blue hue had already receded into his eyes.
“Thank you, Kyo,” she repeated.
“Shall we then?” he asked.
“Lead the way,” replied Kiya.
Maybe fate isn’t so bad.
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I'm actually not dead.
. It's sort of cut into my chatting time with the group and I really apologize for that because I love talking with all of you and miss the random chats. By the way, I hope my godchild is being treated well! I'd also like to apologize to Yuuki because she's been so keen on my story and I always love a fan, but there's an evil force that's been overtaking me. It's known as "job" and it saps away my life force.
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