Chapter 20 – Come at me!

I wasn’t that familiar with the city to begin with. Few new buildings had been built up in in Mehn in my absence. On my second year of the studies I had two important goals to accomplish. First and foremost was the wolf. I had to find out a way to solve it out for good. Second was to have a proper school life. I didn’t know anyone. I wasn’t part of anything. If there was some kind of social activities, festivals happening in or around the academy, I wasn’t aware of them. Anything else that I achieved throughout the year was to be taken as additional reward(s).

Orientation was taking place. School was packed with students, their friends and families. I went to dormitory, namely “Guild of Elas”.

It was summer and I was just wearing a vest, which covered my backside but my arms and front side of my body could be seen. Had regular pants and leather shoes. Tattoos were not covered and people could tell that I had them. Those tattoos on me or on any other warrior were drawn so that others could see them, and the ones with enough knowledge could identify more or less where and what you have done to deserve the tattoo. Moreover tattoos were to be engraved on bodies of warriors from tribe of Kali. Knowledge of tattooing was limited to our tribe.

As I was entering the dormitory, Eliar met me at dorm entrance.

[Eliar]: Damn it!

[Me]: Hello to you to Eliar.

[Eliar]: Man, we have to send the portaits back to be painted again.

[Me]: I’m doing great, what about you?

[Eliar]: Get to your room and pack your stuff.

I saw my portrait in the hall. Actually anyone who entered the dorm would see the portrait.

[Me]: What’s this?

[Eliar]: That’s your portrait. Yours truly (He bended his arm towards himself in a high-society manner), proposed the idea.

[Me]: Why would you do something like this?

[Eliar]: Aslan, I think you do not quite understand but it’s not year 1156 anymore. We are living in 16th century. You don’t get to see a 14 year old with these (points at my tattoos) anymore. You are a legend. We, members of the “Guild of Elas”, know how to take care of our heroes. The main reason though was to take revenge!

[Me]: Revenge for what?

[Eliar]: I’m a 17 year old perfectly healthy citizen of the kingdom who had great plans about summer holidays. My greatest accomplishment was to lose my virginity. Though in case I couldn’t achieve that dream, I wanted to at least have a kiss from a beauty. Guess what happened?

[Me]: What? I was away the whole holidays doing night shifts.

[Eliar]: Zara screwed up my summer holidays. I was staying at their house. Somehow she learnt that I know you the best out of all “Guild of Elas” members.  She asked me few times about you, and about when you will get back. I told her that I do not know. But she insisted that I knew and was not going to tell her. Wherever I was going she was by me. My last possible chance to do the greatest thing what a boy of my age could attain had blown up.

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[Me]: Who is Zara?

[Eliar]: The girl who lost to you on semi-finals in the tournament.

[Me]: Why would she ask for me?

[Eliar]: I do not know and I care less. What I know is that getting to know you was the greatest failure of my teenage years and you had to pay for it somehow. Now get to your room, pack your stuff and in an hour be at admin’s office. You will be assigned to a new room.

My new room was on second floor, 203. I had no roommates again. Later on I went to Elise’s house. Ricat was back from his usual all-around the Devil’s Canyon tour. I wanted to get 20 golds as I didn’t come to pick up the scholarship which he promised to give me during my studies. He did his best not to pay me the money reasoning out that I was not in school and holidays were not considered study time. We had a small argument which I won at the end. I asked Elise to show me around. We went to a nice restaurant. Had a dinner. After that we went to boulevard on the shore of Lake Kasp. Enjoyed the view sitting on bench close to waves and had ice creams.

[Elise]: How is to be on duty protecting us from the evil elves?

[Me]: Boring.

[Elise]: You met any elves?

[Me]: Yeah, the elven princess Alva.

[Elise]: Really? Was she beautiful?

[Me]: I think any future wife candidate has to be at least on par with Alva to be considered for marriage.

[Elise]: W-w-w-what about me?

[Me]: I think you are beauty and you have the potential. We have to wait another 3-4 years to conclude on the end results though.

I was slapped hard. She looked at me in anger. I had to change the topic but nothing came to my mind.

[Me]: I have a question which I would like to ask you first. Do you mind?

[Elise]: It depends on the question!

[Me]: What would you do if you were stuck with someone who didn’t favor you and wanted to get rid of you?

Few more slaps… And she kissed me. We had a long kiss. Everyone was staring at us but I didn’t care. Our lips departed.

[Elise]: I would do this.

She totally misunderstood me. I wanted no more misunderstandings so...

[Me]: I will accompany you home.

I took her back to her house and left back to dormitory. She had given me the answer which I or Alva couldn’t come up with.

I began to meditate. I went into trance. Everything went dark again. The cube appeared with wolf in it. I called to Ulfberht. I took him into my hands. I came close to the glass cube. On my first hit the glass cube shattered.

[Me]: Sorry, Ulfberht.

I did let go Ulfberht and sword fell down. Took a few steps forward. Wolf was looking at me. I dropped to my knees and my arms on shoulder level as if welcoming something. I shouted out “Come at me!”

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