1 Luck and Playmates
Support my main contracted novel and winner of Writing Prompts #26 - The Legendary Mage!
Desolate Mage: A Legend Reborn!
https://www.webnovel.com/book/12013957905760805/Desolate-Mage%3A-A-Legend-Reborn!
History's youngest legendary mage has a broken heart. His fiancée and childhood sweetheart of 10 years married another man! While he warred against other-worldly invaders to save planet Earth...!
With nothing to live for; he leads a squad of his closest brothers and sisters to cross over and scout their invader's world - only to be wiped out; betrayed by the squads big brother, their most trusted member.
On the brink of death; his soul is protected and reincarnated by a mystical necklace his former lover gave him…
…And contracted to a demon – to wreak havoc across the planes.
Will he find new hope for living?
Will he make it back alive and escape the curse of the demon…? Or be found out as a spy and executed...?
How will he survive when he falls in love with an impossible lover – his world's sworn enemies...!
* * * * *
Today was a lucky day for Sam.
She had woken up at dawn to help grandpa prepare their Ragout d'Escoubilles breakfast. That's what grandpa called it, but it was really just rice congee boiled with paltry leftovers donated from Mrs. Magda. Then after washing up and doing various chores, she set off to play in the forest just before noon.
She was looking for her newest playmate, a 2m long, 1m tall horned rabbit who she would play tag with.
Only; dense as she was, Sam didn't realise that the rabid, blood-thirsty, carnivorous "rabbit" that rippled with muscles and could tear apart a dozen villagers was NOT her playmate - it only hungered for her flesh...
On their first day of "playing" together, Sam couldn't even tag the rabbit once. The rabbit didn't seem to understand the game.
"Tag! You're it!" After Sam tagged it once while it was sleeping; even after it stabbed Sam with its horn, it wouldn't run. Instead it continued to chase Sam; unleashing thrust after thrust, bite after bite in its attempt to subdue its prey.
Faced with the frothing, red-eyed rabbit which rushed at her trying to impale her with its foot-long horn, Sam got cut everyday. But by the 5th day, when Sam could finally avoid all the horn-strikes and tag the rabbit back (hard), she was delighted. She even gave the bruised and battered rabbit a name - Mrs Horn.
On the 8th day, Mrs Horn had changed the game to hide and seek.
Now Mrs Horn would hide. The cowering, fearful Mrs Horn would hide further and further everyday, obviously trying to make the game more challenging.
Mrs Horn no longer seemed to understand the game. She would just keep running away no matter how many times Sam tagged her or found her hiding place.
On this morning, as Sam ran for around 3 hours, she passed by a group of armoured people in dark cloaks, armed with swords, spears and bows. They looked at her menacingly, and she ran past, afraid Mrs Horn would get impatient waiting for her to seek.
Very soon, she caught Mrs Horns scent and she veered to the side - she had found Mrs Horns hiding place!
She smiled.
(Gotcha...!)
* * * * *
Sam's Grandpa, Lucius, always told her of how she was born with the gift of True Luck.
She herself couldn't remember it; but he recounted the day: the priests assessing her innate talents had "Ooh'd" and "Ahh'd" at the talent - and then nothing.
Because True Luck, though it sounded great, was just a fourth-rate talent - with no visible benefits. Not like the top-tier talents such as Hero, 5 Elements Divinity, Space-time Absolute Control - or the greatest innate talent of all - being born with a System.
All things Sam did not have.
Well, Sam had never considered herself lucky.
She and grandpa were really poor; as could be seen from her ill-fitting hand-me-downs donated from the neighbours. Some ragged boy's pants and tunics from the shrine priest, and some less ragged pants and shirts from Mrs. Magda - those ones at least had more material than holes.
She wasn't good at reading, writing or thinking. Well, she liked books alot - she often placed her face and chin in between the pages of an open book to sleep, enjoying the smell.
Grandpa said that she might not even be able to learn magic. She'd tried to sense mana, but all that happened was a weak wisp of wind brushing past her short, black hair. The wind had been so mild, she wondered if it had just been her imagination. She'd tried again and again, waving her hands around to cultivate mana. But there was nothing.
She'd cried for a whole night, cried until grandpa told her that the rescued princesses in fairy tales didn't need to know magic. They just needed to have a knight in shining armour.
She was lucky to have Lily as her friend. Lily sat with her, told her stories about splendorous magic that caused ice storms and fireballs; fairies with their little wings and magic wands; dragons roaring and breathing fire causing villagers to flee - and heroes swinging their magic swords to defeat the dragons.
But apart from Lily, Sam was still shunned by the other kids. Maybe it was because she was always dirty and wearing old patched donated clothes. Or maybe because her hair, eyes and skin colour were just... Different.
She also didn't have a mother or father or brothers or sisters to love her.
So Sam never felt she was lucky at all.
But today was a lucky day for Sam.
Today, in her excitement, Sam accidentally tagged Mrs Horn too hard. But that was not the lucky part; it was what came after that made her feel lucky!
The rabbits body flew through the air, splitting the small trees it hit as if they were just twigs. After flying for over 30 metres, the body finally crashed and bounced off a tree so thick it needed 4 men to encircle it; yet the impact of its metre long body still tore away a sizable chunk of the tree, causing it to swap.
Bloody and battered, Mrs Horn struggled to raise its body once, twice. And then the horned rabbit breathed its last.
Sam had already ran away, hoping that Mrs Horn would give chase this time. Then after awhile she backtracked, curious as to the silence.
"Mrs Horn...?"
She slowly approached the creature, wary in case it was a ruse and she would get tagged in return.
Thinking Mrs Horn was pretending to sleep, Sam kicked her. But after hitting Mrs Horn a few more times, Sam realised something - Mrs Horn was dead.
She cried for a minute, before remembering that Reeve said the rabbit he caught tasted really good. Her tears stopped as she wiped away both tears and saliva which started to drip down the 9 year olds mouth.
*Creak*
Sam felt the back of her neck tingle. Then to her shock, the impacted tree finally couldn't take it anymore, and began to tilt over and fall.
She hastily fled from the descent of the falling tree, dragging the rabbits body along. She seemed to hear a cry of "Ahhhhhh!" even as the tree fell, but put it down to the sound of the wind.
As the dust settled, to her surprise, a person was lying on the ground. It looked like he was flung from the tree as it fell.
Sam set down the rabbit and gingerly walked nearer.
She brushed away the dust and rolled him over to look at his face. The first thing she noticed was how tall and handsome he was, despite being very light. He was more handsome than Reeves. He could even be the 2nd most handsome man in the whole world! (grandpa was number 1).
The second thing she noticed was that he was wearing light armour. Shiny, bright platemail armour with not a dent or stain despite the fall.
Sam's heart skipped a beat. Was this her fated knight in shining armour?
Maybe... Maybe when he woke up... He would be so grateful to her for protecting him that he would... He would give her... His friendship? Sam was happy as she would have another new friend to play with.
Today really was her lucky day.
The little girl hummed as she dragged the two bodies behind her and skipped happily back towards home, ignorant as to the trouble she would cause.
* * * * * * * * * *
It was dark by the time Sam reached home.
She could see Lucius sitting on the porch, reading a book while waiting for her.
Lucius had been worried at first when she went out everyday and came back after dark. But after she returned safely each time, he realised he was worried for nothing. He shivered as he wondered whether it was a sweet young girl he raised or a female ogre...
When she was lightly injured a few days back, he was worried sick. And when he found out she was playing with a horned rabbit, his worry turned to shock. The horned rabbits habitat was 200km away. To make it back and forth within a day…
And they were classified as monsters which would need 10 experienced hunters to kill – and even then, they would not get by without injuries. If she was only lightly injured while playing with the bloodthirsty rabbit…
So Lucius had stopped worrying. But today was different.
When he saw the body of the horned rabbit dragged by her right hand, he was shocked. Looks like he needed to upgrade his evaluation from female ogre to female titan…
And when he saw the human body dragged by her other hand, he fell off his chair.
"Grandpa! Grandpa! Look what I broug-mmmmfm?!?"
"Shhh!"
Lucius covered her mouth and quickly shooed her into the hut, peeking around to ensure no one saw what was in her hands. It was quiet all around; the shrine was quite well isolated from the surroundings, but it never hurt to be careful...
* * * * * * * * * *
"Lord Adjutant, what should we do?"
Among the armoured gandharva, one stood out with his white mage robes.
On his left shoulder were 9 large stars and 1 small star, indicating his rank at nearly the apex of strength in all Urth.
He tightly squeezed a stone in his right hand, and massaged his temples to relieve his migraine. What had begun as him bringing his nephew for an educational visit to the human's lands had turned sour the moment the Prince had slipped away for SpaceTime with his "secret" online girlfriend.
But he had no mobile signal in these lands. And that led to looking for signal. And that led to his disappearance. And to his climbing every tall tree.
And now he was taken away.
"Lord! W-we need to rescue the Prince...! Or we'll all be ha-ha-ha-hanged…"
The sounds of a rock crumbling could be heard as he pulverized the ironstone with his grip. He did it without mana reinforcement, a feat that required tens of thousands of kilograms of grip force.
"We go in at the beginning of 3rd watch, before dawn. I will see if a peaceful negotiation works. Remember - no matter what happens, take the Prince away. No matter what."
As the gandharva silently dispersed to their positions, Dhrtarastra's heart pounded.
Lucius...
Dhrtarastra shivered. He couldn't figure out Lucius' intentions. They had mutually sensed one another the moment he tracked the missing prince to this town. Despite his own strength, Dhrtarastra knew he was but a child in front of one of the divine knights of Uro.
If peaceful negotiations didn't work…
Dhrtarastra's face was grim at the thought.
