"Artistic" Stable-boy and the Lost Sword of Vendigo Percival

With the meeting finished, I asked Toral if I could leave the room since Josy was probably waiting for me by the Gate. And him having said yes, I made my way out of the Holy-Stonetable room. As I left, I could see that from afar, Josy was already out by the door of the palace entrance.

Having approached him, I waved my hand as I greeted hey.

"Hey you ready?" I asked.

"Hmm." he nodded his head.

"You should wait here for a bit while I'll go get the wagon." as I said this, he simply waved his head no.

"I'll go with you." he said as he simply walked by me while making our way to the stables.

As we walked, we made conversation with one another to pass the time…and mainly our topic was about how he should present the sword to the Percival family.

"So you got any plans on how you'll present the sword?" I asked.

"No, I'm not the one who will decide the matter of how the sword will be used. The Head of the Percival Family will be the one to make fate with Bruneheart."

"Well, since this family is known for having a great generation of warriors, has there ever been one who used a magic sword once?" I asked.

"...There is a fairy tale of a knight who once took on an army of Demons. It was said that he carried a sword that was said to have shined a light so bright, that its ray was the very definition of hope. It made him a hero…but that story never entails of it being from the Percival family. It was simply just a fairy tale to motivate the kids." he said.

"Hmm, it was probably propaganda to influence the kids to become a knight or something." I said as I looked forward with a furrowed look in my eye, cringed by what I just said.

"...P-propaganda?" he looked to me with a curious eye, but I simply did not have the will to explain what it was.

"N-nevermind." as I disregarded his question, I suddenly remembered about the fact that in speaking of some knights and the Percival family, I remembered that I was carrying the sword handle that I found in the forest.

"Oh shoot…damn, I forgot to give this to Marquess Toral." I said as I pulled out the handle from the back of my pants where I hid it.

"Hmm, what is that?" asked Josy as he turned to look at the handle that was on my hand.

"Ah, yeah I found this sword handle by the forest and thought that it looked neat. I thought I could sell it to the Empire for a good price."

"Want me to take a look at it? Maybe I can evaluate the price." he said as he implored of wanting to check on the value of the item himself using his experience as a blacksmith.

"Really? How much do you think it would go for?" I asked as I handed him the handle.

"Hmm, let me see." as he went to grab the handle, we already found ourselves by the stables.

Having left him the handle to look at, I myself went to check on my horse.

As I went to the stables, I found the Iron lung simply tied under the tree, standing with its height more noticeable than the other horses. And by him, I could see that a stable boy was out observing the horse while carrying some sort of pencil and paper on hand. It seemed like he was sketching the stead.

"Hey." as I called out to him, he simply ignored me and continued to sketch.

And having no response from him, I simply walked pass by him and proceeded to untie the horse from the tree. But before I could even reach for the rope, I felt a sharp poke down by my side.

"!?" having turned back, I saw the boy glaring at me with his pencil pointed at my neck.

"What are you doing!?" he asked as he threatened to push the pencil up to my neck.

"..." feeling threatened, I hit his hand away and made him drop his pencil with an unpredicted motion, and by their I went to grab him by his collar shirt and raise him off he ground.

"W-what!?" he panicked and tried to break my hand off from his collar as much as he could, but knowing how strong my grip was from all the hard work I put into chopping down trees and clearing them from the forest, he had no chance at breaking free.

"W-whats your deal man!?" he said as he was still flailing around in mid-air.

"...I'm just trying to get my horse, so yeah…"

"Fuck! That's your horse?" he asked.

"..."

"I'm sorry okay, I didn't know!"

"...*Sigh*…having felt like I was bullying the kid a little bit, I put him down.

"Geez, you could taken it easy man. Damn."

"..." having said nothing, I noticed the sketchpad that he was holding…there, I saw the drawing with was quite something if I could describe it.

The drawing consisted of a disproportionate sketch of the horse. It was like a drawing of a "Said" beginner artist who just starting his life at the path of art. Something a teenager would make, a type of teenager who thinks of himself as an 'underrated' artist who in truth has no actual taste in art or talent in it. Take it from me who steals art works who actually had value in it…

"...Haha, sorry about what I did back there. I was just amazed by the size of the horse you had. I tried to take a drawing of it. Wanna see?" he said as he tried to apologize to me.

"..." but I didn't say anything and proceeded to untie the stead from the tree.

"...here." but despite me showing disinterest, he showed me the full picture of the horse.

"What do you think?" he asked.

".…" now that I was taking a closer look at it…I still thought that it was shit.

"...How long have you been drawing?" I asked.

"Umm…I don't probably eight years probably." he said.

"Its bad…very bad."I said, straight to his face.

"W-what?" but hearing my words, he seemed to be shocked by it. He seems to deny my comment.

"...Either your really bad and you don't have talent for it or that you don't see the mistakes of your process…Eight years…if this is the end product for the eight years you took in the effort to draw, then I suggest you try to look deeper into the mistakes you made from the drawing."

"W-what are you talking about."

"...From what I can see, the proportions are wrong and I know you know it too, but you did not give any sense to even correct it. The shading doesn't reflect at all in the direction of the light of the sun…and you tried to focus more on one certain detail like the eyes and the hooves of the horse…that's why some parts of it is dirty...most of all, the way you showed me your drawing seems like your bragging about it…its like you only want the recognition that you draw this, that you draw that…but that's just stupid and sloppy. Real artist only show their work when it shows true mastery and dedication…not some half assed worked just to impress some people." I say as I tried to give an honest criticism to it, and looking at his reaction, he seemed upset.

"Fuck you man…who do you think you are to judge my work!?"

"Someone whose very honest when it comes to art."

"W-what?"

"If you want to continue on this type of process, it'll take you your whole life before you could even notice that you were doing it wrong."

"..."

"...try to rethink your drawings...your process. Don't just draw because of some split second motivation from a scene…Don't draw unless if it truly impacted you as a person."

"What does that mean?" he asked.

"If you can do that, you can be a true artist."

Without saying anything else, I left the stables with my horse attached to the wagon. And the boy simply stood there with an agitated expression.

I now I may seem condescending, but seeing that boy be like that, it reminded me of my attempts at art…it was just pathetic.

I realized that I can know the value of art…but doing it was simply a different matter altogether. And in the end, I mostly became an observer and rarely became the producer. And unless I became fixated with a piece of view, I might just pick up the brush again…but mostly what I come upon are pieces of arts that I just want to take for myself.

Arts that I wanted to steal…and most of them, I did steal…

Life of a thief comes with risk, and the process of being a thief was my interpretation of being an artist in a way…my fixation with an "Artwork" was similar to that of a artist being fixed with their work in progress.

Either way, I'm mostly done with that kind of life. I'm moving on from stealing.

As I made my way back to Josy, I came back and noticed that he was still looking into the Handle with a keen eye.

"Old man, you still looking into that?" I asked, calling out to him.

But he didn't seem to notice me at all. So I got off the wagon and tried to reach out to him, but before I could get off, he said something.

"...Where did you find this?" he asked.

"...I told you, in the forest…um, somewhere in the Flat Bioma."

"...We have to bring this to the Percival family…now." all of a sudden, his tone deepens and it seems as if this sword handle was more important than even the magic sword that he held by his hips.

"What?"

Without wasting time, he got on the wagon, and we made our way to the Percival house.

As we made our way, I tried to ask why he was acting distressed by this.

"Why are you acting like that? Is something wrong with the handle?" I asked.

"...If I'm right…and if you truly did picked this up from some forest out in the Flat Bioma, then this symbol under the hilt can only lead to one thing…"

"...And that is?"

"...The Lost sword of Vendigo."

"Who's Vendigo?" I asked.

"...Vendigo Percival…he was once the Head Patriarch of the family…but he died while undergoing a mission out somewhere far from the territory of the Dragon Empire."

"Does this mean anything?" I asked.

"...I don't know, but I once saw a handle of a blade with the same look as this. It came from one of the portraits of the Percival Family."

"...Huh, so if I gave them this handle, what would happen?"

"I don't know. But all that matters is that we deliver this hilt to the family. Its part of their legacy after all."

"Okay…"

"Hmm, and what about the blade of the sword, where's the rest of it?" he asked.

"Oh, When I found the sword, it was very already rusted…it would have broke the moment I took a swing at it."

"Hmm, I see."

"So how long was this sword been missing?" I asked.

"...for about 40 years now. I only remembered this hilt because while I was commissioned by the Family to make the Magic sword. I wanted to take reference of what type of design they would like in their sword hilt and that's when I saw the old made swords from the past Family heads. Vendigo Percival's portrait was one of the images I took reference of."

"..."

"We should make haste, this is an important discovery to the family." he said.

"Okay!" and so with that, we rushed our way to the Percival home.

And after about 30 minutes of riding, we finally made it. I was kind of amaze to see how far they were from the Palace but despite that, I was amaze to find the mansion that stood in front of me. Even with the gate blocking us, I swear that the mansion was quite a veiw to look at. It was comparable to that of the Palace itself…as it somewhat ha the same type of architecture style poured in in its design. I could only assume that it probably had the same Architect who designed the Percival house and the Dragon Palace.

There, as we got permission to enter, I saw that inside this place, the area of the property was quite massive…yet at the same time, it was suffocating. There was definitely something behind the mansion of this house.

"...Huh?" out from afar, in front of the house, I could see that Serena was standing there with her arm waving towards us with a friendly smile.

"Looks like Lady Serena was expecting us. Isn't she the one who you carried throughout the Flat Bioma?" said Josy.

"Yeah, her knight, Shirley told me that she was waiting by the Percival house to meet us." I answered.

Finally, we arrived at the House. And with here, we can finally Demonstrate Bruneheart to the Percivals and also show them this said missing sword handle of the past Family head.

I was kind of nervous of what was to happen, but either way, we were here and we had no choice of turning back.