A Destined One

Alanis jogged after Arjuna who was walking at a fast pace out of the inn. As he walked to the desk in the front, he tossed a silver coin to the innkeeper.

"ill take as many nights that coin buys"

The female innkeeper looked down at the silver coin that glistened in her hands and grinned. She quickly looked up to Arjuna with glimmering eyes and said in the most charming and polite voice she could muster

"of course mister, I will be sure that your room gets special care"

She said the last part with a large emphasis but Arjuna was already out of the door. The innkeeper watched his back as he walked out of the inn door and into the street, but while she was gazing at him a hooded figure walked past the inn keeper giving her a death glare.

Even though Alanis had a hood covering her face she was able to give a death glare that scared the innkeeper enough to back up and crash into the wall behind her.

Alanis gave a grin to herself like she was satisfied and left the inn with the terrified innkeeper behind her.

Arjuna had already walked into the street and headed out to the city gates. Alanis quickly hurried to catch up, her innate nimbleness and quick feet dodged and weaved through the groups of people who were walking down the main road.

It was actually pretty easy to spot Arjuna, even from a large number of people on the road. He was the only one with raven black hair, out of all of the colors or hair she saw currently in the Nightshade empire, black was one of the rare colors brown and blond were one of the most common. But black was again something rare, in fact, that was one of the things that caught her attention. After all, there was only one race that had distinctive black hair.

Alanis finally caught up to the black-haired boy who had a plain bow that, from her experience looked decently strong and a quiver with some interesting arrows inside.

She got next to Arjuna and slightly bumped into him like she was declaring her presence. Arjuna just looked at Alanis like he was expecting her to say something.

Alanis just didn't answer and walked side by side with him. Arjuna got a bit confused as to why she did that, but shrugged his shoulders and continued to walk.

The two walked over to the gate in awkward silence, well it was mostly Alanis who thought it was awkward Arjuna didn't really care and spent most of his time looking at his surroundings.

The City of Dawn was a famous land that attracted many tourists to see its famous sunset and sunrise. Being on the border it had attracted many powerful individuals to challenge the powerful monsters who dwelled on the death mountains that cut through the entire continent. There were 10 passages through the death mountains that bordered the 2 empires and both empires were currently having small skirmishes over the 6 passages on their borders. But since the two empires were in the middle of the east continent the countries that surrounded them only had 4 passages to share while the two empires the Lion and Nightshade empires controlled the most optimal trade routes and passages.

After all, if one controlled the passages they could enforce taxes and many other things.

The city of dawn was one of the closest cites near one of the passages. That passage was known as one of the hardest passages to traverse. Not because it was hard to traverse physically, no in fact it was one of the most well-built passages through the death mountains but the reason it was not used, nobody used it as an actual passage. It was riddled with monster dens and unknown dungeons. Any brave trader or merchant that wanted to cross this passage needed to employ bodyguards that were at least level 150 and those were extremely expensive.

That was why it was called the prodigium passage.

But even though the City of Dawn was near the prodigium passage which was the least used passage, It had plenty of influence and power. Once the two empires started to get into skirmishes over the passages, tourists stopped traveling to it. But that didn't stop the many adventurers and monster hunters that were attracted by the many monsters that were in the death mountains and its surroundings.

More armed people were appearing in the streets day by day. But the civilians in the city of Dawn were living happily, though a bit worried about the rising tensions.

Arjuna reached the gates and waved to the city guards who waved back. They gave a quick glance at the mysterious hooded figure behind him, but they let her past under a few curious gazes.

As they walked out the fresh wind blew against. Arjuna gave a good look at his surroundings. The golden plains that surrounded him made him feel refreshed. With his eyesight alone, he could only see the plains. Just because the city of dawn was nearest to the prodigium passage doesn't mean that I was really that close.

They were about 3 days worth of traveling away from the beginning of the passage far out of sight from even Arjuna's trained eyes.

Influenced from the view of the plains that seemed like the waves in the sea Arjuna turned to Alanis and said with a smile, and in his characteristic quiet but attention-grabbing voice.

"well, I guess we are going to do a job now huh?"

Alanis was momentarily charmed by Arjuna's blinding smile. But she managed to regain her consciousness and returned with her own smile and said

"Yup! I guess so rival!"

She was smiling under her hood but it seems the wind itself thought that it was a pity nobody could see her smile and with a quick and sudden gust of wind. Her hood was flung off showcasing her beaming smile.

Arjuna looked at her golden hair that seemed to sparkle and shine like the stars, her rose-red lips, her skin that seemed to be as white and pure as snow. Her beautiful figure that was hidden under her large cloak.

A sudden emotion burst into him. He didn't know what it was but later he would call that emotion joy. The joy of finding a friend. That was the feeling he was feeling, it was stupid, he had only known this girl for a day or so, and he barely remembered her name. But as he looked at her smile in such a natural way, some quiet small voice in his heart told him that it was okay to try and know this elvish girl in front of him. The one who was smiling at him, who he had just a few hours ago told her that they were rivals.

Arjuna suddenly thought to himself

"rivals... that means that we are competing for the same thing right? but at the same time, we are equals"

Equals, that word meant so much to Arjuna, the last equal he knew was his brother. And with all that was going on, they only had time to eat together and go back to the game.

Caution was something Arjuna knew it was something ingrained in him and he got some of those traits from his master.

He had to be cautious with that elvish girl. But she cocked her head in confusion as to why Arjuna was staring at her. He kept on feeling that lifting feeling in his heart that made the sides of his mouth almost tug up again.

Arjuna turned around and said to Alanis without letting her see his expression.

"Alright, we are going to pick herbs and hunt any monsters we come across, I move at a really fast pace so I hope you can keep up"

Alanis took out her bow and gave it a small twang. The string vibrated with a melodious sound and she gave off a grin as she said

"I have trained since young to be a Nightfall Archer, I can handle this"

Arjuna looked at her with one of his eyebrows raised,

"Alright, if you say so Alan"

"its Alanis"

"oh yeah, whatever"

"wait, we talked for like a few hours and you still don't know my name?"

"Yeah, don't mind the small details"

Arjuna then started to jog off like he was avoiding something. Which is a sense he was, The offended elf stood there with her entire face displayed, she probably should have been pissed at that point but something made her smile as she watched the black-haired kid runoff and then suddenly stopping dead in his tracks to dive down into the grass emerging with a fresh herb in his hands and a ton of dirt on his hands and knees.

The elf was brought to faint memories of her childhood before anything had happened. She had cherished those memories but at the same time, they were too painful to relive. Perhaps someday she could get over it, but now was not the time, after all, she had a rival now, and a good one at that.