“Terra Lizar,Ignis Amelton,Curt Mundon,Joseph Snish and finally Estesia Magdol”
The village chief read out,his voice very coerce and deep,his statue small and humped over with a long gray beard going down his old wrinkled face as he stood in front of all 5 of them reading out their names in succession while holding onto a long piece of parchment with all the children’s names on it,his hands shaking slightly as his eyes swept with hopefulness and anticipation.
A thick heavy air surrounded the area around the children as their names were called out one by one their eyes instinctively raising up as they first looked at the old man in front of them then shifting right towards the person that stood next to him.
Terra did the same thing albeit a bit slower then the rest while also looking at the old man a bit more longer with a few thoughts left to spare.
The old man that stood in front of them was their village chief,a person who served their village for many years keeping things straight and fair around here.
Incidentally he was also the person who let Ignis’s family stay in the village even though the other villagers were against it,Terra didn’t hear the exact details,but he knew that the village chief and Ignis’s father were somehow connected with each other since both of them would be often spotted talking with each other on friendly terms be it outside or inside.
Currently they were all gathered here inside the town hall conducting the evaluation.
Their long awaited day that would seal their fate.
Or so people thought.
The atmosphere was very quiet and formal around here,looking around Terra remembered that this was only the third time that he entered the town hall of the village the first two times was when he needed to register something inside the town hall with his parents and the second time was when the whole village was rounded together for a meeting by the village chief.
Compared to the other houses Terra had seen that were build from stones,mud and straws,this building alone was almost entirely build out of wood and clean cut stone,even the inside was very elaborate and what he considered pretty compared to his own home.
Unfortunately as pretty as the town hall was it was only one room as the whole building only served as a place to hold meetings or conduct important matters that needed to be set in private.
Just like today.
With that thought Terra quickly stopped observing the town hall and instead stared straight again,he was the only child that was currently even holding the leisure to look around and become distracted,compared to the other children next to him who looked serious and tense,he was more like relaxed and loose as he stared at the imposing tall man standing next to the village chief evaluating them with his stern eyes.
The first time Terra saw this imposing tall man,his eyes couldn’t help,but quickly attract to his attire instead of his face,compared to the other villagers Terra had never seen such odd clothing as his,but he still immediately recognized it as those kinds of clothing were depicted in those children stories he once read and sometimes the villagers would even talk about them.
The summoner robes.
Going all the way down to the knees it was a robe that was oddly colored white and blue,looking rough but refined with a few belts and pockets while also giving off a mystical feeling as if it was once alive made out of a material that seemed like hard leather,but looked like fine silk woven neatly together,what made this robe stand out though was the fact that it had weird star shaped buttons on the cuffs and a hood in the shape of some kind of animal head that was always different with every summoner even now.
While he did not know much about them in specific other then this,Terra knew that those robes meant that the person who was wearing them was a summoner.
In the eyes of the ordinary villagers summoners were like godly existences that could tap onto unimaginable amounts of power and strength,through the use of stories their tales had been spread far and wide over the world making ordinary people feel awed by their presence alone which just shows how high of a standing summoners possessed in society.
Terra in particular was a bit ignorant about these matters,but he still understood that summoners were really a huge deal since he always heard about them on a daily basis,he himself had his opinion about summoners,but because his father Donavan Lizzar always lectured Terra to think for himself instead of listening to others his opinion always changed with every new piece of information he learned about these mystical humans just as it did today.
Terra wasn’t very enthusiastic about being a summoner in general,but he still didn’t completely dislike the idea since he also was a bit curious about them in his heart as a child,today was the day he could finally meet a summoner face to face and not only him this also counted for the other 4 children next to him that were staring at the man intensely their ambition,hopes and dreams clearly evident inside their burnings eyes as they continued to stand firmly in their place.
All traces of youthful childishness gone and replaced with sheer anticipation that permeated the room around them as they stood.
(Cough)
After an indefinite amount of time the village chief lightly coughed bringing the atmosphere down a notch and making everyone concentrate back to him,it didn’t look like he was about to say anything and instead turned his head towards the tall man standing next to him his demeanor very respectful towards this man that looked to be in his mid thirties,his face wasn’t anything extraordinary if you disregarded the fancy robe he would look like any normal person on the street with his black hair and brown eyes,but even so Terra had to admit that there was really something special about this man that had a small glint in his eyes that he couldn’t explain.
Seniority didn’t matter in this world as long as you had the ability and strength you would earn respect from anyone including people much older then you.
The world just was made that way,strength meant all while weak was not acceptable.
With that gesture completed the man finally spoke up giving one sweeping look over all 5 of them as he spoke shortly and softly.His eyes never once betraying the amount of sternness he held regardless of who it was.
“I will say this only once,today you will be evaluated by the empires law my name or your names at the moment will not matter as only the people with the ability and strength are allowed to ask further questions of me,right now you will be tested and if you fail to “Awaken” it just means that your ability came only this far which is why you can only blame yourself to be without strength”
His words were cold and detached,immediately giving the 4 a small shiver down their spines as the heard a cold hard truth of the world,Terra held a bit more better then the rest only frowning when the man spoke because as a sword trainee he had already heard these sorts of words from his father numerous times that he was starting to get sick of them repeating themselves everywhere and anywhere.
Soon after the warning the children calmed down again to a reasonable level,Terra wasn’t sure what would happen next or how this evaluation actually proceeded as the adults would never go into the specifics of this test fearing that their child could mess up if they did something unnecessary in the process,but even though he was clueless he still did not care to the least,failure didn’t mean anything to him in this matter instead he worried about someone else entirely as he glanced to his side staring at the red haired little girl next to him that was lightly shivering in fear hiding her face behind her long red hair in anxiety,her fist clenched to the max as she seemed to be murmuring some kind of chant to herself.
Terra felt distressed,he wanted to say something to make her feel good,but the words of encouragement until now were only temporary relieves at this point and speaking while going through this important event wasn’t very appropriate so he kept his mouth shut and could only silently pray for Ignis’s happiness in his heart.
Just as Terra stopped looking at Ignis the summoner arched his brows for a second glancing at Terra for a moment as he seemed a bit interested in the young boy that didn’t even have a hint of nervousness in him.
“Ho…quite a bit of composure he got there..or is it just that he doesn’t understand the scale of this endeavor that he doesn’t feel pressured ? Will he be able to make it,I wonder ?”
With that single thought the summoner didn’t bother to think about it anymore as he quickly threw away his fleeting thought out of his mind,returning back to the evaluation at hand as he swiftly spoke up again.
The atmosphere was just about to get tense again.
The children were ready.
“Now everyone I want you to close your eyes”
The summoner spoke.
Everyone followed,not even questioning for what purpose this served as nobody wanted to talk back to such a huge figure as him and simply obeyed.
Terra also closed his eyes without a second word,darkness descending down his eyelids as he felt small amount of curiosity and anticipation starting to rise from somewhere unknown.
The summoners voice quickly followed after the children close their eyes this time ordering something a bit more weirder then anticipated.
“Now,I want you to think about your most painful memory or your most happiest memory,it doesn’t matter which kind you choose,but what I want you to do is choose one and focus on it intently”
Just as his words stopped,Terra felt a bit weirder inside,to be asked something like that,it didn’t make sense to him,either way he wasn’t going to question it and instead just obeyed trying to think of something through his jumble of memories that he could be consider bad or good which stayed in his mind.
And as he sorted them out Terra soon realized that he couldn’t find too many bad memories inside his mind,this could be tributed to the fact that he was still only 10 years old without a lot of experience in life,but having no bad memories or that sort of scary experiences when young was still a very rare occurrence that not many had.
If Terra right now could open his eyes and look around he would realize that the other children seemed to be showing a variety of faces 3 of them seemed to be focusing on happy memories with the look evident by the smiles they had plastered on their faces while 1 of them was instead frowning very deeply,shaking at that almost tearing up even as she thought deeply about the memory in her head.
Of course that person was Ignis who was making that face.
===================================================
“hmm…seems like todays results are going to be pretty good now aren’t they ?”
The summoner pondered to himself already disregarding the 3 other children that were smiling to themselves and instead staring at the other two one of which was showing a face of intense sadness while the other one being completely blank on his part with no shred of emotion which was Terra who was still engrossed in his sea of memories.
The summoner couldn’t quite put his finger on it considering Terra as he didn’t look like he was thinking about any good nor bad memories in his mind,he even considered that he wasn’t trying at all and just waiting it out completely abandoning this test so he could go home faster,but even so the summoner didn’t mind either way.
“If he really chooses to abandon,thats his problem he’ll regret soon enough for not putting enough effort into this”
He thought a small amount of disdain showing in his eyes as he then proceeded to ignore Terra with it completely focusing on Ignis instead of who was now starting to sweat unnaturally and soon enough the sweat that was pouring down her neck immediately dissipated into the air turning into steam instead.
Quickly a strange aura started to surrounding Ignis,small particles that the summoner was emitting started to get sucked into Ignises body like a hungry beast ravaging its meal,the steam never stopping,but only growing more intense at every second with the aura becoming stronger and stronger.
The summoner smiled his eyes showing a bright glint as he stared at Ignis as if looking a treasure of some sort.
“Its here…finally…the birth of a new summoner a strong one at that”
He thought,fully concentrated on Ignis and her alone as everyone else was already out of his sight and pushed away,all he cold concentrated now was the girl and the steam that enveloped her like a storm.
The village chief was already deeply surprised by the steam that surrounded Ignis just like the summoner he couldn’t help,but anticipate what was going to happen next deeply rejoicing in his heart as finally a summoner was born in their humble little village,the village chief compared to the summoner was only able to see the steam coming off of Ignis he couldn’t see the particles that were flying into Ignis like the summoner could as they were special.
These particles were called soul power they were something only summoners could utilize and could only be seen by them as well,it was their source of strength and the power that gave them the ability to use summoning.
The summoner was elated in his heart.
But if he had even bothered to look around and focus he would have already noticed that the particles weren’t only flying towards Ignis,but some of them were also separating themselves towards another direction next to Ignis.
Those particles were extremely few and small in number almost unnoticeable,but they were still floating and separating themselves towards another direction compared to the other children who didn’t even lure a single particle towards them.
And the person who was attracting those particles was none other then Terra,his face was still blank like before,but that still wasn’t the same,looking at it this time instead of some kind of change it had a different feel to it instead,it felt more natural or serene in a sense…the most accurate word to describe it was…
Peaceful.
=======================================================
“Uhm…wh..where am I ?”
Terra muttered to himself very confused as he looked around trying to understand where he was and what just happened.
At first Terra tried to find any good memories that he could focus on,but sooner or later he started to think about what he liked to do the most instead of thinking about a happy event that happened in his life,this sort of thought expanded quickly flooding his thoughts in a instant as his vision turned white which the dark quckily covered up again making him only able to think about his beloved hobby that he enjoyed.
The forest.
To describe it shortly,Terra loved to go outside,to be more specific he loved to go into the forest and wander around aimlessly until he needed to go home.
Now you might ask what he would do while inside the forest,most kids his age would naturally just walk around and play,but that wasn’t what Terra would usually do,while he did play with Ignis like any other normal child does,when he was alone Terra just wandered around the forest everyday observing nature,he didn’t do anything else he just watched nature as if it was something interesting to watch,listening to water flow,wind brush against the leaves or just listen to the grass grow from the ground.
It was strange and unknown why Terra was so attached to nature itself,but what he liked the most about it was the feel of the earth making its way through his fingers he felt a sense of security and calmness from touching the dirt that was everywhere feeling all sorts of sensations depending on the place the earth was found be it soft,moist,rough or dry he liked them all like as if they were all his close friends in some sense.
His mother once explained to him the meaning of his name “Terra” which meant earth,it could be because of his name that he felt so close towards the real “earth” itself,but regardless of what it was he liked it and thats what counted to him.
Of course any normal person who would hear about his interests would immediately label him as a weirdo and the village children did just that,but because no one could find fault in his actions nobody really tried to humiliate him for his likes as everyone immediately just assumed he was curious and liked to explore creating a misunderstanding which Terra didn’t bother to explain anymore.
And now,the place he was standing in was the place he was the most familiar with his entire life,the surroundings covered with growth that was nearby stroke his mind while greenery and tall trees next to him refreshed his thought and with a deep breath he took in a large mouthful of fresh air as he calmed himself some more before muttering again with a gentle smile crossing his lips.
“This is…the forest ?”
=======================================================
The first chapter for this is here don’t worry I am not entirely starting a new series this is just something to keep my mind off of something right now,sorry for being away for so long I have been really busy of late since graduation even now I am still doing work to get into a college and so forth,thank you for still sticking around if you are there I appreciate that very much !
A Place Of Legends 