Bunny Hunt

 “Wait, there’s one,” Samuel whispered and pointed to the bunny that hopped to the glade.

“No, that’s just a normal one,” Yorath answered. Arianwen and Samuel sighed at that.

Samuel sighed. He hadn’t slept well that night. It was hard to tell whether it was the excitement about their first mission outside the Academy or something else. The three of them were cramped together under the leaves of a shrub and ferns waiting for their quarry. Everything was wet after the rain that had been falling over the last week, leaving muddy puddles everywhere.

“Maybe we could try it with this one anyway just to see if it works,” Arianwen suggested.

“That would work. I think it might scare off our real targets though,” Yorath said.

“Good point,” Arianwen agreed.

They waited for what felt like hours and nothing happened.

“Maybe we should try a different spot,” Samuel suggested.

“Maybe you should keep silent,” Yorath bit back. “Nothing will show up if you keep prattling.”

Samuel just lifted his hands in surrender and said nothing. Arianwen shook her head. After a while, the unexpected happened. It wasn’t the magically infused rabbit that they had expected but a boar-like creature. Long feathers grew out of its back and it’s snout was elongated, like that of a tapir or perhaps an aardvark and its large yellow eyes were bulging. The trio exchanged glances. It wasn’t what they had planned for, yet it was obvious to them they weren’t willing to wait for another opportunity. However, there was no way to create another plan on the spot. I guess we will have to do with what we have.

He began freezing a patch of ground between them and the boar. The other two also prepared with their spells. Everything seemed to be going according to plan, when the ice cracked with a loud noise. The animal jerked to attention, then turned around and dashed away. One of its legs was pulled back by an invisible force and Yorath yelped as he was pulled out from the cover. Arianwen gasped. The animal crashed onto its side.

“Let go Yoarth,” she urged him.

The animal squealed and jumped around in an erratic way. Pulling Yorath along until he let go of his power and regained his footing. At that point the animal seemed to notice them for the first time and roared at them before charging in their direction. Yorath growled and a ball of fire materialised in his hand.

“No, we mustn’t kill it,” Arianwen said with an urgent voice.

“I know,” Yorath said and sent the ball flying into a puddle in front of the beast with a swear. It hissed and was gone in a sudden cloud of steam.

Startled by the display the beast stopped its stampede and ran away through the forest. Arianwen released a breath in relief and leaned against a tree. Samuel was resting with his hand on his knee. Yorath turned around and stomped towards Samuel.

“You idiot!” Yorath screamed at Samuel. “How incompetent can you be?

“Yorath!” Arianwen raised her voice. “What has gotten into you?

“He ruined everything. All he had to do was freeze a damn puddle and he couldn’t even accomplish that little. He could’ve gotten us hurt by that thing.”

“Stop it,” she cut into his tirade. Samuel was taken aback by the whole display and was unable to enter into the conversation. “You know full well that he did nothing wrong. There was always a chance that something like that would happen. We all agreed to it.”

Yorath turned and glared at Samuel with anger before looking back at Arianwen. He looked as if he had much more to say, but decided against it. He relaxed the hands that he had balled into fists and walked away. Arianwen looked at his back until he stopped after a short while.

“I’m sorry about him,” she said with a sigh.

“Is he all right? I thought he would just walk away.”

“No no, that’s just his way of going through things. He needs a moment to cool off. He’ll be back soon enough. Don’t worry, we’ll get through this day.”

“I see,” Samuel said. Silence lingered for a while.

“He shouldn’t have done it. Something has been bothering him recently.”

“No, it’s fine. I don’t think he’s totally wrong.” Samuel shook his head. “Even if was just an unfortunate turn of events, it was still my failure. If I had better control, I could have frozen a couple of puddles.” He looked at his hand. “The way I am, I need more power. Otherwise I’ll be useless.” He kept his gaze cast down.

He almost jumped when he felt a hand on the shoulder of his half-arm. He looked up and saw her intense gaze. The light of the Sun played through her dark hair, making it shine.

“You aren’t useless. Right now and even before, during our earliest lessons at the Academy. I relied on you. I will probably keep relying on you in the future.” There was genuine conviction in her words and it was almost enough to bring Samuel to tears. He tried to respond but felt a lump in his throat. “So what does that make me? Am I useless?” She waited for a moment, then tilted her head. “Well?”

Samuel shook her head. “No, you will be the greatest wizard in the kingdom.” He smiled a sad and weak smile, yet it was all he could do while keeping his emotions in check.

A massive grin split Arianwen’s face. “That’s right and don’t you forget it.” She gave his shoulder a final squeeze before stretching and looking around.

After a couple of minutes Yorath came back. As Arianwen had foretold, his face was exuding stoicism. Without acknowledging what had happened they left in search of a new spot to ambush their prey. It didn’t take nearly as much time as before until they spotted it. A relatively large bunny with antlers like branches adorned with flowers. Its fur sparkled as if carrying thousands of tiny drops of morning dew and its eyes reflected the entire colour spectrum. It was the most beautiful creature that Samuel had ever seen but he couldn’t allow it to get in the way of their mission. Arianwen gave them both a sad look before they began spreading out around the rabbit. Or would it be a hare? Samuel shook his head and concentrated. After their last failure they decided to just keep it as simple as possible.

Once they were all in place, surrounding the target from three directions, Yorath raised his hand. The next moment they each focused their power into restraining the animal. The bunny squeaked and began thrashing around. Then a flash of light came from the animal and it was free. It began jumping towards Arianwen’s position.

“Get it!” Yorath shouted. All semblance of elegance was gone from their plans. Arianwen jumped out from the shrubbery and dashed towards the rabbit before slipping in the mud and tumbling face first to the ground. It was enough to redirect the rabbit in the opposite direction. Samuel managed another spell that trapped one of it’s hind legs and it rolled into a puddle. In another flash of light it was free.

Yorath raised the water from the surrounding puddles into four high walls around it and both Samuel and Arianwen used as much power as they dared to freeze the walls. Wit a crunching sound the walls of water froze and stood as an icy prison around the bunny. The walls were the height of a person.

“We did it,” Arianwen said and laughed. Then a dark spot appeared on one of the translucent walls. The next moment the bunny shot out of the prison over its walls with an adorable squeak. “Oh no!”

By the time they were finally able to capture the vile beast, all of them were dishevelled and caked with mud. The rabbit bit him, though luckily the teeth were stopped by the robes, even though the bite still left a painful mark, and part of Yorath’s robes were torn by the antlers. In a strange way it reminded Samuel of his first days in the new world. With the obvious difference that he had been laughing so much this day that his belly hurt and the only clean part of him were the channels that tears carved through the mud on his face. Arianwen was in a similar state and even Yorath’s mood had lightened. All they had to do was bring the bunny back to the Academy and their first mission would be over. Luckily after finally capturing their prey, it became docile as if acknowledging their victory over it and allowed itself to be carried in Arianwen’s hands. Samuel had offered to carry it, since it seemed like a fairly sizeable burden, especially for the distance they needed to travel back to Tanwyth. She was very firm about the absolute necessity for the animal to remain in her lap. Even as the weight began taking a visible toll on her as they approached the city, she did not relent.

“They said it’s for research but what do you think will actually happen to all these magical creatures we’re bringing in?” Arianwen asked after they completed their assignment.

“I think it’s probably best not to think about that,” Samuel said. It was difficult to imagine any of the captured specimen to make it out of the Academy alive. At the same time there was no reason to explicitly voice that and trouble Arianwen. Telling her it’s going to live on a nice farm probably isn’t the way to go about this either.

On the way back to the refectory they bumped into Madoc and were taken aback. There were splotches of blood covering his robes and he was in a dark mood and muttering to himself. Something preoccupied his thoughts to the extent that he didn’t even notice them as he passed by.