The job interview

Downtown there is a fountain, where people from all over the neighborhood meet to get some water, and Heryen is trying to get some for himself, as he is thirsty. The locals look at him, they scan him from top to bottom, because his white and purple garment is unfamiliar; they know he is a Willowsian. Heryen is tall, he has green eyes, brown skin, and long curly hair as dark as the night. Because he is the greatest javelin thrower of his tribe, his body is strong but not too muscular. In a few words, he is a handsome guy. He was there that day because he was applying for a job.

– What’re you doin’ here widowmaker? - They call his people like that as an insult, and also out of fear, but Heryen knows it’s technically true, and many are proud of the nickname.

– eh, um, I come for the... interview... I... I wanna become a royal guardsman. After hearing this, the two men at the front door of the barracks bursted into laugh

One of the soldiers said – we know who you are, we despise you, what makes you think we will allow such an outrageous thing? - To which Heryen answered – I know, I know, but hear me out: The war is over, and you have THE Willowsian champion wantin’ to be her majesty's personal guard. Nobody will ever try to attack her, not even a Willowsian!

– Get lost!

Heryen waited across the street the whole day, and the next day, and the day after that one. On the third day the praetor, Freiceadan, who’s a man that looks like a boulder, big and strong, each of his muscles radiates virility, and his hair and beard are orange, which makes him look like a lion. When he saw the young man sitting there once more, he asked, despite already knowing, who he was, and what he wanted – what’s that widowmaker doin’ there? -

– He came the other day wantin’ to become a royal guardsman, we told him to get lost but he’s persistent. -

– Let him in, if he’s sittin’ there tomorrow, we gonna get into trouble, ´cause the princess's been watchin' over here from the palace's tower, and she has already complained. -

The boy enters the building while being pushed angrily by one of the entrance guards, the praetor directs him into the main yard, where he sees a lot of soldiers training, all of them turn their eyes at him. Not even one of them is happy to see him, the praetor hands him over a wooden stick and says – if it’s true that you are the hero of heroes, and if you can come out alive from this, I’ll take your ridiculous desire into consideration. - After that he leaves for his office.

Heryen see a bunch of men approaching from all directions, the one to his left, who wields two swords, swings the first one directly to the boy’s head he swiftly avoids it by bending over and hits the other guy’s legs with the oak stick. When the attacker inevitably falls to the ground, he loses hold on his other sword, so Heryen hurries to steal it. To his left one man tries to slay him with a long sword, but his grip strength is enough to resist the blow, so much so that the assailant sees his weapon fly through the air. To his right a huge woman, who’s taller than him, wider than him, and who wields a huge hammer strikes down such a tremendous hit that leaves a hole in the ground and the yard’s dust rises up. But this warrioress is slow, her blows take too long for the swift footed Willowsian, who uses the handle to strike her head with such strength that she falls down senseless. Then the dual-wilder tries again, but unaccustomed to just holding he opens his defense easily, and Heryen hurts the guy’s right arm, and making him lose grip of that sword too. – What’s the matter, why can't y’all defeat me? - Heryen taunts, but this arrogancy costed him a lot, because while he pridefully laughed, somebody came from behind and hold him from his neck, rendering him unconscious.

The youngster woke up in Freiceadan’s office, the first thing he saw was a little girl that looked like she’s thirteen years old, a few years younger than him (he’s seventeen). She’s slim and has snowlike skin, she barely has enough hair to reach her neck, it is as red as a rose and has bangs just above the eyebrows. She sited there expressionless, looking directly at him, suddenly a male voice came from behind the room. – Welcome back widowmaker, I hope you have had a nice sleep, ‘cause I never expected that the one who could defeat you was gonna be my dear daughter. I know she’s not weak but look at her, isn’t she cute? Anyway, if I didn’t know who you were I’d say you had a great performance, but as I do know, I think you could have done better. Luckily for you, I said you had to come out alive and you did so technically, thanks to my daughter’s mercy, you’ve passed. By the way my name is Freiceadan, nice to meet you. - After he said that, he laughed like a lion roaring.

– And I’m Maru. - said the girl in such a soft and quite voice that it seemed like whispering.

The boy was very confused, he couldn’t believe what just happened. He felt very ashamed, because the pride of the tribe could have died right there in such indecorous manner, and nobody would have known, as he hadn’t said to anybody that he was going to get a job, a lot less that he was applying to become a royal guard. He was still unaware of it, but the only reason he was still breathing was because the little girl liked him since she saw him cross the barrack’s door.

The very next day Maru and Heryen met at the barrack, this time Freiceadan and a woman were waiting for their arrival in the yard. This lady was a witch named Ban Draoidh, whose eyes were blue like the sky, her lips juicy and chubby, her hair silver; when she first saw them, she smiled. Meanwhile Freiceadan, who was already impatient and excited for today’s lesson, as he were the kid who is going to take it, said – Oh! I’m so glad you’ve come early, there’s a lot to do today... So anyway, let’s go straight to the point, as both of you may already know, being a royal guard doesn’t only require physical skill. -

He then uttered while looking at his daughter - Even when your stealth surpasses the abilities of that very confident boy, you won’t be capable of defeating neither the mightiest heroes nor the beastly creatures of the world, because they may have metaphysical defenses. But I’ll let Ban explain you this, as she is the expert. -

Ban’s expression suddenly changed from complete joy to total seriousness; she stepped forward and spoke – Listen up, magic isn’t easy. You Willowsians may believe that it is just because you mastered the incantation technique for your weapons, but it goes beyond than that. There are various types of magic and the name of the magic user changes depending on that. First, we have the actual magicians, you can become one only by achieving priesthood, because only a strong connection with a deity can make that type of magic flow correctly. Then we have wizards, they’re the smartest, as their power comes from knowledge, but through literacy only enchantments, spells and alchemy can be learned, because they don’t have magic power naturally...

(Sadly, wizardry can be learned by any magic user, so they are in a disadvantage when it comes to magical manipulation).

...In third place there’s the soothsayers, if you aspire to become one, you can only pray and hope for somebody or something that gives you that talent, otherwise is innate. Finally, there’s magic users like me, a witch, who have a bond with the magic flow that permeates the earth. However, this connection it’s only possible through bloodline, and even then, just a few are skillful enough to succeed in witchcraft. -

After listening to this large explanation, Maru was fascinated, in her face it could be seen the desire to learn more, which is something not surprising coming from a prodigious assassin apprentice whose diligence had made her the best of her class. As for Heryen, he was looking at birds on trees singing and daisies on the ground growing, not even halfway through the explanation.

The witch then asked – Any questions? - Maru couldn’t utter a word out of panic. Heryen had already stood up trying to hunt one of those birds. Ban’s expression was now of anger, she couldn’t believe the disrespect, so she extended her arm pointing towards the inattentive boy forming a whirlpool-like distortion in the air. Once this anomaly reached Heryen, pincer-like buckles twisted around the boy capturing him. He fought against it, but even when putting all his strength the young man couldn’t free himself.

– At times, I think warriors forget that while they brawl on the battlefield, we, the magic users, must protect ‘em from ourselves. We cover you with metaphysical defenses, we enchant your weapons and armor so y’all can slay us, and, at the same time, y’all can’t be slain by us. We transform your magicless bodies into unstoppable berserkers, we are the technology behind your fame.

After this, Heryen’s face was full of fear and shame, so he did his best to listen to her when she taught them how to enchant their weapons or any object. The witch started by engraving wizardry, she said – One of the easiest ways to enchant stuff is by carving, for example, if you wanna increase the potency of a weapon’s strike, you must inscribe “Δαῖμον, δίδου μοι δύναμιν” on whatever you wanna strengthen, you can engrave multiple spells on the weapon, but one must be careful to not overdo it, ‘cause many spells may either overwrite themselves and become useless, or give too much power to the weapon that it becomes sentient. You don’t want a sentient weapon. -

Heryen was getting impatient, so he carelessly inscribed it on his javelin, that he had brought by petition of Freiceadan. The praetor had told him to bring a new one, because all the other ones probably already had inscriptions on them. Because of his impatience, he wrote incorrectly “δύναμιν”, but before Ban could check it, he had already thrown it. It didn’t even land, it broke like glass midair. Ban laughed at this and explained – What confers power to objects is demonic magic, demons aren’t particularly evil but very mischievous, if you write the instructions incorrectly, they’ll do whatever they want to the object. -

Heryen and Maru kept learning engraving spells and other basic stuff about wizardry throughout the whole week. It was expected they were going to be presented as guards by the beginning of the next week, although they were going to keep attending to magic lessons after that, in fact they’ll do that the rest of their lives, so they gain total proficiency in it, as it’s required for their position. For the eventful day, when they were going to meet the royal family, Heryen had carved many javelins to show everybody his new skills and had chosen his best robes to wear proudly. As for Maru, she was going to wear the fanciest traditional Frithian attire, blue was the color of her dress with a white ribbon at the waist.

When the day finally arrived, they were brough in a chariot drove by the praetor himself. The reception had many guards, butlers and maids, all of them fancily dressed, they formed in line to the sides of the main path, at the end it could be seen a large blackwood door, whose frame was the whitest marble that opulence could get, and each exterior wall was diversly and vastly painted with geometrical patterns, and this colorfulness was matched only by the golden windows and the aureate ornamentation of the cornices. They walked through this wonderful entrance and the interior was even more magnificent, as it had red marble for floor, and the inner walls were colorfully drawn as well, but while on the outside complex patterns adorned them, these had vivid images of the kingdom’s history. The newest painting depicted Heryen, his face was colored pitch-black, his eyes looked like those of a creeping lizard, all his features were demonically deformed, and while his javelin mercilessly nailed the throat of an enemy hero, the Frithian mothers beg clemency for the remaining warriors. Until now Heryen was oblivious to how much hatred he generates in the minds of the locals, he realized that everybody was looking at him, and with their faces they wished him death, and the only reason the guards hadn’t slain him yet was because he was accompanied by the praetor, the highest-ranking official in the defense corps.

The throne was set at the other end from the hall, over there the queen sat, and her regal beauty and might could be felt. Then she spoke – Welcome to my court, who do I have the pleasure to meet?

Freiceadan replied – Her royal majesty, donna Coille, I present in front of you, the newest trainees for guardianship, as it’s something you requested to me personally, and as I know that, her royal infanta, donna Diungail has come to an age where she needs her own loyal companions.

– So, may I know their names? -

– Of course, the one over here it’s a familiar face, my daughter Maru, who not only has improved in the assassin's guild to become one of the best of her class, but now also stands out as a prodigious prospect for wizardry. -

– I’m glad to meet you again, dear Maru, you’ve grown a lot. And who’s the other one? -

– Well, he is Heryen, the... -

– Stop right there, - as she interrupted him, her curious face turned into disgust, then she shouted the following – how dare you? Such an outrageous prank should be penalized! Such disrespect should be illegal! How dare you? I’ll let you explain yourself just once, but if I’m not convinced, I hope you can flee before being rightfully punished. -

Freiceadan wasn’t ready to answer that, so while anxiety flooded his veins he froze, luckily before he could utter even a murmur, Heryen was defending himself with the following speech – Certainly, I know that people with my looks are source for your horror stories, and the reason is rightly justified, as my people truly harmed your kind. Certainly, I’m not innocent, as I fought vigorously for my people, but not a single one of you is guiltless either, because you all should remember that the first victim was from our side. Yes, technically we invaded your land, but we are nomads, we got no concept of ownership before. For us, earth is vast enough to feed us all. -

This speech was met with mix reactions, some booed, some clapped, and some others remained opinionless, because of this, for a moment the queen was hesitant to say anything, but before she could utter a word a girl sprang from among the multitude. She was wearing some woolly attire with red and yellow squares; she got blond hair and hazelnut-like eyes, and under that dress her body seemed neither too voluptuous nor thin. Then she opened her mouth and shouted – Stop! May I have an opinion on this? These two will become my loyal guards, so it must be me who accepts or rejects them. I’ve been watching them from my room in the tower. It has a perfect view of the barrack’s yard, what can I say. They’ve been training very hard, and I respect that. I also know what he’s done and what he’s capable of, but I think that making him my friend will bring our peoples together, and that’s far better than the bloodshed that provoked the former king, my uncle, to abdicate and vanish. - as she was saying this the crowd clapped – But I’ll only let him be my guard if he defeats me in combat. -

Everybody turned their head towards the queen expecting for her approval, and indeed, she was on bord with this. –The rules are the following: - she said – You’ll fight as if your life were at stake, the combat ends when either of you get a mortal wound. Obviously, both of you will be protected by a metaphysical veil, so you don´t actually die. Do you agree? -

Both assented –Then, good luck! -

An aethereal atmosphere formed around the two of them, the crowd vanished out of view, so Diungail decided to attack first, throwing spiraling waves of energy at him, but his swift feet avoided all of them, then he took one of his javelins, and threw it at her. This one had the inscription for power, so the princess had to create an energy barrier to defend herself, because when it lands it’s going to explode with such intensity that ground around will tremble. After the roar of the detonation, Heryen was confused, he had never experienced such tremor after a discharge, the infanta, on her part, was severely injured on her hands, rendering them useless. However, that didn’t stop her, she jumped high and while her body spined in the air she expelled two energy waves, the Willowsian was able to avoid the first one, but he tripped and the second wave struck his leg, which felt like one thousand nails had been inserted inside his limb, he couldn't stand up any longer. While kneeling, he manages to toss another missile. This one had the word “πῦρ”, which means fire. Diungail barely managed to avoid the hurling object but when it touched the ground a huge fireball formed around the projectile, engulfing the girl as well. She screamed in total pain while the flames consumed her flesh. Then, immediately after, she passed out.

Suddenly reality returned to Heryen’s eyes, and everybody was looking at the princess in horrid awe, because although the queen had put a vail of protection over them and now all their wounds had disappeared, their minds still felt the stress and pain of each injury they got. In a motherly gesture, the queen stood up and ran towards her daughter, but just before she could embrace her, the princess woke up and stopped her, then, due to the mental fatigue her body had endure, she slowly got up and looked at the worried javelineer and yelled her guts outs. Then she said – damn! that hurt like you can’t imagine, but a deal is a deal,

you are from now on, not only my guard, but my friend. Just like that both laughed in relief, and everybody else’s expression calmed down as well.

Out of the blue, Maru asked – how about me?

Diungail looked at her got overwhelmed by her cuteness, so she cuddled her. She already knew Freiceadan’s daughter, but it had been years since they last met, and her feelings were now mixed, as she was struck by the attractiveness of Maru’s adolescent body.

– We already know each other, silly. - Said the princess.

– Yeah, I know, I meant, when are we fighting? -

– Haha, let me recover first. -