The Wolf And The Demon (I)

*

After spending thirty minutes of talking Sistine into going home, he had to spend another thirty minutes walking her down from the Shopping district in the southern part of the city till the residential area in the north and then another hour walking down to the theatre explaining them the situation and then finally reaching his school.

I will never get used to this city! It's so big and yet the only way of transportation is walking! Can't they at least have a caravan or even some kind of cart service just to make my daily commute much easier!

He was seven when his father 'New Father' decided to take his family on a picnic outing just outside the city walls, it might have not been Aiden's first outing but was one of the most exciting.

He still remembers the day as if it was just yesterday. The City of Rasparte is situated on the Eastern edge of Aviona and is a major port town, however it's also gifted with the beauty of the Glenwood forest that covers most of it's northern part. While blessed with the majestic Destaric Sea on the east and the Glenwood forest in the east, the south and west was painted with grey mountains and bleakness of Aviona.

His heart skipped a beat. Even the forest was different here.

It was an euphoric experience for him and it was on that day when his father first told him about the tales of Glenwood forest.

A possible detention or maybe minor punishment for being late for the morning meeting.

her student's tardiness.

"Aiden Kualasis"  something about her was just so different today, was it her voice or the fact that she was plain furious on him. Whatever it was Aiden couldn't quite grip it however what he did grip was the fact that he was in trouble. A big trouble.

"Yes!" Aiden yelped. His eyes were still staring at the red floor below, counting on the number of partitions each tiles had between them. It was a fun game to play when you are trying to protect yourself from a possible life threatening affair.

"Look up." Kudelia quitely replied. 

Gathering his confidence or whatever was left of it, he lifted his head. His eyes met those of his homeroom teacher. 

Kudelia smiled at him. It was a polished smile, and reeked of coldness, like any moment she was going to bare her fangs and rip Aiden into shreds. Sprawled across the folding wooden chair, she had her chin propped by a hand, her golden brown eyes glinting in the soft light. On her white tunic, an emblazoned white rendering of the crescent moon, the symbol of Rasparte city.

It was similar to what he was wearing, he had a full sleeve black shirt draped with the standard school's white cloak with the symbol of crescent moon emblazoned on it.

"Would you like to explain yourself, Mr. Kualasis?"

She meant buisness. 

"I am sorry. I will not repeat this same mistake again. I promi-"

"I don't want your apology. I want your reason" she interjected. Her usually kind eyes were now filled with strictness and her demeanor striked fear into the heart of the bearer.

Aiden gulped. He nodded and explained her everything. Everything that has happened since this morning.

                 *******************

"I see. So you were late because you were helping out the girl." 

"Yes. I just couldn't leave her alone to fend for herself"

"I know. You couldn't and shouldn't but also at the same time you are not supposed to act on your own. What if you would have been hurt or the girl might have?! What would you do then?!." She scolded him. " In these kind of situation you are supposed to look out either for the royal guard or call an adult to he-"

"If I would have done that the thugs would have kidnapped her or worst killed her. I just couldn't leave her in that kind of situation" he interjected.

"Okay I agree that you were able to save her but what if there was someone else somewhere else whom you couldn't see how would you save that person!"

"Miss. Kudelia. I am not saying that I want to save each and every person in this world, even if I want to do that it's not possible but at least I want to save those who are right Infront of my eyes"

Kudelia frowned. Her anger from minutes ago had dissipated and a worried and caring feeling took it's place. When she heard about what Aiden did, her first thought was 'he didn't get hurt right! Or is the girl okay!'. She couldn't help it, after all no matter how strict she was, she still deeply cared about each and every student she taught.

She wanted to praise him and tell him that he did the right thing but she couldn't, because no matter how good a deed you do it won't be accounted as good until you do it properly. If someone from the City Guild would have seen him this morning, they would have taken him in and interrogated him and if they would have found him suspicious, Aiden would have been sent to the Royal Capital for trial. 

That was one thing, but also the fact that Aiden was able to move forward without being scared to save some stranger was really admirable for someone who was just a student and was still learning the ways of becoming a Guardian.

"Aiden look. I won't say what you did was wrong but the fact that you intervened without informing anyone was also not a right thing to do. What if you were captured too? What if the two of you had been taken away? Then what?"

She stared as Aiden's head fell down as he realised what he did was dangerous and could have led to disastrous results if things wouldn't have ended up this way. His onyx black eyes glistened with guilt and regret of what he did this morning. 

A warm smile spread on Kudelia's lips  as she saw him reflecting over his actions.

" As long you understand what you did was dangerous I got no problems"

Aiden just nodded. 

"Now back to your punishment for being late"

Aiden's eyes widened.

"What? You thought just because you gave me a valid reason I will let you escape"

'Ugh, why does it always happen to me?!'

                     *************

It wasn't until mid-afternoon that Aiden was finally able to take a break. Thanks to his amazing brilliant homeroom teacher, he was given the job to clean each and every classroom of the Rasparte Guardian School alone. Yes you read it correctly ALONE.

Thanks to the preparation of Sepira Festival, not even a single student or any staff member of the faculty was present in the school well except Miss Kudelia. Well it couldn't be helped after all Sepira Festival is the major festival of Rasparte city which is celebrated for a month.

Sepira Festival is celebrated in honour of the Goddess Sepira the patron Goddess of Rasparte city. It's said that on the seventh day of creating of the world Goddess Sepira blessed this land and ever since then the inhabitants of the city have been inclined towards honouring their Goddess by celebrating a festival which lasted a month.

It's always celebrated around the time of spring equinox, a time when every person in Aviona welcomes the spring after harsh months of winter. And here in Rasparte the celebration is even grander. 

"Just one more classroom to go" Aiden sighed as he picked up the wooden bucket from the granite floor and placed the mop on the edge of the bucket. His fingers curled around the bucket handle gripping it tightly so in order to lift the bucket with ease to the next classroom without spilling any water from it.

While holding the bucket, he used his free hand to turn the door knob and walked through. He entered a particularly long hallway. It stretched on both the sides, with wooden doors leading to different classroom, there were inscriptions on each door which hilighted what classroom it is.

"Another long walk till the well, I wish they had the indoor bathroom facility for the students already" Aiden groaned.

Aiden was six when his parents enrolled him into the Guardian School. Being a typical teenager what he expected was a magical academy with fantasy elements all around and moreover he was excited to learn magic.

However all his dreams were crushed when the first lesson of his first day of school was 'Magic is an illusion. It doesn't exist and is only performed by entertainers'.

In this world Magic doesn't exist. So the fact that it doesn't bear any magic, itself should make it similar to the Earth but it doesn't.

In this world there exists another element of supernatural power that fills the most of the planet, it's called Astarte. Just like earth has Oxygen, this world has Astarte as its life source, Astarte particles are filled with mysterious energy which are harnessed by many humans in Aviona and it is used in various ways.

And the reason children go to the Guardian School in Rasparte is to learn how to control the Astarte particles within them and also to study boring subjects like Social science, mathematics, language and many more.

Aiden turned over another hallway to take the stairs to go down, it was then when he felt it. Accumulation of a large amount of Astarte particles from the hallway he had just walked through.

He frantically turned around to see what was happening, and that was when his eye caught a glimpse of a pair of Golden wings.

"In This world there's no such thing as magic"

Aiden couldn't think straight, he tossed the bucket aside and chased the creature as it ventured deeper into the hallway.

"Or rather it has different name called Astarte"

Aiden couldn't think straight, he tossed the bucket aside and chased the creature as it ventured deeper into the hallway.

"But it was just normal manipulation of some particles within nature and using it. So I never thought of it as anything more than flashy magic"

The golden winged creature stopped. Aiden smiled as he saw the creature resting over the granite floor. It was the first time he saw it properly. But before he could have observed it properly it disappeared.

"That's why"

And then suddenly a crack appeared in the thin air. There was no wall, nothing over there but open space and it cracked. It was as if he was watching the other side of the hallway through a glass and it had started to rip apart.

"I never even thought"

The space started to become distorted as the crack became huge, all the Astarte particles that had been flowing steadily all around the school campus began to accumulate at this point. Tge crack slowly spread until it was big enough to accommodate a human within it, it stopped.

From within the dark abyss of crack, emerged a figure. She possessed a pair of olive green eyes and a scowl on her soft face. 

"That something called 'Enigma Jæger' could have existed"