Two Birds Against The Storm: Ominous Wind

Chapter One: Ominous Wind

The sounds of explosions and the echoes of the soldiers' painful screams brought Sam back to reality. The reality that takes place in the battlefield where both of the Water region and the Fire region are fighting. The reality where He defends himself from his brother's spells. The painful reality that shocked all his senses trapping him in the cage of confusion. He could feel the anger flowing in his brother every time their eyes meet. 

"Let's not be hasty, we can talk this out Tobi!" screams Sam leaping out of a giant fire ball's range.

Tobi didn't respond, but he kept the spell casting going. 

"Calm down Tobi, why th-" Sam stops as he notices a white-as-snow haired guy standing  behind Tobi.

Sam's face expression changes as he pulls his swords rushing torwards him screaming,

"You.. you better have an explanation for this!!" 

-Few days ago-

It all started with a summon request to Tobi from Hinscream, the Fire region's King. Hinscream is a childish adult who is known for his greed and lust for power, and his firey-colored hair which makes him a perfect Fire region king.. or so he thinks. Also he's the opposite of his father who was -unlike every king that ruled the region of Fire- a persuader of peace. His father was famous for his great achievement, creating peace with the Earth nation hence ending their history of hate and fighting. So, Tobi answered Hinscream's request and headed for his palace; by the time he arrived to the palace's hall, Hinscream greeted him with a loud voice, 

"Right on time my brave soldier, I have a special mission for you today!"

"Make this quick." Tobi answers. staring right into Hinscrem's eyes.

Hinscream backs off for a little before he says "Actually, it's more like a personal request.. I'd like you to investigate about Earth region's new mercenary, I've heard that idiot Lark got his hand on a really powerful mer-"

Tobi cuts him saying "With all due respect your majesty, but your personal grudge against Earth region's King Lark is none of my business, I serve here for missions that benefit all of us."

Hinscream replies angrily "Psh, fine.. then I order you to kill him, that benefits all of us right?".

Tobi left the hall ignoring Hinscream's last sentence, thinking -in the same time- who might that mercenary be.

-Hours later-

"Eh?" Sam wakes up from his sleep upon hearing a voice. "I've been searching for you for like hours, and here you are sleeping on the grounds of the palace's garden!!" said Adele in a sharp tone.

"And there you spoiled my dream.." replies Sam.

"Anyway, why would the water region's young princess is personally looking for me?" mumbled Sam rolling his eyes.

Yes, Adele happens to be the youngest queen of the Water region. She has no siblings or parents, she lost them in the tragic war caused by the disease that invaded the planet long ago, almost at the same time as Sam. All she had was her grandfather, who took the responsibility of handling the country instead of her dead father. But time stole his life, leaving no one but her to rule the Water region.

"Because there is something important that I want to talk about with you." answered Adele crossing her arms.

"Then why the wait? let's go!" said Sam picking his scarf from the ground.

They moved into the palace's meeting room, where other commanders are waiting. Adele starts up a conversation "We've got an information resource regarding the Earth region, this spread around pretty quickly.. it seems that they have a new pawn, a powerful one as well." as she presents a poorly snapped picture and continues, "One of our spies managed to take a photo of him but he paid his life for in exchange... so-- HEY!" She turns her head to Sam, who snatched the picture from her hand as he said sarcastically, 

"Haha, look at that pose.. and a WHITE hair?! I thought earth is more suited to black or brown."

Adele took back the picture with a glare and explained the urgent need to avoid causing any trouble for the time being. Most of the present commanders didn't like the idea of not doing anything about it, but what can they do? they must follow the orders.

-Later in the same day-

The thing is that Sam and Tobi already planned on doing this together from the start. They both noticed how the Earth region relaxed a little bit on their attacks, and since both of them share information secretly between themselves, they know about the white-haired mysterious guy. So they decided to meet to clear things up, and with Sam holding all the information which the Water region's spies gather, sneaking through the Earth lands and mountains became much easier through undiscovered caves and abandoned travel routes.

The long journey to the Earth region ends quickly as Sam and Tobi meet at the promised location. They both stare each other for a moment before they enter a cave which happens to lead to some sort of underground route.

Quietly, Sam and Tobi walked though the route, the only things that is heard is their footsteps, Sam cuts of the silence and says, "Hey, what do you think of whitey?"

"whitey?" Tobi replies.

"Yeah, the new guy." Sam giggled, "Hah, whitey."

"Brother, this is a serious matter.. don't take this lightly." said Tobi in a serious tone.

"Oh come on, isn't this fun?"

"As long as we get rid of whitey we're all done, that's it!"

Tobi was about to answer him, but when he turned his face, he was in a completely different location. Tobi froze for a moment as he tried to understand what just happened. He kept darting his eyes around the place looking for an enemy, but his eyes stopped as he heard a step behind him. He took a step back while turning to where the step was located and noticed a glowing white-haired guy saying "Whitey? There is a limit for lameness, but that exceeded it.. Seriously..?"

"People have names, and mine is Sai.. it's nice to meet you, magician Tobi." Smirked Sai.

Without any delay, Tobi faintly jumps forward stretching his right hand towards Sai's face unleashing a powerful explosion. But his eyes widened as he saw nobody in front of him; He quickly turns back and stretches his left hand preparing to launch another attack, but gets shocked as he sees Hinscream laughing loudly.

He paused and blinked his eyes few times before screaming, "Why?"

Suddenly, Hinscream faded as Sai appeared behind him and said, "Did you like it?"

Tobi replies angrily, "Illusions.."

"Congrats, you're the fastest person who figures it out!" Sai claps.

"Then, why siding with the Earth region, traitor?" Said Tobi.

"Ohh, you're smart.. not surprising.."

Tobi lowers his hand as he says, "No Earth magician can generate illusions.. it's Wind magician's specialty, so why?"

"Details.. details, who cares about them? Anyway check this out!"

Sai snaps his finger creating a sphere in mid-air.

"Cool huh?"

Tobi clinched his teeth.

"You intended things to go THIS far?!"

The sphere was a window to a battle field, a battle field where both Fire and Water region are fighting, a field where Sam was forced to slay through Fire region's soldiers to survive.

Hero

Where could he be? The whole family is looking for him. And even though they still can’t find him.

“Hero, where are you?” dad calls.

“Don’t be scared and show us yourself.” tries mom.

But the tomcat knows this tone, in which they are calling him, very well. That tone, when someone wants to do to you something that you dislike, and try to make you come to them. Exactly in this tone they were calling him – mom, dad and two children.

“Helooo!” shouts small Jane.

“Come on, kitty!” comes from Thomas.

“Hero, come to us.” says dad.

“Oh boy, we probably won’t find him.” mom sighs.

“Don’t worry, honey, I am sure he will show up every minute.” dad comforts her

.

“Kitty, kitty!” Jane still runs around.

“And why are we looking for him?” asks Thomas.

“Because he needs a bath, he’s had once again rolled around in some dirt and now he’s horribly dirty!”

 Explained his parents before they all had went back to looking for their cat.

And behold, a while later they finally found Hero! He was hiding behind the kitchen cabinets! Mom found him when she was going to prepare some food for her hungry children.

You can be sure that they immediately grabbed him and ran with him to the bathroom. They didn’t even give him some to defend himself, and before he knew, Hero was already in the water! Of course, he tried to get out and scrape, but mom and dad were adamant and skilful. Together they washed the tomcat and got all of the dirt off him. Even though it probably won’t stay like this for a long time....

“See, it wasn’t that bad in the end, right?” Thomas whispers to Hero, as he holds him while the cat is still shaking, wrapped in a towel in his hands.

The Rabbit And the Fox

"I can't sleep, Witty!", I sat on my bed whining and frowning on my butler Wittson. An elderly man in a butler suit quickly but silently approaches me.

"Is there any problem, Milady?",  he asked. I looked at him and thought that when I sit like this on my bed he doesn't seem that tall.

"I said I can't sleep!", I repeated.

"May I turn off the night lamp, Milady?, he said, almost touching the switch..

"N-no!.. I mean, I do not mind the light. I could fall asleep even in a brighter light than this one. ", I can't possibly reveal my weakness against the absolute darkness.

"My apologies, Milady. Is there something else the princess wishes for?", he continues with his questions.

"Mhmm.. I got it!", I blurted out. "Tell me a story until I fall asleep."

"B-but Milady. I do not know any story.", he looked at me in confusion.

"What are you for a servant when you cannot do it! Any story will do, Witty! I demand you to tell me stories until I fall asleep!", I looked at him with an angry expression.

"Y-yes Milady!" he faltered as he looked on the left and right side, maybe he is looking for inspiration?

"What should the story be about?"

"Anything will do."

"Ah... uhm... One day, in the evening.. I mean. One day in late evening hours a rabbit went for a walk. Suddenly a fox appeared in front of him. The rabbit got scared and thought of running away but the fox approached him, saying: "Calm down, rabbit. I want to be your friend, I will not harm you.", as she continued with the sweet talk that soon the rabbit fell into her trap. Day by day the rabbit became a closer friend of the fox.".. he paused and checked if I have fallen asleep.

"Continue.", I assured him that I am still wide awake.

He nodded and continued.."So... One day the fox invited the rabbit for a lunch. The rabbit agreed and dressed in his finest suit, reached fox's house. The fox gave the rabbit a warm welcome and offered him his favourite food, the carrot juice. But even after the juice the rabbit was still hungry so he asked the fox: "My friend, has the lunch not been cooked yet?". The fox smiled and replied: " Mine is ready because I can have raw lunch." and with these words the fox pounced on the rabbit and ate him up."

"Haha!" I laughed.

"Is this an appropriate story to tell before going to bed?"

"Oh, you did not like it?" he said with a sad expression.

"Oh no, I liked it, bit you really don't know how to tell a story"

"Indeed, I truly am bad at this." he replied with a slight smile.

The Tale of Suns II. – Golden Heart

The boy is nervously shaking in the bed and up tightly watching the door. He waited for all the day for the continuation of yesterday’s fairy-tale, and now, in every moment, his governess will come and finally tell him the rest of the story. Yes! The doors slowly opened and she came in.
“Hurry! Hurry,” he called as he was eagerly hopping. “You promised me the continuation!”
“All right! All right! Just let me catch a breath,” she laughed and sat down next to the boy on a bed.
“Last time I told you about how one sun was created, right? Now I will tell you the story about the second one.”
“It happened that long time ago, when you and your siblings weren’t even born. The people who got to know about what Halvar did and voted him their new king – The King of Kings, which was his given name. He was given a kingdom and because he was very wise, even the other rulers were asking for his advice. He had to prove that he is also strong enough few times, because the kings from other distant kingdoms didn’t believe in miracles. It took a while, but in the end he gained the same respect as he has now. But he still was missing something,”
 “Do you know what it was?” the governess asked.
“Um,” he pondered. “The Queen!” he blurted and lit up.
“Yes, you are right. But to find a fitting wife wasn’t an easy task, King Halvar looked everywhere, among princesses, among noble ladies and even among ordinary town girls. None of them was as what he wished for, he loved neither of them.”
One time he was sitting in the garden bellow the castle while looking at the sky. It seemed hot, but not as hot as it is now. He himself noticed that it would be better if the sun heated more, but no matter how many times he tried, it didn’t happen. And then the loveable voice, which first adviced him, that only one blood drop is enough, spoke again. It said, that if he sheds his blood again, the next sun will be created and so will the women of his heart.”
“Was it mom?” the boy jumped in her speaking.
“Of course!” his governess laughed and stroked his head. “King Halvar didn’t hesitate; the blood fell on the ground and as before with the first sun, from the ground like from a sunlight a beautiful flower grew. It took a shape of woman, and after the sunlight came off, a beautiful young woman stood there, with a brown hair and golden eyes. And she was wearing the most beautiful dress that the king Halvar ever seen,” she paused. “She still wears them on festivals sometimes,” she added.
“The golden ones?” the boy asked.
“Exactly! She just stood there for a while, and then she smiled as only she can, and they both knew that they are meant to be together. In the moment the king kissed her, and the other sun was created.
And from that time there are two suns in our sky that orbit our planet together.” 
 

Author: Erishika

Translator: Envy