The First Mage

Brie and Garn stood face to face with a giant wolf staring them down. Its imposing size dwarfed them, and its piercing eyes seemed to punch clean holes through them. It wasn’t Brie’s first time facing a beast—far from it—and she had well gotten used to Hati being around, but this job they had been tasked with upon arriving at the camp filled her with trepidation. Gulping audibly, she threw a sideways glance at Garn, seeing an anticipative grin playing on his lips.

“You’re actually looking forward to this, aren’t you...” she said under her breath.

Garn met her gaze, his grin only widening. “Don’t tell me you aren’t.”

Brie grabbed his arm and dragged him a couple steps away. She continued in a hushed tone, while stealing occasional glances at the beast behind them. “We don’t know this beast!” she warned. “And we don’t know whether these stones or the scrap wood are going to do anything!”

“You don’t trust Miles anymore?” Garn asked curiously, eliciting a frown from Brie.

“No, that’s not it...” she murmured. “But maybe I’m a little out of practice trusting blindly...”

She surveyed the area around them, seeing the many content faces of people happily working along in the camp. Bren’s fiance Fae was gathering materials to begin another construction project, the priest Oryn sat by the campfire with a delirious expression on his face as he stared at a red stone, and their fellow Fighters were receiving instructions from Hayla on guard and hunting duty. Everybody seemed to know what their job here was already.

The two newcomers were somewhat being thrown into the deep end. All they got after arriving was a quick hello and a short tour, followed by their marching orders to guard the road to Cerus: Two young guards against everything Alarna might throw at them to get past, and they had to get there in short order no less.

Upon voicing concerns about this plan, they were given four unassuming stones, supposedly containing the power of Miles’ defensive mana script, two pieces of wood that were apparently capable of cutting even moderators, and the suggestion that they should ride there on one of the talking beasts they had just met. Right afterwards, Miles, Riala, and Berla rode off themselves, leaving little room for any more arguments.

Brie thought she couldn’t be surprised by these guys anymore, but she had been wrong. Garn meanwhile, who had always been much more accepting of the weirdness surrounding him nowadays, had no qualms about his orders.

“We’ll be accompanied by a beast and we’ll share some of Miles’ powers,” Garn pointed out. He continued in a jesting tone. “If you think about it, it will be almost as if Miles, Riala, and Hati are guarding the road. We don’t have anything to worry about.”

Brie’s eyes snapped back to him, a dry expression signaling a wave of exasperation washing over her. There was so much wrong about this statement, and she didn’t feel wrong in questioning whether they could actually trust this beast that had arrived here only a day before them.

They continued to go back and forth a few times, when suddenly, a deep voice interrupted their argument. “Humans. Let’s go.”

Brie froze on the spot, the voice being much closer than she expected. Turning around slowly, she found herself face to face with the beast once more, barely a meter between them. It had a commanding presence, and it looked down at them as if they were mere underlings.

“Sure, sounds good to me,” Garn chirped, not a worry on his mind.

Brie had needed to vent her concerns, but she couldn’t find the courage to actually push back. They had received their orders, so there was only one possible response to the beast’s prompt. “Alright...” she whispered.

“I’m Garn, this is Brie. Do you have a name as well?” he asked the beast.

“I do not.”

“I figured,” Garn said thoughtfully. “Isn’t that inconvenient? How do you address each other? Hati couldn’t explain that to me.”

“We have no need for such things,” the beast responded. Garn was confused how one could not need names, but the statement was quickly followed up by an explanation. “We communicate largely non-verbally, unless we have to converse with other species or find the need to discuss more complex topics or beings. Having a name indicates that one is of such importance that they would require a designated identifier.”

Brie and Garn glanced at each other in surprise. “That means having a name is a reason to be proud of for you?” Garn asked.

“That’s correct.”

The beast’s words seemed to make sense, but Brie and Garn had just learned that Miles named one of the new beasts “Asena,” and he had also named Hati. They were curious whether these names held the same weight in this context. Before they could ask though, the beast piped up again, his voice turning impatient.

“Now, I have orders to carry you to your destination and assist you in your task.” He lowered himself until he lay on the ground, prompting Brie and Garn to climb onto his back. “Get on so we can be on our way.”

A grin returned to Garn’s face as he decided to save any follow up questions for later. It was time to ride a beast for the first time. Garn stepped up and tested the waters by patting the beast’s back, an exceedingly fluffy coat of fur belied the strong muscles behind it. He took a deep breath and steeled himself before swinging his leg over, taking a seat on the beast.

Garn’s excitement was gradually increasing, though he couldn’t shake the name topic entirely yet. “If you don’t have a name, I’ll call you Beast for short. Just for convenience. Alright?”

Beast glanced back at Garn, seemingly rolling his eyes at the inquiry. “Do what you want, human,” he said, his gaze returning to the person still rooted to the spot before him. “You, tasty human. Get up.”

The concerned expression on Brie’s face shifted to one of utter shock in an instant. “T-tasty?” she stuttered. Taking a quick step back, her hand wandered to the piece of magic wooden dagger lodged in between her leather armor and chainmail.

Even Garn’s eyes went wide, hearing his partner being talked to like a morning snack. Beast only cocked his head in confusion about their shock though. “What’s wrong?”

“You expect me to go with you after being called ‘tasty?’” Brie asked angrily.

Her breathing quickened. Was it a slip of the tongue from Beast? Was he planning to kill and eat them? She glanced in the direction of the other Fighters, who were readying themselves to leave. If she wanted to be on the safe side, she would have to alarm them now. The next words out of Beast’s maw surprised her once more, however.

“Is that not a good thing?” he asked. “You seem like you would make a nice meal. I would appreciate such a compliment.”

The statement and the idea behind it were so outlandish to Brie that her brain short-circuited. She didn’t move a muscle as she stared at Beast slack-jawed. Utter befuddlement was not enough to describe her current state. Moments passed, until Garn broke the silence.

“Uh... Beast, could you explain that? You aren’t planning to attack us, are you?”

“Of course not,” Beast said matter-of-factly, as if that had never been in question. “I have orders to protect you.”

“Okay, but... you would eat us if you didn’t have these orders,” Garn concluded, the gears in his head turning.

“Of course,” Beast said. This, too, was apparently never in question. “I enjoy the occasional taste of human meat. It is a little unfortunate that it was now banned from the menu.”

Brie met Garn’s gaze. She seemed to ask what they were supposed to do now, but after a moment of deliberation, Garn simply shrugged his shoulders. He was accepting this reasoning. Brie on the other hand wasn’t quite there yet.

“If we are to work together, we need to trust each other...” Brie said, locking eyes with Beast. “How can you expect me to trust you if you’re literally telling me you would eat me under different circumstances?”

“Would you not kill and eat me if the situation were different?” Beast asked. “Humans consume beasts and use their parts, do they not? You have an entire section to prepare dead wild ones behind those trees over there.”

As he gestured in the direction of the butcher area, Brie tried to come up with a justification for this dynamic, where it was alright for humans to eat beasts, but not the other way around. She came up empty. Hati reportedly didn’t like to eat humans, so she hadn’t been confronted with this conundrum before, but perhaps she should’ve expected it to happen sooner or later.

When Brie didn’t respond, Beast made his own conclusions. “Oh, perhaps you don’t like beast meat?” He almost sounded disappointed at the idea that she might decline a meal made out of him.

Hesitantly, she opened her mouth again, continuing the most bizarre conversation of her life. “No, I... do eat beasts,” she muttered. “And I suppose I would eat you too...”

Beast lit up. “Thank you,” he said happily.

Brie broke out laughing and relaxed slightly, shaking her head at the ridiculousness of it all. This response reminded her of the innocent honesty of Hati, who seemed like he was entirely incapable of deception. Moderators truly were odd creatures. However, after this exchange, her worries were slowly fading away.

“You’re welcome. I guess,” she said, chuckling. “Maybe... we should leave then.”

With careful steps, Brie finally approached Beast as well and mounted him behind Garn. She was barely sitting when Beast stood up, giving the two a good shake. They instinctively grabbed onto the fur and each other to hold themselves in place, though they weren’t quite prepared for the next move. The last thing heard from the camp as the three departed was a desperate cry for help from Brie.

“Waaah! Slower! Slower!!!”

But her pleas fell on deaf wolf ears.