As it turns out, the adrenaline rush of running for your life away from Wizards, guard patrols and dozens of magic owls was a great way to get sobered up quickly. The downside is that you can’t sleep it off and everything aches.

“In here!” Jasper dragged Jonatan by the elbow into a thicket of thorn bushes, causing many sharp pains to erupt all over both of their bodies.

“Ow.” Jonatan complained through clenched teeth. Jasper, not wanting to be caught because of a plant, covered Jonatan’s mouth, his face staying fiercely stoic as if the pain he was feeling was just some kind of exercise.

They stayed locked in stillness as the sound of thumping footsteps and shrieking familiars flew by them, the light of their fiery torches fading into the distance. Jasper deftly leapt out of the shrubs, brushing the thorns off his clothes. Jonatan was far less graceful, getting caught in a tangle, tearing his shirt, and faceplanting back into the thorns.

Maybe it was his imagination, or just the shock of being reintroduced to the ground, but Jonatan was sure he heard a small chuckle escape Jasper’s lips. When he did manage to get loose, Jasper was shaking his head in disappointment like usual, so it was most definitely his imagination. Probably.

They set off sideways, further into the forest and farther away from the people who were currently looking to put them on stakes. The detour would mean they’re rations wouldn’t last them to the next town, but they agreed that going hungry was better than not going at all. Still, running through the dark, oaky forest wasn’t doing anything good for Jonatan’s desire to sleep.

“What did you want to talk about then?” Jonatan rubbed the back of his head, a blooming headache further souring his mood.

“You think now is the time?” Jasper leapt over a rotten log, shooting Jonatan a quizzical look.

“Good a time as any. I don’t think we’ll be able to talk about it over a warm fire anytime soon at least.” Jonatan shrugged, ducking under a loose branch.

“I suppose so. First thing. That song you played me back in Mirth, you didn’t change it at all?”

Jonatan took several moments to try and think.

“Well, I think it was a different instrument than mine but nothing else.” Jonatan tapped the lute that was merrily bouncing on his back. Despite the events of the last few days, Jonatan had managed to keep it out of harm’s way, all those years of carrying uninsured rentals finally paying off. “Why? Was it like a message?”

“Yes. From a man named Varys. He was an elder in the College of Lore, and one of the more powerful Bards around. He was far from a pleasant man and I for one am glad I don’t have to see him again…” Jasper trailed off, his brow furrowing with angry memories.

“You knew him?” Jonatan was getting interested now. He wanted to get to know Jasper a bit more since he basically only knew him as a badass sword fighter with one pretty eye and some really detailed muscles. He chastised himself for staring.

“That’s not important.” Jasper said quickly, shaking the memory out of his head. “He was strong and that’s that. Strong enough to weave a message into his magic and send it out into the world.”

“Wait hold on.” Jonatan narrowly avoided falling in a ditch as he wasn’t really paying attention. “You’re saying this Varys guy played a song and it gave me magic? Is that even possible?”

“If it is, then he’s the one who would figure out how to do it. He used to be a magic scholar or some such I think.” Jasper shrugged. “I didn’t think it was real at first either, but that sleep spell of yours was far too powerful for a novice who didn’t even study for it.”

Jonatan needed a moment to take that in. He wasn’t anyone special, and he suddenly had the magic of one of the strongest bards in the world? That seemed unfair, both to him and to everyone else who studied magic. If it was meant to be a gift, he wanted to return it to the guy who sent it.

“Can I…I don’t know, do the same thing he did and give it to you? At least then you’d know how to use it.” Jonatan felt like he was grasping at straws.

“Not if you don’t know how to use it yourself.” Jasper shook his head. “The old man spent almost three centuries studying magic to get it to that level, so I reckon you’re stuck with it. So you might want to learn how to use that for more than just party tricks.” Jasper pointed at the lute on Jonatan’s back.

“If I just have to play until something works then I can do that no problem.” Jonatan’s hopes lifted.

“No, you have to learn it properly or you might make something explode.”

“Oh.” Jonatan’s hopes were dropped again. “How do I learn? Do you know how to play the lute?”

“No, but the theory is the same for the basics at least. I’m used to training gladiators, not musicians though so it’ll take a while.” Jasper confessed, but he seemed to be in a better mood than before.

“You’re a teacher?” Jonatan was almost stopped in his tracks with surprise. “I thought all teachers were meant to be, like, old and wizened right?”

Jasper rolled his eye.

“You’ve seen me fight and you’re saying I can’t teach people to do that? That’s like me saying you can’t teach people to drink after I saw you with that orc!”

“Touché, Jas.” Jonatan broke through his headache with a teasing laugh. One that, surprisingly, Jasper joined in on. His face looked so much brighter when he was smiling, his pale skin almost glowing and his purple eye almost shone. It took a low branch swiping his cheek to stop him from staring.

Their small bonding moment was interrupted by unfamiliar voices in front of them, hidden amongst the trees. Jasper drew his blades in a flash, Jonatan picked up a weighty branch almost as tall as he was with a grunt, and flies that were on the branch made a hasty retreat.

Three robed figures stepped out of the gloom in front of them, each moving serenely and in unison, dressed head to toe in white, each holding a golden symbol in their hands. They each wore hoods so Jonatan couldn’t make out much more from their appearance, other than the fact that they looked very murdery.

“Clerics of Silf.” Jasper cursed under his breath. “Now of all times?”

“Not friends of yours I’m guessing?” Jonatan rested his improvised club on his shoulder.

“They’ve been tracking me since a few towns over. I thought they would give up when the wizards came along.” Jasper’s face scrunched up in annoyance.

The three robed figures laughed, and the one on the right lowered their hood, revealing a dark faced elf, his eyes sparkling a twilight black.

“You are as foolish as you are reckless, bard. Submit now, and you need not keep running in circles with your tail between your legs.” His sneer grew to a near impossible size.

“Just because I don’t know how to cover my tracks doesn’t mean I’m running.” Jasper gripped his blades tighter. Did Jonatan detect a hint of embarrassment in Jasper’s expression?

“To be fair, you’d probably be a bit reckless if you were running from maniacs with magic too.” Jonatan shrugged at them. Only when he was met with death glares did he realise it was probably not a good idea.

“You will fall with him, boy.” One of the hooded clerics growled, his voice deep and husky. He raised his golden star-spiral-symbol-thing above his head, making it glow a piercing white light.

That light flew forward at Jonatan, effortlessly weaving around the trees. He swung his branch at it, but it flew past it as if it weren’t there, spiking into his abdomen with a burning stab of pain.

Jonatan stumbled back. It hurt, but not as much as the things Sylvia hit him with. Like tripping and steadying yourself on a burning stove, painful but not debilitating.

“That thing is cheating.” Jonatan complained, rubbing the hot spot on his waist.

Jasper wasn’t nearly as slow to react, leaping forward with a blur of angry steel towards the darker elf. His swords didn’t connect, intercepted by a thin, almost imperceptible round white shield around the cleric, who looked on with a callous grin. Before Jasper even touched the ground, the cleric that hadn’t spoken yet held out their hand and Jasper flew backwards, making a sickening wheeze as the wind was knocked out of him.

Jonatan yelled, his branch swinging towards the silent cleric, shattering the thin shield that surrounded him, and connecting with his chest. The noise they made was more akin to a cow’s moo than a yell as they fell on the ground, cradling their ribs. Jonatan made a mental note that these clerics were weirder than the wizards.

The dark elf and the husky fellow raised their hands in unison, more of that burning light shining through. Jonatan’s curses were drowned out by their prayers.

“Dodge!” Jasper gasped, his hand to his chest, his breathing looking harder by the second.

Jonatan dropped to the ground, the lights flying above him , and dancing around for a few seconds before dissipating. Jonatan made an addendum to his mental note: much weirder.

While he was on the ground, he dropped his heavy branch, and replaced it with the fallen cleric’s legs, who mooed in complaint as he was swung into his colleague’s ankles. Husky collapsed onto his friend in a tangle of limbs, yells, and over the top robes.

The elf raised his hands, and a fierce gold fire erupted from his hands, raking across Jonatan’s legs with a scorching agony twice as bad as before. He yelped, shielding his burning calves from further punishment. The elf readied another bolt of gold fire, his face full of sadistic glee.

He was distracted for a moment by a strange sound from a nearby tree, almost like a lullaby echoing through the air. It was, however, Jasper’s boot becoming good friends with the elf’s face, sending him tumbling down. Jasper was still panting, but his chest was glittering with a pretty rainbow haze.

“Here.” Jasper panted, pressing the flat of his blades into the tender parts of Jonatan’s legs. Before he could protest, the blades glowed with the same haze, which spread over and masked his pain like a warm blanket. A few seconds of cosy rainbow blankets later, Jonatan’s legs were no longer scorched, and the pain from his side was almost completely gone.

“Wow.” Jonatan never ceased to be amazed by Jasper. “You can heal injuries?”

Jasper took a long breath, as if he’d just run a short marathon.

“Magic is tiring for bards, especially if you’re not very good at it.” He stood up, readying his blades with less grace than before but still plenty deadly.

During their moment however, the clerics on the ground hand untangled themselves and risen to their feet, as they too glowed with the rainbow haze of healing though theirs was much brighter than Jasper’s. They raised their gold symbols together and spoke a strange chant in some magical language.

Moments before Jasper could slice the symbols to ribbons, the space above them splintered, making a spiderweb-like pattern in reality, out of which a white dog looking thing tumbled out and clumsily landed. While Jonatan was confused, Jasper was scared.

The dog was hairless, skinless, and sure as hell looked soulless, as it seemed to be made out of porcelain and pure white feathers. Not to mention that its claws and teeth were the only parts of it that weren’t white, because they were on fire. Yay. Jonatan decided to call it Warris.

Warris reared up, fiery face and feet scorching the poor forest floor as it charged at the two boys. Its mouth was big enough to swallow Jasper whole, and fierce enough to scare an entire town with just its face.

At least it would have been if an arrow didn’t appear directly in its mouth from behind Jasper, turning it into dust instantly before it even hit the ground.

“What?” Jonatan was confused.

“What?” Jasper was also confused.

“What?” The clerics were extremely confused.

The only person who wasn’t confused was the halfling who shot the arrow, she grinned to herself as she was hiding halfway up a tree in the thick bushes. She hopped out of the tree, revealing herself to her enemies and the strange people fighting them.

“Good morning.” She bowed. She was a rather stout looking halfling, and along with her warm smile, you could have been fooled into thinking she was a friendly face. The black short-bow and quiver on her hip, as well as the wicked dagger on her back showed you why you should be scared of her.

The clerics opened their mouths to speak, but were quickly interrupted by their own cries of pain as she loosed three arrows in a blitz, each one finding a non-lethal but very painful resting place in the clerics, dropping them to the ground as they tried to focus on healing their wounds.

Jonatan and Jasper looked at the clerics, then the halfling, then each other, then back at the halfling.

“Hi.” Jonatan waved, not sure what else to do. Jasper prepared his blades just in case she was an enemy. She strapped her bow to her back, nodding at Jonatan, and raising her hands to Jasper.

“If you’re fighting them, you’re no enemy of mine.” She tilted her head to the wind, then raised an eyebrow at the bards. “Being chased by an angry mob or something?”

“Wizards actually.” Jonatan picked up some large and/or rotten logs he found and plopped them on top of the clerics, much to their anger. That way their noise would attract more attention than them. “Chased us out of Mirth you see.”

Jasper looked at Jonatan as if her had two heads.

“That’s not the kind of thing you should say to strangers who we don’t know if we can trust.” Jasper shook the pained expression off his face to stare down the halfling. “Who are you?”

“My name is Matilda Leaf. I’m a ranger of this country that’s hunting down breaks in reality. Particularly the ones that these ones cause.” She nodded at the clerics. “That angel they summoned is bad for this world, so I aim to stop them.”

“Seems like there’s no need for anymore cutting, Jas.” Jonatan put a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Besides, we may need some help getting away from those lot.” After a moment of hesitation, he put his blades away, but stayed behind Jonatan.

Matilda thought for a moment, then snapped her fingers.

“I have a stash of supplies a day’s walk from here, we can talk there.” She rubbed her hands together, pulling out some twigs of various plants, and whispering to them. They rose into the air and made a small breeze around the three of them, before turning to dust and being lost to the world.

“There we go. Come on then, best head off before the sun comes up.” She started strolling through the forest, as if this were her own house.

The two bards followed behind her, but Jonatan’s eyes were drawn to his feet. He was leaving no footsteps, and making no sounds, even if her snapped twigs beneath his feet. He made his final alteration to his mental note: Magic is cool.