Thomas walked through the forest slowly and methodically, going from cover to cover trying to near the people talking loudly in the forest without being noticed. He tried to understand what they were saying but every time he tried to focus on the words flowing around in the mist his legs would shake under the weight of the poison, and the ground would try to grab him to never let go.
A cold wind started to flow from the direction of the light, way too cold to be natural in the early spring, but Thomas felt that it was too late to give up now when he could start seeing the silhouette of the people around the fire through the leaves. He felt his legs starting to finally give up and forgot all measure of caution as he hoped to get there before all of his strength had been consumed.
He tipped on something and fell through the limit of the glare, hitting the ground with enough strength to kick out all the air on his lungs, and he trembled as he tried to will his chest to rise but couldn't. Then he felt a warm hand touch his right arm, and energy surged from inside him and gasped in a panic.
"He is ok guys, but damn this is the best blood I have seen in a while"
Thomas rose his head from the ground, adrenaline pumping through his vein fighting off the weakness for the moment. His eye met a young man with short dark hair in the red light of the bonfire, looking away to other 2 men in the other side of the flames, a clear vision of them blocked from his position by the dancing flames, his right palm covered in Thomas blood. "I am very dead right now." passed around his brain. But then the young man wiped his hands in his pants and turned to the young mage, his eyes betraying contained anger.
"Don't surprise people like that man, we almost started throwing the marshmallows at you. We thought some animal had broken in. That would be a waste of perfectly good marshmallows."
Thomas didn't even know what to say. "What the fuck are marshmallows." But the "broken in" the men sentence alerted him. He had probably transpassed someone territory. Someone powerful enough to isolate territory in the Iron Beast Forest at night.
"Sorry" Thomas fell his head and relaxed his shoulder while lying belly-down, bowing to the figure in front of him as if it was a guard of the capital while his heart started beating faster.
"Relax man it's ok, you clearly tripped." Another voice, an older one, spoke from the other side of the fire. "If you are going back to the entry point, just go back the way you came and turn left in the intersection. Remember that is right, left, left, left again THEN right."
Thomas understood nothing, and just nodded his head. He started to rise up so he could retreat, but the young man beside him lightly placed his hand on his shoulder to stop him, and the young mage found himself paralyzed under his touch. Thomas avoided looking up, knowing his eyes would betray his terror, and he in a panic held his breath.
"Dude, by the amount of blood you have there, you are probably dead. Besides, they don't serve the food until 6 a.m, so joins us. One more person to talk shit with is always welcome, and we have more than enough marshmallows and sticks."
"Besides, the clouds are finally clearing, we may get a good view of the sky.
"I am dead. Dead, dead, dead. That bloody explains it." Thomas thought, and he felt the weakness return, bitter sweat. It wasn't poison, it was his life force flowing out. His strength abandoned him, the sky became ground and ground became sky. He fell sitting down, cold embracing him, and he crawled a little closer to the bonfire, trying to absorb the warmth, extending his hand.
"Welcome on board our wonderous adventure!!" The young man beside him took a stick from the hand of the member of the group who hasn't spoken yet and offered it to Thomas, who accepted it. Thomas noticed that at the point of the stick there were 2 blobs of something yellowish white, but questioned nothing."I will make another one for myself" The young man said while he got up. "Anyway, what were we talking about?"
"The quantum physics implications on boobs." The other man who had spoken answered.
The young man turned to the other in a slow and intentional movement. The man with an older voice kept an innocent face.
"I'm going to punch you in the face."
"Well, we weren't talking about it directly but our conversation could be applied in boob mechan... Ok, ok, I will stop, no need to get violent, think of the wonderful marshmallows you are about to do, focus on them, the joy they will bring is going to far surpass the joy of hitting me."
"They better"
The other man gulped, while the young man walked towards a bag beside the fireplace. Thomas started to drift off, thinking about the life he had left behind while his chest grows colder and the warm of the fire more welcoming. Being born, abandoned, found by a kind soul and killed by a jealous brat. Yeah, a great life one might say. He looked into the fire, happily dancing with its flame, almost trying to comfort him in his eyes, earning a deep breath from him.
"Oh, what's your name man?" The older sounding man asked.
"Thomas."
"Generic ass name."
The young man had just finished placing white blobs in his stick and send the other one a death stare.
"But a good name for it's a name that is used to refer to you."
The death stare intensifies.
"Anyway my name is Oppenheimer, the quiet guy here is Chronos and the great of us all, lord of all creation, and the biggest dick in this side of the world over there is Newton. And those white blobs are marshmallows. And Dracula did nothing wro..."
A white blob hit Oppenheimer in the face, and the three of them start laughing, while Thomas smiled and the fire became a little brighter. The cold wind also started to flow in a gentle way, helping the trees to laugh, until the three merry bonfire companions had recovered with smiles on their faces. Chronos seems to think of something before he finally spoke for the first time in clear and heavy course voice:
"Well, Thomas, how did you get here?"
Thomas took a deep breath before looking at the flames and starting to speak:
"My master took on another apprentice, a useless noble brat who couldn't spend a day without searching for a whore in the city." Evil light, full of malice, brightened in Thomas eyes. "He spent 3 months in Masters house, yet learned nothing because he studied nothing. My progress in magic became an eyesore to him, "To be outdone by a mere useless mage servant", as he said, was intolerable. So, he did what every noble brat does with his daddy purse, and hired a bunch of mercenaries to ambush me in the forest while Master was away. I had no time to make any magic circle, and I tried fighting them off, but they had poison on their daggers and crossbows, and I only had my knife... I fled, but it wasn't enough, so here I am."
"That is hard man." Oppenheimer said. And then stopped, stunned, as did the others. They started laughing again.
"No, no, why you had to say that Opps?" Newton asked laughing.
"It was automatic!!" Oppenheimer answered between laugh spasms. He then looked to the stunned Thomas apologetically. "Sorry, it was not your story, it is just, just..." He started gasping for air. "We were just talking earlier how... Forget about it, sorry sorry we weren't laughing at your story. We promise."
"We promise." Said Newton.
"We promise." Said Chronos.
Thomas thought about it for a while and decided to shrug it off. "Who knows what these guys are". He then noticed that Chronos was about to ask a question:
"Why did you try to use a magic circle in an ambush? It's the worse kind of magic to use in an ambush."
Kind of magic. Kind of magic. Thomas looked at the fire and something cracked inside his mind, and he felt the vision of the flames pouring in burning and melting as the words "kind of magic" resonated in his mind like a chant. He took his hands away from the fire and held his head as the battering ham of those words implication shook him. Then all stopped as his mind processed the thought: "There is more than one kind of magic.". He started laughing in euphoria and despair, then madness, and finally, he just stopped with a smile in his face, which turned to an ashamed smile when he saw Oppenheimer duck face of questioning if the person he was talking to was going insane or not.
"Never thought of that." Thomas answered sincerely.
"Well, in this case, congratulations on winning the Darwin Awards of Natural Selection." Oppenheimer said.
They all started laughing, including Thomas, the fire and the wind, who also started to whistle beside helping the trees. Thomas started to feel the weakness leave him as he laughed, energy starting to fill him up as the laughter flowed from within and from the outside, and he looked at the trees around him in the dark, feeling the cold wind gentle flow contrast with the warmth of the bright bonfire. He then looked up and his pupils became the size of a copper coin.
Something, something made of stars was spread against the dark sky, with dark tendrils and clusters of light, as big as the sky itself. The other ones noticed where he was looking and also looked up, with no less amazement then him.
"What is that?" Thomas exclaimed.
"That is your home galaxy, Andromeda. Beautiful, isn't it?" Newton said, eyes sparkling.
"Yes." Thomas gulped, amazed.
"Every star you see there is a Sun, some with worlds around them, some without. Some worlds with life, some without." Newton turned his eyes to the aghast young man. "And those you see right now are only the ones you see right now, there are many stars hidden behind one another and gas clouds."
"How many are there?"
"A million of million of stars, just in Andromeda. Some of the stars you see are actually other galaxies, some even bigger then Andromeda."
The pupils of Thomas became even bigger, and he felt his mind trying with all its might understand what he just heard, but the beauty of the night sky seemed to dispell any attempt to even begin to comprehend it. He started to laugh, a happy and peaceful laugh, and he fell asleep as the exhaustion caught up to his tired self, the starts of the Galaxy as bright in his closed eyes as in the night sky.