"Often the most simple method to deal with a human is with trickery. However elaborate or complex the actual execution is, they will be quickly fooled and left vulnerable for whatever plans you have for them. Learn from the humans themselves, and adapt their techniques; that is what makes a successful warrior. Not skill; rather thought."
-Redcap Translations, by Cameron Coy
The morning sun shone brilliantly through the kitchen window, illuminating the entire room, and blinding Igo who went into, to wake up the snoring boy that continued to slouch on top of a wooden chair.
"Daniel. Da-aniel. Daniel!"
"Huh!" the boy lurched forward, and almost out of his chair, taking time to catch his balance, "Oh, it's just you Igo... just you."
"I heard about yesterday. Bet you didn't think they'll find out so fast."
"M-Maybe..." he said, turning away bashfully.
"You will be surprised by the perseverance of some curious folk. Now those are some wise words; maybe I should frame them!", Igo laughed out load, before quieting down and turning a somewhat contempt gaze towards the put-out Daniel, "Your really hoping for it, huh?"
"What?" snapped Daniel.
"That they won't treat you like crap. That you miraculously gain an art of some kind and teach them all a lesson. Even if you had an art, it would be your fathers and then you'd probably be treated worse. And then what would happen, even the teachers will-"
"Shut up!" Daniel shouted, "Please just... stop it..."
"I was just trying to be helpful, Daniel. You know that. Anyway, you gotta get up early today. Academy requested it. Before you ask, I dunno why. Just get on with it." he finished, leaving the room and going upstairs.
When the boy had gotten ready and left for the Academy, the sun that hung high in the sky yesterday was only just rising, casting an ominous golden ray of light that refracted and reflected infinitely into the horizon. It was pretty; as Daniel looked up, hopeful, into the sky above and towards the Guild; very pretty. Yet when he looked down and towards the path ahead, he found a curious looking boy staring into him with an intent smile across his face. His flowing white hair glided gracefully down past his shoulders and eyes that pierced his very being yet looked as beautiful as the sea and a stature more enchanting than an angel's. It was pretty; he was pretty, very pretty.
"Hi! Whats your name?"
"D-Daniel." the stunned boy managed to get out, almost involuntarily.
"Nice name. I'm guessing your in the Academy, if your going out to Upper Alandriel at this time of day. My names Sun. What a pleasure it is to meet you, Daniel. A pleasure indeed."
There, in that meeting between the two boys, sat a greater silence than that of the early morning, and, even the rest of the world. However short it was, it was soothing and calm, yet ever intense and stressful. It was, as Daniel could only think, pretty.
"What class are you in, Daniel?"
"M-Me?" the boy said shakily.
"Yes, stupid, there's no one else here, is there?"
"Y-Yeah, I suppose," Daniel let out a half-laugh, "I'm in Class 1-B, and you?"
Sun, taken aback and surprised at this seemingly weak person's answer replied, "Well that's a pleasant surprise. I'm in Class 1-A. Guess we're more like than we seem, eh?"
He, this boy named Sun, was a monster. Not like Daniel himself, but a monster among other monsters. A person who is said to become a Platinum at their very worst. It was jarring to say the least to this already stunned enough boy, gazing straight through Sun, with a dead glare.
"Y-Your... in C-Class 1-A?"
"Yep. Now don't act like that, your practically the same as me, so there's no need to be scared."
"Y-Yeah, I suppose."
"So how does going to the Guild together sound, Daniel?"
"s-sounds good... Yeah! Sounds good!"
The morning stroll to the Guild was uneventful, and silent, all except the mutterings and converse of two boys roughly the same age, prowling through the city like they owned it.
"Are you poor, Daniel?" asked Sun, on the verge to the great steps to the Guild.
"What do you mean by that?"
"Well... You, from the path you took before we met, live in Lower Alandriel and yet you don't seem like that at all."
"I'm not poor in the sense of struggling for money or having a rough life, but i'm definitely not well off at all. You see, I came from the countryside and I'm now living with my Dad's old friend in the city here."
"What's his name, might know him."
"Iago Duskwalker, is his full name, but he prefers me to call him Igo."
The usually calm and collected Sun, stopped halfway up the stairs, left in the tracks of the absorbed Daniel who had not been paying attention; his eyes focused to a single point with no object for their hungering gaze.
"Daniel," the frozen boy said, in a dark and blank tone, devoid of his previous jolly and bright attitude
"What is it, Sun?" Daniel said before looking around and seeing the distraught boy
"I-I need to..." the boy gasped for breath before collecting himself, "Sorry, Daniel... but it seems I've forgotten something at home and... well, my lecturer said I needed it today... so, I'll be right back!"
"Wait! Should we meet here... after class is over?"
"Yeah, lets do that," he agreed, in that same distant tone, before running off back down the path they went. It was odd. It would be odd to anyone remotely nearby to that scene. Although, for Daniel's clueless yet honest personality, nothing particularly stood out as abnormal or peculiar just a dazed wondering of what that forgotten thing was.