"The Owl? Why would people call him that he doesn't look anything like a bird."
He was a young scruffy man missing an eye with a mask covering half his face, he seemed as if he only lived for the hunt. sitting on the log poking at the ground when he raised his arm and shot a bolt into the forest. narrowly missing my head and piercing a tree behind me.
"What was that for!"
"Hmm? Guess it was nothing. Boy you shouldn't be on guard around me I don't care for you and neither do you care for me right? I also have no need to kill you, ya hear. But you are going to stay with me until I can decide what to do with you, there is something strange about you."
"Why should I trust you and why should I stay with you out in the middle of a forest do you understand how that sounds to me!"
"Hmm? Indeed it does sound bad. Your words are of no concern though as no one comes out here, this forest is infested with monsters honestly it is surprising to me that your this far out still alive. So that is a need for further study of you."
"HO HO HO! Boyo it seems you should introduce yourself he has no intention of letting you go."
"Hmph! Like I'm just going to stay here with some old man and a bird that talks I'm going to find a city."
The owls eye's lit up with the mention of the city instantly almost pouncing on me from behind holding my arm behind my back, almost breaking it."
"Kid you are not leaving my sight till either I die you die or I deem you a nonthreat. Is that understood."
"FINE!"
As soon as he heard me yell at him he went back to sitting at the log poking the ground seemingly waiting for answers from something. With nothing else to do and no chance of escape I went and sat opposite of him.
"I'm Silver just so you know."
The Owl looked me up and down then looking back at the ground.
"You clearly are not silver, you're the same colour as me so stop lying."
I couldn't tell whether he was trying to joke with me or not so I looked at the bird which seemed to have more common sense than the man but it was sitting there shaking it's head.
"No! Like Silver is my name!"
Looking back up at me now stopping from playing in the dirt by the looks.
"Oh, well you can call me Jeremiah, and this is Owl. He is the reason I got the nickname the Owl."
"Huh that makes more sense now."
"So Silver mind explaining what that mark on the back of your neck is?"
I grasped the back of my neck forgetting that I was a marked person.
"I.. I'm not to sure myself but was told I was a slave at one point in the past before the holy church found me."
The man looked up at me seeming surprised dropping his stick.
"Hmm. I see that would explain the scars on your body. So why are you here and not dead?"
"I'm not too sure myself about that one a man came to me just before death and spouting something about strength then left."
Jeremiah scratched his chin seemingly deep in thought now that he wasn't playing in the dirt. He shot up out of his seating and looked at me, startling me with how fast he moved.
"Come the spirits are telling me to trust you."
"What the Spirits? Ahh screw that you need to learn to not startle me so much."
As if ignoring me he turned and started walking deeper into the forest this forest seemed dead but alive at the same time it gave off an eerie feeling. Jeremiah on the other hand was walking forward as if nothing even existed around him.
"I wonder what makes him so confident, I also wanna now what these spirit things are."
As if hearing my thoughts he turned around at me staring intensely I was about to yell at him but he then turned and started walking again. Looking behind us I saw something that looked human but also wasn't human Just standing in the shadows with two beady red eye's staring at me towering over anyone that I would know but it was unmoving, watching observing. I quickly turned around and caught back up to Jeremiah who was now at a large grotto of trees.
"Hey Jeremiah what was that thing before?"
"You could also see that... Hmm?"
As if us talking about that being before incited some deeper power of the grotto the forest began to rage with the trees and ground shaking violently. But Jeremiah stood there unwavering as if he was expecting this. then something came before me it was standing there is what I would say if I could see it but nothing was here in front of me.
"Use your senses they don't like to be seen by strangers often."
I closed my eye's focusing each of my senses but I new they were there but I still couldn't hear them Nor see them.
"Boyo use your mana."
I ended up using my mana sense and what I could sense was a towering human like form of pure mana floating there, It reached it's hand out touching me on the head my eyes and ear's felt as if they were about to explode but I started hearing things and being able to actually see the monstrous thing in front of me.
"You think he will be fine my king?"
"Ha of course he will be he has to be strong to be their play thing! Look he is coming to now what did I say."
There were so many of these beings made of mana it seemed, but none of them were as large and intimidating as the one standing in front of me looking down at me. Jeremiah was standing beside him staring at me as if calculating what I was going to do.
"What are you?"
I sheepishly spouted out to the thing.
"ME WELL YOU COULD SAY IM THE KING OF THE SPIRTS IN THIS FOREST!"
His voice seemed to echo as if screaming straight into my ears but even I could tell about how I was still able to hear he was not even yelling at me. I remembered about what Jeremiah said before about sprits liking me.
"Hey so why am I here do you know?"
"What else of course to help each other out."
The King of Spirits reached his hand down to me to help me of the ground, seeing no other option I reached out to grab it and with a large thunder in the sky's.
A shaky alliance between a boy and the king of the forest was formed.