"Gather up!"
The children gathered in a field of flowers that expanded for dozens of meters in all directions. Master's stern voice commanded them to line up in a straight line.
I... can't breathe!
Zephyr's back was hunched down, his hands placed on his knees as he tried to gather his breath after having to do a warmup he had almost forgotten about.
Not far from them stood a well; a bucket full of water could barely be noticed, dangling from its old rope. Every corner of the field was like a colorful painting, its bright flowers shone even stronger under the glaring sun.
Looking to his side, he saw that others didn't seem to fare better than him, covered in sweat and dirt, all of them held their legs from collapsing.
Master, seeing how exhausted they were, didn't seem to care about how hard it was; rather, a glint of something had sparked inside her crystal blue eyes.
"As you all know." She spoke, her hands crossing behind her back while slowly walking around us in a wide circle. "Tomorrow we will hold a branding ceremony that I promised the moment I came to this village." Her eyes were looking towards a certain house in the distance.
"You four, as the only kids that this village suggested, will need to fight for that right. Do you understand that?" She suddenly leaned toward the chubby child, his body flinched before stuttering.
"Y-yes!"
"I'm talking to you especially, Ludwig, so don't you dare try to trick me." Raising back up, her calm stroll resumed.
"You wouldn't even succeed if there were hundreds of you."
"S-so..." The timid child who was meddling with his fingers previously spoke up to the master, his head facing the ground. "W-what a-are we s-suposed to do then? D-do we need to write a thesis? If so, then I-"
As he was trying to finish his sentence, his body rose all of a sudden, his hands flailing as if he were trying to grab onto something. Until he faced her face to face, his clothes tightly holding him from falling, he was gripped with a single hand, lifting him by his shirt's collar.
"No." She refused flatly, his face paled, eyes wide open.
"Not even in your dreams, Liam." Repeating her denial, she dropped him without a warning.
"If you wanted to write, then you should have chosen a scholar as your teacher; it's too late to back away now."
This time, she sat on the well's edge, looking down its opening for some reason.
"So as I was saying-"
Before she could finally speak, a hand had cut through the air, it rose so high that a shadow fell on her scrunched-up face, scrunched up as the sharp-looking child quietly stared back at her, annoyed expression. He didn't look scared of her like the others, only looking back at her patiently like a good student.
With a sigh, she waved her hand.
"Erik."
"Thank you." He bowed his head slightly, looking around the field with his brow raised.
"I was just curious why we were brought here."
He looked to his right side where Zephyr still hadn't managed to calm his pounding heart down.
"Usually, when you make us train, we do it behind Zephyr's hut, where all of the tools and equipment are kept.
I'm guessing that today we would practice our skills or at least handle swords, which you talked so long about."
Rubbing his chin carefully, he stared at the bucket behind her; the water inside it was barely kept from spilling out.
"Do you want to test us in another strange way? If so, I'm not sure about those two, even figuring out what to do, Zephyr on the other hand..."
Erik glanced at him, his eyes narrowing.
"He might actually keep up this time."
As the words left his lips, everyone turned to him either out of shock or confusion.
The meaning behind his words was clear.
Zephyr, the usually lazy kid who never trained properly, would actually have a chance to keep up with Erik?
"Hm." She looked at Zephyr, who slowly straightened up, his eyes were just as wide as the rest.
A low chuckle escaped through her newly formed grin. She raised her legs, sitting in a cross-legged position while balancing on top of the thin well's edge.
"Do you always need to talk as if you are better than everyone?"
She mused, supporting her chin with her palm while holding her knee with the other.
"Even an expert can lose against a beginner."
Her body started to lean back, gradually being pulled inside the well that was twice as small as her body.
"So don't get too ahead of yourself, Ludwig and Liam are nothing to scoff at.
Having that already sorted out, listen carefully to what I'm about to say."
Weirdly enough, her body seemed to perfectly fit inside it, slowly swallowing her whole and leaving the four of them in an awkward silence.
"Uh, she didn't say anything, though," Ludwig whispered to Liam, who carefully walked up to the well. He looked down, standing there for a few seconds with a puzzled look on his face.
Everyone else seemed to notice that something was wrong, going up to it and staring inside its dark interior.
Where did she go?
Just as everyone tried to figure out how she disappeared, an echo came from the very bottom of the well, the voice becoming louder with each passing moment.
"Whoever jumps inside this well first will have a special one-on-one lesson with me."
Her voice came from the darkness in an eerie tone, something that you would think a mirror would sound like when looking at the distorted reflections.
It disappeared as quickly as it came, leaving no trace of even having come up.
No one dared to move.