Life Of The Immortal Snake

Borous was sitting in a spacious wooden carriage. It would make for a great bonfire.

The air was warm, and there was a cooling breeze coming from outside. Strange rain was dripping from his eyes.

Had his eyes turned into clouds?

He deeply hoped they hadn't.

He would be tempted to find out how they tasted.

Clouds looked very fluffy and delicious in his opinion, but Arthur didn't agree with him on that for some reason.

"You miss your Nana don't you?" His friend asked him.

His friend Arthur sat across him, wearing a strange hand-woven fur and a silly straw hat.

But not the good kind of silly, Borous didn't want it.

"Miss her? Why would you say that? I'd never throw anything at her!" Borous retorted, furrowing his brows.

He was shocked at how little his friend thought of him.

"I wasn't talking about that kind of missing Boro. I meant that you are missing being with her." Arthur said, barely suppressing the urge to roll his eyes.

Borous gasped.

"How did you know? Can you read minds? What am I thinking about right now?"

Arthur failed to suppress his urge.

"No Boro, I can't read minds. But if I had to guess, it has something to do with candy."

Borous closed his eyes in contemplation.

"But if you can't read minds, how did you know I miss Nana? And how did you guess it was candy?" He asked after a short moment.

"Easy, we just left the village and you are crying. This must be your first time leaving the village right? So it is only natural for you to miss her. And as for how I guessed you were thinking about candy? Face it, you are always thinking about candy." Arthur explained calmly.

Borous looked outside, watching the horizon.

The sky was beautifully empty, its vast expanse entirely grey except for a few small clouds here and there.

The sun loomed above them like a silent spectator.

Crying was not a pleasant experience.

It was as though his thoughts were climbing from the depths of his soul, clawing at his neck and making it hard for him to swallow.

He missed his Nana, he really did.

But why? Was it because she fed him?

Was it because she gave him fur, to shield himself from the cold?

Or did it have something to do with the strange heat he sometimes felt in his chest?

Silently, the tears kept falling from his eyes.

"How do I make it stop?" He timidly asked after a brief moment of silence, looking at their mute spectator who was painting the horizon in various shades of grey.

"Hm? What?" Arthur asked, looking up from his book. "Oh Gods, why are you still crying?"

"I don't know," Borous whispered, his voice dry and lacking strength.

Arthur jumped out of his seat and sat down beside Boro. He hugged Boro tightly, feeling tremors running through his friend's body as his chest grew warm and wet from Boro's tears.

They sat together for a while, and when the carriage stopped for the night, Boro had stopped crying and fallen asleep in his friend's arms.

'He really is strange sometimes.' Arthur thought, laying down his friend on the bench and giving him his jacket as a blanket.

He got out of the carriage and helped with setting up camp for the night.

They were traveling in a small caravan of merchants, mercenaries, and other children who aspired to join the academy.

The carriage they were traveling in was one his father had prepared for him.

Boro had simply tagged along with him and the knight who had been ordered to accompany Arthur by his father.

The knight's name was Daniel, he wasn't from the Arat family and was a hired sword, but he seemed dependable, so Arthur didn't mind.

Stacking up a few pieces of wood to prepare a small bonfire, Arthur observed the other travellers.

It was easy to tell the difference between the varying groups they belonged to.

The mercenaries carried their weapons openly and proudly. They wore light but durable armor, and Arthur thought he had even seen a few mage robes.

Of course, not all mages wore robes, some even preferred to take up the sword and heavy armor themself! Yet he had noticed a certain trend among mages over the years.

Either way, the robes of magicians were iconic and easy to notice, for that was their purpose, identifying a mage in a hectic situation or when help was needed.

Not that everyone could afford a mage's help naturally. Very few could actually.

Even only the most successful of merchants could not call upon them too often, lest they would dry their wallets.

The merchants travelling with them seemed to be barely second-rate, yet they still tried to boost their image with colorful clothes and expensive, excessive jewelry.

Arthur assumed the few mages he had seen were doing the same as the magician who had visited their village had. Searching for gifted children.

Otherwise, it would have been very unlikely to see so many of them at once.

Speaking of gifted children, the last group he had mentally created to classify and assess his companions, seemed to be split in half.

One half consisted of the children of nobles, who were easily distinguished from the commoner children by their clothes, their company, and the way they carried themselves.

The noble children behaved like the entitled nepo babies they were, ordering around the other children and their entourage, some had even brought maids with them.

Arthur scoffed, shaking his head.

Even as a noble, he wasn't afraid to get his hands dirty if needed, and yet his peers were loudly complaining about the ground, having to sleep outside, and many other things.

Maybe they should have just stayed in their cradled little palaces, sitting on their pompous butts all day yelling pointless orders at their poor servants.

"Pathetic," Arthur mumbled, taking out a match, striking it on the ground, and lighting the bonfire.

"They are, aren't they?" Mira asked sheepishly.

Arthur let out a high-pitched scream, jumping up from the ground like a scared cat.

Noticing the magician standing behind him, he coughed, straightened his shirt, and dusted his trousers.

"Since when are you here Mira? I didn't know you were travelling with us." He asked, trying to put on a dignified tone but failing miserably.

"Oh, I just joined it today. I have finally finished my work here and I'm able to return to the academy now. How have you been these past few days?" Mira inquired, barely suppressing her laughter.

Her prank had worked out perfectly.

She would never pass up an opportunity to embarrass a noble.

Especially in front of their peers, that really seemed to bother them.

"We have been fine, nothing out of the ordinary," Arthur replied, the tips of his ears taking on a slight red hue as he noticed the other kids staring in their direction.

His scream couldn't have been that loud, could it?

"Oh, about that. Where is the other one? The one with the big yellow eyes who can see mana? He is with you isn't he?" Mira asked, greed filling her eyes.

"Boro is sleeping in our cart. Don't disturb him, he's had a rough day." Arthur answered coldly.

'Strange, where does he get that confidence from?' Mira pondered quietly. It was unusual for someone to speak that way to a magician. She didn't really care though.

"Have a good night then," Arthur said with a slight courteous bow, eager to get her to leave so he could sink into the ground, never to be seen again.

Mira chuckled and gave him a slight nod.

"See you sometime in the academy then." She said turning her back on him and walking away.

Arthur shook his head and calmly got back into his carriage. His face was getting hot and his thoughts were racing.

'How dare she do that to me! I'll pay her back for that someday, I swear it!'

He lay down on the free bench and closed his eyes.

'What an embarrassment.'

Shortly after, his thoughts drifted further and sleep stretched its arms to embrace him and pull him into a sweet lullaby.

'I miss Mother," he thought before slowly drifting away.

***

Later that night, Arthur suddenly jerked up, awoken by the sound of bells.

'What in the heavens is going on?' He cursed silently.