A Trek of A Storyteller

Ch.30: Sage

The next morning, the boy woke up earlier than the festival began, earlier than the sun truly awoke, bathing the world in a soft grey light, and heard no performers setting up. He crept out warily, abandoning his satchel beneath shrubbery so that he may sneak more effectively. As he came upon the place he'd become so familiar with the day before, he heard the sound of his Master's cane thunking down the wooden steps. He found himself shaking, and yet prevailed.

He rounded the bend to find the green-shirted man throwing knives effortlessly into one of the blood red boards. He was silent and flinty as ever, his body moving gracefully. The knives were held in his left hand, his right hand pulling one off the stack when he needed it. He threw them accurately into a neat line across the board and once he'd run out, eight the boy counted, he would simply wiggle them out of the wood and begin again.

Jackson studied the way the man moved, mimicking it as best he could from the sidelines. He watched for many hours until the sun rose and the day began again and the man returned the knives to the Oaktale Compass, wiping the sweat from his brow and from his chest which shone in the light through the laces on his collar. He greeted the other two, and yet still the boy did not catch their names, and they began their tedious process of tuning again, playing their shows with a small crowd, the boy as the only consistent member although he pretended as though he did not know each word to their songs already.

When the day once again ended, tired as he was, Jackson took his throwing knife in hand and returned to his oak tree target which had a rope tied around it now. He mimicked the man's throwing movements once again, letting the knife fly from his hand. It thunked into the tree trunk, spinning beautifully. He grinned triumphantly and took it out only to throw it in again and, with an excited leap and a loud whoop, he retrieved his knife.

He noticed then, a groove revealed by the tape which had gotten caught on a piece of tree bark and peeled off. He looked closer, the weaning moon as his only light. It caught perfectly, revealing, in curled and neat writing, Sage engraved in the hilt.