Elkora

Kasahiti Village

Ragon was itchy. He had just become aware of this and now it was all he could think of. He barely had any strength at all and decided to use what little he had to scratch his arms. As he became more and more awake, he began to notice other things around him. He weakly draped his hand over his left arm. Or tried to. He somehow missed, but felt the clear touch of a bandage on his limp wrist. Ragon thought it might be best for him to open his eyes now.

It was blinding! He had to squint to make sure his eyes didn't just shrivel up and poof into ash. But as he got used to the light, he saw what was really around him. It was a large and beautiful room shaped like an upside down acorn. It was built from long sticks of bamboo that met and were tied at the top. A long rope fell from their meeting point and was tied to the ground. It looked tense. It must be what makes the room so...nearly spherical.

Beautiful fabrics were draped and tied all along the poles, making walls that rippled in the wind. To make it even more breath taking, light only shone through the lighter colours. It was a real sight to wake up to. Ragon turned his head to find one of the walls seemed to have an open seam running down it’s center. As he regained his strength slowly, he pushed himself up and slid to his knees on the hardwood floor.

Weakly, Ragon trudged over to the curtains while rubbing his bandaged arms. There was a little decorative rope hanging next to him, not four feet from the floor. Ragon pulled it and he was blinded all over again. What turned out to be two curtains flew away to reveal a small balcony out above the water. It was basically an open window that took up the whole wall. The ocean rang bright in his ears as sailboats and fishing rafts floated by. He stood up fully and walked onto the balcony. Ragon grabbed the fencing for support. He was in a coastal village off Moway. When he was in the library back home, he had read about coastal villages. They were considered to be the most fruitful and humblest villages in existence.

He heard a high pitched (but still very cocky) voice from outside followed by several children's oohs and ahs. He turned around looking at the "door" which was actually just a small curtain with a zig zag pattern on the bottom.

“It really hurts to walk!” said Ragon through his teeth, “Just a little further, though.”

With a bandaged hand he drew back the curtain to reveal maybe a hundred or so huts and stands made from leaves, straw and bamboo. A few were like his, but his not so little tent seemed more like a randomly thrown together room made specifically for him.

The voice belonged to what seemed to be the only shelki in the whole village who was currently standing on a barrel to be more visible and audible through a ring of children that had gathered from anticipation. He was moving so vivaciously, acting out his story, that it seemed like he was doing a complex dance. He even had to right himself from falling off several times.

"He fearlessly jumped up onto the beast’s head as it took off into the sky, shattering the very ground as it went!" said the shelki, flapping his paws like a monster taking off in flight. Ragon tilted his head.

"Wow!" said the children.

"He thrust his giant blade staff of fire into the beast's head as it flew through the air and he brought the monster down!"

"What happened to him?" asked a small child with dark skin and a blue dress.

"He fearlessly dove headfirst into the trees, knowing it was his only way to survive! I ran out to find him all sprained and bruised in a pond! A real one this time, with his trust teche cat licking at his cheek!" he said showing the little striped creature on his shoulder, "I brought him here myself! The boy couldn't have made it without me!"

Ragon walked forward, and the heads of the children turned excitedly. A look of fear seemed to rush over the shelki's furry face.

"Did you really kill the calasugah for us?!" asked a boy with bright orange hair and hardly any eyebrows.

Before Ragon could speak, the shelki raised a single claw and said in panic, "Dahuh, he didn't kill it!"

A collective, "Whaaat?" rang out through the audience.

"No, he only stunned it! But if he had a leader like me, we could have vanquished that brute in seconds! Isn't that right...Huntsman?" he said in replacement of Ragon's actual name.

"I'm not a huntsman," said Ragon.

There was a long pause.

"Maybe we can fix that," he said followed by a quick click of the tongue, "So what's your name, Not-a-Huntsman?"

"Um… Martanaragon Kellsworth," he said having to think about it for a second.

"Matranarag... Mart..."

"Call me Ragon."

"You couldn't have said that in the first place?" he asked.

Ragon ignored this and glanced around at the children who were excitedly whispering about him.

"Who are you?" asked Ragon.

"Mycah," said Mycah smirking.

Mycah, like most shelkis, had long short sandy coloured fur all across his body which faded to a dark brown at the end of his long ears and his two articulated tails. But instead of the regular cotton farmer’s wear that shelkis were known for, Mycah wore a scale-hide and an amazing amount of pouches on an amazing amount of belts about his waist. A huge silk bow was tied at his lower back, and several smaller silk ribbons were tied just above his elbow. They flowed off of him, hovering about six inches from the ground at his fur boots. It seemed he had hacked off the legs of his pants just to show off this pair of rugged footwear. His eyes were huge and green, and his smirk was so constant one might think it was painted across his chin.

"Ah you're awake," said a hearty voice from behind him, which was quickly followed by a hard slap on his back.

Ragon jumped and turned around to find the largest man he'd ever seen. He was at least twice the size of him with a large stomach that shook when he laughed. To add to that, he was hardly wearing any clothes except a tiny vest and shorts that looked like they had been tailored for a 12 year old.

"I was afraid you kicked it!" he said with a deep fruity laugh, "You're lucky our Mycah was there to save you. He's Kasahiti Village's top hunter here."

"Kasahiti?" asked Ragon as Kisha glided over and landed on his shoulder.

"Ah yes. NIYA! Could you give our new friend a tour?" he yelled at a very bored girl at the desk who seemed incredibly startled at hearing her name at such a loud volume.

She nodded and quickly jumped up from her seat. There was a red mark on her cheek from being smushed against her hand for so long. As she ran towards him, Ragon found that he could not stop himself from staring. Mycah elbowed his leg and looked up at him with wide eyes and a slightly more bent smirk than the usual.

"She's cute huh?" he said in direct earshot of her.

"Yeah, I am." said Niyah with a huge smile that stretched her freckles and slightly sunburned cheeks.

Ragon blushed and fumbled at his sleeve of bandages.

"So. Ya ready to take a tour?" she asked.

"Uh...yeah sure!"

Mycah winked at him and disappeared into a pond, his silky ribbons streaming behind him.

"Okay. Land of the living, here we go," said Ragon under his breath as Niya pulled on his arm.