Six Warriors

Royal Hospitality - (Jack)

"The royal guard will accompany you to the castle, preparations are being made, the academy awaits you." These were the last words of the goddess Tsuki, before that shimmering and vivid fire was extinguished from the statue.

"The royal guard?" Sam babbled.

"Follow me." Drorn asked.

Outside the tavern, there were some carriages.

"Hey, how did they get there so fast?" Sam asked.

"They came exactly at the appointed time," Drorn said, "yeah, everything was already planned, your coming here, and also your going to the king's castle."

They were taken in a white carriage, drawn by horses of the same color. It was in the afternoon, about fifteen o'clock. In the distance they could already see the castle towers of the King of Lightland. It was gigantic, with towers decked with streamers, banderoles and a red and blue roof. Jack poked his head out the window and saw the grand gardens of the king's palace, with several proud guards in gleaming armor. The coachman came to say that they should go down. The castle did justice to the beautiful city, with great, beautiful white and gold walls that gleamed in the afternoon sun.

"This is amazing!" Jack spoke in awe. Inside, the great castle was equally majestic, with beautiful paintings, rugs and various other decorative pieces of the highest standard. They were taken to a large hall, full of beautiful windows and stained glass, lit by the afternoon sunlight. In the great hall there was a red carpet, and thrones, the largest for the king, another for the queen, Jack imagined. An imposing man sat on this throne, with a yellow gold scepter with runes written in white gold and a ruby at the end. He had blond hair that hung down to his neck, a matching goatee and green eyes. On his head he wore a red gold crown, encrusted with diamonds and opals. He had a serious and imposing look. Trumpets were blown and a herald then announced:

"Kneel before King Sigmund Belyst des Sorlige, son of King Reficul Belyst, direct descendant of King Alvaro I, first king of Argia. Lord of the greatest power in all Khand, with all his possessions and lands, veteran of many famous battles, and a war hero. Known as; King Sigmund, The Simple One!" The trumpets sounded again, and then the servants knelt. It was followed by Ethan, Miguel, Sam, Fenrir, Arthur and finally Jack.

"Stand up, come closer" the king asked, without any trace of order. Ethan rose and followed, Jack following him.

"I am aware of the whole situation, I imagine that for such young shoulders it is a heavy burden to carry."

"We are honored to carry such a burden, King," Ethan replied.

"You must be Ethan Celestian, the bearer of the light element Kerd, your haughty leader makes you stand out, my good young man. I myself have arranged for you to be enrolled in the Spellon Academy, but you will not be singled out or anything like that, you must act in the shadows, act in a way that does not recognize you as the Six Warriors yet, and then investigate about the missing scrolls. It won't be an easy mission, but for now... let's talk, let's eat, let's drink, you all are this world's beacon of hope and if Eagle trusted you, so must I."

...

Dinner with the king was pleasant, and also a bit of a mess. After all, what place did he and his friends not come and make some mess? Jack wondered what it would be like if all the Guardians were still there. Would it be…a bigger mess?

Anyway, the king didn't seem to mind the clumsy ways of Jack and his friends, on the contrary, he seemed to have fun too.

The next day, Jack woke up very early and woke up all his friends, one by one, in a shocking way and they weren't very receptive to Jack, especially Fenrir, the most sleepy one.

In the end, the king showed up around there.

"It's a surprise they're up so soon, but I imagine they're excited about the new journey. Very well follow me." And after that everyone complained even more to Jack, who just laughed at them. After that, Sigmund, the king, led them to a majestic hall and, with many kinds of statues and paintings, it looked like some kind of art museum.

"They are representations of Tsubasa Doragon, Lugh Tarannis, Anne Skywind, Aldefrea Seamen, Ryland Hunter and Alfnidios Tânatos, one of the ancient generations of Six Warriors. You will also find here other and other generations, actually, information about the five previous generations, but these in particular are the most represented."

"This is all amazing!" Jack thought, "So this Tsubasa Doragon... was one of the voices of fire that spoke to me when I started to wake up and when I was in trouble. Yoshi! I know you must be very strong, but I'll get over you!"

"I would like to introduce each piece of art to you boys, but we have to prepare for the trip, right?" Said Sigmund, "Spellon Academy, it's good to know that... the royal princes of Argia will be going there too. My children."

...

They met a boy who looked between sixteen and seventeen, slender but muscular, with long indigo hair that flowed down his back, smooth and serene. His face was handsome but cold. He wore a black tank top that left his muscular arms exposed, blue cargo pants, and black leather boots. The other was younger. He must have been fifteen years old, with purple hair, also straight, that fell below his ear and ran down his forehead. His face was warmer than his brother's, but still shrewd and no less handsome. He wore a light blue robe, with a yellow shirt inside, white pants and red boots.

"Hey bro, look, they're daddy's friends." Said the youngest, who had a kind of childish way of acting. The eldest just looked at them and gave a curt salute.

"Boys, these are my children, Siegfried and Dominick. I hope you get along well." The king smiled.

To Jack, they seemed to be nothing more than those preppy preppy ones, but somehow, the older one… he seemed to be strong.

The place where they went was very close to where there were those magic circles of portals, it was a little further away and it looked like a kind of station. There was a gap between the platforms that could be filled by a rail, but there wasn't one track, there were pure and simple magical runes glowing.

There were many young people around and adolescents, along with their parents. Jack guessed they were students too and were waiting to go to that famous magic school. The princes carried their luggage themselves, with no servants to do it for them. The two of them and a handful of other students placed their luggage in compartments that were under large statues of birds, especially owls.

"We should put our luggage over there." Miguel spoke, and so they did. The compartments sucked the luggage by magic and, supposedly, the luggage was transported to the school in a magical way. On one of these statues, perched a real owl. It had brown feathers and big yellow eyes.

"New faces, new faces, I'm happy when I see new faces coming to our gym." She said the owl to Jack and his friends.

"A talking owl." Sam looked up.

"Must be some kind of familiar spirit or something," Miguel stated.

"No, not that, I'm a school teacher, it's a pleasure, my name is Earnest, Arcane Languages teacher."

"Do you have the ability to transmute into an owl or something?"

"No, no, I'm just an owl anyway. I read a lot and then I became a teacher, so no, I'm not a human transmuted into an owl by magic."

Jack wondered if that was irony.

"What are you doing here then?" Jack wanted to know.

"Well, waiting for transport, just like you."

"Couldn't you just go flying?"

"Are you crazy? Would you walk there? It's miles away!" The owl then sighed, "Looks like I'm going to have a lot job with the hollowheads this semester." Earnest then flew over to another owl statue and began talking to other young fledglings.

Jack and the others shrugged. King Sigmund approached.

"Here I bid you farewell, my young adventurers and I farewll also my children. May the journey be full of learning and may the wind blow in your favor."

The king shook each one's hand and said goodbye to his children. Many people stared at Jack and his friends for touching the king's own hand, but people tried not to make it too visible. Jack stopped thinking about it when he heard a loud train noise, but also what sounded like the roar of a dragon or some winged creature. In the skies, a bright-bodied serpenoid dragon appeared, its body glowing like the colors of the rainbow and two great angelic wings flapping as it approached. Jack and Arthur seemed to be preparing for a fight, but Miguel laughed at them.

"What are you laughing about, you nerd?" Arthur complained.

"Just watch closely, watch the Rainbow Dragon approach."

As the creature lowered its flight further, Jack could see, this was... this was a locomotive! A locomotive surrounded by a colorful magic aura that was shaped like a dragon, a flying train with giant angel wings! What a thing... unusual and at the same time wonderful!

Jack couldn't help but be excited. Hey, maybe he would met a girl at that school. Yeah, schools are a good place to meet girls. Maybe he bumps into a nice girl, they both drop their books and then, while they were catching the books, their hands would almost touch each other...

"YOOOOOOSHI!!" Jack yelled, throwing his arms up, but maybe he yelled too loud...