This is a story I wrote once before, but decided to redo. Enjoy!

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Early one morning, in a small village to the west, a young girl wearing a white long-sleeved shirt and a gray skirt named Kura, was walking across the village to meet one of her friends. She came to his house and knocked on the door. A minute or two later, a middle-aged woman opened the door.

“Good morning Kura, what can I do for you?” Kura bowed a little then said, “Good morning Ms. Myra, is Turin here?”

Myra chuckled, “Yeah, he’s still asleep, let me go get him.”

She walked up to his room and went in. As she had said, Turin was still asleep, snoring loudly. She shook him. “Turin…Turin…wake up, Kura’s outside waiting for you.” He continued snoring

“Ok, I’m going to open the window…”

He slept on.

She threw open the shutters on the window, letting light flood into the room. When the light hit Turin’s eyes, he fell out of the bed and yelled, “AAAH MY EYES! THEY BURN!!”

Myra laughed at him and threw him his clothes.

“Oh don’t be so dramatic. Here, hurry and get dressed, Kura’s waiting for you, and you don’t want to run out there in your boxers.”

Turin put on a gray, long-sleeved shirt then a dark red tunic over it, then his pants and boots and ran outside.

When he walked out the door a hand came down and hit him on the head, stopping him in his tracks.

He heard a familiar voice. “So, you finally made time to drag yourself from bed huh?”

He rubbed his head, “Hey! Well I see you’ve already completely woken up…”

“I have every right to be mad; you promised me you would be awake when I got here!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, I’m sorry,” He said with a faint smile.

She patted him on the head, “Heehee, it’s ok, come on lets go get Pryce!”

They walked through the village, saying hello to everyone along the way and stopping once to get some bread to snack on. Then they walked up to the door to Pryce’s house and knocked on the door. Shortly afterward, Pryce peeked through the door.

“…What do you want, I’m sleeping…”

Kura frowned, “What do you mean ‘what do we want’? We were supposed to help Master Alden pick herbs today. I can’t believe both of you forgot!”

Pryce stared at her from behind the door then shuffled back inside. A minute later he came back out wearing his dark blue shirt, dark green scarf, and boxers with duckies on them.

Kura quickly looked away. “AHH!!! PRYCE! PUT YOUR PANTS ON!”

Pryce looked down, “Huh, so that’s why it’s so breezy out here.” He went back inside and put on his baggy black pants then came back out.

Turin looked at them both impatiently, “Can we go now?”

“Where were we going exactly?” Pryce asked, yawning.

“I just told you we were going with Master Alden into the forest to help pick herbs! Jeez, will you listen for once?” Kura said, frustrated.

“Yeah yeah, sorry whatever, let’s just go.”

They walked to the other side of the village again and waited at the town gate for a few minutes before old man Alden finally showed up. He was wearing a long, brown, robe, and many charms hung around his neck. He was also carrying two sheathed swords and some bags.

He greeted them with a smile, “Ah, good morning children, are we all ready to go?”

They all nodded. Turin, noticing the swords, became curious and asked, “Master Alden, what are those swords for?”

Alden handed the swords to Turin and Pryce, “Well we will be heading into a pretty thick part of the forest, and we’ll need something to clear the way.”

“What about you and Kura? You guys aren’t going to help us?” Pryce asked, eyeing the old man curiously.

Master Alden chuckled a little, “You wouldn’t really make a young women and an old man do the work would you? Besides, Pryce, you could sure use the workout!”

“Hey! What?!”

The others laughed. “Well Pryce if you wouldn’t eat so much cake and pie all the time he wouldn’t be saying that,” said Kura.

“Bah, you guys suck.”

They laughed again, then began walking toward the forest. As they walked through the lightest part of the trees, they decided to make up stories to make the time pass.

Turin told the story of a gallant knight who finds a mystical sword and uses it to bring down an evil king and claim a kingdom. Kura told of a lonely wanderer who saved a town of beautiful maidens, and ultimately got married. Pryce tried his hardest to tell a scary story, but the endings always came out wrong and he just ended up making himself confused.

“And when the man looked in his pantry…he found that there was no…pie…left…”

Turin and the others stopped and stared at him.

“What? That would scare me! I would die if I ever ran out of pie. Hey I rhymed! I’m a poet and I didn’t know it! Hahahah!”

Kura groaned. “Pryce, give it up.”

“Ah, you’re no fun.”

As Turin and Pryce began to cut through some of the brush, Alden made them stop.

Turin looked back at him, “What’s wrong Master Alden?”

“…I hear something...it sounds like steel clanking up in the trees…”

Suddenly, from one of the trees behind them, a man clothed in black jumped down from the trees.

“Heh, you’ve got good ears for an old geezer. Allow me to introduce myself, my name is Jack. Jack Suro.”