Critter sat silently beside the campfire, quietly eating his breakfast of dried meat and fruit. He didn’t often get to eat fresh fruit but was unable to truly enjoy its soft sweetness due largely in part to the intimidating man that sat across the fire from him. He still couldn’t have believed what had happened only 1 hour prior.
“What?” Asked Critter, still lying flat on the ground.
“If you are going to be my apprentice then you need to at least be capable of dodging a leg sweep. I thought that would be obvious.” Knight stated in a scholarly tone
“Apprentice?”
“Oh right!” Exclaimed Knight “I forgot to tell you that part. You’ll have to excuse your master’s memory sometimes, I can forget that others aren’t as inclined to follow the rules as I am but I digress.”
At this point Critter was pretty sure his concussion was playing a trick on him.
“So let me get this straight you saved me from a beating and now I have to be your apprentice? What kind of obnoxious rule is that? Wouldn’t half of the world be knights if that was a rule?”
“You are quite right lad, that would be a terrible rule! Luckily for you that is not the rule I am referring to. I, am for lack of better words, am a man with very unique and strong beliefs. These beliefs culminate into what I call rules. Sometimes even I don’t understand where certain ones come from, but I always follow them regardless.”
“But what does this have to do with me?” Critter desperately inserted into Knight’s exposition.
“It has everything to do with you!” Knight said in a grand and certain tone. “For you see, yesterday I received a new major rule! This rule said that I needed to head to the nearest town and find my apprentice. After I found you it altered to say that I was to train you to become a legendary warrior!”
Upon the arrival of these words two things flowed through Critter’s mind. One was that he had been kidnapped by a raving lunatic. The other thought was he was completely and utterly screwed. There was no way he could go back to town now that everyone had seen this knight kill Branch because of him and carry him off. Everyone in the slums would think he had made some kinda deal with the city guard and the only thing worse than the guards in the slums was the people that worked with them.
I’m definitely dead if I go back there, besides I have no idea where I am. Crit thought, Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to let this lunatic teach me a thing or two about fighting until we reach the next town. He definitely knows what he is doing when it comes to beating people senseless.Critter knew that he had to play this carefully, he had seen what this man could do to an iron rank adventurer.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Ok, let’s say that I accept your offer to train me. What exactly would we be doing? You’re not going to take me into the mountains to mediate in a cave or anything weird right?”
Knight was a little taken back when he heard the child talk. He had not expected anything but outright acceptance. How often does this kid get deals like this?
“Well firstly, this isn’t a offer. I will be training you and no you will not be in a cave mediating. What good would that even do?”
“I just thought that's how people trained to be legendary fight…” Critter trailed off feeling a little embarrassed. He may have been a genius but that was at things that mattered, not training.
“No you will be learning the way I learned how to fight and survive.”
“And how was that?” Asked a nervous Critter.
“On the battlefield!”
These words had shocked Critter so badly earlier that he had been unable to speak until now. He had simply let Knight lead him over to the fire for breakfast. Now that Critter had time to calm down and think, he decided that he should just accept his situation and make the most of it, it did work out well for him.
“So what should I call you master?”
Knight seemed to pause for a second and finally said, “No point in making this more complicated than it already is, just call me Knight.”
“That’s not a name.” Critter said mostly on accident, his mouth had always seemed to get him in trouble. As Critter winced and waited for a smack to follow, none of which actually came, he heard Knight sigh.
“No, no it is not, but it is what I am called.” Knight then swiftly changed the focus off of him. “What of you child what is your name?”
Critter fought the urge to rebuke Knight for calling him a child but was able to hold himself back for the moment. Don’t anger the man who turned Branch into a footprint, Critter thought.
“I don’t really have one, but people call me Critter.”
Knight felt a twinge of sympathy as they both shared a moment of silence and then spoke.
“I see we are in similar positions then,” Knight said with a small laugh. “But that ends here. Critter is no name for someone that will be a legend and it is most certainly not the name of my apprentice. From now on you shall be known as Crit, to remind you of your past as Critter and your future as critical figure in history.”
Crit was at a lose for words he had finally been named, not labeled but actually named. Crit, who had never really been wanted, had just been given the very first gift he had ever received, something that most people get before they can even realize they never had one. Sure it had been a stranger that had finally named him but for a boy that had only ever been addressed as a pest his entire life it was too much for him to handle. It was like for the first time in his entire life, someone had actually seen him as a person instead of just a nuisance. As a crack in Crit’s heart that he didn’t even know existed mended itself together, Crit hastily hid his face from his new master as tears started to stream down his face.
Maybe he’s not so crazy after all?
“Don’t cry lad, if you hate the name that much I guess I could call you Ricky!” Knight said, clearly not sure what to do about his soon to be apprentices emotional outburst.
Nope he’s definitely insane! Crit thought has he cracked a small grin.
