K rolled over in his hammock restlessly. It was a hot day early in the rainy season. The thick branches of the trees in the forest provided shade from the blazing sun above, but with the moisture in the air, it was unbearably humid.
A gale swept through the forest, shaking water from branches and making the old trees creak and groan. There was a strange chill in the air after the gale died down.
Suddenly, the animals and other creatures of the forest all began sneezing. The sneezing started from far away and gradually made its way towards K. An uncontrollable episode of sneezing rocked the forest dwellers.
Before he knew it, K himself was sneezing uncontrollably. He fell out of his hammock and onto the ground below. In a moment of respite, he finally looked up to see some Boggarts and Brownies, squirrels and birds, a unicorn and a troll looking at him expectantly.
"Don't look at me like that. I am just as sick as you are." He managed to get out before erupting into a sneezing fit.
"But you are the only dark elf in the forest." A Brownie shouted.
"You always boast about being the only student trained by the Red Flame Dragon. You have to cure us." A Boggart added.
As K and the creatures fought back the urge to sneeze, their eyes watered and two buds sprouted on their heads. Those buds grew into twigs the next time they sneezed.
K got up angrily and walked away from the group. He kept going in the direction the gale came from, out of the forest and into the human town. It was the capital of the land called Greenway. A land ruled by a fair-haired queen.
K walked into the centre of town, where many angry people with twigs sticking out of their heads were gathered.
"What's the queen going to do about this?!" A man in a dusty blue apron and a cloud-shaped hat yelled.
"It's them Boggarts, I tell you!" another shouted.
"I bet it's that elf hiding in the forest!"
"Oye!" K shouted over the mob "I am just as sick as you are! This... twig plague did not come from the forest."
"You critters are the only ones who can do magic round these parts, apart from Paladin!"
"Yeah!" The others shouted in agreement.
"Your twigs are longer than mine, which means you've been sick longer than everyone else in the forest. This plague started in town."
K climbed up to the top of the well, where the people had gathered, and spoke to the crowd.
"A gale brought this plague across the land. The gale that blew into town this morning, where did it come from?"
The people murmured amongst themselves, trying to remember the gale and the direction it came from. After a few minutes of deliberating, they were prepared to turn on K again when someone near the back answered softly.
"It came from the port."
"Who said that?!" K shouted over the murmuring.
The crowd parted, revealing a slender young man who seemed terrified at having been exposed.
K got down from the well and approached the man.
"What did you see?"
The man looked around nervously. With a flick of his hand, K conjured a small gathering of clouds that hid him and the man from the rest of the crowd.
"Well?"
"The Jacob boys, they were fishing barrels out the bay like they always do. They picked up an odd one this morning. Thought it had something valuable in it because of the gold edges. They was fighting with the barrel for an hour before they asked my help. The three of us got it open. But there wasn't anything important in the barrel. Just a stick, I swear."
K studied the young man; he didn't appear to be lying. Besides K, also felt the faint tugging of magic on the wind coming from the port. The young man went on.
"Well, the Jacob boys were so upset they tossed the stick into the water. There was a crack, and then that gale came out of nowhere. Next thing I know it, we're all sick, sneezing, and growing twigs."
K turned, flicked his hand again, and the clouds surrounding them carried him up and away towards the port. There in the bay, floating upright on the water, was the stick the young man had spoken about.
At the same time, Paladin had arrived at the port with the queen and her guards.
"You, dark elf, come down here now." Shouted Paladin.
K floated closer to the queen and her guards but stayed well above their heads.
"What is the meaning of this plague elf?" The queen demanded.
"The plague is not my doing, but one of yours." That stick on the water is a shaman's cursing stick. Your people broke the sealed vessel it was in and threw it on the water. The last curse in that stick was unleashed."
"How do we break the curse?" Paladin asked.
"Like this!" K shouted.
He flew over to the stick, and dipping into a pouch on his belt, he pulled out a handful of dirt and sprinkled it in a circle around the base of the stick. The stick, now separated from the water, began to fall.
K grabbed hold of the stick and, raising it above his head, bent it into a circle. When the two ends met, he took two small metal balls from another pouch on his belt and, chanting a spell, bent the stick in the opposite direction.
The stick snapped with an earth-shattering boom, stirring up another gale that swept across the land. Everywhere the gale blew, the people afflicted by the twig plague returned to normal. The stick's magic was now broken, and the pieces shrank into twigs, which K secured in his belt before flying away from the town.172Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡpi19EK09eP
