I wasn’t sure what to expect as I made my way through the portal. However, upon appearing on the other side I was overcome with an extreme case of vertigo. Collapsing to my knees my vision went dark for a moment before the space around me slowly spun into focus. Blinking repeatedly to clear my vision, my eyes steadily focused in on my surroundings. I found myself in a quaint, yet generously sized, rectangular room. To my left was a wooden desk, two drawers were side-by-side directly underneath the desktop. Several open books and papers were strewn about it in a disorderly manner. To my right, a closet, in which several outfits, identical to the one the boy was wearing, where hung up tidily.  The floor and walls were made of some form of cobblestone, with a rather comfortable rug laid atop the floor, which I was currently kneeling on. And of course, in front of me, was a bed large enough for a single person to lay upon, with a wide-eyed boy, still on his knees, in between the bed and myself.

The boy was a little scrawnier than I had initially thought while viewing him through the portal. Even with both of us on our knees I was more than a full head taller than the boy. Moving from his build to his face, my initial impression still stood, he had a kind face, honestly, he almost looked like a lost puppy. As we locked eyes, I could see more than a little uncertainty, and a small amount of fear hidden behind his shocked expression. Thinking that I needed to find some way to ease his nerves, I did the one thing I could think to do in this situation, I greeted the boy with a large, welcoming, smile.

Gale Windsward

            For as long as I could remember, I had been nothing but a stain on my family. I had neither the strength of my sister, nor the wisdom and cleverness of my father. My mana reserves had always been weakest in my family, even when compared to other kids my age my reserves couldn’t hold up. As such, my father tried to have me trained in the ways of the warrior. However, my frail frame had refused to improve, no matter how much the master-at-arms tried to train me.  Upon receiving that tidbit of news my father gave up on me, refusing even to look me in my eyes. I had a sinking feeling that if I had been born before my sister, my father might have had me killed in some accident in order to avoid having me be his heir. As it was, being the second born child, my father simply ignored my existence.

            So, with my mana reserves too weak for me to be a mage, and my body too weak for me to be a warrior, I took the only option left, become a summoner. The Summoner’s Academy located in the kingdom of Krete was known as the premier school for those who wished to become summoners. And, as Krete was located on the other side of the continent, my father was more than happy to agree to my request to be sent here.

Unfortunately, once I arrived at the academy, I found, like in all other aspects of my life, that my potential was subpar. Most other students in my class were able to summon their bonds within the first week of trying. The really slow students were able to summon their bonds within the first month. As for myself, it had been three months and I was still unable to summon a bond. The first official summoner trial was at the start of next week, which means if I didn’t have a bond by then, I would be promptly expelled and shipped back home. The very thought of my father’s face when he discovers that I can’t even become a summoner keeps me awake at night. As such, every night, after class, I’ve returned to my dorm and spent hours opening portals in a desperate attempt to find a creature that would be willing to bond with me.

It seemed hopeless. The way the instructor had described this incantation was that it would read the casters thoughts and heart and open a portal to a monster which would be capable of bonding with the caster. Upon opening the portal, the bond was supposed to gauge the casters potential and decide whether or not it wished to bond with the caster. However, whenever I performed the incantation, it would just open a portal, which, for the most part, would end up dumping a bunch of sand on me. One of my classmates, upon witnessing the sand pouring out of my portal had joked that maybe my bond was a cactus. Honestly, at this point, I would’ve taken a cactus. Instead, all I had been met with was a pile of sand or an empty void, that further proved how worthless I was. If I had met a creature and it rejected me, I could accept that, it would be painful, but I could at least understand where it was coming from. Instead, I was met with nothing, no monster, no cactus, nothing but a pile of sand as a consolation prize, and a portal that drained me of all my reserves.

At least, that’s how it had been, up until this very moment. In which I found myself on my knees, with tears streaming down my face, staring into the dark brown eyes, of a naked man who had fallen through my portal. He looked to be a quite a bit older than me, with pitch black hair that fell far past his shoulders, and an unruly beard that covered most of his facial features and fell down past his chest. His eyes had a curious look about them as he appeared to study me for a moment. Then his mouth twisted into an unnerving grin that gave me a feeling as though he was preparing to kill and eat me. I quickly fell back away from him and shuffled backwards until my back bumped against my bed, which, of course, startled me even more. Jumping up in fright, I hopped onto my bed and tried to put as much distance between myself and the strange man as possible. In doing so however, my foot hit my nightstand and knocked the glass of water that was sitting on it off onto the ground.

The strange man’s gaze, which had been locked on me since I started scrambling away, quickly darted to the glass as water spilled out from it and onto the floor. His face, which had been maintaining that horrendous grin, warped into something more bestial as he moved toward the spilled water. Much to my surprise, he began liking it off the floor like some kind of wild animal. Then it hit me, one of the instructors at the academy had mentioned that some of the more powerful monsters, could take on a human form, to try and better interact with people. The especially clever ones could even learn and replicate human speech. Suddenly my curiosity won over my fear as I more closely observed this strange man.

His pose and actions as he had been slurping up the water from the ground were more beastlike than man. ‘That’s it’ I thought to myself ‘He’s just a monster that took on a human appearance before coming through the portal.’ This was finally all starting to make some sense. Him being a monster would explain the lack of clothes, it could also explain his strange grin, as maybe he wasn’t accustomed to making human facial expressions.  I found myself growing less fearful and more excited at the prospect of this monster I had summoned. Afterall, it had to be somewhat powerful in order to take on a human form.

Using the sleave of my blazer I wiped away the tear streaks and snot from my face while continuing to observe the creature that was currently lapping up water from my floor. From the position where I was standing on my bed, I could see his body more clearly than before. The first thing I noticed was that he was heavily muscled, like extremely well defined. Every inch of his body looked as if it had been sculpted from marble by one of the most renown sculptors in the world. Upon closer inspection however, I noticed a multitude of scars scattered across his skin, as if he had been tossed into a bath filled with blades. I couldn’t even imagine the number of fights he would’ve had to have been through to earn that mosaic of scars. Suddenly he froze and looked up at me.

Having his intense gaze fixed upon me shook me out of my contemplations. Very slowly, he started to stand up, almost as though he was trying very hard not to scare me again. Once he reached his full height, despite me having the added height from standing on my bed, he stood just barely shorter than me. When he had been kneeling, I had been able to calmly observe him, but now, with him towering before me, I realized just how intimidating he was. I mean, his arms were thicker around than my legs for god’s sake! I gulped as my body involuntarily tried to scooch just a little further back on my bed from him. Again, very slowly, he began to raise his arm until he was holding something toward me. Fighting back every instinct screaming at me to throw my pillow at him and make a break for the door behind him I glanced at what was in his hand.