Saya stared at the boy.

And as the scene lingered in the dim, violet glow, the girl looked at him with her shocked face, the silence hanging heavy in the air, pregnant with the unspoken question that hovered between them: What the hell was going on?

The boy stared back, tears welling up in his eyes. Then, the dam broke, and he started crying in earnest, his delicate body heaving with sobs.

“Why?” he asked through his tears, his voice breaking. 

Saya blinked at him, confused. Why what? She hadn't done anything... had she? Her eyes darted down to the cushion in front of her, where she had focused all her mental energy. The plan was simple: transform the cushion (singular) into a table (singular). Simple in theory, but in practice... well, it was anything but.

What she saw was not a table. 

Instead of one table, she was greeted by a room full of turtles. 

The owls, which had been scattered around the room like living decorations, were gone. All of them. In their place, plump, shell-covered reptiles shuffled slowly across the cushions, their beady eyes blinking at the sudden change in their circumstances.

The shock hit Saya like a punch to the gut. She stared at the turtles, then at the boy. His tears were flowing freely now, his sobs getting louder.

"My fwiiiends! Waaaahh!" he wailed, sounding utterly devastated. 

Oh boy.

"You killed my fwiiiieeends!" he cried, his voice cracking with heartbreak. 

Oooh boy... 

Saya’s face flushed with a mix of shame and panic. She hadn’t meant to harm his ‘friends‘. She’d just wanted to transform a cushion into a table, and she’d done exactly what he said—she’d concentrated. She’d thought about what she desperately needed to change. She’d visualized the room, and in doing so, her focus had naturally fallen on the owls. The annoyingly flapping, screeching owls.

Oh crap. 

Yep, it was her fault. Absolutely her fault. She should’ve known better. But the pressure of trying to get it right, of proving herself, had been too much. And now, she’d messed up in the worst possible way.

She needed to fix this. And fast. 

After all, this boy was her only hope. She couldn’t risk him getting angry at her. Who would teach her magic if not him? Clenching her teeth, she squeezed her eyes shut and sighed deeply. Apologizing was not her favorite activity. This was going to hurt.

“I apologize… er... to the mighty artisan of this world,” she said, the words tasting like dust in her mouth. 

Silence.

The boy stopped crying almost immediately. He looked at her, his cheeks still wet but no longer heaving with sobs. Instead, he just seemed... surprised. 

At least the sobbing stopped.

CHUCKLE

Did he just laugh?!

His mood changed so quickly it gave her whiplash. “Nah! It’s ok. I can switch ‘em back anytime,” he said, shrugging as if it were the easiest thing in the world. “No need to get so worked up and suck up to me. Hehehehe.” He chuckled, scratching the back of his neck with a sheepish grin. 

Saya felt a rush of irritation. So this was all just a game to him? “Then why the hell did you cry like a lunatic?!” she demanded. “Did you just want to make me feel bad or what?!”

The boy looked straight at her, his expression suddenly serious. Without any preamble, he said, “Yeah. Well, it was just fun. Can’t you take a joke?”

Saya’s eyes narrowed. “We’re not exactly in a relationship where we can joke about anything, mister artisan!” she snapped.

He cocked his head to the side, as if trying to puzzle something out. Then, with that same calm, almost annoyingly nonchalant tone, he said, “Stop calling me an artisan. It’s sage carpenter.”

Saya’s frustration boiled over. “Are you mocking me again?! How is ‘Sage Carpenter’ any better than ‘Mighty Artisan’?!” she yelled, her voice rising with her temper.

The boy stared at her in silence, his face completely blank. Then he said, “That’s my name. Sage Carpenter.”

Saya froze, her mouth hanging open. Her thoughts scrambled, trying to make sense of what she’d just heard. Had she misunderstood him? Was this another one of his bizarre jokes? 

But the way he looked at her, so straightforward and honest, suggested otherwise. 

The room fell into a tense, awkward silence, the soft shuffle of turtle feet on cushions the only sound. The newly cast violet wall lanterns cast a dim, purplish glow over the scene, their light creating odd shadows that danced across the room. The owls—no, the turtles—looked completely out of place, their slow, deliberate movements a strange contrast to the sharp, raw emotions still lingering in the air.

Saya’s mind whirled, trying to process everything that had just happened. 

The boy’s name was Sage Carpenter. He could turn turtles back into owls, just like that. He had been crying—no, pretending to cry—just to mess with her. And now, he was sitting there, acting like nothing was wrong, as if turning a room full of owls into turtles was the most normal thing in the world.

And maybe, in this bizarre, twisted place, it was.

Saya’s face remained frozen in shock, her eyes locked onto Sage’s. But deep down, beneath the confusion and frustration, a small part of her began to see the humor in the situation. 

Not that she was going to admit it. Not yet, anyway.

But she did manage to crack a small, barely-there smile as she stared at him, her thoughts still racing to catch up with the absurdity of it all.

“I‘m Rève. Saya Rève.”