sat down at the huge dining table of Greenhaven castle. Hundreds, possibly thousands of Greencloaks sat at the table, eating the assortment of foods, ranging from venison to purple cauliflower to whale meat to many other strange foods. I had joined the Greencloak ranks a few days ago, after summoning Luna, my grey fox spirit animal. The Greencloaks are a group of people with the rare gift of summoning a spirit animal, an animal that a human is bonded to for life. Their job is to protect Erdas from all that may threaten it. And right now, that threat was the Conquerors, an army from the southern land of Steriol, who have developed a sort of imitation Nectar, which helps summon a spirit animal. This false nectar, called the Bile, allows one to have a guaranteed spirit animal... and also have it as their slave. I scanned my surroundings. There wasn't much organization to the feast; it appeared that the Greencloaks simply sat wherever they want to, but a huge man in a bright green cloak lined in golden threads sat at the front. He must be the leader, I thought. I haven't talked to Olvan or even seen him before. I had been eating in my room in the great castle, and was recruited by Tarik, who was not accompanied by Olvan. Unlike the Four Fallen and the Keeper, I wasn't of special importance and the general was simply too busy to be bothered with .
Luna nuzzled my hand. I hadn't realized that she wasn't in passive state. Luna and I had already established a strong bond; I had gotten Luna into passive state only a day after the summoning. It was a bit of a pain, but I was pretty patient with animals. Not so much with people, though, since people are much more likely to scream insults at you and tell you what a terrible job you're doing. As I just about to hold out my arm to put Luna into passive state, she dashed off towards a group of younger Greencloaks.
"Luna! What are you doing? Bad girl!" I called, murmuring polite "Excuse me"s and "Pardon me"s as I pushed past the masses of Bonded.
Luna tore through the room, leaping over (and sometimes onto) tables of food, occasionally snapping up bits of meat of an unfortunate Marked's fork.
"Come back, Luna!"
Finally, Luna skidded to a stop and snapped at the spirit animal of a girl about my age, a rabbit. I shrieked in horror as the fox bit the rabbit's ear, causing it to bleed slightly.
"LUNA!" I screamed. "Passive state!"
I rolled up my sleeve, but Luna ignored me and continued chasing the rabbit. I noticed that the girl had begun shooing Luna, and seemed to be saying something. However, it was hard to hear over the hubbub of the dining hall and the growling and barking of the spirit animals.
"Tellun's grace, I'm so sorry!" I shouted.
The girl tackled Luna, the both of them snarling and kicking. I rushed over to the little grey fox.
"Bad girl! Very bad! That was a spirit animal!" I told the fox. I gave Luna a couple swats to the muzzle. She sneezed playfully as if to say "What? I was just playing!"
I rolled up her sleeve, which had soon fallen down (stupid gravity!) after rolling it up, and looked at Luna sternly. This time, Luna obliged and appeared as a tattoo just below my shoulder. Then, I pushed down the sleeve of my shirt again and looked at the girl.
"I am so so sorry!" I said. There goes my chances of actually making friends here. I almost felt like crying. "This was her first time here! I didn't know that she would go on a rampage like that! If I had known I wouldn't have even come! So sorry! Really, really-"
I was cut off by the girl. "Sheesh..." She said. She sounded slightly annoyed, and slightly amused. But not angry, which was a good sign. "She's fine. Just a little nick on her ear."
I sighed with relief and started wiping off the drops of blood that had made it to the floor with an unused napkin. I was somewhat squeamish and my stomach felt a bit like it had hopped a tiny bit as she soaked up the droplets. The napkin was white, which made the absorbed blood all the more obvious and disgusting. I supposed that the napkin was... poetic? Yes, poetic, that was a good way to describe it. What was that poem? "His robes were not red, for that was the color of wine and blood...". While I was daydreaming about poetic napkins, the girl must've been talking, because then she asked, "So how about you?"
I internally panicked. What was she asking? I just had to guess. "Um... I'm Opal."
The girl cocked her head to the side. "I asked if you liked waffles."
I sighed slightly and mentally facepalmed. I then made a note to physically facepalm once I got back to my room.
"Oh... yeah, waffles are good." I said.
The girl grinned. "Oh, that's nice, Tarik doesn't even know what a waffle is. Want to come sit with us over there?"
She gestured to the group of young Greencloaks that Luna had charged at before the girl had gotten up to get something. I blushed slightly and nodded.
"Yeah!" I said, smiling.
Not a bad first impression, now was it?