The early morning was proving to be a calm day as the villager's went about their daily life. Shop's opened up to sell their wares; the smells of baked goods began to waft through the crisp morning air and slowly the village began to come alive with the inhabitants. The normal pleasantly calm day was broken though when a small earthquake ran through the village. Buildings began to shake, people fell off balance and others grabbed onto something. Despite the unusual earthquake, the villager's were pretty used to this. They had small earthquakes before, among other unusual happenings with the elements of earth and water. This was due to the magus teenager that lived in the village with his Magister Merlin. It had been going on for a few years since the teacher had brought his new student, a young boy of seven, now an energetic teenager of seventeen.

The earthquake stopped soon after it started, the villagers picked themselves up and continued with their day. It had gotten better as the years went on, when the boy was younger he used to be impulsive and the elements would follow his emotions, usually results in small disasters, which annoyed the villagers to no end. It was Merlin who had to clean up the messes his young pupil had made, being that the young child did not know yet how to properly use them.

It was soon after the earthquake that a teenage boy rounded one of the corners in the village and into the square. A huge grin was plastered on his face as he ran towards one of the baker's shops. The smell of freshly baked bread filled his nose as he entered the shop. He looked at the different kinds of bread, his grin turning into a smile. This was one of his favorite shops, ever since he was a child. His Magister had always taken him into the village in the morning to do the shopping for the basic necessities. Now that he was old enough and Merlin was growing older, the boy was sent to do the shopping for the food when needed.

Now he stood in the Huntington's Baker shop, trying to find the specific bread his professor wanted for that morning meal. Costumer's were walking in and out, some of them looking over at the cute magus as he looked at the different breads. Two specific teenage girls, who seemed to know when the young magus came to the shop, stopped beside him and gave him their adoring smiles.

"Hey Sora," they chorused together

"Hey Mia, Coral. How are you two this morning?" the young magus asked in a cheerful voice. Honestly he was a little weirded out by these two girls who seemed to have a major crush on the baby faced male. He kept that to himself though, he didn't want to hurt their feelings.

"We're fine. We just came in to get some sweet bread for our mom. How about you Sora?" Mia asked, sweetening her voice as she said the boy's name.

"Oh, I came to get some poppy seed bread for my teacher and I."

"Great, well we'll see you Sora. You should come out more often, all of us miss you," Mia winked at the uneasy magus and went to the counter to pay for her bread, then the two sisters left the baker's shop, giving one last look at him.

"Growing to be the ladies man, are we?" a gruff voice spoke behind the counter. There was no one else besides Sora in the shop now.

"Huh? No, I don't think so. Just being stalked by two fanatical females," Sora joked to the owner of the store, Alexander Huntington. They had become something akin to friends over the years and Alexander and his wife, Leslie, knew Merlin quite well.

"Don't worry about it, Sora my lad. Soon you will become a master of your elements and then you will be off to venture different lands, just like you wanted to do. Yes, you magus are destined to do many great things in your life."

"Yeah, I can't wait until I can explore different countries. I want to visit Feritas first though. I've always been interested about their wild nature. I've read different books and seen different drawings on it, its gorgeous," Sora grabbed the twisted loaf of poppy seed bread from one of the racks and brought it to the counter, where the owner rang up the price, "and there's this one place which is said to be forbidden and inaccessible to the people with darkness in their hearts. That only pure people and creature's can cross. They also say that unicorn's live there! One of the last few refuge's for those brilliant creature's!" Sora was talking excitedly now as he gave the money to Alexander.

"What is this I hear about unicorn's?" came a motherly voice from behind the door; soon a tall woman in her fifties came into the shop.

"In Feritas, there is said to be a part in one of the forest's just for those pure of heart and that it is one of the last safe places for unicorn's to dwell in," Sora replied to Leslie

"Well, I have no doubt in my mind that you, Sora, will find that part in the forest and be able to enter it. I have known you for most of your life and you, child, are a pure heart."

This made Sora very happy to hear, he always dreamt of seeing unicorns and fantasized of petting them. They spoke for the next few minutes then Sora had to leave and go back to his home.

"Magister Merlin, I'm back!" Sora called out cheerfully as he took his shoes off and entered the house.

"Oh good, you're back. Now, we will have our lunch and begin the lesson's."

They ate their meal in a calm silence and cleaned up after they were done, then it was off to the large backyard to practice combining the earth and water elements. As Sora was trying to create a small waterfall they heard a voice calling for Merlin. Sora was told to continue practicing as the aged Great Magus went to the gate and let the unfamiliar man in. Sora half concentrated on making the waterfall and looked over at his teacher and the stranger when he was sure both weren't looking his way.

When the stranger left and Merlin began his way over, did Sora pretend to have ignored them. When he looked back at the waterfall his jaw dropped. Instead of a simple two level fall, Sora was met with a small one foot bump, three foot hole in the ground with the water pooling up. Merlin looked down at his pupil's attempt and immediately knew.

"I'm sorry Magister Merlin, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry!"

"Sora," Merlin chuckled softly as he placed a hand on his student's shoulder, "I know you weren't concentrating on this. I knew you were looking over at us and I didn't need to see you to know that. That man was from the palace. The Empress Lillian sent him. She wants us to pay a visit to the palace."

"The empress? But why?" Sora was confused and a bit nervous.

"Well, Sora, the empress used to be a pupil of mine."

"What?! I didn't know that…"

"She was and she could have become a Great Magus, just like Yen Sid and I are. She gave it up for Validus and marriage. It would have consumed too much of her time and she didn't want to be bothered by it. She wishes to talk with me and to view my new student," Merlin gave one of his smiles to the younger man.

"Oh…when did she want us to be there?" Sora wondered, becoming more apprehensive about this whole situation. People had talked about the Great Empress Lillian. She was a magus and a powerful one; she had a son as well, the Prince of Validus, who was also a magus.

"We should be there within the week. Don't worry Sora you will like her. She is a very gentle and kindhearted woman."