M.Knight
Becoming a Knight was never easy, but it was always my dream. Most knights were born into families of nobility. I was born in a gutter. Most knights trained from a young age to fight and become leaders. I learned how to survive. Even when a squire became a Knight, they had to buy their own weapons and armor. I could hardly afford my worn boots.
As I said, becoming a Knight was never easy, but it was all I could imagine. I was a boy from the slums carrying a name worth less than the air it took to speak it. My mother was a whore who abandoned me the moment I learned to walk. My brother died shortly after that. Knighthood was my dream because it held the chance to make something of my name and become more than life's foil.
But sometimes dreams were just that. My life's story was nothing original. For every night I laid awake contemplating my purpose, there must have been countless other souls sharing the same dread.
Knighthood was never within my reach. There was another way to earn honor, though it came with many lesser titles. Adventurer and Hunter were the most common.
It was the turn of the century because of Magic. Though it was around long before my first breath, magic was taking on a new life. A new school of study grew more prominent by the day, but only because of a discovery that changed reality. Creatures, monsters, and beasts were real, and in their blood held the keys to creating magics unseen. They called these new magics "spells." They were activated by words written on special parchment crafted by scholars.
But magic wasn't important to me. Creatures were my future. Knights protected the land acting as defensive measures, but with creatures retaliating against us, what the kingdom needed were heroes willing to be offensive players. Though I couldn't fight as a Knight, I could join the ranks of Hunters.
My first step was attending a local recruitment meeting held by a long time Hunter. His name was Shawn Hyde. With the build of a Greek God, armor of steel, and the charisma of a king, he was inspirational until he opened his mouth to speak.
"So you want to be hunters, you want to be adventurers traveling the land cutting down ungodly beasts? Well, allow me to make a few things clear. We will not turn you away. We are not knights, and the king does not pay us," he said before an audience of men.
We sat by the light of a campfire on the outskirts of town walls listening to numerous hunters make their pitch for why we should join their ranks. Shawn was the only one to mention true adversities worth fear or hesitation. I could see his colleagues disapproved, but I respected the blunt honesty.
"Most of you cant hold a sword and even fewer carry one. If you think what we do is anything like hunting wolves, go home. If you think this will be fun, go home. Many of our first-time recruits die on their first outings, but as I said, we won't turn you away," he continued to say.
He became my mentor if I could call him that. He took me on my first crusade as a Hunter. He didn't have a second or a riding companion. I thought I struck gold when he agreed to take me with him. It wasn't knighthood, but it was growth. I spent the last of my coin on cheap armor and a dagger to celebrate.
Our first adventure together was to track down and slay a dragon. It was going to be my first time encountering a magical creature, and it was going to be a grave encounter at that.
We found the dragons nest up in the mountains of Reyes. They were sand-covered mountains in the far distance from my home town of Elk. After traversing dark caves and avoiding deep caverns, we found the beast. It was smaller than expected, but large enough to strike terror in my core. We stood over its sleeping body and felt the heat of its fire radiating from it's full belly. It was in a hibernation utterly unaware of our presence. It looked to be an easy kill.
In the dark, the only source of light was our torches. And then the twist took me by surprise. Before I could pull my dagger, Shawn offered me a kindness. He gave me his sword to let me do the honors of cutting the beast open. He took a step back, and I took a step forward before raising the blade.
How did I not see the signs of my fate? He was a swindler of the worst kind. A famous Hunter was a natural contradiction. Most adventurers died quickly unless they took on lesser jobs. There had to be a reason why, there had to be a reason how Shawn managed to survive for so long.
Dragon scales were near indestructible, but the spaces between them were soft. I had to make a killing blow, or we were in for a fight. In a single motion, I stabbed straight through the beast's heart. It awoke and flailed around, but the blade was still buried. Before long, the creature fell over, and its blood of green sloshed and pooled around my boots. I approached the dragon slowly, and only after long moments of checking it for life did I retrieve Shawn's blade. It was my first kill, my first hunt, and my last mistake as a Hunter.
I was elated. I was overjoyed. I was a fool. I turned to rejoice with my partner and mentor only to find that he was hidden behind boulders and stone. Why was he hiding? I asked myself that question, but I didn't have to wait long for an answer.
As I held the blade like a trophy in my grip, explosions threw my body and caught my eye. Red smoke filled the cave like flames riding the wind, and there she was. A witch. With magic, she took the blade from my hands, and the inadequate armor from my body. She left me naked and bare. I found myself levitating with my feet in the air as she came near. Though I never saw the face under her red robes, I heard her voice clear as day.
"You seek to doom us all," she said.
Her voice was like a constant echo that only grew louder.
"You have killed a guardian of life. There are so few to protect this world from true darkness. What say you in defense of your crime?" She persecuted me.
Her magic kept me silent, paralyzed, and trapped, but I had no words to respond to such accusations. Either way, Shawn kept to his hidden post, and never attempted rescue. He knew what was happening, and he saw it coming.
"For your foolish actions, you will be a foolish creature, for your hunting of the majestic you will be hunted, I curse you to a life of beastly inhumanity," the witch continued.
She spoke as she cast magic around my form turning my body in on itself. My bones crackled, my ribs popped, my eyes went blind, as the pain refused to stop.
I awoke moments later to pick myself off the ground, and he was there. A single torch illuminated Shawn's face. He was all that I could see in the darkness. I was still alive, but not myself. I could feel the changes made to my form. In my mouth, teeth were sharper than natural, and my body was covered in fur. A tail was found sprouted from my spine, and as I looked around, I saw only him. He was responsible.
"Shawn?" I begged for an answer.
"Matt, you're alive? What has she done to you," he said with dishonest concern.
"What has she done to me? What have you done to me?! You left me to die!" I exclaimed.
I examined myself further, realizing my boots no longer fit as they should. My feet were that of hands.
" I think the damn witch has turned me into a," I began to speak.
Before words escaped my lips, I was knocked unconscious. It was Shawn's doing. He left me there in that cave alone.
It took me days to find my way out, and weeks to return home without a horse. When I reached civilization, I found that town folk I grew up with couldn't stand the sight of me. Magical creatures were seen as a threat, and I was no different anymore. On my own, I was left to spend the rest of my days as a monkey in cheap armor. I returned to the dragon's cave, and it became my home, the only place I could live.