The story itself is something just for practice. It's the prequel to some epic fantasy story that I came up with many many years ago...when I was twelve years old. Uh, so here goes? Dx
Hopefully I'm doing this postathing correctly.
***************
The hot, midday sun glared down on their heads from above them, and the dry sun-baked grass of the clearing crunched beneath their feet as they walked, stood still and then shifted.
“This is the place? What did you want to show us?” The darkest and leanest of the three boys spoke up and wiped sweat from his eyes with the back of his long sleeves. Having a vast appreciation for suspense and the interest that it produced, the taller, fairer boy decided to ignore him for a time before responding. He pretended to be busy with the pack that he had been carrying; he rummaged though it while occasionally sneaking a sly glance at his two companions. The more anxious he made them, in his mind, the better.
The boy who had spoken was the eldest of the three, but was just as easily lead around as the young one beside him. He wore the vesture of the priests, and each of the seasonal garments they wore induced some form of seasonal botheration. Light, silk tunics were worn in the heart of winter and thick, wool robes were worn in the summer. Although the inappropriate attire was meant to inspire piety, in some way the fair boy was not sure of, it mostly succeeded in inspiring weariness and irritability, both of which showed clearly on the face of the fledgling priest as he waited for his friend to reveal his secrets. In truth, he barely looked more anxious than he usually did, but the difference, however small it was, still made the prior boy giddy.
By his side, the youngest of the three boys waited far more comfortably. While his friend was overdressed, he was barely dressed at all. He had started the day fully clothed, and the boy with the secrets to keep could attest to this, for the two of them begun their day within the same household. As the day had progressed and as the sun’s warmth transitioned from mere heat to torridity, he had lost more and more of his clothing. First went one legging, then another, then his jacket, then his shirt, until he was wearing little more than just his trousers, and that was the way that it was with him every day in summer. The woman that they both called “mother” would be upset with him when he returned home that eve. He wouldn’t be allowed to eat supper until he retrieved all his things and he would complain and cry at the unfairness of it all as he usually did, but for now he sat idly, mildly amused, but paying no more attention to one other boy than he did to the other, and paying far more attention to the small insects that crawled in the shade of the tall woody grass beside him.
The fairest boy took notice of this and became annoyed by it. Though he had his hands on them from the moment he set down his bag, he pretended to finally find the bow and quiver that he had brought there with him. Both were exquisite objects, a far cry from the more fundamental equipment of the usual bowmen, and both possessing something expensive and distinctly well crafted about them. The quiver was constructed from fine leather, and embroidered in fine winter’s-green thread with mythology of the Kingdom’s heritage and the fair boy’s family seal. The bow possessed this on itself as well, and the tips of it were dyed the same green as the threads of the case’s embroidery. He set them down on the grass in front of himself and made them as visible as he could. Any allure the insects held and any distraction that wool clothing might have offered in summer was immediately swallowed up by the eminence of the objects that lay before them. The boy priest looked too the objects, to the boy who had laid them down and back again. “Well, these are your father’s things. How did you get them?”
“I snuck them away while he wasn’t looking.” The fair boy set back a little to take his friends’ expressions in.
“You’ll get into trouble.” The boy priest declared. He sat down on the ground cross legged, in part because he wanted to offer himself some respite, and in part to get a closer look. The fair boy smiled.
“Maybe,” he said, “but I’m sure he’ll be too busy praising me to care that I took these without permission. I still haven’t showed you. Look.” He nodded upwards and pointed to the sky. The two other boys looked up cautiously, wincing slightly as the light of the sun reached their eyes.
“What are you trying to show us?” the oldest boy asked. The youngest boy who had keener eyes had already spotted it.
“A Witch’s Path, right?”
“Yeah.”
“What? Where?”
“Look there.” The youngest boy pointed up towards a very particular patch of sky. The precision of that gesture was entirely lost as the priest traced it to some spot in the sky, then back again and again once more, each time failing to pinpoint the location for himself. He sighed. The fair boy, exasperated with their efforts, knelt down beside the priest and turned his head himself.
“I still can’t see it.” The priest rolled his eyes, his voice dripping with annoyance of its own. He sighed even deeper and the fair boy returned it twofold.
“You’re blind! Look for it. It’s where the clouds warp. Over there.” He paused for a moment, and turned his friends head once again more precisely. His hands were now covered in the other boy’s sweat. He wiped them on the legs of his trousers. “You shouldn’t be squinting like that. It’s not that close to the sun.”
“I’m looking…” the boy’s frosty voice trailed off in response. He scanned through the sky once again very quickly, all too happy to avoid the spots where the sun’s light was at its strongest. A bead of sweat fell into his right eye as he spotted the witch’s trail.
Its location was as had been described. It was there where the clouds and sky began to warp; it was the very cause of the aberration. The bends and folds of the forms behind were the only intimations of its presence, and that presence only carried on for about a meter or so until the aberration melded into ordinary sky. The boy was not upset with himself for being unable to see it until now.
He had never known much about the Paths, and was forbidden to speak or hear talk of them as all the other holy men were. While he mostly adhered to this rule, he occasionally disobeyed as he was doing now. He knew that they were roads the witches and their ilk used to travel unseen during day on the occasions they were unable postpone their ventures until night. The paths were barely visible when they were visible at all, and when they did appear, it was hardly ever for a sevennight or even for a day. Most people only saw them once or twice in a lifetime, and whether or not you saw one was usually a matter of one of two things: luck or misfortune, depending on your take, or a gift or a curse of Sight, depending on your take as well.
The fair boy seemed to see its presence as a blessing, and although it was not readily obvious whether the youngest boy saw it as a stroke of bad luck or a blessing, it was clear that he at least thought that it was interesting. “How did you find this?” the priest boy asked.
“With luck.” The fair boy was relived. His friend could see it. He smiled just a little bit and readied his bow.
“Ah, I can guess what you’re going to do with that.” The priest sighed, distressed.
“I wanted you two to be here to watch.”
“You’re going to be just like your father,” said the youngest boy grinning and still staring skyward.
“Hona, he’s our father. But that is the plan.”
“This can only end badly. I think we need an adult.” The priest was almost like one himself as he lectured.
“There’s no point in doing this if I’m just going to be led around by some one else.”
“You already saw a witch-dragon here?” the Hona asked, changing the subject.
“At least once. One flew by when I was hunting here the day before yesterday. That’s how I found the path in the first place. It’s a shoddy one.”
“You really think another one will come by?”
“One oughta. On the day I found the path, one flew by ‘round this time. And the same one came by about the same time yesterday.” He chuckled a little. “I think it has a routine.”
“If this works, my prior will be upset with me.” The priest boy interjected.
“I won’t tell him you were with me. Hona won’t say anything either, right?” Hona nodded.
“But he will find out,” he whined, not entirely convinced of what he was saying himself. Even if the prior took notice of his absence, he’d have little in the way of evidence to link it to the fair boy’s escapades. None of the other priests had seen them together as they wandered off, and the villagers that had would hardly have reason to tell. “Walk back with me.”
The fair boy shook his head and decided to ignore his friend for as long as he chose to protest. Despite the fact that he was being disregarded, and despite the fact that he didn’t want to be there, he wouldn’t leave. He was as loyal as any dog; the fair boy knew this and was willing to take advantage of it.
I wanted to enforce and reinforce the fact that it was hot out there, but, as you said, I'm not sure how important that enforcement actually is. And a larger variety of examples would probably be optimal if I'm going to be doing that. It 