Chapter 2
Rain shed down from the sky, bouncing quietly off the leaves above. The jungle was silent, save a few trilling calls from hunting birds. Xena lay by her window, watching droplets of water slide delicately across the moss covered branches. The droplets fell gracefully down towards the forest's understory far below her tree house. Xena was a very beautiful hippo, she was rather large for a pygmy, standing at four feet, her russet skin was tinged with honey as if auriferous, her eyes were a pair of sparkling sapphires. Xena groaned why can’t the king just make this rain stop? That's his whole thing right?
Suddenly, her ears shot up as she glanced at a jar of silver liquid on the shelf nearby.“By Quedus! I’m late!” she scrambled clumsily to her feet.
Xena ran out of her tree house and out onto the long, mahogany bridge that connected them to the center of the small town of wild sorrel. She gasped as her hoof slipped on the wet boards. Xena staggered for a second and then caught herself, a cleft of one of her webbed hooves clasped firmly on the thick vine rope that surrounded the bridge.
“You ok there Xena?” chuckled old hippo in a bright gold darkpodian mask. He was heavily built hippo, with skin of a deep blooded chestnut, and a muscular face marked with swirling black lines. His skin rippled with black sparkles, the leftover magic from his teleportation.
¨Leo!¨ yelled Xena, as she leaped to her feet, only to slip and fall back down again. ¨will you please stop doing that, and use the bridge like a normal hippo!” she said as she picked herself up and shook off the water from her skin. “But teleportation is so much… easier.” He said, his rough voice lightly touched with Humor.
“So... Did you do your homework?” Asked Leo, As the pair of them walked across the bridge, towards the medical hut. Xena sighed. “yes master Leo, but I only managed to move the stick a few centimeters, and it could have just been the wind.” “No matter” Leo responded, although his voice sounded exasperated at his students lack of skill. “We will just have work harder at unlocking your inner power.”. Xenas stomach fell “but I have no gift” she whined “I swear there is not a drop of magical blood in me! I am a pure blooded Pygmy!”. Leo rolled his eyes. “so you just happened to be in the right place at the right time when that branch got snagged on the air, AND have been born with yellow skin. As a pygmy. With Raspberry skinned parents. For Hytrix sake you're an idiot. The odds of that are like 100 to 1!” a look of shame flooded over Leo's face as the reality of what he had said sunk in. “I'm sorry Xena, but the king says I have to train you”
Fury sparked throughout Xena’s body as she growled “i don’t care what the king says” “Xena!” Leo excaimed, offended. Xena’s voice began to rain into a rumbling roar “Even if i had these “powerful magics” i would already know! So this gruntslant training is useless” Xena looked down at her hooves, her voice faltering “just get on with the training, master”.
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