Reo World Fair - Look at my strength!

Another day at the festival had come and Ikki was so fascinated by the stalls he couldn’t pay too much attention to what was happening around.

As a too large child, he had a giant smile on his muzzle and he was looking around when he stepped on another reosean’s tail. That quill tail was owned by Neerakti, a dark female tyrian who seemed particularly irritated by Ikky and his dummy smile.

“Watch where you’re stepping!” said the girl, showing her teeth.

It was evident she got slightly hurt and she did her best to move the tail before that idiot stepped on it again. It seemed she was waiting for her turn in one of the many competitions hosted in the festival but the orange and white tyrian didn’t seem to know which one.

“What are you waiting for?” he asked.

Neera looked at him as if he was the last of the insects walking in Warrenfall, their continent.

“Look” she replied, aiming in front of herself.

In a large open space, some reoseans were fighting against mannequins made of wood and straw. Some used their claws and some magic but it was evident the purpose of the competition was a strength demonstration.

Ikki smiled with joy, naive even if he saw how strong were Neera’s opponents.

“I want to join!” he said.

Then he moved behind the other tyrian and he waited with her. The grass of Warrenfall was soft and fresh but it was evident, in some points, how the sun had burned it. Luckily the ground wasn’t cold nor full of water, a common thing in winter and autumn.

Probably it was for that reason that Ikki decided to join, or maybe because for him it was only a game. The prize was a large amount of food and Neera seemed more interested in that rather than anything else.

When it was almost their turn, Neera looked at Ikki, seriously.

“Don’t try to compete against me or I’ll crush you!” she said.

Then she reached the “battlefield” and she looked at the mannequins with a killer aura. It was evident she was a warrior and Ikki remained really surprised to see how serious she was in that competition.

With a strong hit of her front paw, she destroyed the first mannequin and with her claws she removed the wood head from another one, continuing that way for a bunch of minutes. In short, all the fake enemies were literally destroyed.

The orange tyrian looked at her with surprise and he smiled happily, shaking his tail when he was reached again from his new friend. Because he was sure he wanted to become his friend, even if Neera didn’t seem friendly at all.

“It was wonderful! You’re so strong and powerful!” he said.

The girl looked at him, confused. She wasn’t used to compliments. Deeply she knows that strange guy only wanted to be her friend, even if she didn’t know why.

“Do your best, idiot” she said then.

Ikki prepared himself and then he puffed his chest, trying to convince himself he was a strong and proud tyrian, at least like his new friend.

He reached the space in short, walking slowly, looking at the new mannequins the people of the competition had substituted. They didn’t seem so difficult to damage, so the orange and white tyrian fixed them for a while.

“Okay, let’s do it! Why do you look at me, uh? Do you want to fight? I’m ready to fight” he said to the mannequin.

“That idiot…” murmured Neera, not far.

Thus Ikki collected all his strength and decided to attack the fake enemy. He used his claws to scratch it, but he ended up damaging it on an arm only. He tried again and he detached one of the two straw arms.

“Oh, sorry! I didn’t want to…” he started, before realizing he was there to fight.

He did his best to face not only the straw enemies but also the wooden ones and he tried to bite them, sure they weren’t so hard. But he didn’t know that wood was carved from just one piece, so the body wasn’t so easy to damage.

He tried to take advantage of the gravity to destroy the mannequin and he bit an arm. Then he pushed the wood against the ground and luckily both the wooden arms detached from the body.

It took more than expected to damage the mannequins in a decent way and the tyrian didn’t know why: he wasn’t used to fight, he was a merchant after all. Focused on his duty as a trader, he preferred calm activities like buying and selling goods and similar.

When he returned to Neera, it was clear how noob he was in fighting.

“It wasn’t so bad” he said.

Neera looked at him and grinned.

“You really need some more training” she said, knowing that, sooner or later their streets would have crossed again and she would have been more comprehensive with him.