Hope Rising

Chapter Two

[NOTE: This is now from Hillament's P.O.V.]

Ugh. Why on all the stars was I matched against the South Star? My uncle would not hesitate to kill me, Trials or no Trials.

Yes, my uncle is the South Star. I am actually the son of the Sun, whose siblings are my Uncle Shihab (the South star) and my Auntie Astra (the West Star). My mum is Seren, Queen of the Stars, also known as the North Star. I pity that girl, Ella, to have to battle her.

Anyway, I was led by my uncle towards a strip of empty dirt, surrounded by a low rope.

We took our stances, me on one side of the ground, him on the other.

At Malachi's whistle, he charged, drawing his sunsword.

I drew my daggers in return, but, before he got too close, I kicked dirt up into his eyes, making him stop in his tracks for about ten seconds, in which I quickly grabbed his token of defeat, in this case, a silver square with a star engraved on it with the word 'defeated' written underneath.

Then, I hopped over the rope and ran over to Simba, Mia, Saria, and Malachi, and handed them the token.

"Congratulations Hillament! You just defeated your star in one minute! Seriously, you have got to teach me how you do that!!!" Mia exclaimed, handing me back the token of defeat.

"The next Trial is the Trial of the Moon. Here are the rules." Simba added, handing me a piece of paper with the rules written on it.

This is what it says:

The rules for the Trial of the Moon are:

You must not speak throughout the Trial. This includes sign language.

you must not give or receive help.

you must complete the Trial within one hour

The Trial of the Moon is one where you must build a catapult strong enough to launch a boulder at a target, and hit that target in the centre. Magic is allowed, but only to build the catapult, NOT to launch it.

Well, this'll be easy!

I immediately started by getting the materials for my catapult, such as wood, ice, sunlight, shadows, and vines. These materials may sound strange, but they're the most commonly used materials with a Sun Catapult, the most difficult kind to make.

When I had made the base out of wood, vines, and ice, I started on the spoon-shaped part, carving it painstakingly out of ice, and decorating the outer part with Sun runes, in hopes that Dad would grant me permission to use his powers to build the rest of the catapult.

Luckily, he did, sending his permission in the form of a ray of bright sunlight on this cold winter morning.

I then wove a strand of light around the base of the spoon-shaped part to serve as string, and tied that part to an ice block, which had notches on the sides to hold the string.

Then, I loaded the catapult for a test run.

Before I could, Saria came over.

"Sorry Hilament, but we don't have enough time for a test drive. You only have thirty seconds to go until the first launch." she apologized, gesturing to the timer set in the middle of the field.

When the timer went off, I finished loading the boulder into the catapult, and prepped it for the launch.

"So, Hilament. Please tell us what you have made!" Simba exclaimed, walking over to the catapult.

"I made a Sun catapult." I replied simply. I could see that they were surprised at the choice of catapult, and amazed that a thirteen-year-old boy had managed to get approval from the Sun himself.

"Impressive! Can you please launch it?" Saria asked.

"Of course." I answered, pulling the lever. The arm shot up, launching the boulder at the target. The rock completely smashed through the target, sending shards of red, blue, white, and grey stone flying everywhere.

Oops.

"I'msosorryIhavenoideawhathappened!!!!" I shouted, once the ringing in our ears had stopped, or at least lessened.

"Honestly, that was the most successful Sun Catapult I've ever seen!" Simba exclaimed, admiring the catapult.

"...really?!?!?!? I just blew up the target!!!" I shouted, pointing to the rubble that had once been a fully functioning wall.

"Yeah, and isn't that supposed to happen?" Saria replied, picking up the still-intact boulder and tossing it next to the catapult, where I reloaded it.

Sorry for the wait! School holidays just started for me, so I'm probably going to be updating maybe once every 5-10 days. Sorry!

Anyway, I hope you liked this chapter, and the next one will probably be out in the next week or so.

See ya!

~SCK