. . . Tokori awoke early and washed his face, shaved his head and trimmed the small amount of facial hair he allowed to grow.
He looked at himself for a moment, the finest of wrinkles starting to show on his forehead and around his mouth. He wasn’t worried about that, well, maybe a little bit. He wasn’t even twenty-and-seven years of age, too young to get these kinds of wrinkles.
He shrugged and slid the large screaming owl mask onto his face.
His people lived far away in the secluded mountains of Hekevate. Strange customs in comparison to these people. Only the hands and maybe the neck may show in public. As a child you wore a blank white mask except in your home. Only your parents and siblings knew your face. And your spouse after you took your vows.
Tokori shook his head and put on his feather cape, stepping outside.
Looking towards the center of the marketplace, he cursed.
There was a rather rich and very nearly naked woman being robbed by a familiar shapeshifter.
Ohtli, the hedgehog shifter, and that meant-
Tokori felt pain stab and gore into his back as he was thrown into the air.
Why did they always use the same tricks?
Tokori summoned thick, green ropes and attached them to the jotun’s horns, yanking back hard.
Hallmar bellowed as he was yanked back and turned, flinging his hand in an outward motion.
With that one and single wave of his fingertips, Tokori Tyipa-Kinta Basir was turned into stone. . .
. . . Jonathan was horrified.
The masked man has just been turned to stone! Hard, solid granite!
“Don’t worry, John, the charm will wear off in about ten minutes.” Barbod explained, then started to slither away.
“You’re just going to leave him there?” Jonathan demanded, absolutely shocked.
“There’s nothing I can do. Jotun magic is strong magic.” The naga said.
“Well are we really going to just leave him there? Look! They’re getting away!”
“And what should we do about it? You don’t believe in magic and I can’t climb.” Barbod answered, watching the spiky were and the golden jotun disappear over the rooftops. “This is one of the empires with the highest crime rates. Followed by the kitsune, loogaroo, lamia and elves. The other empires, belonging to dracanae, naga, jotun, were, druid and unicorn are either too pure or too severe for crime to be much of a problem.”
“What are the empires’ names, anyways? What’re they like?”
Barbod blinked. “Lets just head over to the library instead of me explaining all of that.”
Slowly, a sneaking suspicion in the naga’s heart grew, could this thing, whatever he is, be from Earth?
