"I-SA-MA-SHIIIIII!!!!"
The sword fell to the dojo floor with a clatter. "Oh, great," Isamashii muttered, scooping his blade back up and turning towards the doors as they burst open.
"Isama," the boy in the doorway gasped, his crimson eyes flashing despite the obvious exertion of charging non-stop all the way to the dojo. "What're you doing here!? You promised you'd go to town with me today!"
"Isogashii," Isama sighed, shaking his head at his twin brother. "I've got to train before I can go. You know Dad'll kill us if one of us doesn't make it to Master Swordsman status. Besides, all you want to do is show off to the girls!"
Isogashii glared into Isama's sapphire eyes, which were the only difference between the two.
"We, are, going," he declared, a growl rising in his throat. "I finally paid all my major debts to the old man. I'm not letting this chance slip away!"
"Oh really. I always thought you got into trouble faster than you could make up for it. What'd you do, break your ankle or something?"
"Hey!" Isoga pushed what was left of his sleeve up and pumped his admittedly impressive muscles. "I didn't get this strong for nothing! We're going, and we're going NOW!"
Isamashii rolled his eyes, sheathed his sword, and pulled his travelling cloak off the dojo wall.
"I let you get away with too much," he muttered as he reluctantly followed his brother out the door.
"I wish they'd sell sibling repellent," Isama muttered to himself as he sat dejectedly on a sack of grain, watching Isogashii tell tales taller than Mount Eternis to the local girls.
"It was a giant dragon!" he was saying now. "With five heads and a ferocious, scythed tail! Of course, it was no challenge for me; I simply tricked it into driving its own blade into its heart!"
Isamashii was getting sick of this.
"It was the village elder's prized snapdragon plant," he corrected. "You 'accidentally' cut it to slivers with your sword and had to do the old man's gardening for a year as a punishment, remember?"
Isoga turned red with anger and embarrassment as the crowd of girls giggled.
"That's not what happened!" he shouted, turning on his brother. "I lost my grip on the darn thing and it nicked the plant! How was I supposed to know it was the old man's? Besides, I did half the gardening out of remorse!"
Isama raised a skeptical eyebrow. "Amazing. I didn't know that word was in your vocabulary."
Isogashii was practically steaming out the ears by this point. In fact, he looked ready to explode and was sputtering incoherent bits in his fury, but all that was forgotten when a feminine scream came from the fields.
"Aha!" he cried in victory. "A maiden is in need of help! Watch as I boldly rescue her from whatever evil she faces!"
Isamashii groaned and followed his brother as he dashed in the direction of the scream.
They found the girl trembling at the border of the fields, staring at a tiny snake that seemed as frightened and confused as herself. She was an Arshon, a race of humanoids with feline and bird-like attributes. Isama supposed she was a visitor; he'd seen one or two pass through the town before.
"Begone, serpent!" Isoga yelled, charging in front of her with his sword drawn. The snake panicked and disappeared into the tall grass.
"Isogashii," Isama groaned, thoroughly and completely sick of everything. But before he could complain further, the girl leapt up and glomped Isoga unexpectedly with a cry of delight.
"Oh, thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou!!" she cried to a sweatdropping Isogashii. "I was sure it would bite me and then it'd hurt and then I might get poisoned and then - "
"Yeah, well, it was nothin'," Isoga said, pushing her off. "Just defending the weak, y'know?"
"Oh, but I must repay you!" she exclaimed, her feline ears twitching excitedly. "I'm in your debt!"
Isama smirked as his twin desperately tried to untangle himself from this one.
"Um," Isoga muttered. "Well, there's nothing you can do for me right now ..."
"Oh, that's okay! I'll just hang around until there is something! You wouldn't mind that, would you?"
Isogashii and Isamashii exchanged glances, both thinking about how their father would react to them bringing a strange female Arshon home. That's when Isoga chose to come up with one of his bright ideas.
"Hey, Isama, don't you have to go on some quest thingie as part of your training?"
"Yeah," Isama replied, giving him a suspicious look. "Why?"
"We can go on it now and then I can find some way to get her off my back eventually."
"Wait a sec, what do you mean, 'we?' I don't see you training day and night to become a Master Swordsman!"
"Hey, at least I'm not a complete klutz with a blade!"
"I think the village elder would beg to differ."
"ISA - "
"Hey!" the girl interrupted, glancing from one to the other of the two arguing boys. "Are you two related or something?"
Everyone fell over.
"We are not just running out into the forest with a couple of backpacks full of rice balls and some girl," Isama protested, lagging behind Isogashii and the Arshon, who had introduced herself as Aida.
"Too late," Isoga said, whacking a nearby branch off with his sword. "Already done it."
"But isn't this great?" Aida exclaimed. "We're out in the wild outdoors, living off the land!" She twirled around, grinning, her wings and tail adding to the effect.
"Yup," Isamashii muttered. "We're giving up a nice cushy village life to run around the world and get into all sorts of trouble. I'm thrilled."
They trudged on through the woods, heading who knows where and bound to run into who knows what, but not really caring that much anyway.
"Yes sir, this is the life ..."
And ignoring Isama's sarcastic comments, though they were bound to be one of the most annoying things they'd face ...
Episode 2 | Fanfiction