• Part One - Red aura, she looked bright
  • Beneath the red aura, Willow Wisp took out his pouch. He leaned on the wall, where the emanation jumped - back and forth - ricocheting. He had it trapped, for now, in his pouch.

    Amadeus's hair swung round and round like birds flying inbetween the wind. The branch he was sitting on was just above Willow Wisp, out of sight but not out of mind. Like an old friend - and an old enemy - Amadeus changed guise, changed emotion, changed state, not once but twice.

    First, he held two emotions tight: clasped to his heart. They were melancholy followed by remorse. Cursing the air, as the thoughts washed over him, Amadeus withdrew from the past momentarily. He had been afflicted with a second state, from Willow Wisp's cunning hands, and they were soaring recidivism together with ardor. This would be his downfall, Amadeus thought.

    Willow Wisp knelt down to tie up his red shoe laces. Unperturbed by his personal enemy, sitting unknowlingly above him in a tree, he smiled happily at his latest achievement. He opened the pouch, and carefully slid out the red rose which lay quietly inside. He heard a rustle above him. Scared, he closed the pouch just as quickly as he had opened it. He looked up, but all he could see was a tiny branch on fire. He scratched his head. This was not a good sign, he thought. He decided to move on.

    Briskly moving through the night, Willow Wisp felt a presense behind him; an intense heat or glow. Up ahead a sign shone in the darkness, it was familiar - too familiar. It was the same Inn he had escaped from. The housekeeper would not take kindly to his face. He had two choices. To enter the Inn and face the conseqences of the housekeeper or dare use the magical aura.

    Amadeus's feckless pursuit was interrupted by two small puddles. Cursing the air again, he decided to use his tocsin in an attempt to slow, the now, disappearing Willow Wisp. The warning slapped against the puddles causing a rare deliquesce to occur. He laughed at his luck, moving rapidly through remnants of water.

    Creeping past an unkempt bedizen man, Willow Wisp maneuvered into the Inn. Seeing a group of friendly vagabonds he quietly ordered a small drink to clench his tired body and thirst, whilst slowly walking towards them. He joined into the conversation without conjecture nor suspect.

    Amadeus slid under the mat of the Inn bypassing mainly folk who were either in a drunken stupor or had mislaid their garments. Being importunate, he moved next to a table where his eyes ogled at various groups of people.

    The unventilated room began to fill with smoke due mostly to pipes and Amadeus. The housekeeper noticed this quickly, and as this broke many laws, he got up from his chair and began to investigate. He immediately recognised Willow Wisp whose red glow filled up a corner of the room. Running across the room, with truncheon in hand, he lunged at Willow Wisp who fell sharply to the floor.

    "Young man, I have you in my custody, do not attempt to part ways," Willow Wisp gathered his senses before replying. Dumbstruck at what had happened. He rubbed his eyes. "But I..." In mid-sentence, he saw his old friend Amadeus appear behind the housekeeper. The fire leaped for his pouch, but Willow Wisp pulled away and moved back against the wall. The drawstring burnt off and the pouch opened. The red rose fell on the floor and the spell broke.

    For a few seconds, possibly minutes, the room froze. From nowhere a young achromatic woman appeared and grabbed Willow Wisp by the hand. She snapped the rose as they ran, in two, leaving their company in a mist of red shadows.

    They fled the scene, leaving Amadeus to curse the air for one last time.

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