Every participants is called in the Council room. Some get out happy with their diploma in hand and other broken, looking depressed.

The one who succeed are going to have three days of respite before leaving for their new life. A free life. At the beginning, they are going to form provisional teams under the guardianship of an instructor. Then, if they are judged apt, they will leave in quests more complex. Only a few of them will become hunters of high level or emeritus riding hoods.

Some of them will even be sleeping agent and they will be call only one or two times in their life but they have to be ready anytime. The mothers who are going shopping, the grandfathers on their bench, the cashiers or the bus drivers: they are always ready, in their everyday life outside, to act if we call them to become what they have been trained.

Me, I dream too to go outside. They say that some have pleasant lives and that they have children or a job that they love. Nothing distinguish them from the other townspeople... If it's not sometime the aura of their totem animal who betray them.

I want to much to get out. I want to see the mountains or the lions from Africa. Travel in the steppes, run on the beaches and climb on the top of huge glass towers.

Text from @homonculusnoir:

Suddenly my shoulder meets an other. The jostling was slight and involuntary, but I answer by reflex:

"Sorry."

I don't get any answer or reaction. Instead, brown and dull gaze crashes into mine, he is aureole of an unhealthy orange and underlined by dark circles of insomnia. A twisted smile is given back to me, a cut dirty wound on this too skinny face. I have a recoil while I recognized by classmate, Ira Felisica, the coal fox.

The appearance and the temper of this girl scare everybody and she seems to appreciate this effect. This villager hates me, like all the others.

She stares at me head to toe and finally opens her mouth, but not for excuses...

"Hi Whitty! Not too stressed by the imminence of the results?"

The nickname makes me cringe. I'm about to pass my way because ignorance is the best of the contempt, when I am plucked by her venom.

"You however... it's not like you risk to be readjusted! A stash of strangers like you is sure to success. Stop the comedy and leave the anxiety to the one who undergoes it in a legitimate way!"

Her provocation arrows are right in the mile. I turn around, her suggestive and mocking tone goes over my head.

"What are you insinuating exactly, Ira?"

She shoes an air falsely afraid, that her scathing and high-pitched reply deny without difficulty.

"Oh! I vexed the witch, poor me! Are you going to curse me? Pity help! Hahaha... I'm only saying the truth Whitty! Save me a speech about the impartial decisions of the jury and other nonsense. You are not from this village and everyone is going to be delighted to get rid of you.! It's even better if you could render us service without having to see you! And... cherry on the cake: your sheep is there to protect you right? You are scotched together since you are nipper, there's no reason for it to change!"

She takes ostentatious looks and use a theatrical voice.

"Ladies, gentlemen, Shawn considers our dear little witch as his precious possession! He will use the influence of his Mommy and his status of first hunter to be sure to keep his white doggy!"

I hold myself back no to punch her on the face. This idiot raves, she speaks ill of Shawn without knowing anything of him or of what he endured with his mother. The viper's tongue still continues, miming an expression after the other, playing with my nerves. She's so fast in her speech rate that I can't speak.

"Beside, speaking about this reeeeeally dear Shawn... do you think you will be able to share? This mouse is so cute! Emotional conflicts shouldn't ruined your team work! This would be stupid... If she steals him from you, you won't let her do it, right? You are not a red fox either, you don't forgive. How lucky you are! You're fur is always immaculate and shinning, you tenderize you close entourage. At the end, they are the one who forgive your caprice and treasure you! For you, everything goes right... This should be so comfortable to be smudge of mud only in the inside."

"Shut up!"

She ignores the warning, came closer to me, and put her palm on my chest. I don't know how to get away from her words and her monstrous eyes.

"No, I won't shut up. I assume what I think and I say it out loud, so open your ears! I assume the dirt in my soul, I roll in it and I strutted in all my repugnance. I am the Blacky, a vixen very different from you and happy to be it. For me, there's a strong chance that I will be turned down, like most of the aspirants, you no. Take it for childish jealousy if you want. I don't use pistons or relations. I'm an orphan too, my story isn't all pink, but I don't use it for the other to rely on my fate! So tell me, this question has been bothering me for a while, between the two of us, who is the vixen the most cheating and sneaky?"

Too much is too much.

My arm went and the masterful slap, the most beautiful of all my life, whistles in the air before crashing against her hollow cheek. Her head was hit to the right, a feeling of high satisfaction and intense relief soothes my heart from the weight that her speech was weighing. She's no one to judge me, there's no way I will let her do it. The bellows made me feel good... I would give her a second one. My palm rushed me however, the tingling gives me a certain well being.

"Your hate, I don't need it, go play in a burrow!"

Shawn appears behind me. I'm red of anger and breathless. The brown head girl is holding her face, is agitated by jolts. Gray irises lay on me and immediately calm me down.

"Diane, what's going on?"

I look at her. I first take her convulsions for sobs, and no regrets cross me. Then, her laugh resound, light and content, then unfolded and irrepressible. She pricks a laugh, a mad laugh. The crows around us is too agitated to notice the event, but we contemplate each other frightened, this cray hilarious standing up, the cheek already tumid.

The red gives a bit of life to her corpse complexion, but her chuckles are giving me chills in my back. I try to stay stoic now that Shawn is here. I have given myself in show enough yesterday night, no need to add some.

The Blacky takes my sleeve and lay again toward me.

"That's it? I'm the evil one now? Admit that it's nice for you to be able to treat someone like everyone else treats you... it relieves a good shot, right? Don't you want to give me a second one by chance?"

She pats her bruised cheekbone, and teased me with a winning grin. I don't want to react at her game, sh finds the way to double her offensive despite my silence.

"But you won't do anything, right? You must not disillusion your prince charming who just ran! So, Shawn, will you finally take your princess out of her dungeon? We even have the fairy in a pink tutu, armed with her barley sugar."

She's tired of living! In one sentence, she just put against her all our group and she's not done...

"This is probably a shame for a wolf... to be beat by a trembling sheep. What, Shawn? You attacked him while he was asleep? Or he was so pitiful that he was not suspicious?"

Mimi is eating a strawberry tart and does not care about what just happened. The verve slides on her, she has to give me her recipe of her filtered listening.

(End of the text by @homonculusnoir)

Drawing from @Bouclesnoires

Shawn turns toward me:

"Diane! Don't make a scandal right now.
"Heck!" exclaims Mimi. "Such a good strawberry tart! So sad! And it sticks in the hair!"

We now contemplate Mimi who's shaking her pink locks and Ira with a tart broken on her head.

"Don't bother my BFF, otherwise, the good fairy in a tutu that I am will really get mad. And you don't want the identity that we will give you in the city world be already destroy on social media before your exit of the village, right? I can be an hacker, if you don't like fairies!"
"Come on", said Shawn while pushing us toward the main building.