The Shadow's Hunger

The air in the training grounds, usually thick with the scent of ozone and singed eyebrows, now felt heavy, like a damp wool blanket on a sweltering day. It was the kind of quiet that wasn't peaceful, but rather the coiled tension before a sneeze that never quite happened. The Shadow Maw, that walking, slavering embodiment of bad decisions and even worse dental hygiene, had decided that its initial buffet of Boy’s confidence wasn't quite enough. It wanted seconds, and possibly dessert.

Boy, perched on a slightly-too-small stone bench, was trying his best to look nonchalant. He was polishing a rather fetching, entirely too shiny, golden spatula he’d conjured earlier that morning. It had been a moment of pure, unadulterated whimsy, a brief flicker of his old, unbothered self. He’d reasoned that if he was going to be hunted by a creature that looked like a sentient pile of discarded nightmares, he might as well have a tool that could, in a pinch, flip a pancake the size of a small dragon.

Professor Eldrin, looking perpetually like he’d just misplaced his spectacles and was about to blame a rogue pixie, paced nearby. His brow was furrowed deeper than a plowed field after a particularly aggressive badger convention. "Boy," he began, his voice a low rumble, like gravel tumbling down a well, "are you quite certain that… culinary implement… is the most suitable preparation for what is to come?"