We are in the 70es on Unicorn Island, an island off the coast of southern Zealand. A handful of teachers have gathered the broken threads of magic once again, trying to revive the magic in Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland, the Faroes and partially Greenland.
Our main protagonist is Susan (me) from Elsinore and her three co-apprentices and friends Heidi, Tage and Lis living at Unicorn Island.
I grasped the chance to write a little bit about some of the lesser known apprentices in this A-Z challenge.
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Z for Zoo and Josh Traustason
Josh lives with his father Trausti and mother Vigdís in Reykjavík, the capital of Iceland. Although he has six older brothers and sisters, he is a very lonely boy, as they are all much elder than him and most of them have left home. Josh spends much of his spare time in the nearby Zoo, talking to the cows and horses there, or reading a book while in their calming company. His father has an inkling what young Josh is missing - magic - as he is of magical descent, yet untrained. None of the older siblings have any magic at all, and Trausti do not feel like passing what little he knows to Josh.
A burden is taken from their shoulders as Thora shows up on Josh's eleventh birthday and offers him a place on the Unicorn Farm, where he joins the flying and transformations team.
Josh is dark-haired, dark-complexioned and surly of disposition. He is better with animals than with humans; when David arrives, Josh is one of his first friends. Josh also flies for Team David in the broom race and is one of the main culprits, apart from David himself, in sabotaging the brooms belonging to other participants in the race.
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His wand is made from juniper and his sparks are black and white.
He survives the losing of his magic, only to get involved in a gang war and shot later on.
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And this marks the end of the A-Z Challenge 2024. One of the coming days will see a post on the professors - I think they are missing a prequel.
Using the word Missing from the Words for Wednesday.
There are cows in the zoo? I guess it's different here in the US.
SvarSletCongrats on finishing the a-z challenge.
Have a lovely day.
If you look up the Zoo in Reykjavík you'll see that it is more what you and I would probably call a kids' zoo with household animals and animals living in Iceland (nowadays they also have a small collection of exotic animals). For me as well a zoo (I know the Copenhagen one best) is a place with elephants, tigers, elks, kangaroos, rhinos and so on.
SletThanks and the same to you!
You've done a wonderful job with the A to Z, and if you decide to also do a post on the teachers, or even a series, I would enjoy it just as much.
SvarSletThank you!
SletPerhaps Josh might have been better learning animal magics, healing and such. Sad that he was surly and making trouble with the brooms.
SvarSletHe might have, and I think the testing / sorting is not fail proof. But his sourly and bitter disposition would have given him a hard tim anywhere, that and his propensity for choosing the wrong ones to trust and befriend. He could have done with a dose of discernment magic, actually ;)
SletYay! Congratulations on getting all the way through to Z! A zoo is always a magical place.
SvarSletThank you, and yes there's something about looking at nature's strange creations, that talks magic.
Slet