Sunset

"Race you to the edge?" Sneak asked me, his expression filled with youthful exuberance.

I'm completely drenched with fountain water and this boy wants to have a race with me?

"Let's go!" he shouted.

"Wait-!" I screamed back, not even ready. "Not fair!"

We ran like the swift gales crisscrossing the high alps. We ran like there was absolutely nothing to lose. We ran not to go somewhere, but to indulge in the act itself.

When was the last time I have ever allowed myself to run just for the heck of it? Back when I was still an infant, ignorant of the injustices in life? Back when I was an older child, dressed up as a little boy, off to Sun God knows where?

Frankly, I missed this simple action, and like my name, I felt free.

"Stop that ruckus you little whelps!"

"Gah! My cabbages!!!"

*CRASH*

"Ha ha ha ha!!!" The boy's merry laughter invited my own. And soon, we were both laughing and running and jumping.

"Sorry!" I would shout behind me, but I kept trudging onwards, who knew to which direction we went? What does it matter when this world always ended in a few miles drop?

I followed after him for while, jumping up rooftops at one moment, and bumping against foot traffic at another. But when his own magic dwindled, I led the journey. I skidded past irrigation networks and jumped at the recoil of elastic tents. I looked back for him once in a while, but I soon learned I didn't have to. Even when he was magically exhausted, he can somehow still keep up with me.

Our laughter probably filled the whole of Malaya that day.

The wind swept past me, and I simply realized, that it didn't even matter if I was a girl or a boy; or if I held up my hair or cut it short. It didn't matter what I looked like. At this moment, I was the wind, free and gentle, calm and surprising.

"Woa-WOAH!" my friend screamed from far behind me. "Wait! Therion, that's-!"

His words were soon swept away by the winds, but I knew what he meant. A few meters in front... was the drop that ended far, far below us. But, I didn't stop running. Instead, I built up speed. Because if I chose to look up and not down, I would see a tinier floating island, a little baby of the humongous Isle, managing to stay afloat while being separate from the main body.

'I can do it!' I thought in my mind.

I gathered the notes to my feet and legs. One jump. A ridiculous distance to jump, but I've jumped farther distances earlier today.

"I CAN DO IT!" I screamed aloud, and jumped.

For a moment, I was suspended in air, with absolutely nothing to save me from the fall, and then, my feet struck ground and I rolled. I managed to stop just before I would fall down the opposite edge.

"I made it!" I screamed, my vision growing blurry but I have never felt more alive. But, I didn't have much time to appreciate my feat because coming towards me like a wind spell was the brown-eyed boy, shouting louder and louder as he approached the edge.

He cursed marvelously as he flailed in the air. He almost didn't make it, but I was there to catch his arms.

"HOLY!" he screamed as I brought him up laboriously. "HOLY LUNA!"

Finally with both of us on solid ground, I felt all the energy seep away from me and I crumpled onto the ground like a half empty sack. He did the same. Lying on our backs with our arms and legs stretched out, we panted for breath, and I laughed.

That seemed to greatly annoy him, because it supplied him with enough strength to inch up and climb over me. Pinning me down with his legs, he started punching at my torso weakly.

I kept laughing.

"What? Huh?" he screamed. "What are you laughing for? You're crazy! Stupid! Crazy!"

"Ha ha ha ha!!" I was closing my eyes as a barrage of fists came my way. And when he was done, I peeked my eyes open, and found myself staring at his. It was an incredibly rich color, one that you might drown in. His pupils were dilating from all the adrenaline, filling him with a sort of wildness. He was a young boy, but he held a beauty comparable to well-aged wine.

"You're beautiful," I told his glittering eyes. And the boy himself blushed.

"I-It should be handsome..." he muttered shyly. "Or dashing."

His sudden timidity astounded me, and I giggled. "Mmhmm... Definitely beautiful," I teased him.

"Th-Then you're... You're beautiful too!" he shouted with those brown eyes opened wide.

It was a compliment that has long gone stale to my old ears, but from a child like him, I felt it held the plain and wonderful truth. I giggled even more; a sound foreign even to my ears. Is this what Miss Quisling has once described to me as 'flirting'? It all looked so ridiculously disjointed knowing how young we both were.

Perhaps we're both playing a silly girlish game of house.

If that's the case, then let me play this game. I plastered my face into a smile I knew was so coquettish by the time I was 13 that I was easily deemed The Temptress. But I knew my childish features could only do it little justice.

But the boy turned a deep red even so.

I leaned myself up from the ground so I could see his face even closer. It was a marvelous red that any woman would want as rouge on her lips. His lashes were incredibly long and thick that I knew I would die to have them. His luscious hair curled smoothly and gently danced with the winds.

His eyes looked at anywhere but mine.

It made me laugh so hard, the weird atmosphere disappeared, and I was left with a broken boy. I kept laughing that I knew I had laughed more times this day than I have ever had in my whole lives combined. This annoyed the boy even more.

"You're weird, Therion." He glared at me, though I knew he was laughing inside too.

"Oh, you like me so," I replied, smiling at him sweetly.

"You look like a girl," he told me.

And for once, I didn't feel so bad about his words. I said with a seated hybrid of a curtsy, "Thank you."

"You're crazy." He stared at me before he started laughing too.

~~

There's always this period of time right after a moment of great happiness, where you have to feel a little bit down. This happened to us too.

Right after our long bout of giddiness and adrenaline, we felt the need to wallow in a tense silence. The afternoon was nearing its end, and sunset was approaching us at a time we were hoping it would never come.

"... I knew you were feeling sad a moment ago," the boy broke the silence. "I probably said something wrong, but I wasn't sure what..."

I smiled wearily, looking up at the sky. How can we be so high up, but the sky would still seem so far away, up above us and out of our reach?

"Nanny," I told him.

"What?" he replied, turning his head to look at me.

I spread out my hands on the ground, feeling at the thick grass with my palm and fingers. "You mentioned that word earlier. You said I sounded like your nanny."

"Oh, yeah," he muttered softly, but obviously waited for my explanation.

"... I lost my nanny. I don't even know if she's dead. But I know I'm partly to blame," I said. "Others might argue that it wasn't my fault, or that I couldn't have done anything to save her, but... It doesn't change the fact that I ran away. I left her..."

Everything was silent, so silent that no one would believe we were hundreds of feet above the ground. I could hear the thumping of my heart. I can feel it as the boy fidgeted beside me.

"You don't have to-" I started but my words were cut short.

"I know the feeling," he said, his own eyes turned up at the sky. "I lost my mama the same way."

"But I thought..." But then I chided myself. Of course, he was lying about him getting separated from his parents. I should have known.

"I guess we're both a little sad..." I mumbled, still looking up at the sky.

A few minutes passed by with us wallowing in the silence. And then, he asked, "What was her name? Your nanny?"

I turned my head to look at him. "Hestia."

He was looking at me too. "That's a nice name."

"It is." I smiled a true smile.

Then, I realized something was different around us. I gasped as I got up onto a sitting position. "The sunset!"

He got up hastily, as though that one word reinvigorated him. "It's here already?"

"I think," I said, coming up into a stand. "Come on!"

I offered my hand to him, and I helped him up. Hands linked, we walked towards the edge of our smaller island.

I would think I should have already been carried away by fierce winds, but I wasn't.

"So high..." I muttered, looking at the open air around me. We were so high up that white clouds had covered the earth far below us.

"So, how are you liking Malaya so far, Therion?" the familiar voice asked me, his question so mundane compared to all the sights around us.

I turned to face the boy, smiling as my hair fluttered in the mild breeze. I felt like a bird, up here in Malaya. I felt like I was untouchable. I was a fierce god who could do anything and get away with it. I was free.

"It's alright." I grinned as I placed my hands on my waist. "I've seen better places."

"Hahaha! I'm sure you have!" the boy exclaimed, suddenly enveloping my shoulders with his arm. "Oh, but what a sight."

I couldn't stop the smile on my face, even with him getting way closer to me than I wanted. "Beautiful."

Watching the white sea of clouds, we stood there together until the sun had fallen low enough in our own version of sunset.

"Beautiful," I muttered yet again.

Suddenly filled with a great strength boiling up inside me, I really felt like I could do anything I wanted.

"Do you think Hestia might have liked seeing this?" the boy asked beside me.

"Yes, she really would have loved it," I said, nodding softly. "I've never been so sure."