Drifting With The Sands

The palace was empty. Stained plates piled on the tables and the scent of yesterday's leftovers still hovered in the air. The mess inside was minor compared to what it looked like out in the courtyard. The palace didn't have the capacity to hold every single person in all of Otane and so most of it took place outside of the palace.

It was early in the morning. The sun was peeking just over the horizon. The temperature was still on the lower side of the range. Aside from Kies, there was no one else who was up. The servants were the earliest to get out of bed but even they did not wake up for another few hours. When they did wake up, they were going to find a mountain's worth of work for them to do.

Kies stayed in Otane for one year. He stayed for long enough. He was ready to leave whenever Nyana was ready. Unlike him who didn't have any luggage, Nyana had a list of things she needed to bring. She spent the whole week preparing and packing so she should be good to leave whenever she wanted to.

With nothing better to do, Kies got up from his bed and left his guest room in the palace, stepping out into the hallway. The materials used to build the palace were the same as before, sandstone and some quartz. There weren't too many options to choose from here in the desert. There were tree farms near the river, but lumber was still scarce, due to the production of wood being a slow process of having to wait for the trees to grow to a proper size, and that was before they got turned into ashes by the dragon.

A minute hadn't even passed when the door next to his opened and Nyana came out with a large backpack on her back. She noticed Kies and smiled. "Perfect timing." Her eyes were strained red with bags under them. Her hair was all over the place, looking as if she walked straight through a sandstorm. The elf looked like a wreck, but at the same time, somehow was strikingly beautiful as ever. Must be nice being an elf.

"Couldn't sleep?"

"Not a wink. Anyway, let's leave before I lose more than just sleep," she said over her yawning.

"Sure. I'll meet you at the gate. I need to do something first," Kies told her.

"Understood. Don't make me wait too long." Nyana walked past Kies and left through the closest exit.

Kies walked to the central part of the palace where the rooms for royalty were. There, he found Lentis up and about, patrolling the corridors. That was certainly surprising. There was someone who was up this early.

"You're leaving?" Lentis asked. He had on a full set of armor. Strapped to the side of his waist was his trusty sword inside of an exquisitely decorated steel scabbard. A reward for proving himself during the dragon's attack. Rui was also given the same thing, and Kies was also offered one too, but he turned it down since he had no use for it.

"Yes. Can you pass the message along?"

"Of course."

"There are bags of gold inside my room. Since it will be worthless outside of Otane, I figure I might as well l might as well leave it here."

"Are you sure you don't want to use it? You have been raking in a lot of money from mercenary work. Wouldn't it be a waste to not spend even any?"

"There's nothing I particularly need or want," Kies replied. Sure, he had a lot of money, enough to purchase himself a medium-sized mansion if his math was right.

He pooled all that together from commissions at the guild, bets from organized fights, materials from hunting, and the list went on. It was more of a bonus given to him for doing things to satisfy his boredom. It was also a little something to reimburse for all the damage he had done. Of course, it was nowhere near enough, but a small fortune was something.

"I'll tell them that too," Lentis said, adding to the farewell.

Kies stood there in front of the royal guard in awkward silence for a few seconds, trying to recall if he had anything else important to convey or mention, but when nothing came to mind, he shrugged his arms and said, "I guess that's it... This is goodbye then."

"I wish you a safe and swift journey."

"Thank you."

Lentis sent him off with a soldier's salute and Kies did the same respectfully. He walked out of the palace and got ready to take off. He called upon the winds to take him into the air and lift him to where the elf was but as he was about to jump away, he heard loud running footsteps followed by a voice screaming at him, "Wait!"

Kies stopped and turned his head in confusion just in time to see someone trying to tackle him. Reflexively without thinking, Kies dodged to the side and watched as a blur of red flickered past his face, tripping and bashing head first into the coarse sand. A muffled yelp of pain escaped the person's mouth which was crammed full of sand.

Kies identified the person to be the second princess. "What are you doing?" he asked Iris, looking down at her, wondering if he should lend a hand. It was unneeded as she jumped back onto her feet in an instant.

"Poo!" She spat the sand out of her mouth and gave Kies a vexed look. "Why didn't you catch me!?" she asked, sounding very betrayed. Iris crossed her arms and pouted.

"Why were you trying to tackle me?"

"Because you were about to leave!"

"And what about it? Didn't I say that I was going to leave soon?" Kies pointed out. He consistently reminded her of this fact not just once or twice this week, but a number of times. Furthermore, it was she who kept bugging him and asking him when he was going to leave like she didn't know the answer already.

"Oh? You did?" Iris looked to the side, making a clueless face.

"I don't have time for your jokes. Is there something you need? If not, I need to go. Nyana is waiting for me."

"Hmph, fine, you're no fun. I'm here to give you this." Iris opened her hand and extended it to Kies. Sitting comfortably in the center was a small clear crystal. "It's your payment. You almost left without it."

"Remind me again who it was that didn't want to give it to me until the last moment..."

"Well, I had some things I wanted to test before giving it to you," Iris explained.

"Test... What a strange way to put it. In my eyes, you were just playing with it."

"Did it look that way? I was trying to help, honestly!" Iris tried to defend herself. It was pretty hard to believe that statement after what she did.

The rebuilding of everything took a lot of time and labor, and thanks to a certain someone, whose contribution involved trying to help with magic, a few projects got delayed due to the foundation being destroyed and several other reasons. Iris did not purposely plan to sabotage the process, but she ended up doing so anyway. She wanted to help so badly that she resorted to using the fragment's wind magic to lift blocks of sandstone, only to drop them after losing control.

It went without saying that Iris did more harm than good and had to be banned from doing anything at all. Even the queen, who was pitying everything that happened to her two younger sisters, lost tolerance and confined Iris to her room until everything was over.

Thinking about it again, Kies felt his lips curl into a smile as he remembered all the chaos she caused. There weren't many things more humorous than watching buffed, grown men scream whenever a giant slab of sandstone fell their way. It might be insensitive to laugh at somebody almost getting hurt but at least no one got hurt which was a surprise.

Iris gasped in shock, seeing something that she never thought she would see from someone like Kies. "Is that a smile I see!?" As she blurted out this, his smile quickly vanished away, and his aloof face returned.

Pretending that nothing happened, Kies told Iris, "You don't need to give it to me."

Iris, muddled by what Kies said, questioned why that was the case. "...Didn't you only agree to help us if we gave you this as payment?" she recalled the deal that they made that day.

"I did say that... But I don't need it anymore."

"You don't!?" It was hard to say who was more shocked, Kies, who was the one who said that, or Iris, who saw him as a person who doesn't help others unless there is something for him in return. Kies couldn't quite believe what he was saying as well, turning down the reward, but he had his reason.

"The fragment won't help me that much," Kies casually told Iris. Absorbing the fragment was a sure way to boost his power marginally, but in the long run, it was only going to be a drop in the vast sea. In fact, over the past year, he had already grown powerful enough that one or two fragments weren't going to make a big difference. If anything, it was better for Iris to hold onto the fragment as it would allow her to use wind magic as well as fire. She had more use for the item than he did.

"...Okay." Iris didn't know how else to respond. If he didn't want the reward then what did he want? "Are you going to ask for something else then?" she asked him, puzzled.

"I don't need anything particularly," Kies said off the top of his head. "Instead, why don't you just owe me a favor instead?" he suggested.

"You sure?" Iris was fine with that but wasn't the Windstone something important to him? She didn't know what his connection to it was and he didn't tell her anything. She did question him about it a handful of times but he gave her vague responses each time.

"Yes, I'm sure. Well, I'll see you around," Kies bid her farewell.

He turned to leave but Iris called out to him, "Wait." Kies looked back, his eyes asking her what she wanted. Her eyes wandered around for a second before she gathered up the nerve to ask, "Are you really going?"

Kies looked at the princess, unsure of what to make of her strange behavior. "Yes?" he answered, though he really should not have to at this point.

"You... Are you not going to say anything?" she quietly asked, her face pointed toward the ground. Her words came out somewhat depressed which only added to Kies confusion. Did he forget something? He hadn't talked to the princess much at all during his stay here as he had nothing to say to her.

However, unbeknownst to Kies, that was the exact reason why Iris was feeling down. Ever since that incident on the inn rooftop, he had been avoiding her and she was afraid that he might hate her because of it. "You really are not human," she said, seemingly saying something so random yet obvious.

"Yes... I thought it was clear," Kies agreed.

"...How old are you?" she asked timidly.

Kies was taken by surprise, being asked such an unexpected question, but he answered her anyway. "I'd say around half your age," he gauged.

"That's not that much..." she muttered to herself. Taking a moment to clear her throat, Iris finally said what she was meaning to say this whole time. "You never gave me a reply," she said, looking Kies in the eye.

Kies stared blankly at the princess causing her to nervously turn her head away again, to avoid his gaze. "Sorry, I don't think I'm understanding you," he apologetically said.

"Ah, forget it..." Iris turned away with a heavy sigh. She gave up. How can someone be this dense?

Kies, feeling uneasy that he might've forgotten something important, reached out to her to stop her and ask about it. "Hey, wait." Kies took her arm and asked what it was that she was so unhappy about. "Look, my memory isn't that good. If I missed something-"

At that moment, Iris spun around and cut Kies off, throwing herself onto him. He tried to move out of the way like before, but she was too close this time and he wasn't quite fast enough.

It almost felt as if time stopped. The cool morning winds howled in their ears, defeating every other sound except for one. Iris' heart was thumping loudly, feeling like it might burst out of her chest. Everything was still.

Iris pushed herself away from Kies, her cheeks flushed red, even redder than they would be from the desert heat. It was only a second but it felt like an eternity had passed.

Kies was standing, jaws wide open in disbelief, still processing what had happened. It was the second time and he just couldn't believe it.

Looking at the dumb face that Kies was making, Iris' found herself quickly calming down, and her heart rate slowed to normal. She laughed at his dumbfounded face.

Skipping away, Iris playfully said, "Next time we meet, you have to give me your answer… And don't you dare forget it! Thank you for everything, and goodbye." Without turning back, she ran off, leaving behind an awestruck Aeos.

Kies placed his fingers against his lips and shook his head. Here he was, thinking that he didn't fit in with this world at all, but there was someone who was surprisingly more peculiar than him.

"…Maybe I should stop using this form…" Kies said to himself. He was in his younger form since it was the form he was most comfortable in but seeing how much trouble it had caused him, he should maybe start getting used to his other form.

Kies closed his eyes for a second and opened them again. Until next time then," he said, saying goodbye to Iris even though she was long gone. He was doubtful that they were going to see each other again sometime soon, but when they did meet again, he would have to tell her the sad reality.

He was a God, and she was a human. It would never work out. Even if it could work out between them, he had a long journey ahead of him, and a daunting task too.

A distant breeze blew across Kies' path and as it returned back to the sky, carried him along with it. He was gone. Gone with the wind.

-End of Part Two-

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