Chapter Text
He pats to his side, noticing how the space between them is quite far. I sit down next to him, expecting his mouth to blabber about me being a legend apparently. He reels back his hand onto his lap, regaining his posture when I can see his gears in his head slowly turning as the tall tale slips into his head. He clears his throat gruffly before speaking in a low tone, “There is a legend, a myth that no one knows other than Yaleks”, he looks at me before whispering “Yaleks is a spirit we all believe in, alright?” I nod hastily, not wanting him to be confused about me instead because he’s been looking at me every now and then. He looks back at the snowy trees, eyes open warm. “Our kingdom has been named Aryneth by Yaleks for many, many years. Over millions of years, Aryneth has been hoping for the legend to come true. And that legend is you”, pointing his grubby finger towards me.
“See, I’m not a hero girl or anything. Oh and I’m not built for anything close to fighting”, concern fills his eyes as mine fill with anger and regret. He turns his body, hands on each side of his rock, “Every hero knows their tactics and ways to overcome fear”. My eyebrows lift at his sudden line of motivation as I scoot a bit further to lessen the thick tension between us. He removes his hand from his rock back onto his lap before continuing to stare into the snowy forest. “Royals say that the reason why Yaleks named our kingdom Aryneth is because of you. They said that Yaleks told our royal ancestors that they saw a vision projecting the future” he nods towards me before continuing “A vision about seeing a fearless girl, who stands above a tall mountain frozen in front of billions of raging soldiers who come from Aurexion, the land for the prideful”
I look at him, eyes full of worry “Are you sure it is me?”, my throat starts to form a lump “because I don’t think I can do it, all of it” my voice grows shaky.
I can see the muscle in his jaw tensing, seeing growing pity in his eyes. His gaze falls on me harder, the tension between us is thick and yet his eyes hold me almost gently. “I’m coming with you”
“What?”
“You heard me”, he pauses as his eyelids relax. “I’m going along with you through this journey we call tough”. I nearly gasp when he says ‘we’. My heart somehow beats faster when he has his cool facade on, making me wonder why am I like this at the first point. He sits straight back up, his back straight as a board. “As years and decades pass, you tore the fabric of our Universe and now you’re here” His voice drops to a low tone “You’re basically stuck in here until you solve this quiet war that is happening between Arnynethians and the prideful people of Aurexion.” I take a moment to suck everything up that he had just spitted out. What? Am I really going to have to fix all of these problems. I breathe in and out hastily, sucking every bit of the story that I have just listened to being clueless of the future ahead of me. Death? Will I live? I’m thinking too much now. Calm down Gwenyth.
I look up from my blurry vision, finding his gaze clouded with worry and pity. We stare at each other for long heart beats, before he breaks the thick silence. “Come, I’ll be your guide into Aryneth” he gets to his feet before bowing at me, a hand behind his back cutely. I blink twice when I find myself at my feet, scooting away from his head nearing mine from the rock. “I guess that can work, but there’s no need to bow and be all cutesy. Y’know?”, his head cocks up before standing to his full height which will tend to amaze me every moment, “Oh my, you are the legend my dear. So, it is a pleasure to be your guide throughout the Kingdom, Y’know?”.
Cocky bastard, he is.
Him repeating what I said felt foreign, mainly because of his different appearance from normal human beings. I raise my arm to act smart-
A wisp of glitter and shimmer flies from my finger past him and towards the tree before being horizontally cut. The tree falls down gracefully as with the snow sliding off each strand of leaf. My eyes fill with shock and amazement. “What just happened—?” he walks towards me, gripping my wrist lightly before he starts to examine it closely with furrowed eyebrows knitted above his piercing thunder ocean eyes. I pull away but his grip tightens, not loosening anytime soon, “Hey— let go of me”. He finally looks at me through his eyes, all but judging me by his thick gaze. “You’re … different. You’re a fairy.”, before looking me up and down “Rather a small and bratty one”, I gap my mouth in an oval to his offense. He continues to search my wrist before seeing blue veins blinking through my tan skin, “Ha, found it” I stand in confusion before asking “Found what?”
He hovers his fingers over the icy blue veins that throb underneath my skin, face seemingly admiring the teeny canals carrying blood divides into more tiny blue tubes. “Your veins, it’s blue”, he releases my wrist then, with a rough, calloused hand, he lifts his own—where veins blaze beneath the skin in a shocking neon green. I'm blown away mentally and physically as the chattering breeze tries to spin me round along with him. “Woah” my eyes wide enough for the cold to sting the surface of my pupil before blinking rapidly, “Your veins, it’s green! I’ve never seen anything like that before…normally people in my world always have red blood and blue veins but you, you’re different!” I laugh shakily, already to slowly lose my mind over this world. He takes a brief look at me concerned about my sudden outburst of laughter before he explains, “People of Aryneth, unlike you, have neon green veins to symbolize the calm and welcoming nature we have in our kingdom.” he sighs through his nose, lowering his arm to his side, “Otherwise, the people of Aurexion, have veins coloured of glinting brown like shiny copper. That, symbolizes how they are truly prideful, but what they don’t know is that copper can one day corrode to acidic rain”, he leans in and looks at me with his sharp opal eyes, “Where you come and find a way to bring this acidic rain to their kingdom and melt everything and every piece of copper they call money down to the ground”. His words are fast, yet strongly effective in an intimidating way.
I stiffen up at the goosebumps hiking up my spine, feeling how determined and revengeful he is on splintering Aurexion into dust. It’s oddly admirable. “What about other kingdoms? Are there more than Aurexion and Aryneth?”, my voice tingles with curiosity and pique-ness which gets distracted when he starts to back a step away and take off his worn jacket. While doing so, he starts “There are two more and one that is mostly forgotten by many, many people. Veyrithiel, Aureverra and Noctherion, we’ll talk about this later but right now,” he looks at me before handing me his jacket,
“You need to blend in, Gwyneth”