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She gasps.
She’s panting. The world, it spins around her, in a green swirl.
“Steady now, Tiki.”
She calms herself. Power ebbs through her fingertips, which is a good sign. She closes her eyes. Her muscles are weak, but that’s to be expected. Shakily, she opens her eyes, and is relieved when she can see better.
The waterfall behind her drowns out most of the sound, but the unmistakable sound of footsteps still reaches her ears. Immediately, she jolts onto her heels. Ignoring her feet’s protests, she backs behind the niagara and watches.
The stranger’s silhouette doesn’t come into view immediately. Tiki takes the time between to tighten her hood over her head, concealing her manakete features.
His shadow comes across the water, slowly. Tiki observes. A man, by the shape of it. His gait indicates he’s bearing a sword.
“A Risen?” The thought makes her queasy. If one could track her all the way here, then she was in deep trouble. Right now, she was as good as a sitting duck.
But the way he carries himself makes her unable to believe that. His manner of walk is too controlled, his poise and posture immaculate. The more she looks at him, the more familiar he seems. His gait is just like…
“Mar-Mar?”
The words leave her mouth before she can stop them. He doesn’t hear them, thankfully.
Tiki’s mind reels, and maybe it’s because she just performed a draining ritual, or the loneliness she’s felt these past thousands of years, but she finds herself unwittingly emerging from the falls, approaching him.
“Excuse me?”
Tiki halts. The man is facing her, eyes focused on her hand, which is firmly wrapped around his coat. Blinking, she follows his gaze. Her eyes widen, she promptly lets go.
“I’m s-sorry,” she stammers out, her face burning. He clearly isn’t Marth at all— now that she’s this close. His hair is white, his eyes hazel. His figure is no longer tainted in blue from the water, and instead he adorns a black hood that indicates that he is a mage.
The man smiles in response. “It’s alright, miss. What are you doing all the way out here?”
She hesitates to respond. She knows nothing of him, and in this weakened state, she could easily be killed, if he were to try. “Lost,” she lies, wrapping her jacket tighter.
His eyes narrow over her, clearly trained in observation. It makes her uncomfortable. He could very well have ill intentions, which makes her silently curse herself. Why, why now of all times did she allow grief and past feelings to overtake her? If she were to die today, it would certainly be her own fault.
“You’re a manakete,” he states, absentmindedly.
She bites her tongue from the sentence, and draws blood. And yet this doesn’t stir him to do anything; only tilt his head in curiosity. She reaches to feel her hood, which to her surprise, is still firmly in place.
“How did he..?”
“If you’re lost, I can walk you back.”
He gestures to a book in his hand. Tiki squints at it. Teleportation. She didn’t know such tomes existed. Humans have advanced, she supposes, over the past millennia. Her instinct is to run, especially since he’s pointed out her dragon blood. Yet, his aura exudes warmth, and she finds it hard to distrust him.
“…I would appreciate it.”
The mage takes a pen out of the book’s spine, and starts filling in specifications. “Where do you live?”
This, she’s memorized a response for in advance. “Chon’sin.” No doubt, Say’ri will understand her predicament.
He nods, and now activates the book. He places an arm on her shoulder, which causes her to jump. Seeing this, he quickly tells her, “To teleport two people, they have to be touching.”
Tiki slowly nods, face still flushed. “Ah, I understand.”
Lifting the spell book in the air, he gives one last glance down at her. “And your name is…?”
The Voice, she’s tempted to say. Daughter of Naga, she thinks of as well.
“Tiki.”
He smiles.
“Robin.”