After leaving the guardhouse, the two elves started heading towards the North with Maya leading the way.

Maya had attempted to restart her questioning session, but Alz's clear disinterest eventually made her decide to put it off for now, unwilling to ruin their friendly relationship with this.

Instead, she began to talk about the capital at length, allowing Alz to learn more about this place. He was extremely grateful for this, as his lack of knowledge had constantly been bothering him like a thorn in his side.

As Maya had mentioned earlier, the guardhouse was quite a distance from their destination, taking over an hour before they arrived at their destination. Thankfully, there was no lack of topics to talk about with his recent arrival here, allowing the pair to pass the time swiftly.

"We're here!" Maya exclaimed excitedly as the image of a clear, pristine lake reflected in their eyes.

Alz also felt a strong sense of anticipation welling up within him as he caught sight of the lake beyond the greenery ahead of them. The pair hastened their steps, breaking out into a jog as they covered the last leg of the trip.

The calm, greenish-blue waters sat silently in the centre with plentiful greenery around crowning the lake, making for a beautiful picture of nature. There was currently a herd of deer resting by the lake, bringing a vibrant feeling of life not found in the lakes in the southern forest.

Alz's attention was immediately captured by the view before him as a satisfied smile floated onto his face. From what he had learnt about this place from Maya as well as his own experience, this place had satisfied most of his conditions.

The two most important conditions he had in his mind were both met, the lack of elven traffic and the presence of a water source. There was also no lack of materials nearby and to top it off, the lake was beautiful and calming to look at.

He turned to the side with a look of gratitude, but an unexpected sight welcomed his eyes. Maya's head was slightly lowered as she gazed the lake before her. She had tearful eyes and a lonely smile on a face as she lost herself in recollection, thinking of a time once upon.

Alz's grin stiffened up as he saw emotion in her eyes, one that resonated deeply with him, causing him to feel a stinging pain in his chest. This was a pain that he was painfully familiar with, a pain that plagued the depths of his soul since then.

He sighed lightly and looked away, pretending he hadn't noticed. He understood the gist of the matter from her conversation with Colt yesterday, but he already had his hands full with his own problems and adding anything unto that list was the last thing he wanted right now.

"Come, I'll show you something nice." Maya said as she suddenly snapped out of her thoughts and flashed a mysterious smile towards Alz, grabbing his arm.

Alz could have easily dodged or broke free of her grip, but he chose not to. He allowed her to grab onto his arm and drag him along with curiosity in his eyes.

She hadn't mentioned anything about this on the way here, so he didn't know where she was leading him, but the confidence in her voice made him look forward to wherever she was bringing him.

They carefully made their way through the forest as Maya searched for various marks she had previously carved on the trees to avoid getting lost. This patch of forest might have been within the barrier, but it was completely undeveloped.

It was also fairly large, and they could easily have gotten lost if they were not careful. While it was not dangerous by any means, they were still careful to avoid that as it would have wasted a lot of their time.

After meandering through the dense path of trees for about ten minutes, a large open area suddenly entered their eyes. The area stood out clearly as it was devoid of the trees that surrounded it from all sides, making it extremely conspicuous for anyone nearby.

Maya revealed a look of relief at seeing this, knowing that she didn't go the wrong way. It might have been a short distance from the lake, but the terrain here was extremely unkind with many inaccessible areas along the way due to various landforms.

This led to the path here being fraught with turns, making it very easy to get lost even despite the markings on the trees. Navigation was one of the things she struggled with the most and she also hadn't been here for a while which only made it worse.

"This is it!"

He had thought that the lake before was vibrant and beautiful, but it still lack in lustre compared to the pictures in his books. However, the scene before him was different, stunning him with its beauty that was in no way inferior to anything he had seen before.

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

Flowers, flowers and more flowers. A seemingly endless field of brightly coloured flowers spread out before his eyes, painting his world in a bright shade of yellow. These flowers had yellow petals with varying coloured cores, a flower he remembered from his days in the archives.

Reading books that had pictures was one of Alz's favourite past times back then, adding colour to the dull repetitive days. Among those books, there were also several books that documented flowers, but he didn't spend too much effort remembering their names.

Yet, this was a flower he distinctly recalled because its name struck a chord in him. 'Sunflower' was its name, a flower named after the star that was said to hang above their heads, beyond the thick blanket of darkness.

It was only a simple thing of knowing the name, but this simple difference here was enough to alter his entire perception of the field, identifying a strong desire that was hidden behind the beauty of the golden field.

"If only there was sunlight."

Alz suddenly turned his head up, staring deeply into the deep darkness above. The scene before him was beautiful, but it lacked something important which made it a feel tragic in his eyes.

This was an entire field of sunflowers that had never received the blessings from the sun, the very origin of its name, and would probably never get to experience it.

His heart was drenched in sadness as these thoughts riddled his mind, at the unspoken grief behind the planting of this field and the sorrowful fate these sunflowers were forced to bear, reflecting on his expression.

Maya beaming brightly when she arrived at the field, losing herself in the beauty of the field for a moment before she turned an expectant gaze to Alz, wanting to observe his reaction.

By a twist of fate, she had missed his initial reaction towards seeing the field, catching the tail end of his reaction instead. She felt her heart sink when she saw the expression of grief his face, turning her face red in anger and embarrassment.

Despite going through the lengths of bringing him here, this was the expression he showed. She was both angry and sad at his reaction, as this field held an important place in her heart but Alz's current reaction tainted her image of it.

"I knew I shouldn't have brought him here!"

When she mentioned bringing Alz here before, this was the moment she had been most eager about, yet it had ended up disappointing her the most, causing her to regret her decision.

Maya turned around and stomped her foot in anger, walking off from they came from. The heavy footsteps brought Alz back to reality, causing him to look at Maya's back in slight puzzlement, not knowing the misunderstanding that had arose.

"Where are you going?” Alz asked to her back, catching up to her in quick steps.

"W-What? Aren't you feeling dis-disappointed? I-If you don't like it then get out! I'll show you the way but don't ever come here anymore!" Maya replied in an acerbic tone filled with anger, turning behind to face Alz with her face on the verge of tears.

Alz was confused for only an instant before he realised where things went wrong. After all, there had only been so few things that occurred before her sudden change and it wasn't hard for him to connect the dots.

"ARGHHHH!"

He let out a helpless sigh inwardly while cursing his fate as he looked at Maya with a bitter smile, not knowing what to say. However, he was not feeling angry at her.

Putting himself in her shoes, he would probably have felt offended as well had someone reacted the way he did after bringing them to a place that held great significance in his heart, so he knew where she was coming from.

"I didn't mean it that way. I really like this place." Alz explained sincerely, hoping that this would solve things.

Maya narrowed her eyes and locked her eyes with Alz, trying to gauge his sincerity. Several moments later she finally asked, "Then why did you make that face just now?"

Alz first felt relief at hearing this, knowing that he was given a chance to explain. However, he soon found himself at a spot as he realised he couldn't explain it properly, as it involved sensitive issues he wasn't intending to reveal.

Various thoughts went through his mind as he thought ways to cover it up, but Maya's innocent green eyes seemed to stop the words from exiting his mouth each time. He felt heartfelt gratitude toward her leading him here and didn't want to lie to her for this.

"This much should be fine."

Eventually, he released an audible sigh and decided to speak the truth, asking her a question, "Do you know the name of these flowers?"

Maya raised an eyebrow as she looked at Alz, trying to figure out the intent behind his question. However, all she saw was a genuine gaze in his expression and it did not feel like he was trying to divert the topic.

Maya shook her head lightly, indicating that she didn't know.

"These are called ['sunflower'], named after a large ball of fire that hangs above us." Alz continued on, raising his hand up to sky and gripping his fingers into a fist as he told her of a tale from a time long past.

The term sunflower sounded out of place, being from a different language then the one they were used to. Maya tilted her head slightly before looking up, seeing nothing like what Alz had described in the darkness above.

"We can no longer see it now, but the person who planted this field probably wanted to see it a lot." Alz ended off with a sigh, adding on to her confusion despite clearing some doubts.

However, before she could ask anything, Alz quickly followed up, "I read this from a piece of rock last time, so I don't even know if it's true, but this field reminded me of it."

He felt bad about lying about the reason behind his sadness but had no qualms about this white lie. The information on sunflowers was nothing much, but the existence of the archives getting out was something he couldn't afford to risk, as it would have caused his future plans to crumble.

Maya was even more confused after the explanation than ever before, but the anger in her eyes subsided as she looked at Alz's genuine gaze. Despite how farfetched it was, her intuition was telling her that his words were true, surprising even herself.

At the same time, she began to feel like Alz was shrouded in an aura of mystery, slightly altering her impression of him.