It didn’t take too long for the girl to understand the further nuances of how to control the Wave, though Augen was certainly surprised by the fact that someone with such a high reserve in the Wave haven’t learned to utilize it as such. Perhaps there were some other mechanisms at work that once protected her...
“So…what’s your name, and what are you doing here?” As the blue bubble of Wave finally became sealed up around the girl’s body, Augen leaned back into the sand and let his body partially sink into his sleeping place, “My name is Augen Zuku.”
“You can call me…Lya…” She said as Augen sensed a small shift within her Wave, “I…am just a regular traveler.”
“Sure, Lya.” Augen took on what was given and rolled to the side, “I am a traveler too, about as regular as you are. So I suppose fate just brought us together. Are you tired?"
"It's late."
"It is indeed." Augen said, rolling to the other side, "You can rest here. You will be safe."
She didn’t reply, and he felt her Wave slowly calming down before her steady breathing indicated that she had fallen asleep, and so he did too.
Throughout the night, he felt her rattle awake scared multiple times, but after glancing around, she had been able to fall back to sleep again. Each time she awoke with her Wave startled, Augen also felt it and became woken up just after her.
The next morning eventually came with the rising sun piercing the edge of the horizon with its orange rays, and with that first hint of light, Augen rolled up onto his feet.
Lya awoke soon after, but when she sat up with a face that was slightly puffed up and her hair mixed in with the desert sand, Augen and the small pit of fire last night were nowhere to be found. She was once again alone in the desert, and the gentle morning gusts of Necrovia had already erased any hints of Augen’s existence.
“Was everything just a…dream?” Lya wondered when she noticed her guarding her own Wave against the constant leeching of the dessert. She felt for her neck where the pendant she used to wore was, and she let out a light sigh.
Fortunately, she had already recovered a significant proportion of the Wave that escaped during the earlier stages of her travels, and this new sensation around her skin proved to her that what had happened wasn’t just a hallucination...unless she just so happened to hallucinate the most useful skill to survive in the harsh environments.
She heard footsteps coming from over the dune, and she quickly hid below the slopes before taking out a small blade in her hand. The footstep and the presence of Wave on the other side were halted upon sensing Lya's tension, and Augen’s voice came through from the other side.
“It’s just me.” He said, sitting against the sandy slopes, “I have just gone to get some food.”
“Yeah? What even is to eat in this dessert outside of the towns?”
“The wild cactuses, why of course!” Augen made an operatic gesture right as he stepped over and started rolling down the slopes with two clean-shaven cactus fruits in his hand. He stopped just shy of Lya before handing her one of the fruits, “As another seasoned and regular traveler, I am sure you know.”
“Of course!” Lya said quickly before picking up the cactus fruit and seeing the mashed-up slurpy flesh within. It was the same ones that she drank last night, but this time, she sniffed it slightly before taking a small sip. It was the same strange taste she felt yesterday, but it seemed fine enough to consume. Or at least, she hadn't died from that yesterday.
“So…where are you traveling to?” Augen asked when Lya had already downed all of the juices and started to eat the other flesh.
“I…don’t know.” Lya lowered her head before her eyes shot open, and she tilted her head up nervously, “I mean! I don’t know how long it’s going to take me to get to my destination! But I am going to one of the border towns! That's the actual destination, you know!”
“Oh.” Augen nodded slightly when Lya finally took a first good look at him, and she immediately noticed the white bandanna around his eyes. However, she didn’t say anything.
“What about you…?”
“If I am being honest, I don’t know where I am supposed to go, nor do I know how long it will take me to get wherever I am supposed to go...” Augen glanced at the extremely unappetizing cactus fruit in his hand. In the sea of endless sands, the credits he saved up at the Academy are all but useless dead weight. However, perhaps he could use it to buy some supplies and figure out what’s next when he made his way to a town of some sort.
Well, if anything, he had proven to himself that he didn't come here to die.
“How could that be?” Lya asked, placing the shell of the cactus on the ground, “If you don’t know where you are going, why are you even here in Necrovia of all places?”
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“I…just want to get away from...certain things,” Augen said with a sigh. To his surprise again, Lya didn’t pursue it further.
“I know how that feels…” Lya said, “Everything will be okay once I get to the town in the eastern border between Necrovia and Eternal Xia. But...every second before that, I feel like I need to keep moving...”
She felt the sand ruffling beside her, and she turned to see Augen suddenly standing on his feet and the angles of his lips frozen at an equally terrifying and comedic angle.
“Did. You. Just. Say. East.” Augen asked, and Lya nodded.
“Yeah! The capital is back that way, and if you follow the stars and keep going ahead you would reach the eastern border, right?” She asked as Augen stumbled back and sat down, “Why do you look so disappointed even though I can’t even see your eyes?”
“Because east is that way…” Augen said, pointing his fingers straight out to the other side, “If you had gone north still, you would have stumbled into the realm of Kingdom of Basha.”
“What?! I...I can't be there! I mustn't!” Lya held onto her face and squished her chin together as her jaws freefell to the ground, followed quickly by her body folding down like a lawn chair with no resistance.
“It’s okay.” Augen quickly said, sensing further turmoil within Lya’s Wave, “I will deliver you eastward to whatever town you needed to go!”
“But what about you destinations?” Lya asked, “Where would you go after that?”
“Eternal Xia sounds pretty good.” Augen stood up and stretched his arms as Lya glanced at him, “Great drinks, great views, great everything. Maybe instead of dying in the sand, I can die by the bar.”
Lya simply looked at him, and Augen turned his head slightly before chuckling and waving her off, "I am just joking."
“The Xia seemed interesting though...” Lya seemed excited for just a moment, “I have never been there…”
“Would you like to go?” Augen asked, “It’s going to be better than whatever’s going on in Necrovia.”
“But whatever Necrovia may be…it’s still my home.” Lya lowered her head.
“Sure. Let’s get going then.” Augen said, clapping his hands as Lya hopped up onto her feet, and the two of them set off.
As they strolled through the seemingly endless mountains of sand, Lya can’t help but glance towards Augen’s white bandanna around his eyes, though she also tried to discipline herself against actually asking about it. Augen, on the other hand, knew every time she looked and every time she tried not to look. It was another day of silent travels followed by more cactus consuming before they had finally corrected Lya's misdirected deeds.
However, eventually, Lya's curiosity started to reach its limits.
“You have questions, ey?” Augen asked, sliding down a sandy slope as Lya did the same right after him.
“I do.” Lya replied sharply.
“And…you aren’t going to ask it?” Augen said, creating a small slope of ice from his Cast to break both of their falls and sent them flying briefly through the air before they both landed.
“Just like how you aren’t asking questions about me.” Lya said frankly, though from the way she phrased it, it sounded worse than she intended, “I won’t ask the same about you. Even though I am very curious.”
“I like that…” Augen said as he felt for the faintest of Wave signatures from something way out in the distance. He paused before Lya stopped beside him and squinted at the string of border towns that slowly came into view, “Can you see something?”
“Yes! I think those are the border towns! Finally!” Lya said excitedly as she started picking up pace and ran straight ahead.
“Be careful,” Augen said as Lya darted ahead. He followed her closely with ease when suddenly he caught onto far more and stronger Wave signatures than anyone would have expected. He picked up speed for a handful of steps and grabbed onto Lya’s arms moments before she was about to make herself known, “Watch again!”
Lya’s forward movement came to a screeching halt, and she poked her head out around the corner when what she thought were the houses from the villagers settling beside the borders finally became clear to her.
They were individual tents, and from within came squads of soldiers dressed in white robes, each holding thin curvy golden blades with glowing lines of Wave over them.
Augen felt Lya’s heart sink, and he felt her fear.
“Seem like bad news. Let’s move around them…” Augen suggested as Lya struggled to move, though she let Augen pull her along as they moved around in a circular arc and avoided the main camps, “Why is there a camp here?”
Before Lya could answer, the ground underneath them suddenly started quaking as the individual particles of sand started vibrating and dancing on the spot. Augen felt a surge of Wave coming from underneath them before he immediately pounced to the side while hugging onto Lya’s body.
Then, like a dragon surging from the center of the earth, a structure Cast the shape of an ellipsoid capsule exploded from the sands below them before it glided through the air and slammed into the dunes in the directions of the camps.
“Because of…these things.” Lya said as she smelled the scent of Augen’s thin body as he quickly moved off from her. His jaws dropped as he probed the Wave signatures of the strange ellipsoid Cast while it slowly disintegrated away. It shrunk into a far smaller glowing sphere, revealing a single individual standing within it.
Unlike the rest of the Necrovian soldiers with their white cloaks flapping around their bodies in the desert gusts, the one man that stood around the sphere had a full set of yellow armor that glowed brighter than the sun.
He reached forward as the glowing orb condensed into his glove before vanishing into thin air, and now, all that remained within the local Wavefield were the unmistakable aura of his Wave.
“Shit.” Augen and Lya both cursed at the same time, however, both knew that it was for very different reasons.
As their shared Wave started becoming darker in feel and lines of sweat formed over their foreheads, the man slowly turned around and took off his yellow helmet, revealing his black hair, simple facial features, and a pair of eyes filled to the brim with a mix of fatigue and determination.
“Ilia Faus…”