The sky was quite bright already, bathing the land with its light. The tall trees of the forest gathered every ray of light they could reach, using it to grow taller and taller, casting their shadows on the land beneath them. Next to the dark forest, a vast desert extended beyond the horizon, an endless sea of yellow sand that reflected the scorching light like a mirror.
Bordering both, a small village surrounded by tall stones that sank deep in the sand was blooming with life. Children running, chasing each other on the wooden pathways that floated above the sand. Mothers greet each other, smiling as they oversee the happy children. Fathers preparing their equipment, getting ready to dive in the sea of sand again.
Far from the crowd, a lonely little girl sat on the edge of the wooden streets, her bare feet swinging over the sand, almost touching it. She took a glimpse of the other kids before turning her head back to the book in her hands.
The pages were divided into three columns, one of them had strange symbols written in it, the middle one had normal words, and the last one had some more weird symbols, but this time encased between tilted bars.
The girl continued saying each of the words out loud, struggling to pronounce a third of them.
“Ready for today's dive?” A man yelled at another.
“Ready as I’ll ever be, and I got a feeling that today’s hunt will be good.” The other man answered.
“I hope you are right, I’m tired of eating vegetables.” The first man said before jumping to the sand. “See you at the bottom!”
The second man followed almost instantly, and Liz’s gaze quickly turned in their direction. “As loud as always…” She muttered as her eyes started to glow.
She focused on the sand underneath her, even if it looked shallow, it was tenths of metres deep, and worst of all, it behaved almost like a liquid.
She could sense the mana leaking from the two diver’s bodies. They were somehow able to not only control how fast they sank in the sand, but also to swim like it was normal water. After some time, she sensed the mana of another creature. “Probably an average sandfish.” She judged from its mana.
The two divers also became aware of it, and slowly moved towards it, surrounding it. Liz could feel how they deployed a net of mana around their prey, and one of them began to gather mana again. After some seconds, a jolt of mana shooted of him, and the sandfish mana began to vanish.
“Studying again Lise?” A boy asked her.
Liz jumped on the spot after being called. “Don’t scare me… like… that Iso.” She slowly answered, struggling to remember some of the words. I can’t believe I was so focused on their hunt to not notice him.
“Sorry, sorry.” Iso apologised as he sat next to her. “But a girl like you should be playing with the rest of the kids, not sitting alone by herself on the edge of the village.” He said.
“They are… noisy… and speak… too fast…” She explained.
“But you can’t pretend to learn how to speak just from writing random words in a book.” He said looking at the book in her hands.
“Random?” Liz asked, slightly unsure of the meaning of the new word.
“... Something that has several possibilities that depend only on luck…” Iso tried to explain.
“Like rolling dice?”
“Yes…”
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She smiled and opened the book again, writing the new word next to its meaning and the way to pronounce it.
Iso couldn’t help but smile, he knew the girl was weird, and that it wasn't normal for a human, let alone a child, to learn a language in less than two weeks but he tried to ignore that discomfort, he wanted to believe the little girl after all.
His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of one of the divers emerging from the sand. Iso turned his head towards the diver, who was holding a big sandfish, of at least a metre length.
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After helping the divers get the fish out of the sand, they left the edge of the village and began walking towards the inn.
“Aaaa, heeeeelp, they got meeeeet!” Some extremely dramatic screams could be heard in the main street.
“Dere woke up…” Liz said.
“What makes you think that…?” Iso sarcastically replied.
Once they turned around the corner they froze as they tried to analyse the image in front of them.
Dere was being held down by 3 kids, while the other 2 mercilessly tickled her.
“Stoooop, I'm begging youuuu!” Dere cried with her eyes covered in tears. “Iso, Lise, please heeeeelp.”
“Study.” “I have to help miss Regina cook.” They said as they walked away.
“Don't abandon me you traitors!!!” Dere yelled.
“hahahahaha, big sis Dere is funny!” One of the kids said.
“Especially when she is angry like now!” A girl added.
One of the kids who were holding Dere down stood up and walked away.
“It's my chanceeeee!” Dere began to playfully struggle into freedom.
“Ummm, Lise, do you want to play with us…?” The boy asked Liz.
“... Emmm, ok…” Liz reluctantly agreed.
“Arthur.” Iso whispered in her ear.
“Thanks for… inviting me, Arth.” Liz said smiling, making the boy blush.
“Finally free…” Dere said once she managed to get rid of the kids' grasp.
“My turn!!!” Liz ran towards her.
“Eeeeh, you are siding with them!?!?” Dere screamed as she ran away.
Liz and the children continued chasing Dere until their mothers called them for lunch.
“ahhhhhh, ahhhhhh, I need to sleep for a week, ahhhhh…” Dere breathed heavily due to her exhaustion.
“Don't provoke the kids next time, you know they can't get tired…” Iso advised her.
“I'm hungry…” Said Liz, who had already used all of the calories from her breakfast.
“Can you wait for me to… ahhhhh… catch my breath…” Dere asked.
Liz nodded and sat next to her. After some minutes, the three of them headed towards the inn.
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The afternoon was much calmer than the morning, Liz continued her studies alone while Dere trained in the forest border.
“You are really helpful Iso.” One of the mothers told the boy.
“I wished my husband helped me as much as you do.” Another lady told him.
“Please miss, your husband is busy tending to the crops and repairing the village fundations.” Iso answered as he stirred the soup. “But I don’t mind helping you while we stay here.”
“About that. How long are you planning to stay this time?” The first woman asked.
“Originally, we planned to stay only for a week, but we still have to figure out what to do with Lise.” Iso answered.
“That girl is really strange, I sometimes find her mumbling nonsense alone, sometimes she is even arguing with the air.” A woman, who was chopping some vegetables, added.
“She seems to know a different language, but she is trying her best to learn ours.” Iso said. “I suppose Dere will ask her if she wants to come with us when we leave, or to stay here, if you don’t mind.”
“Even if she is weird, we are not ruthless enough to send a little girl like her with some mercenaries like you, who knows what might happen to her.” The second woman said. “Especially after what happened to Katniss…”
“Don’t forget that your son has a crush on her…” Another woman muttered. “But to be fair he is not the only one. My little Reggie finds her rather cute, and even my daughter is jealous of her eyes…”
If they knew Lise doesn’t even remember their names… Iso laughed at their comments. He knew Liz didn’t do it on purpose, she just had a lot in her head right now.
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Eventually, the day came to an end. Families gathered in their homes and had dinner all together. They tightly closed the doors and watched as the sky darkened. The sand rose until most of the wooden streets were completely submerged.
“Good night…” Liz told Iso as she collapsed on the bed, she wore a white dress quite bigger than her, so she had her hands completely covered by its sleeves.
“Night night.” Said Iso, who was sitting in the bed with a cooking book in his hands.
Suddenly, the bathroom door opened and an almost naked Dere walked out of the steamy room, only covered by her plain panties. “Are you going to sleep without me?”
Iso looked at her for only a second before turning his red face away.
“Shirt!!!” Liz yelled as she threw her a grey shirt that belonged to Iso.
“Hahahaha.” Dere laughed as she put it on. “Sorry, sorry, I always forget that you don’t like it when I sleep like this. You should learn from Iso, live and let live, they say…”
Liz raised one brow and looked at Iso. Is she dumb or just really mean…
Shortly after, while both Dere and Iso were sleeping, Liz slowly got out of the bed and placed a paper in her place. Then she stepped out of the inn, heading towards the forest.