Heartbeating snow

Chapter 10

"What do you plan to do now?" asked Amir as he approached the giant eagle and stroked its face.

"Go back to Hong Kong and get my life in order at once. But first I must go back for my things in Tehran, so I can pay you back," he completed at last.

Amir snorted with some annoyance at that last remark.

"Forget about payment. It's no longer necessary."

Xin looked at him in surprise.

"Friends don't get charged," Amir explained. "Especially not if they're as handsome as you."

"Are you serious?"

Amir nodded, smiling.

But before the man could say anything, the eagle stuck its beak under the man's jacket and then dropped a huge necklace of gold and precious stones on the ground that glittered indiscreetly in the moonlight.

"Wasn't that Sphendadates' necklace?" asked Xin in surprise before turning to scowl at Amir.

"Meddlesome bird," Amir scolded the bird; it let out an indignant squawk.

Amir picked up the necklace from the ground and put it back with him.

"On second thought, consider the necklace as payment for my being..."

But Xin interrupted him by taking it from his hands to hand him the dagger that Arash had become.

"Please promise me that you will take care of this dagger."

"The Daggerash?" exclaimed Amir in surprise.

"Daggerash?" asked Xin, holding back laughter.

"It's a dagger made with Arash, I mean, it's the Daggerash."

"I don't know if he would agree with the name," Xin commented.

"It's not like we can ask him either, is it?"

"I guess not," Xin admitted. "Will you look after her?"

"I think Arash would want you to have her..."

Xin shook his head softly.

"Arash wanted to protect his people, and more or less, that's what you do... and you don't do too badly," Xin confessed with a grin. "I want that, if Arash must be somewhere, it should be here, to keep defending you and yours from the white worms, or any other danger. In my house he would only be an ornament, but with you, he can continue to serve his purpose."

Amir smiled back with some sadness.

"So, you're definitely not staying, are you?"

Xin shook his head again.

"Dishi is waiting for me..."

This time, his bodyguard nodded with a wild look. Xin smiled at him and affectionately reached up to his face to give him a kiss on the cheek.

"Well, time to go back," Xin said, pulling away and looking him in the face.

Amir suddenly fell silent and looked at Arash's mythical bird, Altair, then looked in every possible direction, and after a couple of seconds, he turned to look once more at Xin and Altair, who was fluffing his feathers with his beak:

"Ehm... You know how to fly that thing?"

「 心 」

When Xin returned to Hong Kong, the first thing he did was to arrive at his mother's house. She was shocked to see him standing in the doorway with his suitcases from the trip and his face a little sunburnt. She immediately threw herself on him, cried on his shoulder and wrapped him in an affectionate embrace.