Generis

5. Past, Present, Future

Adhî watched Kruos drink from an opaque bowl, eyes closed like he was deep in thought, and he pretended to retch.

"That stuff looks nasty."

Kruos ignored him, continuing to drink. He was well accustomed to his reactions, and found that the best way of dealing with snark comments such as that was to stay silent.

"How do you drink that and enjoy it-?"

Finally, Kruos put down the bowl on the cloud, staring at him with a sterny expression.

"I do not eat what you eat, correct? So let me eat what keeps me alive, good?"

Adhî smirked at him and rolled his eyes, leaning back against the fluff of white.

"If I had to choose between that and death, I would happily not be here."

"Do not make such foolish wishes, boy. I could equally call what you eat just as disgusting."

"I don't think pink water is comparable to.. that."

"One day you will be mildly poisoned when you eat that, and when you start puking for real, do not look at me."

"You don't eat—"

Kruos raised a hand as if to say that this conversation is over.

If someone were to ask the each of them whether they were friends or not, Kruos, on one hand, would say they were merely colleagues who somehow have been on an extended journey together. Adhî, on the other hand, would claim them to be the bestest of friends, in which Kruos never objected, but kept a reserved face at least half of the time. In fact, not many people have seen him show emotion, and the reason is probably because to show emotion is to show weakness, as he says. The only person that has ever made him smile, even by the slightest, was his "mentee", Adhî.

Adhî was a polar opposite of Kruos; he would always hug him from behind— which Kruos would stiffen at, but never complain— and spend the most of their time together being the speaker, making jokes and teasing him along with it. He was the one who pestered Kruos into making what they caller Iria, which is a cloudy, space-like domain that strangely doesn't undergo the effects of time. His excuse was because that he wished not to be bothered again, but in Iria, which they are in now, his wish didn't come true clearly; Adhî found every reason to get on his first and last nerves.

"If you keep eating those pinkish- slugs—"

"Gru-àb, child."

"Whatever. If you continue to eat- or drink- that stuff—"

"And yet if I do not, I will die, and you are to never see your precious mentor again"

Adhî raised his eyebrows.

"I thought mages as powerful as you don't die that easily."

"Have I not taught you correctly? Or do you make it a persisting habit to be forgetful?"

Kruos grumbled something in a language Adhî didn't know and opened a thick, bluish-grey book. Adhî blinked, stunned.

"Where did you—"

"Mages are the only kind who have two deaths: Elêkuma, and starvation. And what? And starvation. The amount of times I have carefully articulated each topic in this book is astronomical, and you still forget."

Adhî nodded absent-mindedly, looking up at the stars, watching them twinkle back at him. He wondered what would happen if he just stayed here forever, just him and his mentor. At least, it would take away the burden of what his role brought. It was idealistic, and basically impossible, of course, but it didn't hurt to drea—