The Search for Life

Chapter 2

The wind rustled Leota's loose linen top and she donned a wide brim hat that she had bought in a Salvation shop. She had realized twenty minutes into sleep the night before that she had suffered severe sunburn on her face and neck from the day's travels. Having no intention of worsening the problem, she covered the only remaining exposed portions of her body with her hat and a pair of dark gloves. Leota glanced out at the vast expanse of desert that separated her from her destination, and with a sigh, started out on her journey.

She made it maybe ten minutes before a familiar face appeared next to her. "Where ya going?" It asked.

Leota scowled and began to question why she had left the sword all the way back there. She gripped her hat and straightened it out on her head. "Forward," she replied curtly, her stride lengthening. She had no intention of engaging the Dark Prince in another interrogative conversation.

He appeared in front of her and kicked back mid-air. "You're really not giving me much to work with," Teki accused. "And why are you walking at all when floating's so much easier?" He crossed his legs one over the other and cracked that mischievous smirk he had been so fond of sporting.

Leota shook her head and considered not answering at all. However, remembering how oppressively boring crossing the desert had been the day before, she was almost glad to have the company. Even if she wouldn't show it. "I don't know, why does anyone do anything?" She said quickly, her eyes widening in the slightest in annoyance.

He almost laughed. "Ha! You're a lot more sarcastic than I would have expected the People Guardian to have been. You almost sound Great Kingdom."

Leota tilted her head to the side in a swift motion and blinked her eyes a couple of times. "Well, maybe I'm not acting like the Guardian because I'm not her. And People can be sarcastic, too, you know. We're not all as innocent and happy as you Dark make us out to be."

Teki blew a puff of air out of his nose and floated next to Leota, only to land and walk beside her. "Clearly," he remarked. "Though you still have nothing on Great citizens. We have babies angstier than you, and that's really saying something."

"I'm not angsty," she protested, a touch too much defensiveness entering her voice. When Teki shot her a doubtful glance, she realized her mistake and backtracked. "I'm just tired," she corrected. "I'm tired and hot and I don't want to walk and why are you still here, don't you have a country to rule?"

Her stalker stuck his hands in his pockets and watched the landscape before them. "Of course I have a country to govern, but I thought this was where the world's largest responsibility dodgers were hiding out. Was I wrong?"

Leota's shoulders dropped and her gaze tracked the sand that shifted beneath her feet. "No..." she admitted, pretending not the experience the uncomfortable feeling of guilt.

"Then I belong here," he concluded.

"No one belongs anywhere," Leota told him, bitterness lining the consonants of her words.

"I disagree," Teki said. "I think that if you think you belong somewhere, then you belong there. Simple as that."

Leota tilted the brim of hat downwards and smirked. "Well then that explains your 'expansion' policies," she muttered.

Her target mumbled something about how he personally had nothing to do with any of that, but that People towns looked better with the Great flag anyways, and Leota grew quiet. The two of them walked in relatively uncomfortable silence as the forces of nature continued to shape the ever-changing landscape on which they walked. The golden grains soaked in the rays of the sun and radiated them back out as heat. Both party members had accumulated a very noticeable amount of sand in their boots and the sun was high overhead when they spoke again.