The Lightning Mage

I. Strange Magic

I had finally found a place to hide from the sun. I thought I had anyways. It was an old tree, on the Merchants route through the lower region of Iria. The tree had blossoms budding in its branches, little white buds were beginning to bloom along the branches and leaves.
I reached above my head to pluck one of the flowers from the branch but was startled instead.

"They're beautiful, aren't they?"

I gasped losing my balance in the tree, I quickly slung my arms and legs around the trunk to keep from slipping further down.
Beneath me stood a boy with sky blue hair and somewhat boyish features. He looked entirely peculiar, but the most peculiar feature of the boy was the pair of ears sprouting from his head. He himself looked human but he had the ears of a fox. He wore a lightweight robe with a short sword tied around his hips with a leather strap.

"Who are you?" I look down at him, still clenching the trunk of the tree.

"You didn't climb very high, Princess."

He wasn't wrong. Looking down at him I see he has a point. I hadn't climbed as far as I thought.

He suddenly rose up from the ground with nothing under him as if he were floating "I'm Keisukei, but my friends can call me Kei."

The boy named Keisukei gently propped himself on the branch I had previously been perched on. He held out his hand to me, asking to help me back up.

"You called me Princess. If you know who I am then you must work for my father. "

"How do you know I'm not just someone who recognized you?" He raised a brow at me "And why won't you take my hand?"
Keisukei had had his hand held out to me for a moment but I hadn't decided to take it.

"I boarded a boat and sailed across the ocean to a rural Irian country. You wouldn't have recognized me if you were a true native."

"You didn't answer my other question, your highness."

"Why should I take your hand? Just for you to use your magic to whisk me away back to Aliech?"

"You're smarter than they give you credit for Princess. I was sent by your father." He held his hand out even further for me "I promise I won't immediately take you back. I'll hear you out first, just take my hand before you fall and break a nail or something."

I huff, blowing the loose hair out of my face and take his hand. Keisukei helps pull me back up to the branches. "Well I'm sorry that he sent you all this way for nothing. I'm not going back there."

"Why not?"
"If I go back to Uladh I'll be married."

Keisukei looked confused. "Isn't that a...good...thing?" He tried to choose his words carefully.

"You're a Guardsman? How do you not already know?" Keisukei shrugged his shoulders, he really had no idea "If I let you take me back I will be forced into an arranged marriage with a man I won't meet until I walk down the aisle. That is the fate you will be bringing me back to." I can feel the hatred and the fear welling up inside of me already. I am prepared to hate this boy, but instead of pulling me out of the tree and taking me back to the castle, he holds out his hand again.

"I told you I'm not going ba-"

"Take it." He cut me off and pushed his hand even further in my direction. "I'm not bringing you back to the castle RIGHT now. I promise."

I placed my hand wearily in his palm.
Keisukei begins to float again. He helps me down from the tree and lowers me gently to the ground where he sits beside me, legs crossed under the tree tops.

"Tell me about the person your dad is making you marry. He's gotta be a prince right? So he must be rich."

"He's rich alright. I just don't love him." I look down at the ground between my thighs and pick up an acorn top to fiddle with.