🌸Lost in Memories🌸

Chapter 2: A Friendship blooming

"Taranza...?"
". . ."
"Hey! Taranza!"

He snapped out of his daydream right after the not exactly gentle shake he received from one of his allies. "W-what? What's the matter? Are we going already?" he mumbled, looking up at whoever shook him. Susie looked back at him slightly confused. "Going already? We decided to stay the night just a few minutes ago. We figured you were listening in, but seems that wasn't the case." Taranza didn't say anything and just looked around. It was still in the afternoon but apparently some time later than when he dozed off. Susie sat down next to him and said "I'll assume you thought about something and daydreamed?" "I guess you could say that..." Taranza quietly responded. ". . ." Susie just looked at him as he glanced over to the flowers again. "Well, whatever you're thinking about doesn't seem to be very... cheerful. Do you wish to talk about it? I heard that helps organic creatures make peace with frustrating life situations." Taranza just groaned. "Look, I appreciate that you wanna help, but I doubt it'd change anything." "Oh I disagree. I recently talked to Magolor about what might be troubling him and he said it helped him a lot!" For some reason Taranza didn't believe that one bit. "I'm pretty sure he was just trying to be nice..." he stated. "But fine, I'll let you in on it. Who knows maybe it actually does me any good..."

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'I wonder when we'll meet again...' Taranza adjusted his scarf just a little bit more before deeming it good enough. 'Is she gonna get in trouble again? I sure hope not. What if I'm not around to help...? Wait, hold on now. Get a hold of yourself, you've only met her a few days ago. There are other things to do, so don't waste your time making strangers uncomfortable.' he lectured himself in his thoughts. 'Though...I do wonder what she's up to right now. Who knows, maybe I'll run into her again. I'll just leave it up to chance, otherwise it'd just come off as creepy....' He opened the door and had just stepped out as he noticed someone.

Down the road, was that...? What, no way! Standing there in doubt whether or not his eyes were tricking him, Taranza just stared at a certain someone that was floating up the road, looking at the houses. "Hm? Oh, h-hey!" No doubt. It really was her. "O-oh, Sectonia right?" Taranza asked despite knowing her name full well. Although, seeing her eyes light up a bit as he remembered it, might have just been worth it. She responded happily "A-ah, yes that was it! You didn't even mess it up like most people do!" She stopped, seemingly trying to figure out how to put her thoughts in words, one of her hands nervously playing around with the other half of the scarf Taranza gave her. "Neat, you're actually wearing the scarf." he mentioned, breaking the silence between them. "Of course! If I didn't wear that, you would've made the sacrifice for nothing." Taranza immediately objected "Well, you don't have to wear it if you don't want to, really." "No no, I actually...like it quite a lot. That and I still feel obligated to somehow help you out too. Just tying up loose ends can't compete with your courage. Which brings me to why I am here, actually. I was looking for you, Taranza."

It took him a second to fully grasp what she just said. Taranza responded as casually as possible "Wait, really? Why's that?" as his mind instantly attempted to come up with several possible answers to his own question. Sectonia gave him a weak smile before responding. "Well, I still want to make it up to you. So I figured I'd go find you instead of relying on pure luck. Sure, it was a bit difficult, but I'd say it was worth it." Despite what he had told himself, Taranza felt his face warming up a bit, but not enough for Sectonia to notice. "Alright, sure. Had something in mind?" Sectonia nodded rather energetically. "We don't know each other all that much yet, so I figured we could just go for a walk and maybe stop by the market?" Taranza giggled a bit. 'She's in such a good mood. Alright, I can't let her down now. I can get to know her better and maybe she'll even stop feeling guilty.' he thought to himself. "Sure, that sounds great. I don't have anything planned until way in the evening, so I'm free right now."

They floated together through the park, chatting about all sorts of stuff that came to mind whilst also trying to keep the awkwardness to a minimum with surprisingly good success. "So you live alone here?" "Pretty much. And I just got here a few months ago, so I didn't really get any opportunities to make friends yet." Taranza explained. "Even then I usually mess it up somehow." he chuckled. "Why... are you laughing? Shouldn't that make you sad?" "It does, I just prefer to not take it all too seriously." He had a bit of a smile on his face.

"Being upset isn't gonna help me, all I can do is try again. It's gotta work eventually."

"I guess that's a nice way to think about it." Sectonia replied. They floated by the market and stopped there. "Feel free to pick something. My treat." Sectonia said, smiling at Taranza. He looked at what was in store until his eyes stayed with the gem apples. "We could get two gem apples if you want. I hear they're especially good this season." "Sure thing. Two gem apples please." Sectonia said to the shopkeeper. After they received their apples they continued their walk. Taranza noticed Sectonia was somewhat inspecting her apple. "Something wrong? You seem distracted." Sectonia looked away from it. "Oh no, it just looks very fancy. Never understood why some people are so focused on all that extravagant stuff, but that isn't important right now. What were we talking about again, my friend?"