The star i saw that day

Chapter 5: The Candoscroa Desert

"How much further?" Nephele asked out of breath as she collapsed on the sand.

"Still a few more days." Celeste answered her and kept walking, "I think."

"What do you mean, think?!"

"That I don't know how far we are. If you hadn't noticed everything looks the same here."
Daichi stopped to get some water, "Plus we're almost out of water."

At that time everyone were really close to just giving up. We had been walking through the desert for almost three days, and were supposed to have reached one of the few villages in Cadoscroa by now.

"Hey guys," Hiroshi yelled after a while, "there's water in these things."

He held up a cut open cactus in his hand. For some reason he found it a good idea to cut it open, and then start drinking what was inside. It just wasn't water. And let's just say, cactus juice doesn't do anything good for you.

"Drink cactus juice. It'll quench ya!" he said, and started getting really weird, "Nothing's quenchier. It's the quenchiest!"
(Yes I know this is from ATLA. Pls don't judge me, I just love Sokka)

"I think you've had enough." I said and reached for the piece of cactus in Hiroshis hand to pour it out on the ground.

"Where's Celeste?" he said staring right at her.

"Come on we need to find that village." Nephele sighed, and I started dragging Hiroshi after me.

****

After hours of dragging Hiroshi through the desert without any water, we finally made it to a very small village.

"Hello." a little boy said as he jumped down from the roof of a house, "What happened to your friend?"

"Nothing." Daichi answered him.

The village was really small and basically didn't have anything else but a little tavern. There we got a room where we could put Hiroshi until he was himself. We got some food and water, and then we would continue to The Fairy King's Forest where would talk to the queen and apparently Gwydion was there as well. Then we would figure out a plan of attack against Ahmya.

"Um, Omair didn't mean to earwig, but strangers shouldn't talk about her here."

"Excuse me," Celeste said. "but who the hell are you?"

"Omair is Omair."

We all just looked weird at him, and Daichi answered him, "Go home kid."

"Does strangers want to start something with Omair?"

"Just go home okay."

****

We left the next morning. After a few days we could see the edge of the forest Daichi stopped and said,

"We'll stop here for the night, and go the last few miles tomorrow morning."

"What are you talking about? We can easily make it to the forest today." Nephele objected.

"Yeah, but then we'll barely get any sleep because of the sun."

Nephele sighed and Daichi had his right. We set up a small camp and as we were starting a fire the little boy from the village appeared. We were all confused on why he had followed us, but didn't get much time to do anything about it as Hiroshi without warning collapsed. We all tried healing him but unsuccessfully. That one night we were supposed to stay extra in the desert fast became 3 days, and at all times I was by his side.

We used those three days mostly on finding out why this Omair had followed us. His explenation was that he didn't have anything better to do. But boy how we should not have trusted him. I didn't really know what to believe, but we let him come along if he didn't get in our way.

****

Late the night of the third day Hiroshi woke up, as I was sleeping over him. He looked at me and when I woke up I hugged him,

"Thank god, I thought we lost you." I mumbled into his shoulder, "Don't ever scare me like that again. You hear?"

He didn't say anything, smiled at me and hugged me back. I was so scared that day, scared that I would lose someone else I cared about - just like I lost my mother. I thought I would never be able to protect everyone; let alone save this whole world. It still confuses me why I felt so obligated to do so anyway.

"It seems our little goddess is doubting herself."
"Of course dark empress; it was a splendid idea to poison the boy." Shiloh assured her.
"But are you sure this won't just end up giving her more reason to fight Dark Empress?"
A dark grin appeared on the woman hiding in the shadows of the room.
"Oh Terra my friend, you are always so doubtful."