Your uncertainty proves to be fleeting, cautious words left unsung. Instead, you succumb to the infectious laughter of your first (and perhaps only) friend. Though you don’t often make assumptions so forward, you hope that the assertion rings true. Somehow you feel saved by the boy’s companionship, an anchored vessel despite months spent at sea. It is weighing, a modest truth. Perhaps it is time to go home…. Perhaps you should seek out the family that was lost to you just moments ago. You’ve missed this deep sense of belonging to someone… to anyone at all.

Even if it makes you bitter to recall.

So you tuck away your truths and smile, because that is what friends do. They uplift. And that is what Saoirse does for you- lifts you up above your turmoil and your conflicts, despite the niggling idea that he is but a distraction from everything else.

“I think that would be great.”
“Good,” you announce more playfully than before, as if the auburn-haired boy hadn’t truly had a choice in the first place. You squint your eyes at him in merry fashion, drawing him away from any earlier doubt as he talks. However, you find yourself shaking your head at his inference, your pale eyes flitting around for emphasis. “Hardly,” you insist earnestly. Helovia is nothing but a realm with designation, land and sea that makes up borders of which you are still unfamiliar. It is something that you are surprised to find the two of you have in common.

“This is the first time I’ve been here,” you assure while glancing around at the lavender blooms reaching up toward your knees. It hasn’t grown too wild and unruly just yet, but you still prefer to stalk the beaten path to avoid the odd sensation of wandering through the thick of it. As you ponder the mild annoyance of trucking through the thistle versus being able to fly above it, you gasp slightly as stiff feather tips graze the maturing muscles of your shoulder.

Swiftly you turn to fix Saoirse with a challenging glare, but ultimately find yourself smiling over at him as he propositions you to lead the way on a new adventure you hadn’t planned for. You nod vigorously toward his request, but stop as he pauses to tell you that he is called the Demon Slayer. You’re unsure what he means by such an endearment and when he asks for your own, you can’t help but laugh, “I don’t know, what should they call me?” you question airily before pushing forward into the coarse thistle, grinning all the way. You aren’t yet sure where you’re going or what you plan on doing when you get there, but you dance off before him in search of a story that is all your own, but still a story shared.

Gyda