MIDAS

Ringing appeared in his ears again, milky light falling into his iris, half-blind and unsure where he woke up at, the boy watched himself look outside of some old apartment; a grey view was stretching in all directions outside of the windows the unknown room possessed. Buildings reaching high to the sky, seemingly trying to stretch for him, were surrounding the space he found himself in. Tightly packed together in blocks, tiny specs of different colors and shapes trying to find their way in between them.

Without being in control of his movements, he watched whoever turn away, his numbed sight sharpening shortly; a familiar sofa was on his side as he stood in the middle of the dorm. Grey garn stretched over its entirety, perfectly stacked brown blankets laying on top of it. A black table, low-lying beside it, a dark TV on his other side. Midas knew well what he looked at; he knew the names of what he saw before him, lacking the knowledge of who it belonged to; his sight fogged up again, this time growing weaker by the second.

The ringing evolved into an unbearable screeching, steam seemingly hissing out of his ears; the boy instinctively covered his ears, pinching his eyes together, before wildly stretching them open again. He was met by the blinding light of the sun, making him flinch as he moved his torso up.

"He's awake!" A young voice excitedly announced, Midas rubbed his eyes, his fingers massaging his lids; the first thing he felt was a stinging pain in his right hand, still numb, as he laid his other over it. Slowly looking up, his body realized he was moving at the moment. His eyes registered a boy around his age, a hooded kid, seemingly in the same age as the boy, and the girl from before eerily looking at him, his eyes pinched thin, before looking at the scenery, still surrounded by dunes, his eyes traveled downwards. Resting on dry hay, he slowly touched the bandaged stone slab.

"Your hand must hurt really bad; it was swollen by the piece of stone stuck inside of it... You should let a doctor aid you in pulling it out; I wouldn't want to risk any further damage..." The masked person lightly held her fingers on Midas' untainted bandages, a silky voice escaping her mask, making it obvious it belonged to a girl.

It took a while for the boy to process the information, instinctively flinching back by moving his right hand away from her touch, his eyes fixated on the many tiny holes pierced in her mask. The wooden carriage seemed familiar on second thought; lightly shook by the dim dunes it rode on, he laid eyes on a familiar balding scalp, wearing a white silky scarf around him, flapping down his shoulders and neck.

"Don't worry—we didn't touch your stone... I wouldn't dare, given how these northern troops left you behind..." The boy on his left tried to calm him, awkwardly replying to his hasty reaction. Only after he directly spoke to Midas did he realize that the foreign kid was unmasked, neither hooded. A simple cloth poncho covering him, his feet were bare, sporting old leather trousers. His hair was much darker than Midas', barely avoiding being completely black; it lay on him, slightly curly and parted to the sides.

"Were you given a name by chance...?" The masked girl leaned forward slowly, trying not to overwhelm him again. With calm motions he let her hand rest on the middle of her chest, "I was named Inaya; this boy before you I named myself—he never received a name; this is Haya..." The masked girl turned to the young girl, watching her smile at Midas, eagerly glancing at him. "She was found right beside you when Graf arrived at the fort... Do you know each other by any chance?"

Midas looked at her with tired eyes, the sun shining down on his middle-long hair, "I was named Midas; nice to meet you... I do have a short history with this girl; I travelled with her for a while. I never got her name, though." He glanced back at the young girl, her body still covered in her muddied white cloth, her curly hair falling to the ground as she turned her head to the side.

"Oh—I got something for you, Midas... it rested inside the inner pocket of the man you laid on." Midas awed dimly, his brows stressing as he looked down onto Hayas's hand. The same tiny bottle of glistening Gold that had caught dust inside Almas's office, the reason for the boy's name, was now being held to his face. Midas slowly grasped the tiny flask, the shiny metal reflecting the shine of the sun, as his throat made it hard for him to swallow. Past events slowly catching up to him as he looked forward to the driver. 

"Is Graf a salesman from the north by chance...?" He sternly viewed the back of his head as he looked at his two new traveling partners. "Where will he take us... north? Out of the dunes...?" He voiced his questions crudely, stuffing the flask inside his trousers pocket. Trying to mask his overwhelming regret, he softly clutched onto his bandaged right hand.

"No idea, he picked us up, Gip´din... just offered us a ride out of the desert; he has a weird way of speaking... His accent is quite thick; it's funny. But he seems to keep his word, great for us... especially me." Haya looked over to his driver, then back to the boy, his fingers playing with the hay the group sat on. "Have you ever seen the sea Midas...?" A warm smile appeared on his lips. Catching his attention, Midas turned to him.

"There's a sea nearby? I never traveled much further than the region around the northern fort." Midas shortly replied, his look intrigued, meeting the eyes of Haya. Lightly reminded by the time Alma showed him the map, which depicted the four forts, the southern one seemingly lying right on the coast of some body of water.

"Oh yes...! What a bummer! I'd hoped I would meet someone who came from one of the coastal regions. The fruits that grow in the northern deserts coasts are the best... At least that is what Inaya told me." He came closer to Midas's ear, "Believe it or not, the whole desert region here is split by a great sea, oceans on both of its sides..." 

"So we're on the edge of the continent...? If there's a northern desert, is there another lying on the other side of the sea...?" Midas slowly shifted his hip and feet to face Haya fully, his feet crossed and his left hand resting on his knee. His interest growing greater as he found someone with geographical knowledge, possibly a replacement for Alma's book.

Haya nodded eagerly, grinning in excitement as he caught Midas' full attention. "Yes, this desert is like a broad peninsula connecting the two great eastern continents... Before the storm, you were able to see eastern ports from the completely other side of the bay laying on the right coast of the desert!" Inaya calmly looked over at them exchanging, softly pressing the young girl on her lap, softly brushing her head with her bandaged fingers.

"We're going to take a break here. Get up and out of here; I need to catch a break..." Graf stopped the sledge, mere steps away from a tiny village surrounded by steep dunes emerging from the grounds surrounding the small amount of buildings surrounding them. Waiting for Iyana and Haya to leave with no remark, the masked girl held the young girl's hand as she looked back at Midas, right as he wanted to follow them, Graf stopped him. "You stay." He voiced tiredly, stretching his feet out on the sledges back, before laying himself down beside him.

"You were right, Alma knew you... Some of the quarry guards told me about you being seen around him often. Thanks to you, they were able to establish enough resistance to pick up some of their sledges and men, which were left behind by the northern force." He murmured, closing his eyes, not looking to him, his hands folded behind his back to enjoy his break. Letting the rest of the children play in the sand and roam around the village on their own. "There is something strange, though, Almas saber... quite the expensive one—was missing. The supposed royalty as well, even though he should've died to the fire..."

"The royalty is still alive...?" Midas's expression tightened up as he leaned towards the salesman, his brows sharply pressing against each other. Hearing the others play in the distance in joy, he searched for Graf's eyes. "The commander most likely didn't take it... he didn't even show interest in his sun shard." Looking down on his bandage, his flesh numb and bloated, he tried to find an answer as to where the royal man went.

"Sun shard... hah, the earth kingdom is the only one that calls these rocks this way. But everyone inside of it and inhabiting its regions swears to use this term to describe these crystals..." Chuckling dryly as he remarked, he took in a long breath, the sun above him causing sunburn on the tip of his nose. "These commanders and the high society of the north really despise southern weaponry... their belief forces them to." Graf stretches, sticking out his arms.

"Now that you left behind the fort, the only real thing you can do now is go north... Follow those good-for-nothings, I told them about the Aqua'iva University... they were flabbergasted. This school will teach you our language, a skill you'll definitely need to establish a good life there." Graf opened his eyes to glance over to the puzzled boy, his hands crossed behind his head again.

"I need to meet someone." Midas glanced downwards at his interlocked fingers. "Almas brother, Ajan... I need to somehow get to Cle'phoria. But, in order to do so... I for sure have to possess the knowledge of the northern language..." scratching his head, he formed steps in his foggy head, still shook by the siege. Unable to fully look past what happened to Alma, feeling some sort of dizziness in his head since he woke up.

"Cle'phoria. Quite the goal..." Graf stood up, yawning to himself.