About Crystals and Stars (On hold)

6-3

A/N: Last part of our first impression of Shimon's and Mayura's first meeting. Let's see if it ends in catastrophe. *evil laughter* Or not. *wink*

Embers flew from the twisting stick.

Mayura blinked her eyes in surprise. In the next instant she rolled the stick with much more vigor between the palms of her hands.

So far Mayura had learned two things: First of all, a fire is damn hard to make. Second, if an action of a story was told, it probably was never the accurate time it actually takes. While the scene had taken only a while, lightening the fire had taken almost the rest of the day. The sun stood low by now and Mayura blew on the little flame that slowly consumed the straw and hugged the much more drier twigs. She hoped this time it would cause them to burn. The last three attempts had been futile. And she had to go grab new straw to try it again, which hadn't been easy thanks to the shower of rain today. Her knees hurt. Her hands hurt more; having bled from so many cuts and grazes. Very early on her task, she had ripped off the bandage that Jinya-sama had bound around her hand where she had hammered splinters into it. It was no comparison to the cuts and rubbed of skin that were covering her hands now. Especially on the hand that had been wrapped into the wet clothing making it sensitive to the exposure and easy for the friction to pull off skin. Nevertheless Mayura had not given up. She wanted to prove to herself and the stranger uphill that she was able to do this. Never would she give him the satisfaction of seeing that she couldn't do it, that she was worthless. Never would she give evidence to the small voice in her head, calling herself useless. Never.

This time it had to work. Commanding the fire to burn, she stared at the little flames until they spread over the twig onto another. Was it truly working now? Had she managed to make a fire?

She stared a while longer until she heard a crackle of the fire, bursting one of the twigs as it's blackened skin cracked open.

Mayura blinked in wonder. Did this mean - ?

Her lips twitched upwards as she watched the flame grow faster and faster by each blink of an eye. She did it! The Crystal be praised! She had managed to make fire!

A high pitched giggle shook her body. Satisfied and giddily by the joy of her accomplishment she sat and stared as the force of nature ate away old and cast off twigs. Mayura gave it more to feed adding more of the collected wood to the flames. A dark screen of smoke rose from the fire and enveloped her. Coughing she crawled out of the wind direction. She blinked her slightly burning eyes until they stopped to produce tears and continued to watch the fire consume the wood.

She had no idea how long she had stared at the fruits of her work but the sun almost kissed the horizon. And all the while blue eyed, red haired fish catching soldier of Tsuchimikado with a deadly blade had not returned. What was taking him so long? Had he pulled a trick on her? Did he actually have a boat and was now returning to his homeland or Crystal Island?

The later one seemed unlikely, given the fact, that he had been wet from head to toe similar to her. Yet, the silence and tranquility around her, made her feel lonely and insecure. There was no sound except for the cracking of the fire in front of her and the rush of the waves behind her. She wouldn't have thought silence could be such a scary thing. She never had experienced this kind of silence. At the estate there always had been a lot of people. Here on this island there was no one. She wouldn't admit it out loud but she would be glad for the company of the soldier. Even if she did not know if she could trust him, it would be better than having to deal with this dead silence. Coldness showered over her and made the hair on her arms rise. She was getting restless moment by moment.

With a sigh she decided, that she should not wait. Even if she was hungry, it would not accelerate the speed of his reappearance. But what could she do?