The Time Mage

Chapter 27: Outing Successful?

Kason closed his eyes as he fell in anticipation of the painful impact with the ground that was surely waiting for him. To his surprise, however, all he felt as a slight bump around the middle of his back before he was pushed back up by something soft and springy beneath him. He immediately turned his head to see what it was that had saved him and saw that a thick layer of moss had sprouted up from the earth to form a sort of bed upon which he was lying.

He puzzled for a moment over this strange phenomena, but then he heard a slight rustling and his name being called again. He looked up to find the worried face of Lexia looking down at him.

"Are you alright?" She asked in a gentle voice.

Kason looked back at her speechless for a moment, then he quickly replied that he was fine and pushed himself into a sitting position. Lexia moved backwards and to allow him room to sit and as she did, Kason noticed that she was limping slightly.

"Did something happen to you? Are you alright?" He asked with concern.

Lexia smiled wryly and explained how, after the drakelings had ambushed the group, she had run off back in the direction that they had come from, but had unluckily tripped over a protruding tree root and almost sprained her ankle. Kason looked up at her with sympathy, she looked as though she had been through a lot.

Her auburn hair had broken free from the ponytail it had been tied in and was cascading down past her shoulders. The special outfit that she had worn for the outing seemed to be in one piece, however, Kason could seen streaks of mud and crushed greenery all across it; discolouring the white stripes to a colour more like the brown that made up the rest of it.

"Did you manage to get away from the drakelings?" He asked and then realised that it was a stupid question, given that she was standing in front of him at this moment.

Lexia smiled, "Yeah, one of them came chasing after me, but Hugo came along just in time and rescued me, he probably cushioned your landing just now as well. But I wonder where he's gone now?"She looked around briefly, trying to figure out where he had gone. After a moment she stopped looking and turned back to Kason, who was in the midst of pushing himself to his feet.

"Oh, yeah! You lost something when you fell" She said, pulling something out of one of her many pockets. It was the necklace with the silver bird-winged locket that Kason had been wearing.

Kason looked at it in surprise, his hand subconsciously going to his neck to feel for where the strap should have been. He took the necklace back from Lexia saying a heartfelt thanks and giving the locket a once-over to see if it had been damaged in any way. As he looked over it, he puzzled over how the necklace could have come off while he was falling; he had been keeping it under his college robes after all so it shouldn't have fallen out, even when he was falling.

As he was busy examining the locket, Lexia looked at him with a bashful expression on her face, "I'm sorry that I made you fall." She said in a quiet voice.

Kason, who was only been half listening, accepted her apology and replied with a half-hearted word of forgiveness. After he spent a while confirming that the locket wasn't damaged in any way, he looked back up at Lexia. She was standing a little way off, now examining one of the flowers that were growing in the shade of the tree that Kason had fallen out of.

Kason gazed at her absentmindedly, thinking about what she had said while he was examining the locket. After a moment he frowned slightly, she had apologised for making him fall, but he hadn't even realised that she was the reason he had fallen or how she had even found him in the first place.

He walked over to her. "Ledia," He called out in a soft voice, "umm, how exactly did I end up falling out of the tree?"

Lexia looked over her shoulder and shot him a quizzical glance. "I was, umm, a bit distracted while I was up there." He explained with a nervous laugh.