Loyal Riptide

Part 2 Chapter 1

       She stood by in the shadows as she watched Kaiyu's lime green hair sink through the water's surface and not come out. She didn't move as she looked on when Yoko fell off the castle's front steps and into the palace's gardens with the dead plants below with Hizashi looking on in horror. She didn't do nothing when Shiro and Gordy subjected themselves to years in the shadows in the dungeons. 

Sweat covered her face when she awoke in her small three room cottage in West Gate and glanced around the room to see that it was all a dream, a non existent reality. Asa has been having the same dream every now and then and each time it only gave her more guilt. She slid out of her bed and put on a dirt stained dress shirt with a leather vest over top that blended in with her pants and laced up boots. She glanced around the main room with its limited furniture and worn out peeling paint on the walls and sighed.

Three years ago when Asa and Shiro arrived in West Gate with the now crowned king Dorian he didn't let them go off on their own without him giving them each a place to live. Shiro refused to live in the same place as Asa since at the time he was still mad about her lying to him so many times and because of that she hasn't seen him since. Which she didn't mind, any memory of Aenon is better left to be a memory.

She strolled out into a fenced in meadow where multiple cows grazed and made her way towards a run down barn with peeling red paint that has been too long in the sun. Inside were a few chickens roaming about and pecking at the loose straw on the ground. Asa grabbed a bag of dried up corn and tossed it at the pecking chickens around her feet trying to pick up the precious food. This wasn't her barn but once she first arrived she didn't see anybody taking care of it and so she took the liberty of keeping it up and running, but nobody has bothered to come reclaim it so she decided to keep it until someone does.

A loud crunch on the straw behind her sent the chickens scurrying towards the visitor's booted feet. The man wore a long dark brown coat that buttoned up to his chin that made his short dark blue hair and long bangs stick out like a sore thumb. "You... what are you doing here?" Asa said, glaring her eyes at Shiro leaning against a wooden pillar near the barn's entrance. "I don't see you in years and now you all of a sudden show up. What do you want?"

Shiro kept his position at the pillar when he unbuttoned the top button on his coat to speak, "I wouldn't have come if I didn't have to, but it's nice to see you're doing well." He spoke softly, the sharp tone in his voice gone from what it was three years ago. "But his majesty has requested our appearance." Asa didn't make eye contact with him, her eyes stationed at Shiro's hands in his coat pockets, "I would've expected a guard to come fetch me, not you of all people." She replied, walking slowly up to him. "You're lucky its me of all people," Shiro's voice lowered drastically as he took to her side and walked through the meadow and onto the cobble stone streets of West Gate's agricultural district. "I heard some of the royal guards have been becoming suspicious of his majesty harboring illegal Aenon immigrants, us included."

"It isn't too hard to find us with our hair colour and all. Hell, even you haven't dyed your hair yet so its clear you're not too worried about it." Asa explained as they past by a mother struggling to keep her crying baby silent. "True, but at least I kept myself out of reach of prying eyes and not helping the fishers by leaping into the water with no thought." Shiro aimed that statement directly to Asa who cringed from the truth in it as she had done just that.   

She sighed, "anyway what is Dorian wanting?" It has also been three years since she has actually spoken with Dorian, sure she has seen him visit the agriculture district multiple times no doubt trying to find Asa while making it seem like he cares for his kingdom. "I don't know, but it sounded urgent since he asked for both of us coincidentally." He answered as they walked up the palace steps and up to the guarded front door.