Cursed with immortality, Mars goes on a journey with his lifelong more-than-friends partner Astral, a painfully average future-seeing mage, to find the root of magic, in an effort to ease the side effects of Astral's visions - and to finish their th...
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We had decided to go. We packed lightly in case we were to stay overnight. But no more than one night. We weren't going to be away for long. We had promised Keefe and Zeke as much.
Astral was already complaining by the time we made it out of the town. He really hated walking.
"We should get you proper boots," I said and nodded towards his fancy ones.
"These are perfect."
"They're obviously hurting your feet and they have too high of a heel on them for them to be comfortable. Just say, you'll buy new boots once we get back."
"Sure, I'll buy new and ugly boots once we get back. And then you'll have to watch me wear the ugliest boots in the world."
"If it keeps you from complaining every time, we have to walk further than from our room to the food court, I'm perfectly content with that."
Astral made a face at me.
"You'll look just fine in regular boots." I sighed and picked up the pace a little.
"I'll look ugly and you'll find someone with much better taste, I'm sure."
I laughed and shook my head. "You're ridiculous."
"I'm fashionably aware, thank you very much. You should never underestimate that talent."
"I surely won't. Please excuse my grave mistake, my lord."
"You're a cheeky shit, Mars," Astral laughed and circled his arm around my neck, ruffling up my hair. I pushed him off me, only to grab the front of his jacket, pulling him to me and kissing him.
He chuckled, grabbed my hand, and we continued our walk.
The landscape was quite striking here. Fields stretched over the hills the moment we left the forests behind. Flowers painted the fields pinks and yellows, making it look like someone had put carpets on them. I liked imagining someone would come out every morning with huge carpets and carefully drape them over the fields, only to take them back inside before the evening dew snuck out.
Summer was beautiful here and I couldn't wait until autumn to see the colours changed. I bet it looked even more beautiful, casting the whole countryside in a golden hue.
So pretty.
We pressed on until we finally took a break by a small creek, a nice bridge stretching over it. I unpacked some of the food we had brought for the trip. Some bread and some cheese, some nice wine too.
Astral smiled at me as I poured wine into his travel mug. Despite him being less than happy about his dumb boots and the aches in his feet, there was still happiness to be found. Especially as he submerged his feet into the creek, jerking his head at me, beckoning me to join him.
The water was nice. Not too cold but cool enough. A slight bite in the water told the story of how it probably came from ice in the mountains. Maybe we'd even see snow on the tops, depending on how far up we were going.
