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He pressed his lips at the familiar shriek. The horizontal line, neither a smirk nor a frown, suggested both contentment and uneasiness at the same time. Even across the sand, in reality a few feet, her call seemed like the distance between them went on for days.

As any respectable and socially adept person would do, he walked to close the distance between them. In this instance, maybe Belle would have expected him to say “hi” or whatever poor Clavatian greeting he had prepared in the time it took him to walk. 

Layle failed at two things in that moment. One, he was not a respectable Clavat anyone who didn’t know him would have pegged him for. Thus, two, he was not socially adept enough to even fake a sincere, “how do you do?”  Instead he asked, “What are you doing here?” 

She fought the smile her lips attempted to twist into, forcing them down into an obedient frown. ‘Crystal Bearer to the core’ though he may be, there had never been any getting around the fact he was Clavat (a word too often interchanged with cowardly by her kind– but hey, if the proverbial shoe fit). It endeared him to her as much now, as ever. All the same, he had a lot of nerve showing up here if he had no plans to mend some singed bridges, and so she took the initiative, balled fists propped on her hips as she called out across the sand.

“Are you gonna come say hi to me, or what?”

[snarkytoughguy-blog]

It was only through the corner of his eyes he noticed the familiar auburn of her hair, a matching pair of eyes, and sun-kissed skin. He turned to look, unsure at that distance what her facial expression meant. So he offered the only thing he knew best: a nonchalant nod (a signature greeting he, only in his mind, called a nod-chalant) accompanied with an awkward raise of his hand, like some crystal antenna broadcasting a weak “oh, hi Belle.” 

Months before things might have gone much differently– Belle having been far more likely at the time to greet him with a fist for leaving her without a word– but as they were, time was, for once, on the Crystal Bearer’s side. Heartbreak and bruised pride both had dulled in his absence, to the point that, at sight of him strolling down the beach as if he owned it (like always), she could at least crack a smirk.

“… hmph.” Wry as it was.

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He was almost sure he had only been gone a few weeks. Too short of a departure to warn anyone, that was for sure. At the most he had been gone a couple months. But buildings weren’t often constructed in a just a few months. Trees were fuller than he remembered them last. The land itself felt foreign. But it was only a few months.

Wasn’t it?

Maybe “few” was too subjective, too lenient of a word. “Few” meant two or three months, but in this instance, “few” meant a good year. Even that was dubious.

A traveler on his own neglected time, Layle had one thing to say about his unexpected, prolonged disappearance: “Whoops.”

At the very least he managed to remember how to take the train from the Capitol to Costa Faguita, where he then realized how much he craved the sun and the sand.