Finding Stardust

When they were satisfied, Therius kissed Emma's hair and spooned her, enjoying the fact that their heartbeats slowly began to tune. When their panting had subsided and they both relaxed, Emma turned around and looked at Therius with a flushed face.

"Do you want to wash up?" she whispered.

Therius nodded. He kissed Emma on the lips one more time, then got up and pulled Emma's hand toward the lake.

"Want to jump together?" he asked.

Emma nodded. The two of them ran together while holding hands then jumped together into the lake. Therius and Emma's bodies entered the water and emerged a second later with wet heads and hair.

The two of them laughed in unison and splashed water at each other. Their date this afternoon was really fun. They enjoyed a romantic atmosphere, a beautiful view, made love till they were satisfied, and now did skinny-dipping in the blue lake.

Therius and Emma played with water, swam, and made out in the lake. Sometimes they would kiss and splashed water again at each other. When they were having fun, Emma was reminded that her childhood was utterly unpleasant and lonely.

Today, as she played with her husband in the water, had fun teasing and flirting with each other, laughed, and made sweet love together. She felt like she finally made up for her lost childhood. Emma was grateful because, slowly, her life had changed for the better.

Therius also never had a real childhood. His parents died when he was 6 years old, and since then, he had experienced a harsh life in the palace. 

Even though he was the king's grandson, he felt that he was always alone and Queen Ygrit was very strict with his upbringing.

He also hated the fact that he did not have a pleasant childhood. Today, he felt very satisfied that he could lose himself with Emma. He didn't remember when was the last time he played with water and laughed happily like this.

Ahh .. Emma really changed his life for the better. He felt very grateful.

"I ... love you so much," Therius whispered as he pulled Emma into his arms, then kissed her on the lips. "I will be very sad and miss you while you stay at the academy, but I want you to learn new stuff and do the things you love."

Emma closed her eyes, enjoying Therius' passionate kiss on her lips. She had heard Therius say the word 'love' to her many, many times now, but she had never returned it.

Inside, she was starting to feel guilty. She felt that her life now was very pleasant. She slowly began feeling happy. And according to her, it was all because of Therius.

"I'm ... happy to be with you," Emma said finally after their kiss ended. "I'm going to miss you too. We should try to see each other as often as possible."

Emma's face lit up at Therius' words. Ahh ... she didn't mind if they meet often. She always loved spending time with Therius day by day.

"I'd be delighted," she said, smiling broadly. 

After the two of them were satisfied with their swim and finished washing up while making out occasionally, Therius and Emma returned to the land and put on their clothes. They sat back on the grass, looking at the sky and relaxing.

Half an hour later, they started to feel hungry again. The vigorous lovemaking they did earlier had taken up a lot of their energy. Luckily, they still had some fruits in their paper basket.

Emma and Therius then enjoyed the fruit while sipping wine and admiring the view. Hundreds of golden geese swimming in the middle of the lake now began to approach them, and both could now see the beautiful animals up close.

"This place is so gorgeous," said Emma. "I'm glad not many people come here. If they found out that it is so beautiful, maybe people would flock here too."

"This place is quite a distance from the Merridell entrance. Only really adventurous people will come here," said Therius. "A lot of Merridell's other parts are also nice and not too far away, so people prefer to go there."

The two of them relaxed while chatting until it was almost sunset. The Akkadian sun was slowly going down, and the sky was now tinged with red and purple colors.

What Therius said was true. From their position, the Akkadian sun seemed to be setting between two white mountains behind the forest on the other side of the lake. It looked so beautiful!

While Therius and Emma were enjoying the sunset view, suddenly, from the direction of the white mountain, two small black shadows were seen floating in the sky. Slowly the shadow grew bigger they got closer to their direction.

"What is that?" asked Emma in surprise. She took Therius' arm and pointed to the sky. Therius, who was pouring wine back into his paper cup, looked up and narrowed his eyes. He stared intently at the two objects that were dashing towards them at high speed.

He let out a shocked cry and immediately rose to his feet. "Those are dragons!"

Emma was shocked to hear that. Therius mentioned the name of the animal, which Emma translated in her head as 'dragon'.

Are there dragons... in Akkadia? How exciting!

Ahh .. she regretted not reading about what animals are on this planet. It seemed that there were so many interesting creatures that she never imagined she would witness in her lifetime. For example the pegasus, the silver and golden swans ... and now ... dragons!

Emma stood up and looked closely at the sky. Sure enough, after the two shadows became very close, she could recognize the form of the two animals as the mythological creatures that she had only read in fantasy books.

A metallic blue dragon with large scales and broad wings was flying rapidly towards them, followed by another dragon which was black and thinner but looked of a more terrifying kind.

Were these two dragons fighting? Playing chase? Or...?

Emma didn't know how the dragons on the planet Akkadian live and interact, so she didn't know whether the two dragons were enemies or friends. What was clear was that the black one was chasing the blue one with all his might.

"Hey ... someone is riding the black dragon," said Emma after the two dragons were only a few dozen meters away from them.

She just saw that on the black dragon's back, there was a man riding on him. He was giving orders to the dragon to chase the blue dragon.

When she looked at the face of the dragon rider, it so happened that at the same time, the man was turning his head towards Emma. For a moment, he and Emma were staring at each other.

Suddenly the black dragon slowed down, spun once through the air, and then moved slowly toward where Emma and Therius were standing. Soon, he was landing gracefully in front of them.

The blue dragon that had been chased by the black dragon earlier now looked confused. Suddenly no one was chasing it anymore. He also spun once in the air and came down to the ground.

"Gosh..." Emma couldn't help letting out a sigh in amazement as she saw the black dragon land gracefully in front of her. The animal was quite large, about the size of a small house on earth. Its appearance was extremely sinister, with a scaly body and wide, jagged wings at the tips.

His little eyes were red, staring at Emma intently. The man who was sitting on its back immediately jumped down from the dragon and stood before Emma and Therius with his hands akimbo.

"This is a restricted area for the public. Why are you guys here?" he snapped at them.

Emma turned to Therius and frowned. "Is this area off-limits?"

Therius shook his head. "No. Xion and I used to come here often."

The dragon rider turned his head towards Therius when he heard the man's voice. He looked at Therius with a frown. 

"Therius?" he asked.

Therius crossed his arms in his chest and greeted the other man in a cold voice. "Marlowe."

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From the author:

Ahhh... I am happy to see Therius and Emma seem to enjoy their blossoming relationship. I think, at this rate, Emma will soon fall in love with Therius too.

Btw, please welcome Marlowe. He is a new character in this book. I am excited about introducing more and more people.