Marco and Scias

Soon… very, very soon… the tide of this war shall change…

******

It's high noon, the sun shines brightly upon the wide open plains, making the green grassy landscape irradiated with shadow from the moving clouds. Two young men sitting on the warm grass, one of them lies down with his head on his two hands against the ground.

The one with the black hair known as Marco Istinggar is a sixteen-year old teenager. He is an explorer. He has jet-black colored hair. Most of the time he wore his explorer outfit which is mostly in mint color.

"Haaah...." Marco exhaled.

"There you go sighing again, M-Marco... this is t-the twentieth time you did it,” his friend commented.

"I can't believe it, Scias! I swear I've loaded my pouch with full ammunition. But it turns out it was yesterday's. Dammit all!" Marco yelled.

"Heh… it means we should c-call it a d-day. Let's go home." Scias beared a small smirk.

"Oh, yeah, great! Yeaaaahhh.... Just greaaaat! The hunting season ends at two this afternoon, you know?" said Marco reasoning frowningly.

"Heh, come on, enough whining. Let's go back to the town. If we're lucky, we might still have enough time to extract w-what we got," Scias gets up from the grass and started walking away.

Marco had to follow him eventually.

Scias Trophe, a 25-year-old man whose occupation is a mercenary. He has an astonishingly tall stature for a mercenary, like seriously he is 6'3 while Marco is only 5'5. His hair is blonde. His sharp bangs covered his forehead. He's easy to spot anywhere around, just look for a tall guy, wearing dark-green outfits, blonde hair, and equipped with a katana.

Marco met him for the first time three years ago during his first visit to the Starlynx Kingdom. Scias has this dead-inside-eyes that time… he refused to talk at all to the young explorer and asked him to leave him be. 

Well, what can you expect from a worn-out soldier? Even so, Marco tried to open a conversation and talked to him for some time until he opened his mouth and said "Scias Trophe, now l-leave," he lightly shouted.

"YAY!" Marco mumbled as if he’s the winner of the grand-prize of a bingo game.

Long story short, Marco met him again at Seaside Port here in Areda a year later. Scias didn't wear his soldier armor anymore... But Marco can realize it's him without a second thought. When he saw him, he jumped in closer like a person who just saw a falling angel from the sky. Marco shouted his name, thus he glanced at him, but he simply glared at Marco with his mouth opened a bit.

He walked closer to the young explorer while holding his luggage on his left hand. He then asked…

"...have we met before?"

“Blasts!” Marco thought.

Scias then said to him that he couldn't remember every single person he met because he's a soldier. He said something about not getting too attached or something like that. He was a soldier, now retired. Under unknown reasons, he quitted being a soldier and left the mainland and came to Areda.

He joined the mercenary ranks with no effort because of his previous self as a soldier, although he rarely participated in doing the job. For some reasons he REALLY loved being alone. 

On some occasions Marco saw him spent a lot of time alone in the corner points of the town's wall, even when it's raining. He watched him doing the same thing over, over, and over again for three months.

Even when rumors began to spread about Scias being a ‘murderer’ back when he's a soldier, he didn't care at all. He kept staying alone with all the rumors flying around.

Marco could not stand looking at this saddened guy, so he tried to approach him the same way he did back at Starlynx Kingdom...when Scias saw me getting closer to him, he then got a sparkle of realization. That he did met some annoying brat that kept asking for his name a year ago.

"...You're not scared?" He asked softly. A short pause. 

"Why should I be scared?" Marco replied. 

"You don't h-have to... t-talk to me," He continued briefly. 

"You're not a scary man, in fact, you're a cool guy!" Marco praised him a bit.

"C-C-C-Cool g-g-g-guy...?" He stuttered most of the time when he speaks. He turned at me and glared for a moment. Sometimes it gave Marco the creeps.

"Heh… what's cool from me...? I'm just a F-F-Fire Elementalist," he conveyed with a threatening tone. "There's nothing amazing that I can--"

"--UWOOOAAH! Fire?! Did you say fire?! You're a Fire Elementalist?! COOL!" Marco praised him even more. It is pure out of his heart because he never saw a fire elementalist before. Instead of getting scared, he gets much more excited.

"Show me! Show me what you got!" he shouted in excitement. Scias put an empty glare for a few seconds. He then held out his right hand while having his index finger aimed into the raining sky. He then casted a fire-orange colored magic circle. He casted in a very soft voice.

Fire Line.

A small fire faded in into the magic circle, then it bursted high into the sky shaping like a thin line of fire. Marco was focused so much at the fire that he casted and when the fire fades out... So did Scias. He literally rushed back to his cabin in silence.

After that moment, Marco always spent some time with the loner mercenary, until the moment he never ran off from him when Marco came to him.

Marco also tried to speak with the townsfolk of Areda about Scias' nature, he explained about him as best as he could. The townsfolk liked Marco as who he is, so they listened to every word he spew on them.

A week later... All bad rumors about Scias had gone into thin air. Eventually people are now trying to get to know him better.

After that succession, Marco got confused on why did Scias suddenly bow before him, since Marco thought he's trying to match his height, so he asked him to stand up saying it's okay. 

Ever since then, he always got along with Marco, even when he’s venturing out of Areda, Scias followed him, he tend to help me a lot whenever I face a tough opponent.... they eventually become good friends ever since... even until now.

Although Scias got himself able to interact with everyone, he still has a habit of being alone most of the time... even until now. But he will only talk to Marco normally, although stutters most of the time.

Shortly, however, Marco’s carefree and friendly attitude soon changed him into the better.