HERA

The whistling wind carried its howl as far as the echoes would take it. Fixed in place, neither Zeta nor Hera said a word as their complexions went deathly pale and their nostrils emptied of moisture.

Zeta’s gaze was dark, his eyes hidden with fear, spots forming on the lids. Eventually, his face erupted in tiny red specks of stress.

“Hera, do you by any chance know where we are?”

“The Western Shelf,” she said promptly.

“Ah, I see,” he said, his darkened gaze unlifted, “yes, that place, of course. Tell me, Hera, is all of the Western Shelf like this.”

“No, just the southern portion.” It was a difficult effort not to cry. “I’d guess it’s like this for 2000 km inland. I don’t know of any nearby towns.”

“Quite a long distance,” he said, with a gentle nod. “Did you happen to bring a map?”

“No, I never considered it! You hurried us away from Aspic!” Hera didn’t mean to raise her voice, but given the circumstances, she couldn’t help herself.

“And, you’re absolutely certain we can’t go back to sea?”

“Zeta, all that’s left of the boat is planks of wood.” The tears were emerging from the depths of her ducts. She forced them back down to stay strong.

“I see. Then I guess we have no choice but to go forward,” he said, facing the endless dune sea before them. “Never in my life did I imagine there could be so much sand in the world.”

His optimism broke her spirit, and when Zeta wasn’t looking she sobbed quietly.

She remembered the sailboat. Perhaps drowning at sea would have been a better fate.

“One week outside of Aspic and I’m already destined to die,” Hera said, her throat scratchy as she climbed up the next dune. The horizon had not changed. Not a settlement in sight. “Someone! For the love of God, if you’re out there, please answer me!” she screamed.

“Hera! Save your voice,” Zeta called. His pace was slightly faster than hers, placing him several dunes ahead at all times. That idiot. She was the one carrying what food and water they had left, which was hardly enough to afford crumbs to a rat.

Oh, who was she kidding? The food and water weren’t enough to weigh her down. It didn’t exist. It was her own exhaustion, her slow pace, her unfit, urban figure that staggered her endurance. Surviving the streets of Aspic was a completely different field from surviving nature. All the lessons she had mastered were thrown out the window and buried beneath mounds of yellow grains.

Her mother always warned her to never run off with strange guys, for they always brought trouble. Hera assumed she was talking about a lover of sorts, but she would have taken a foolish romance over this hopeless pursuit any day.

She shivered. Thinking of home wasn’t helping her situation. If anything, it amplified her stress.

On her way down the next dune, she tripped into the slack, plummeting into the sand and loosening her grip on the last few oats they possessed. With it, her pride and willpower.

“Hera!” Zeta called, coming closer. “Are you alright?”

She rolled onto her stomach. The sun burned her eyes with both its hue and its heat, but she could hear him approaching. Small bombs of sand bursting from the dunes in conjunction with his steps. Eventually, Zeta’s stupid face shadowed her view with an optimistic grin.

“Zeta, I don’t think I can keep moving,” she said.

“No worries! We have a lead!”

“On civilization?” He nodded vigorously. Hera couldn’t help but notice his eyes were red. “You saw people?”

“No, but I know where they went, look!” He pointed to the dunes behind them. “Footsteps.”

It was wasteful but worth it. Hera mustered the strength to punch him square in the cheekbones. “Those are yours!”

“Oh, really?” Zeta started laughing, and that’s when Hera realized he had entered some strange state of delirium. His red eyes rolled back into his head. After losing his balance and drifting about in small, staggered steps, he toppled to the ground, all the while never ceasing his hysteria. His body immediately went limp as he passed out.

Four hours. That’s how long they had been wandering through the burning heat, and that fact dawned upon Hera as she stared at Zeta’s slowly rising chest. Time had been lost to them. Their bodies just kept moving and moving without protection, without supplies. Zeta had maintained a straight spine throughout all of it, but his simple mind had degraded with every step.

And now he was unconscious, his head sprinkled with oats, sand, and sweat.

“We’re going to die,” she said aloud, collapsing to her knees. “This is happening. We’re going to die. And all because of his–because of our stupidity.” She wanted to curl into a ball. This was it, her will had cracked. Nature wanted them dead, so what point was there in resisting?

No! Zeta had already taken the insanity route, but someone needed to be rational. They could either both break and perish together, or at least try to survive. Besides, if Zeta died and she was starving, cannibalism had not been pushed off the table.

She wrapped his arm around her shoulder and heaved. Zeta might be useless, but he was not bringing her down with him. Thankfully, he woke up when the blood touched all limbs in his body again. “Oh, uh, where was I? Where’s the steak, Sir Kagan…” His speech slurred.

“Can you walk?”

“Ye-Yeah.”

Zeta’s steps were drowsy; his body swayed. He looked up and grinned. “Hera, this is the biggest beach I’ve ever seen!”

She kicked him, lighter this time so he didn’t fall over. “Get moving, moron. I refuse to die because of you.”

They kept up their trek for several more hours, but the scorching heat never relinquished its wrath. Hera believed she had sweat off ten pounds. Zeta wobbled alongside her, drunk on dehydration.

He started giggling. “Hhheerrrraaa, wanna see a magic trick?”

She raised an eyebrow. Zeta extended his arms and lost his balance briefly. “Furlong Reein.”

“What?”

Nothing happened. Zeta tried again. “Faaling Reig.”

“Zeta, are you alright?” Had he lost his mind? Could she kill him? Killing him didn’t seem like a bad idea at the moment.

“Fallleing Rein.”

Above them, where the bright sun used to boast its light, clouds clumped together and grayed. Then the clump started to drip. Freshwater.

“Ta-da! There’s my magic trick” Zeta chuckled.

“Zeta! Holy–” She had forgotten he employed a new sigma when they washed ashore. Hell, with the state they were in, she had forgotten they had sigmas. Falling Rain, an Elementary Grade sigma with the simple task of kicking the water cycle into overdrive. They took it from Terrent Gust; the power of the Curved Storm had come to save them.

But, how was Zeta able to use it? He had employed it, but when did he accumulate the right amount of Divinity to do so? He wasn’t using an Ora Charm, and he seemed to be allergic to prayer, so–

What the hell does it matter? Hera opened her mouth and let the steady shower flood in. Even in tiny drops, each tap on the tongue brought bountiful refreshment.

Then it stopped after two minutes, as per Falling Rain’s requirements, and Zeta prepared to pass out again. Absolutely not. She caught him before he hit the ground.

“Not yet, Zeta! We can still make it. Just keep using that, and we’ll both be fine. This is what makes sigmas a saving grace, remember! This is their wonder, the kind you wanted to find.” Growing up around sigmas, she didn’t consider them that special. But for the first time in her life, she came to appreciate their existence as the godsend that they were. Her heart thumped at their marvel, and Zeta’s perspective on sigma powers was starting to make much more sense.

She really was losing it if Zeta’s perspective was making sense.

“O-okay,” Zeta said. He picked himself up and grinned involuntarily, a symptom of his delusion. Hera heard rumors of things known as ‘mirages’ in desert biomes. She couldn’t help but wonder if he was seeing one now?

The gray clouds parted. Hera and Zeta continued moving toward an endless destination. The dune sea’s makeup had not changed once during their seven-hour traversal of its sands. She could spot the differences between one hill and the next, and eventually, she saw clones. All sense of direction was scrambled to the point where Hera wondered if they wandered in circles.

The mundane dune sea was increasingly tiresome to stare at. Sand chafed her legs, and heat seared her skin. Perhaps this was not the Western Shelf, but rather Hell?

She quickly learned how valueless little drops of rainwater were for her system. Like a portable well, she pushed Zeta to use Falling Rain again. Each instance offering a temporary reprieve and left Zeta more exhausted than the previous.

That was one detriment to sigmas. Even though it wasn’t an official limiter, repeated use of specific sigmas drained one’s stamina. It’s a minor issue, and it could be quickly recovered in a regular situation.

Their scenario, however, was highly irregular.

“Fulling Rine,” Zeta said at Hera’s urging. It registered. She made sure he received enough of his own water too, but it never seemed to be enough.

“I don’t feel so good,” Zeta said, shutting his eyes and bobbing his head.

“No, no. You’re fine. Just look up and drink. Zeta? Zeta!”

He collapsed, his sword sticking into the sand. Shortly afterward, the rain stopped. Sigmas automatically stop functioning after the user loses consciousness or dies.

“Zeta, wake up! Not now. We can’t stop now!”

He was breathing, but barely. No, don’t die. Not from this. After what they went through with Balder Rex, nature was the last thing she was willing to let take them. Hera wanted to punch herself from hours earlier from daring to even contemplate giving up. Not from this.

“You have things to accomplish! Get up!” she yelled, grabbing him by the shoulders and pulling him. “You’ll be brought to death’s door many times, Zeta! If a little heat is all it takes to topple you, then you can’t be worthy of the title you covet!”

He didn’t stir, hanging limp as she dragged him through the sand.

“If you can’t survive this, you aren’t worthy of being a Servant of Humanity!”

A firm hand gripped her arm and tightened. Zeta pulled himself up and bore his eyes into hers. “It’s not a matter of worthiness. I already am a Servant of Humanity. Don’t you dare say that again.”

She gulped. Zeta looked rabid as he spoke, foaming at the mouth. “Well, I guess I made my point,” she said meekly.

He picked up Black Meridian and continued forward. “You are right, Hera. This is a trial of sorts. If we’re being tested to be worthy of anything, we’re to be worthy of the wider world,” he said. Zeta looked to the sky and raised his arms. “Falling Rain.” He winced as the activation pinched his heart.

This time, with the rain, came a rumble.

“I don’t remember that. What’s happening?” Zeta asked.

“I’m not sure,” Hera said as she was thrown off balance. Was it Quake? No, she had that in her inventory. Had they abused the sigma too much and angered some celestial god?

Only they would be that unlucky.

In the distance, a dust cloud approached rapidly, tearing through the dune sea as if it were cream and butter.

“Zeta!”

“We can’t run, it’s too fast!” He drew Black Meridian. As if that could stop a sandstorm.

But on closer inspection, it wasn’t a sandstorm at all. Far from it. It was a…dune? Two shadowed figures stood on top, one with its hands pushed behind it, driving the dune.

The cloud grew smaller and slower until it disappeared right before them. The rumbled halted, leaving Zeta and Hera to face a massive hump of sand.

The two figures were in plain view now. They hopped off onto the sand and removed their goggles, scarfs, and hoods. A man and a woman of youthful and dark complexions. Their outfits were ragged, lightweight, and primarily colored brown and beige. Perfect protection for the desert.

The man, who had been driving the dune, spoke first, his accent thick and deep. “Friends, may I know who has been making the sky cry so much?”