• The wind caressed her cheek, lifting her hair and whipping it away from her face. Her eyes were closed, and a small smile played upon her lips. She knew what was about to happen. It had happened only twice before in her sixteen summers, but she knew the signs as surely as she knew her own name. Surer, actually.
    The wind died down, and a cold hand traced the line of her jaw. She opened her eyes, gazing at the boy who now stood in front of her. He wore plain, dark green pants and a loose white shirt.
    "You came back." She whispered, smiling.
    "I promised I would." His hand grasped her own, and he looked intently at her with his startling blue eyes, so different from her warm dark ones. She gazed back, letting him into her being. The first time he had done this, she had been afraid of what he would see. Now she knew that he would not judge her on her mortal weaknesses, and that he only sought to know her mind.
    "Sasha..." He sighed, letting go of her hands. "You should not waste such feelings on me. I cannot age, as you do."
    "Do you remember when we first talked?" Sasha asked, no longer smiling, her gaze serious.
    "Of course I do. You were only seven summers."
    "Do you remember what happened?"
    "Yes." He was silent, the memory returning to him...

    The small girl looked up at him curiously. Her dark eyes were wide and innocent. He knelt down to her height and snatched a few ribbons of breeze from the air, spinning them into a ball the size of an apple.
    The little girl laughed in delight when she saw them. "How do you do that?" She demanded, trying to snatch the winds from his hand. Her tiny fingers just passed through them.
    "I am an elemental." He picked three leaves off the ground and moulded them into a small circular shape. Then he released some of the wind, spinning the rest into a tiny globe that fitted perfectly into the pendant. "Here. These winds will never die, unless you stop believing in their magic."
    The child took it, eyes huge. "Thank you, mister."
    He smiled at her. "My name is Pakal. And yours?" He already knew, but she wasnt to guess that he had been watching over her since she was a tiny baby.
    "Sasha. I'll always keep this!"

    "I'll always keep this," Sasha repeated the words from so long ago, holding the globe out. It hung from a leather cord around her neck, the winds still spinning inside the leaves which Pakal had trapped them inside.
    Pakal was silent for a moment, then he took both her hands. "If only you were an elemental as well, or I a mortal." Someday she would die, and he would have to live forever without her.
    "We'll have to use the time we have." She let go of his hands and wrapped her arms around him, guessing what he was thinking. "How long?"
    "I leave tomorrow, at sunset." He rested his chin on the top of her head. "I cannot ignore my duties after that."
    She did not reply, face buried in the folds of his shirt. He held her tighter. It wasn't fair to her, to wait for him to return after disappearing for years at a time, but as long as she still wanted him around he would never argue.