The girl had been gone for 20 minutes. Her dad would be here soon to pick her up. The other counselors had rounded up pretty much every kid and were now trying to keep them contained until their parents arrived.
“Hey, have you seen Talia?” one of Lux’s fellow counselors asked him. His name was Jeremy.
“I haven’t, but I think I know where she is,” Lux replied.
“Are you going to tell me where that might be?” asked the other counselor. Lux had already started walking off.
“Nah,” he said without turning around.
Lux worked at The Eye of the Storm’s summer camp, a day care service where kids would sing songs and learn the teachings of Talos. Lux had no real work experience before this, but his father had said it was time he finally learned some responsibility so he forced Lux to apply. The fact that his father was the head of The Eye of the Storm made it so that they couldn’t refuse him even if they wanted to. At first Lux didn’t think he would like it, but the job grew on him. He even wrote a few songs about Talos for the kids to sing.
The yammering of the children faded away as Lux rounded the corner of the building that served as the base of operations for the summer camp. There stood an old and sturdy conifer tree at least 4m tall.
"Man! Talia won again! Isn't this like the third week in a row!?" he exclaimed to the sweet air surrounding the tree. He heard a suppressed giggle directly above him. He looked up casually and pointed.
"Found ya."
Talia was 11 years old. She had dark, messy hair, bright blue eyes, and dimples. As some birds started singing in the distance, she looked off in the direction of the sound and her smile got a little bit wider. Lux had never met a kid who liked hide and seek quite as much as she did.
"Don't move; I'm coming up," he said. He scrambled up with practiced ease and then turned to meet Talia's wide eyed gaze.
"How'd you know where I was?" asked the girl.
"This was my favorite hiding spot when I was your age."
"Really!?" Talia’s muscles tensed with excitement.
"Really," said Lux.
They sat in silence for a minute.
"I like being high up. I don't know why." Talia said.
"Is it cause you wanna be far away from everything?"
"Yeah?" Her eyes drifted away for a moment, but then she looked back at Lux, seemingly satisfied with her answer.
"I feel that."
Lux recalled his own games of hide and seek as a child. He would sit in this tree for hours, letting the sound of howling wind and rustling branches drown out the sound of people calling his name. Nowadays, whenever someone called his name around here, they almost always needed something.
"What are you gonna do when you get home?"
"I don't know. Something boring as heck most likely. I think I have to clean my room, water the plants, just a whole bunch of chores," she replied.
A laugh escaped from Lux as he was reminded of all the things he had to get done himself. He was in the process of writing a play about how Talos had used massive waves and bolts of lightning to carve the valley in which they lived. He meant for the kids to put on this play for the harvest festival at the end of the summer but he hadn’t finished writing it, and the harvest festival was only about a month away. Not to mention he had to get the other counselors on board with the idea…
“Lux?” asked Talia, “You ok?”
Lux snapped out of it and realized he was breathing heavily. “Yeah,” he said, composing himself. “Wanna see something cool?”
Talia replied with a cautious yet curious “Sure...”
Lux crossed his arms and slid off the branch. His bum bounced off four branches before his feet touched the ground. Talia's face lit up.
"So you start there, then you go that one - that one - that one - that one." Lux pointed to the branches in order.
"That one - that one - that one - that one," Talia repeated as she pointed to the same branches. She carefully moved over to the first branch, held out her arms to the side, and slid. Her bum bounced 4 times, she hit the ground and she exhaled.
"Nailed it," Lux said with a smirk. He held out his hand for a low-five. She smacked his hand hard, but he was ready for it.
They started walking back to the camp. Her father was already there, waiting. There was an expression of mild annoyance and boredom on his face, but when Talia waved at him he waved back and his expression softened entirely. Talia looked up at Lux and said,
"You know, you're really cool, Lux."
"Not as cool as you. Now go see your dad."
She gave Lux a hug around the waist and ran off. All the other kids were gone. The sky had gone from blue to pink during the time that he was in the tree.
“Lux!” called a voice from behind him. It was Jeremy again. Lux sighed.
“Yeah?”
“I see you found Talia. Now can you tell me where she was?” he asked.
“Why does it matter?”
“It’s a safety issue, Lux,” Jeremy said more sternly, “We can’t have kids just disappearing like that, especially someone like Talia. Who knows what she could be up to? She never talks...”
Lux laughed.
“Maybe not to you. Can we not just let the kid be a kid?”
Jeremy sighed.
“The guys and I are probably gonna go grab some drinks now. You wanna come with?”
Lux thought he should probably spend tonight working on the play, but it had been a long day and he was pretty exhausted.
“Yeah ok,” Lux said, and the two walked off towards the tavern.
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