Leif Starchaser was in pain. A lot of pain, really; but that didn't surprise him much. It was just how life was: you lived, you felt pain. There was simply no way around it. Still, that didn't mean he had to be very happy about it. And he wasn't happy about it, wasn't happy about it at all, but he couldn't let it keep him down, either. Leif was too young to lay around in bed all day and let his mind race around about what to do about the situation he found himself in, as sure as the sky was blue.
He groaned lowly when he sat up and instinctively grabbed with one hand his lower back, still sore at times, long though it was since his life was saved; with his other hand, he grabbed at his neck first then wiped the sleep from his eyes with tight, balled fists. Once he had acclimated to the aches and pains still ever-present in his body, he looked around the tiny room, small but still somehow vacant feeling, even with the cluttered desk in one corner and a pile of laundry needing to be done in another. He sighed.
Six months had passed since the lovely Korah, his sister Elene, and three others had rescued him from his brief but certain misery in the Hallowed Dunes. The plan had been to leave as soon as possible, same as it always was in recent years. Meeting Korah made that a bit too hard to do--impossible even. Each night had passed with the same plan: to slip away into the night without a trace. And yet, each night he found it harder and harder to do. Leaving has never easy, but it had never been this difficult, either.
Even Korah, the man Leif had fallen in love with, had to be clueless when he came calling and Leif's bed lay empty, and undisturbed, with no evidence of where he might have gone. It would have to be that way, unfortunately. Every bit of Leif's thinking knew that if he told Korah he was leaving, there would be nothing he could say to spare the hurt feelings it would cause.
It was all the fault of the Loop, of course. It had made his life a terrible one to live, and anger filled him every time he thought about what his life could have been like. Additionally, he always came to thinking what he might have done to deserve whatever continually disrupted his life. He wanted to believe that this time was different, that he had seen enough death that nobody else need die because of him.
He reminded himself that after each and every time the Loop had interfered with his life, it had left him with no other choice but to run He had seen enough evidence of The Loop's destruction; enough that he had to leave immediately lest more people die because of him.
Countering that thought, as he often did, he believed that it was different this time. He had a name, for one : Karrin D'Lan. He had a little more than a name. He had a face. One that seemed to show up every time things got really bad. At least it was something to concentrate on. If her information was correct, Karrin D'Lan was a well-trained wizard for hire who, after asking around, showed up just about anywhere there was big trouble to be found. Nor was that the only element he found in Oasis that made this time different. It was nearly impossible to determine which of them was the cause that made him feel differently than usual.
And though that was so, he couldn't help to think that he hadn't run yet for no other reason than he simply didn't want to.
He had made a plan to head to the city of Archaea, where Karrin D'Lan had most recently been seen, if his sources were correct. Leif had thought once he found the Philosopher's Stone and retrieved it, she would head to Archaea, and still thought so long after the plan had derailed. But she had been in other cities as well and the truth was that finding her was going to be more difficult than he originally intended, he found himself at an impasse. Undecided and, quite possibly he mused, complacent.
That wasn't the real problem though, the problem was Korah. Each and every time that Korah showed up in Leif's mind he knew he couldn't leave him behind. Doing so was so damned difficult; so much so that he couldn't get himself to leave without Korah. He had, on many nights even gone so far as to pack—or at least begin to pack—his belongings but when the time had come and a moon shone down upon him at last, it just seemed wrong.
Leif wanted to take Korah with him when he left and he didn't care much about what he had to do to make that fanciful vision of his a reality. He felt with considerable determination that when he left Oasis, Korah would be by his side. Coming alongside of that thought, he tried to complete what was really true: if Korah wasn't by his side, he wouldn't be leaving. It made him feel horrible about himself.
His rational mind screamed out at him that he couldn't do that, that something terrible drew nigh. Leif believed that taking Korah with him, they could do just about anything.
How could he ask Korah to leave his home, and more importantly, what would he say when he told Korah he had to move from town to town, restless. What would he think about the Loop?
Thinking further, he analyzed what he knew about the three previous disasters inflicted by the Loop, horrible and frightening magic Leif knew it to be. Each time he thought about the disasters that occurred because he disbelieved that some sorcery had been cast on him in the first place, he broke out in tears and could only think of those that died simply because they had come to know him and call him a friend. They died while that same deadly force took the lives of his friends, he for some reason could not be hurt, could not be killed. This one grace he was granted made him feel only worse, not better like he might've felt if he were someone else. Someone darker.
In his analysis he found that the first warning sign would come in the form of an attack on the city. No attack had happened in Oasis, so he felt that the Loop hadn't begun to do whatever it was that the powerful Loop really did. That was a good sign, surely. That meant that they could leave before disaster could strike. There was still time, he sighed, and with a heavy burden upon his shoulders.
Every thought he had was centered around Korah now and he was adamant in his belief that he couldn't leave Korah behind. It had been so easy to fall for him, blue hair and azure eyes to match. At first, it was his sister Elle that had eyes for Leif, originally, but that ceased to matter once he spoke to Korah. There was as instant bond as cannot usually be made, he knew. Very little mattered since then.
Those first days of getting to know Korah he would never forget. It was like a whole new world developed, a force that sucked Leif into staying day after day, knowing he should leave but having a burning desire that prevented him from doing so.
In those first days, the words that Korah used were imprinted into his mind, never to be forgotten. He asked so many questions—he wanted to know everything about Leif, and Leif was quite unaccustomed to that sort of behavior. Of course, Leif answered with mostly accurate information, keeping hid those things he wanted to say hidden and felt a crushing guilt he knew would not leave very easily.
It was a scary thing to do, to have that conversation with Korah and tell him what he had been through and what could happen if he lingered in Oasis for much longer. And, unfortunately, he felt he was fated to do just that.