Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Desert Phoenix ❯ Desert Phoenix ( Chapter 1 )

Reanna King
Handy pronunciation guide:
Ouene – “Oh-enn-ay”
Desere – “Des-air-ray”
Ad’rei – “Ad-ray”

Desert Phoenix

After the drought hit Aldis, the tiny desert village seemed to be beset upon by the elements almost without pause. In isolation at the edge of the Sandy Sea, Aldis had always sustained itself with a series of wells and springs that had supplied it with sustaining water for hundreds of years. But a few days ago they’d begun to dry up, and the sun seemed to shine even hotter and the blinding white of the rocks most of the homes of Aldis were made of became unbearable. A wizard who could conjure water had been sent for, but this would prove an expensive and temporary solution, and the Silver Mountains stood between Aldis and the rest of the kingdom in a way that now seemed almost spitefully deliberate. It could take over a week before help arrived. Before long, Aldis’s supply of water would be completely exhausted.
In the meantime, the stronger members of the village had struck out into the desert in an attempt to coax a little more water from the old, dusty wells. Some plucky (some would say foolish) individuals considered traveling to the nearby Dark Oasis to ask the demons who lived there for help in return for material goods; it was only a journey of a couple days to the lush, cool jungles where they lived. But that would be a desperate measure indeed, reserved for only the direst of circumstances. No, it was far too risky; instead the men of Aldis contented themselves with digging in the sand, and waiting.
The third night of the drought, the sun retreated below the dunes once more, streaks of orange and pink left behind for a few minutes in a cruel reassurance that it would return the next morning to parch throats and burn away the shadows. A cool breeze came in from the mountains with a relenting sigh, allowing an evening of relief.
Koyda, in the twelve years of his life, had heard of droughts hitting Aldis before in times of no rain, but the adults insisted that this time was different. There was something unnatural about this drought, because it came in the early spring, when the water was always plentiful from thawing of the winter snow in the Silver Mountains.
“The Weeping Dragon River floods,” his mother Desere explained. “Yeah, they say the flooding of the river stands for the land crying when people destroyed the land there centuries ago… something like that,” Desere wasn’t watching Koyda at all; she was at the stone countertop doing her best to cut some vegetables with a knife in dire need of sharpening. The stone taken from the quarries in the desert that almost everything in Aldis was built from were perfect for kitchen countertops because anything cut on it soaked up a salty flavor from it. People visiting from cities to the east thought it a little disgusting, but always found it humorous when animals would gather around buildings to lick the walls.
Koyda might have asked to hear the story but was determined to make it outside for a while now that the sun had set. “We’re eating… when?”
His mother turned, her plain brown dress dusting the floor. “Oh, you go play.”
His father Dorli was nearby reading, and his younger brother Luc was playing with a toy Koyda had made for him. Their home was just two rooms; the one they were in and the room where everyone slept on simple beds stuffed with hay, separated from the foyer by a curtain of wood beads and straw. Dorli looked up from under his thick, bushy brows. “Don’t be wandering.”
Koyda sped from the house, his bare feet kicking up sand that could never be fully cleaned from the smooth stone floor. It didn’t matter; while sandals were commonly worn in Aldis most of its people, especially its children had coarse, tough feet that could not be so easily hurt by rocks and hot sand. This evening, Koyda wanted to relish the feel of the desert sand, cooled by the moonlight, between his toes.
Outside, the land had cooled; the moon rose in the east, turning everything a lazy, relaxed blue. A few sprigs of dry grass tickled Koyda’s feet as he stepped down from the front step, worn smooth from years of being treaded upon. Koyda was still a child, and as such did not need to have a destination in order to go somewhere. He wandered through the streets between the stone buildings, which were dotted with torchlight that came through windows of houses and shone from the front doors of a few shops to indicate they were still open. In the distance he could hear people talking and laughing–there was probably a fire built in the main square of the little village; he could smell the rich smoke of burning wood and some type of meat being roasted on it.
It always overjoyed Koyda that people could be just as happy in a small, poor desert village as in a rich, prosperous city. He’d grown up wanting nothing more than to be a part of the city’s rich tradition, and to protect it; his father was an Aldis native with a strong love of the village and a memory better suited to every line of ancient legends of the desert than what his wife had told him five minutes ago. Koyda’s mother had been left in Aldis by her father, a traveling merchant, who planned on traveling out into the Sandy Sea of the kingdom of Icyl and wished her to remain somewhere he knew she’d be safe. Her father never returned and Desere grew up in Aldis, like an exotic flower of the southern jungle mustering the resilience to grow and thrive in the desert.
“You could probably get ‘em to give you some ‘o that,” a familiar voice spoke from over him, referring to the meat. “Get an extra big piece, and give a bit to me, ‘kay?”
Koyda turned around to face the man standing over him. It was Ad’rei, a merchant who frequented Aldis, usually traveling between there and the cities over the mountains. He always had something unique with him and was usually willing to trade curiosities to Koyda for a bit of hemhur ink–a fluid excreted by a large desert lizard that can be turned into anything from paint to perfume to medicine. Koyda loved going out and scrambling through the sand catching hemhurs and had spent much of yesterday making a brand new snare. “Ad’rei! Hey!”
“Hey Koyda,” Ad’rei smiled. His unkempt dusty brown hair fell over his tanned forehead. His figure was well-built from several journeys over the mountains and while he could never seem to keep himself clean, he always seemed to have a clean set of clothes with him. He smelled a bit drunk that night.
“Ad’rei! Did you bring anything new?” Last time Ad’rei visited he brought some kind of mechanical toy from Silver City, and the time before that a bag of beads made by the demons in Kelorin–he’d used them to make a bracelet for Desere. At his home, Koyda had set aside most of what little space was private to him, an old wooden trunk, to storing the foreign treasures he would trade for with the merchant.
“Eh…” Ad’rei shrugged, pretending to be nonchalant about what he’d brought. For some reason Koyda found the significance of the item to be completely inverse to the amount of ceremony Ad’rei invested into presenting it to him. “Just some magic candy from Sela. I’m sure you’re holding out for something better.”
What could be better than magical candy? He’d only ever tried one piece–they were small sugary orbs that looked more like purple stones with milky streaks through them, with magic infused into them. The time Koyda had gotten to try one he was able to shoot multicolored sparks from his fingers for hours. “Awww!” Koyda shouted in awe. “No, no, I’ll trade you for it! I just… don’t… have any ink right now.”
Ad’rei smiled knowingly.
“But I can go get some!” Koyda couldn’t wait until morning. Koyda was never good at waiting for anything. Before another minute had passed, Koyda had assured his merchant friend that he’d return before the fires went out with a full bottle of hemhur ink. After heading home and hurriedly finishing his dinner, he scooped up his bottle and snare.
His father looked up from the book, which he’d picked up immediately after he’d consumed his last bite of dinner and thanked Desere. “Hey! Hey! Boy, where are you going?”
Koyda sighed. “I’m going out to–”
Desere tousled her husband’s hair. “Oh, does it matter? Let him have his fun while he’s a kid. I think there’s still some guys digging out there, he’ll be safe. I think Noyen might even be out there.”
“Noyen?” Dorli repeated, relenting. Noyen was a neighbor who’d been a friend of the family since before Koyda was born.
“Yes, Noyen.” She turned to Koyda. “Go on, hun. I’ll hold him off,” she winked as Dorli sighed and went back to his reading, only to be interrupted by Desere giving him a kiss on the cheek with a light chuckle. Koyda left as Dorli folded over one of the pages of his book and closed it.
The torches were still lit outside, and he could still hear carousing from the center of the village; they had probably begun drinking and it was likely Ad’rei was down there with them. Koyda ran out of the village, past the stand of fruit trees the village kept planted in a garden of hearty soil brought in from the mountains. They were now wilting from lack of water. He picked up a yamello that had fallen to the ground that seemed okay to eat, scooping it up in a quick motion as he ran past. He continued on past the temple where men and women prayed to Noll, god of the sky, long into the night in hope of rain.
Koyda slid over the hills of sand on his tough soles, jumping nimbly over the occasional jutting rocks that he’d learned to spot in the dark easily from years of excursions into the desert. Above him the sky had turned from a colorful canvas to a blanket of dark blue dotted with stars. Koyda had learned that some peoples of the desert believed that the night sky was literally a blanket that was laid over the world at night, and the stars were holes in the blanket where sunlight shone through.
The heat was beginning to leave the sand. Now it merely felt pleasantly warm under his feet. Once he’d gotten far enough away from the village to spot hemhurs, he slowed his pace from running to stealthy stalking, watching for the occasional glint of moonlight reflecting off scales. He sank to his hands and knees and peered over the next dune, and saw one. Including the tail it was almost as long as he was tall, and it appeared to be gazing up into the sky. A local legend says that hemhurs think stars are delicious fire-dragonflies, so at night look up at them covetously. No one really knows why.
Koyda crept on all fours, his snare at the ready, toward the glossy-scaled reptile and managed to just reach out and grasp its tail as it tried to scamper away, its body swaying from side to side as if trying to decide where to go. Koyda managed to get his other hand under its belly and pull the creature back long enough to get the snare around its thick neck. The scales scraped at his skin a bit and the whole while the hemhur made raspy hissing noises, but Koyda had long gotten used to those things. However, a firm bite to the hand was something he hadn’t accustomed himself to. His grip loosened enough to let the hemhur take off running. Koyda had wrapped the end of the snare around his wrist, just in case, and had no choice but to take off running after it with an alarmed yelp. The lizard burrowed straight through dunes effortlessly, leaving the hapless boy to stumble over them or be pulled through a wall of sand until finally with a firm splash, Koyda plunged into water and his prey took off with the snare.
Koyda found himself in cool, clear water, but only his head and shoulders. It swept over him gently like tiny waves lapping at the shore of a lake. Before he got the chance to attempt to orient himself and take a breath of fresh air, the water seemed to shift around him until his whole body passed through and he was dumped out onto the sand again. For a few seconds all he could do was wonder what had happened until he sat up, cool grains of sand clinging to his back.
Standing over him was a watery form that let the light of the moon pass through it, reflecting into tiny silver ripples. It was a humanoid form with roughly the physique and size of an adult male but was made completely of clear water. In addition, it had what appeared to be a thick tail tipped with a deep blue orb, cloudy white wing-like protrusions from its back, calves and upper arms and misty white hair that kept merging and separating from the rest of its body. It had very little in the way of a face. But it did have eyes of blue orbs like the one at the end of his tail and a thin crease where a mouth should be. It was leaning backward in indignant surprise, probably from having a young boy pass through its torso.
Koyda’s disappointment at not actually finding usable water soon was shoved away by amazement. “A water elemental!” he exclaimed, wide-eyed. In response the elemental’s body was filled with tiny bubbles, giving Koyda the impression that he was feeling indignant and a little embarrassed.
“Uh… I’m… sorry,” Koyda murmured, getting to his feet. The water elemental stood a good three feet taller than him, at least. He shrugged his shoulders fluidly but then turned his “face” away, his watery brow furrowed. Now that Koyda was closer, he could see that the light from the moon and stars condensed in two places under his brow to form dimly shining eyes that seemed to convey sad bitterness.
“What’s wrong?” the boy asked, having completely forgotten for the time being about the hemhur.
The elemental emitted a series of low bubbling sounds like a sigh.
Koyda reached out his small, tanned hand. “You can tell me.” Actually Koyda was not sure if he could, as he didn’t know how elementals spoke, if they did at all.
But the watery being made a “fist” with one of his hands and flung a bit of water into the air where it remained suspended there in two large droplets. One changed into a miniature representation of himself and the other into a figure in a cloak and pointed hat, holding a staff. The cloaked figure waved the staff admonishingly and attempted to leave the elemental. When the elemental attempted to follow, he was struck down with a bolt from the cloaked figure’s staff and fell to his knees.
Koyda wasn’t positive, but he made a guess at what the elemental’s charade meant. “Your master abandoned you in the desert because he thought you were weak?” he asked.
The elemental nodded, his eyes dimming even further. Wizards often use beings that embody a particular element or force of nature as guards or assistants. Elementals do not live naturally but are summoned from nature itself by the wizard. It would have been like a parent disowning a child who did not meet their expectations.
Koyda reached out his hand. “I’m sorry. Your master doesn’t seem like a very nice person.”
The elemental drew away from Koyda’s outstretched hand with a short high-pitched bubbling sound.
“Uh… could you tell me your name? …If you have one?” Koyda added tentatively.
After a moment the elemental shrugged and waved his arm over the sand. Water turned portions of the sand dark in letters that spelled out “Ouene.”
Koyda just made out the letters in the moonlight. “Ouene… you’re out here all alone… why don’t you come back to Aldis?”
Ouene made a sound of rapids rushing around rocks and began to storm off. An elemental’s life was empty without tasks to perform or duties to fulfill, and Koyda was aware of this. An elemental’s duty and joy was in using its command over the force of nature it embodied to aid others. “Maybe you’ll find something to do there, or someday you’ll meet a new wizard,” Koyda called over the dunes.
Ouene emitted the inquisitive sound of a small pebble being dropped into a pond and stopped walking. He turned his head, his watery “hair” separating from and then re-joining with his back. It only took a small encouraging wave from Koyda to make Ouene shrug again and follow the boy back into the village under the light of the rising moon.
By the time they returned, most of the torches had been doused and Ad’rei had undoubtedly gone back to whatever inn he was staying in. It wouldn’t have been the first time Koyda had not returned on time, so he wouldn’t be worried.
"There's not a lot of people-- it's not a big village," Koyda was saying, "but it's a good one." The stone buildings towered over the both of them and Ouene looked up at them with constant curiosity, making soft bubbling noises. Koyda joined the elemental in his gazing about the town. Accompanied by this creature, the village somehow took on a new appearance, and the boy was filled with a fresh appreciation for the home he loved. He watched Ouene regard the fountain of Noll near the center of the village, now completely dry, with impressed bubbling-- and was struck with an idea so strongly he didn't know why he hadn't thought of it the second he met the creature of water.
Maybe it would be possible to befriend Ouene, not only for his own good, but for the village. A creature with a command over water being discovered near a village in the middle of a draught was almost too perfect. He could actually get the chance to do something for the town he loved, and his family. But Ouene had been hurt, and would have to be approached carefully in order to gain his friendship and trust. Already he felt a twinge of guilt, feeling like perhaps he was exploiting Ouene-- but perhaps he would be genuinely interested, eager to prove his worth.
"Ouene, would you like to come to my house?" He wasn't sure if elementals ate, but he knew they needed rest.
Ouene hesitated, turning his watery face downward in contemplation with the sound of approaching rain, and his eyes darkened into the dark blue-gray of storm clouds.
Koyda offered his hand. "Please?" he added.
Finally, Ouene nodded and followed Koyda home under the cool, dark cover of night. Like most of the residences of Aldis, his own home was darkened and silent.
Koyda laughed softly. “They must not be too worried about me, everyone’s in bed.” He turned to Ouene, who looked down at him with what could best be interpreted as an expression of bewildered disorientation and expectance. Koyda added, looking at the little stone house shrouded in shadow, “They never worry about me.”
It was true. His mother was so laid back that Koyda almost had to make an effort to make her concerned about something. She wasn’t uncaring in a neglectful way, but despite a woman who grew up in a desert village because her father never came back for her, she always seemed to be under the impression that things would always work out. Perhaps it was for the best that her husband, then, was a worrying, brooding man, but for all his insistence, Desere never seemed to be shaken by his insistences that their sons may one day be eaten by a sand worm or carried off by demons and that when that happened, “she’d be sorry.” These arguments never lasted long, and always seemed to end with the same thing, though: the two of them retreating to the bedroom and sending the boys out–Koyda had always thought this was to discuss the matter in private until Ad’rei set him straight.
Koyda snuck in to the shadows of his home, just a few slivers of silver moonlight creating the vague, gray outlines of the room’s contents. The remains of dinner was sitting, cooling over the smoldering cooking fire at the opposite end of the room. It seemed like stew, with plenty of pieces of meat and vegetables left for him. Ouene followed in behind him, gazing around the room while Koyda crept to the pot sitting over the fire.
Suddenly the world turned on its end as Koyda was lifted into the air and enveloped in soft, warm fabric. The boy squealed in alarm before his mother’s voice laughed, “Look at you, child! You’re all wet!” She set him down and rubbed him dry with the blanket, ruffling his dusty hair, and sand from the desert was shaken off and onto the floor. But then she hesitated. “Wait… how are you wet? …Did the boys find water out there?”
Koyda blinked. Couldn’t she see him? He looked to where he was sure Ouene to be, but he seemed to have faded into the background so as to be almost invisible. “No, mother… I did… kind of,” he replied softly.
Desere made an exasperated “tch” sound. “Well, child, why haven’t you woken up the whole village over it? Now’s not the time to be shy!” She finished drying off the young boy, who was completely at a loss for words at his mother having completely overstepped his intentions.
Koyda decided to still try to impress his mother, but Ouene seemed content to hide, startled at the suddenness of the newcomer’s arrival. “Ouene… this is my mother, and she’s very nice,” he explained over his shoulder. “Why don’t you come out?”
Ouene burbled tentatively as he stepped into the moonlight, his form the midnight color of a still pond at night, his tail, wings and hair flowing behind him. The soft light from the moon outlined his form from behind. It was a breathtaking sight.
Desere began to gape in shock, and Koyda quickly explained who Ouene was, and the circumstances of their meeting. “He’s all alone,” he finished. “The village could… well, take care of him. Give him a place to stay and friends to be with.”
Having overcome her initial shock, Desere smiled at the watery creature. “That would be fine, as we can’t provide much more than that,” she said. “You don’t ac–” she paused. “Does it understand us?”
“Of course,” Koyda whispered.
She looked at Ouene, patiently standing before them. “You don’t actually need water to survive, do you?”
Ouene shook his head.
“Well!” Desere said with satisfaction. “You’re welcome here until you decide where you want to go from here, Ouene. I dare say the only thing to look out for in this little village is the children!” She laughed, approaching Ouene, who still seemed to be filled with angst over something. “Their curiosity may get the better of you!” She laid a friendly pat to Ouene’s back with a small splash. Koyda reflected that Desere never was cautious or slow in getting to know someone.
In fact, for the next couple of days, Ouene was accepted with almost all but enthusiasm into the lives of everyone in the home. Even Dorli was hospitable, finding the new addition to the household fascinating. He took to Ouene immediately and appeared better at communicating with him than even Koyda. Ouene’s presence even seemed to keep the house cool during the hot afternoons. Outside Koyda’s household, the children of the village all seemed to love Ouene. At first, he was scared of them and their unabashed enthusiasm, and, alarmed, would melt himself into a puddle when approached by more than a few of them at one time. Eventually Koyda got the younger kids to stop grabbing at the orbs on his tail or inquisitively sticking their hands into his body, beginning very much, even at his age, to feel like an older brother to all of them.
During those days, a few of the men and women toiling in the desert managed to bring back a little water from a forgotten well, but it would not be enough to sustain the village until help arrived. Aldis’s survival was lengthened but not guaranteed, and Koyda had to try even harder to gain Ouene’s trust as the adults of the village began pressing the water elemental for help. These requests were always returned by Ouene with a regretful shaking of his head.
“Ouene,” Koyda carefully asked him one afternoon. Ouene had grown closer to the boy over the past few days as he learned he was willing to keep both the children and adults from getting too close for comfort. “Is it that you can’t help us?”
Ouene sat at the edge of the fountain with the statue of Noll, paused and looked out at the village–almost everyone chatted happily as if nothing was wrong, content on just being able to get by for the moment. Aldis seemed unbeatable in spirit, and Koyda knew in his heart that if you could live off spirit alone Aldis would never be needy. Turning back to the boy, Ouene shook his head.
Koyda lowered his gaze to the dusty ground. “I see,” he replied. So it was that Ouene did not want to help Aldis. There was still something, whatever it was, holding him back. He did not feel it was enough to help the village for Koyda’s sake–the behavior of the rest of the village had distanced him and made him feel uncomfortable, undoubtedly.
But then Ouene gave Koyda a wet tap on the shoulder to gain his attention, wearing a mask of sadness mixed with resolution. He began another of his watery charades, forming the miniature version of his master floating in the air once more.
“Your master–right?” Koyda acknowledged.
Ouene then formed several blocks of water, with a stream running nearby.
“The village.”
The miniature form of Ouene’s master waved its tiny watery hand–all the water that made up the village and its stream drained away from the shapes, becoming the form of Ouene standing next to his master. After a moment, the water elemental gathered the pieces of itself back into its body and looked away from Koyda, its shoulders drawn around its face in guilt. It took the little boy a little while to understand.
Koyda stared at where the figures had been floating in front of them in shock. “You… you are our village’s water?”
Ouene whirled to face the dumbfounded boy, a look of pleading apology twisting his orb-like eyes with a short bubbling that was quickly cut off, as one beginning to say something but thinking better of it.
“You… you’re afraid… if you return the water, you’ll die…” For a moment he was filled with rage and the burning desire to protect Aldis. But there was still his feelings for his friend. Could he ask his friend to give his life?
“Ouene,” Koyda spoke softly. “I’ve been hoping to do something for Aldis for as long as I can remember, but I’m just a barefooted kid from a dusty desert village. You’re this strong creature with a command over magic. You and me are different but in a way I think we have some things that make us the same.”
With his head lowered almost to his knees and his arms about it as if protecting it, the elemental burbled sorrowfully and shook his head again, a few drops of water falling free to the ground, not only from his eyes but from his whole body. Did elementals begin to lose their stability when distraught? Why did it have to be this way?
Koyda stood up before Ouene with concern for what he’d do next. Maybe help would arrive in time so that Ouene wouldn’t have to sacrifice himself. Maybe not. “Ouene?” Ouene did not react. “Ouene!” Koyda repeated, louder, his voice echoing across the square.
Koyda’s words were blown through the streets and over the dunes, but Ouene remained still. Maybe Ouene could still restore Aldis’s water and live! He felt cruel and heartless, but what else could he ask for?
“Ouene, you have to do something! You have to try!” On his knees, Koyda tried to look into Ouene’s eyes, but they were turned downward. But his body bubbled agitatedly.
Ouene’s face snapped forward into a surprised glare.
“If you’re strong, you’ll take responsibility!” Koyda insisted as Ouene’s hands tightened into watery balls.
“Ouene!” Koyda reached out and tried to grasp the watery arm in front of him, but as he figured would happen, his fingers went straight through. Ouene relaxed his tension, and his eyes dimmed to merge with the rest of his body as he allowed himself to softly fell backward into the fountain, dissipating into shining droplets that sparkled under the hot desert sun. The air became still–Ouene had gone, and what filled the fountain was ordinary water, lapping the stone with resigned listlessness.

*****

Later that day, Koyda explained softly what had happened to his mother, inside fiercely fighting back tears. The water had quickly returned to the Aldis, filling the wells and streams to brimming. Amongst talk of marking the day with an annual festival from then on, news of Ouene’s sacrifice circulated quickly; Koyda had searched the village for him, but there was no sign of him at all. In his searching, Koyda received a small bit of recognition for the discovery that brought water back to Aldis, but he was torn between it not being enough recognition and not wanting to be praised at all. His agitated shouting at Ouene had long disappeared over the dunes, but to him it still seemed to echo across the square.
The lives of everyone of the village saved, the water elemental who endangered and then saved it appeared to have been forgotten as a single grain of sand in the desert. In the days that followed, the town’s supply of water remained clean, bountiful and unnaturally cool, as if blessed by the gods. The fruit trees of Aldis began to regain their life and the sparse, dried vegetation at the stream became lush and greener than they’d ever been, and during the silent night the bubbling of the stream once again became the lullaby everyone fell asleep to.
Koyda strolled through the streets on a night almost a week after Ouene’s disappearance. With the news of the miracle of water returning to Aldis, the village that day received its first wave of curious tourists, including a few mages simply wishing to study the area. Ad'rei, always on top of things, saw this increased influx of tourists as a sign to expand his business and actually open up a shop, and it was this that Koyda passed that night. At the moment it was only a wooden stall with a canvas canopy and a modest sign and a torch set into an iron stand to indicate when he was open for business during the night. He had the usual array of unusual rareties from all over the kingdom, and from others, but recently had begun specializing in oddities of the desert that those from the eastern lands would find novelty in.
"Eh, Koyda!" Ad'rei called from his seat behind his kiosk, his booted feet crossed on top of the counter. "How's the town hero?"
"I'm not a hero," Koyda insisted. Still, his usual curiosity overrode his angst. "Um... Ad'rei... have anything new?"
The man spread a deliberate smile over his tanned complexion. "Thatta boy!" He sat up, his arms crossed over his legs. "Now. I've got an interesting offer for you tonight, boy." He pulled out an ornate box with a tiny lock on it, decorated with brass and a carving of a phoenix. "You get what's in the box, for one bottle of hemhur ink."
Koyda blinked at the phoenix box. "What's in the box?"
"That, you'll find out when you bring me back the ink."
"What?! You're making me trade for something I don't know what I'll get?"
Ad'rei rested his cheek in his palm with a smug smile. "Don't you want it even more now?"
After a few seconds of deliberation, Koyda nodded, and was about to speed off to get his hemhur-catching gear. But Ad'rei stopped him. "Koyda."
Koyda turned to see Ad'rei holding the box to him, its lid with the picture of the phoenix facing forward.
"Don't be too sad, all right? Not all rebirths come from fire."

*****

Koyda sped off into the desert in search of a hemhur, the cool sand between his toes and the night air tousling his hair. In the dim light, the dunes of the desert were almost tinted a pale blue, rolling over the desert like lazily rolling waves on water, the individual grains at the crest of each one sparkling in the moonlight. Before he realized it, he'd gone so far that the lights from the village had disappeared.
He found himself drawn to the stream that flowed from the Dark Oasis, and wondered if the demons there experienced water troubles over the past couple of weeks as well. If they had, they too had been saved. The bubbling of the stream was reassuring and soothing, but it sounded odd tonight-- the happy flowing of water seemed doubled somehow, coming from two entities. The moment Koyda saw a tiny watery form waiting for him on the other side of the stream, he knew Ad'rei's box was empty.
He knew not how Ad’rei knew, but Ouene had just enough of his life force left to be reborn in the form of a watery serpent with those same deep blue eyes that spoke to him warmly in a way only one incapable of speech could.

I love happy endings. How can I pull one off without an ending that feels too tacked on? (If you do not feel my current ending feels tacked on, please let me know.)

If you were to lengthen the story with one more scene to make a friendship between Koyda and Ouene more meaningful, what would it be about?
BONUS question: Title suggestions?