"Rythian! I have a present for you!"

Rythian looked up from his journal to see his young apprentice bounding down from her lab, sending sand flying everywhere in the process.

"Be careful Zoey!" He sighed as she stumbled on her way to him.

"I'm fine!" She protested, but he couldn't stop himself from glancing down at her arm and remembering just a few weeks before.

She had almost died.

"Anyway," Zoey said, startling him out of his thoughts, "I made you these!"

She pulled what looked like a pair of black boots from behind her back and shoved them in his face. "Put them on! With these, you can fly just like when you had the flying ring."

"Um Zoey, how can I fly with these?" He asked, edging slightly away from her so that the boots weren't all he could see.

"Well, you know that tinkering table I built? I figured out how to make these super awesome boots on it. You can attach all these cool things to them and one of them lets you fly!" She said with a proud grin.

"Are they safe?" Rythian asked warily.

"Safe? Of course they're safe!" She replied in a way that made him doubt the safety of the boots even more.

"Have you tested them at all?"

"Well," her smile faltered a bit "I would, but in the slight, not at all big chance that something could maybe not at all go wrong, I didn't want to crash. I don't want to risk damaging my arm."

Rythian's eyes once more drifted to her arm.

She had almost died.

"Well, if you're not one hundred percent sure that they are safe, I'm not really su-"

"Ah, please Rythian!" She begged and leaned closer to him flashing him her wide puppy dog eyes.

He felt his heart give the normal uneven thump that it usually gave when Zoey did that and he sighed in defeat.

"Fine," he grumbled and took the boots from her.

At once, her face lit up. "Here!" she said and handed him a small bracelet with two buttons on it. One was blue and one was white. "You wear this and when you press the white button, you can fly!"

Rythian paused as he was pulling on the boots "What does the blue one do?"

She shrugged "I don't know, but I'm sure it's not important."

He groaned and rolled his eyes. "Zoeeeeyyy, are you sure this is safe?"

"Almost ninety eight percent sure!" She exclaimed and then grasped his hand, pulling him upright. "Ready?"

He sighed, "I suppose."

"Ok, then I'll stand over here," she said, ducking into their make-shift house "And you fly from there."

"Oh, how you inspire confidence. Well, here goes."

He pressed the white button and was launched a few feet into the air.

"It works!" Zoey cried, running from the shelter. "Ohmygosh this is so cool!"

"Um, how do I move?" Rythian asked, hovering above her.

"Just lean the way you want to go, I think." She called

He leaned forward and was surprised as he shot forward so fast that he hit the walls that ran around their base camp, covering him in a mound of sand.

"Rythian! Rythian are you ok?!" Zoey cried, racing over to him.

The mage groaned and coughed, trying to dislodge some of the sand that had made its way into his mouth.

"What the hell, Zoey!" he asked, "I couldn't control that at all!"

The redhead had reached him and had begun to push sand off of her master. "Well—um- this is only the prototype. There are sure to be some bugs and hey - at least you're not dead!"

Rythian leaned back and closed his eyes. "You will be the death of me."

"Not today, come on."

Rythian opened his eyes and found her leaning down over him; hand outstretched and a small smile on her face.

He reached out, took her hand, and pulled her down into the pile of sand next to him, laughing as she fell in headfirst.

"Rythian!" she cried as she spat out sand.

He just grinned and got up "We're even now," he stretched out his hand "I'll help you up for real this time."

She pouted and crossed her arms from where she sat in the sand "I can't trust you."

He sighed "Now Zoey, don't be difficult."

"Humph." Turning her face away but took his hand and let him help her up.

"There now," Said Rythian "Was that-"

He was cut off as Zoey poured a handful of sand in his hair and raced off.

"Zoey!" He cried, taking off after his laughing apprentice.

Author's Notes:

Whew, man for some reason I just find these two very easy to write about. Also, since my last fic A Simple Thing turned out to be somewhat prophetic, I wanted to see if I could do it again. So here, have some sand fluff. Also, a huge thanks to midnightlupus for editing :)))