Chapter 19, Where did the excitement go?

~Eleanor~

Through the trees she could see a clear, sunny sky. It was an amazing day. She, Arabella, Natalie and Hannah were on their way to the city, and the other three had stayed at Ber’s.

It had been so strange for Eleanor, a person who had always lived in a city in a big, luxurious house surrounded by people, to be alone with people her own age and walking through a forest with them. She loved it. Absolutely loved it. She loved the light shining through the trees, the weird creatures, the plants and the people. It was sincere in a way; she didn’t need to think about how she behaved. Well, she did, but not in the same way.

They could see the city, smell the spices and hear the people. It was going to be fun to see the city, see how people dressed…

“That’s the town, right?” Arabella asked behind her. “We’re almost there, I can’t believe it!” She said that to Hannah; then she turned to Eleanor, still smiling:

“You’ll protect us if something goes wrong, right?”

“That’s what I’m here for.” She smiled back, “And hopefully I will succeed and we won’t end up as red stuff on the ground.”

She had expected a reaction were they didn’t just stare at her and then laugh. Even Natalie and Hannah smiled. It was true, so she didn’t understand what the fun part was.

“Yeah, wouldn’t want that to happen!” Hannah said.

“We should get out on the road.” Arabella said, “Wouldn’t it be a sight to see four hooded figures comin’ out of the forest?”

“They would probably think we have green skin and then we ‘ll have to run back so we won’t get killed.”

They were all looking at her again.

“Seriously, Ellie, we’re worried enough!”

Ellie?

The city was amazing in its simplicity and even though it was so early people were already up and looked at the colorful booths in the market. The smell of the spices made her head hurt, colorful clothes, that she would never see at home, hurt her eyes, the sun made the long and closed hooded cape she wore so much warmer. But she loved it. It was completely different from home and it was colorful; not just white or grey or beige, but blue and red and yellow and pink and green and orange and purple. She had never seen anything like it.

She didn’t have control over her facial muscles anymore and soon her cheeks began to hurt. One of the girls said something, she didn’t hear what, but when they walked forward she walked after. Only slightly behind.

The street was wide and the booths stood on either side of it, making the salesmen’s back face the houses’ wooden walls. There were plenty of people looking in the booths or just walking down the street. She wasn’t able to see how long the street was, because it parted and the bigger street turned about 15 or 20 booths away, but she thought she could see some blue fabric at the turn, so it probably stretched longer. A smaller street, though, continued going forward between the houses. There weren’t as many people there. It would be a good way to go.

“Well…They are nice…” She heard Natalie say, “But I don’t have any money with me.”

“They’re very cheap,” A flat nosed salesman said, “You must have coins enough for this small sum. And as you said…What’s your name, miss?”

“Uh…Natalie.”

”What a beautiful name; you can’t be from here can you, Natalie? And as you said: they are nice.”

”But I really don’t have…”

“Oh but you must have, miss. For this?” He held up a necklace of rope with a rough black stone. It was pretty in its simplicity, yes, but it looked like something he had done himself.

“No, I don’t have…”

“But miss…”

“Didn’t you hear her? Stop bein’ so persistent!” Arabella lashed out. Of course she did, how very smart of her to think first. Why didn’t Natalie just walk past the booth? It looked shabby; Eleanor thought the girl had some common sense.

She better step in before they caused a scene. The salesman looked angry now.

 “Sir,” she began, “Please excuse my friend. We’re travelers and we have walked all night, so we are tired and she is hopeless when it comes to keeping her temper in check. The only money we have is reserved for food and roof over our heads.”

“But this is very cheap, almost free, you can spare a couple of coins, can’t you miss?”

ANNOYING.

“No, didn’t you…”

“That girl stole my merchandise!” He screamed and pointed at Natalie.

WHAT?!

They had suddenly caused a scene.

And unfortunately enough, she and the rest of their little group looked like possible thieves with their long hoods.

She looked around, people began to come closer. There wouldn’t come anything out of reasoning with this.

She pushed Hannah’s back and together they ran after Arabella and Natalie into the smaller street with fewer people. Eleanor looked back, some were still following them. 

They continued to run through smaller streets and when they stopped they had no idea where they were.

“It’s so hard to run in this.” She said as she panted.

“At least they didn’t see our clothes.” Arabella said. She didn’t seem as tired as the rest of them. ”What the heck happened back there?”

“He said Natalie stole something and then we ran.” Eleanor answered. “But we didn’t steal anything, he was just angry that we didn’t buy anything.”

“Bastard…” Arabella muttered.

“Hannah…” Natalie said, ”What’s…what’s that in your hand?”

“Oh. Well…” In Hannah’s hand was a necklace like the one at the booth.

“You stole it?!” Eleanor couldn’t believe it. ”So then it’s your fault!”

“It just happened in the heat of the moment!” She glared at Natalie, who took a step back.

“In the heat of the moment? No wonder he got so mad!”

“I did it after he screamed.”

“So? You can’t just steal!”

“What do you want me to do? Go back and give it back? Yeah, that would work out just fine.”

“…Then just leave it here. It’s not yours.”

“Would it really be better if someone else took it? It’s already taken, what’s done is done. And besides, it might be of help later, we can sell it or trade it for food!”

“We can’t get much food for that. Just look at it! He probably made it himself.”

“I’ll still keep it.”

“Oh, yeah?”

”What’re you’re going to do about it?”

”I can take it and throw it away. I’m stronger than you are.”

“Are you really going to use your powers against me for such a thing? That’s just low.”

“What does it matter if she keeps it? Big deal.” Arabella said.

”Big deal? Do you realize that they might look for us now?”

“Geez, calm down.”

“Not until you realize…” She felt the anger disappear. She saw Arabella had her arms crossed and knew the girl had done something and she wanted to get angry again, but she couldn’t. Then she found herself getting happy and thinking back on her dog Leslie as a pup. Those times had been wonderful…

”Where are we anyway?” Arabella said.

They were in a small street with high houses on both sides. It didn’t smell good in there and Eleanor thought she smelled pee. She wrinkled her nose. Behind them was not a single person, but ahead some were passing by, not even looking into the alley. Even if they had looked, they would probably hurry past the alley. Eleanor could imagine how people saw them if their long hoods. It reached far down to the ankle, which made it hard to run in, as they had just experienced.

“Probably in some alley people don’t usually walk through,” Hannah said, “How about we continue forward so we can get out of here and get to a more people filled place.”

“So you can take something more ‘in the heat of the moment’?” Eleanor asked. Hannah chose to ignore her and Eleanor felt the irritation crawling back.

“Just drop it, will you?” Arabella sighed.

“Or what? You’ll use your powers on me again?” What was with her today? She wasn’t like this at home.

Arabella just walked away. Eleanor began to wonder if it really was so great to be alone with people your own age for this long.

They walked out of the alley and saw the people moving in one direction.

“Where do you think they’re going?” Hannah asked.

“Whatever, we should…” Arabella began, but Eleanor interrupted her.

“Let’s follow them.” She earned a strange look from Arabella, but Eleanor wouldn’t accept her as the leader for their little group. She didn’t like how no one walked in the opposite direction, though, and not one of the men and women smiled. Not even the ones who walked in groups.

After a few turns they could hear murmurs. She drew a quick breath and quickly looked away.

Gallows. With dangling bodies.

She couldn’t believe she was seeing it; this didn’t happen. It simply did not happen. Not in her reality.

“…What?” Natalie whispered beside Eleanor. The girl simply stared at the bodies, Eleanor looked at Arabella and Hannah; they hadn’t looked away, either. Even Natalie looked at the bodies, even though she was panting heavily and she looked like if she was about to cry. But Eleanor was the only one who looked away. She forced herself to look at the gallows, but when one of the bodies’ leg twitched she averted her eyes and took a step back.

“That’s just…” Arabella breathed.

“Do you see that mark on their foreheads? The one shaped as a triangle?” Hannah asked, “Have they burned it in?”

Oh, God.

How Hananh seem so indifferent? They saw dead people.

“Don’t say that…” Arabella’s voice was faint and it seemed like struggle for her to say anything at all.

Eleanor looked at the wooden platform, trying not to look at the bodies, though she saw their legs. Two men in orange clothes brought the bodies down and she looked down.  She heard them drag the bodies away. The knowledge that the dragging sound came from dead humans made it much, much worse.

“Do you feel like those soldiers over there are looking at us?” Arabella asked. 

“Don’t think so.” Hannah answered, “They must be looking at someone else. It’s a pretty large crowd.”

“Ever since that new guy came, they’ve been looking at us.”

“You’re probably just…imagining things.”

“Nope, we just made eye-contact. Not worrying at all.”

“W-w-we should g-g-g-g-et out of here.” Natalie said. Her body shook as much as her voice.

“Are you okay?” Arabella asked.

“That will just seem suspicious.” Eleanor said, “They might keep an extra eye on us and then maybe even realize who we are.”

Yes, it wasn’t that likely, but she didn’t want another Rurica.

“B-b-but they already d-d-do.” Natalie whispered. “They k-k-kno-w we’re here.” The girl hugged her hands tightly to her chest. Eleanor felt herself beginning to do the same.

“…What?” Hannah breathed.

“What?” She wished she was home, played that stupid piano or was at some stupid little tea party lying her pants of. She wanted Leslie. “What do you mean? H-how can you know?”

“I-I know be-be-cause of a…th-thing. We need t-t-t-to g-go.”

“Is this the same as with the forest?” Arabella asked.

Natalie nodded, but because of her shaking it looked as if she nodded more than once.

“You can’t just trust something like that! I’m sure you’re wrong!”

As a puppy Leslie usually wore a blue collar and she had those big brown eyes…They might get trapped and drugged and…No, no, no! Her fur had been so soft and golden, actually it still was…maybe killed or losing a body part…

“We should get out of here. Go somewhere where there are a lot of people or someplace where there isn’t a single soul.” Arabella sounded so sure it was almost comforting.

Her tail wagged every time Eleanor came home, no matter if she had only been gone for a few minutes…

“She could be wrong!”

How would she explain a missing arm to her parents?

“Hannah! She probably isn’t, damn it! Don’t you see how they’re lookin’ at us and talkin’?” She began to talk faster, “Do you wanna stay and hope they won’t do anythin’? We will go now, ignorin’ the soldiers, the gallows and everythin’; then ask some people about prisons. Then we’ll hurry and to the most likely place and hope it’s the right one and then get the heck outta here! Okay?”

Leslie’s fur shining like gold in the sunlight, Leslie’s fur shining like gold in the sun light, Leslie’s fur shining like gold in the sun light…

Personalities

I've been very lazy concerning their personalites, but that'll change. I'm studying what I wrote about them before I started with the first chapter and then it'll hopefully be easier to distinguish between them and funnier to read.

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It's almost been a month since the last chapter...
I HAVE TO WORK HARDER!

Chapter 18, A high mountain

~Tenso~

He had been sitting in the library for many hours now. Normally he would let one of the Helpers look through the Killer archives, but he wanted to do it himself this time.

”Everything went well. The situation is stable and the main offenders have been brought to justice, but even though we looked for days we couldn’t find the so-called Bearded man.”

Reluy and his group had come back from Rurica, but everything wasn’t well yet. When people in the groups got killed the Researchers wrote down the killer, and then the killer and his future generations (sometimes even the world, depending on the situation) couldn’t get help from Amal Ialad again. If they weren’t granted a second chance, of course..

The problem this time was that they didn’t know who the Bearded man was and he had to be written down for trying to kill a whole group. That wasn’t the biggest problem, though. Dazzellills didn’t exist in that world, which means the Ruricans got it from someone who didn’t come from their world. An even more serious problem was that it’s impossible to travel between the worlds if you aren’t at Amal Ialad. Tenso knew all of the faces there, well, not all, but he knew that no one looked like the Bearded man. He had asked others too, but they hadn’t recognized him, either. It was true that men look different with beards, but not many men have white beards with violet tints and there weren’t many worlds with people who had violet hair.

And not many people would risk killing someone from Amal Ialad. The Bearded man could be a descendant from a Killer, but Rurica hadn’t had any killers for many, many years. Neither had the few worlds where violet hair could be seen, which he had look through. He just couldn’t it figure it out. Neither could the Knowers who had people working on it.

“Tenso. I think you should take a break.” There she stood with her eyes closed and he wished she would open them.

“I need…to do this.”

“You’ve been here for hours. What are you reading?” She picked one of the books up and when he heard her flip through it he looked up to see her eyes skim the pages. She sighed and closed her eyes again. “It’s time to take a break and continue later, or make someone else to do it.”

Her eyes were closed yet again. He sighed, he knew he needed to sleep, but he needed to continue.

“Just a…minute…”

She slammed the book down on the table and blew out the candle.

“No. Now. You even have dark circles under your eyes! Just how long have you been up here?”

He stood up and walked with her to his room, since she wouldn’t let him walk back by himself. She said she didn’t trust him to go back to his room. On the way he told her about what he had been doing and asked her what she thought about it all. Tenso felt he needed someone to talk ideas with and there was no one better for that than Ingya, who always asked the right questions. This time, though, she didn’t have any other questions than those he had already asked himself.

When they got to his room she didn’t leave until he was in his bed. He felt like a child again. When she left he continued to think, it was impossible to abandon the thoughts, even if he was tired and he decided that the first thing he would do the next morning was to go back to the library and lock the doors. Ingya wouldn’t be able to stop him.

“Good morning.” He squinted at the light and saw Urora standing in the doorway. “I looked for you everywhere, but here you are. Sleeping like a baby.”

“What…is it?” He held in a yawn. He often wished he wouldn’t feel as tired every time he woke up, there were certain things that could have been stopped or changed if things were different.

“I think you should take the girls back from Hires.”

He had to think a little to remember which girls she talked about. Then he tried to understand why she wanted him to bring them back. Unfortunately, his head didn’t allow him to think deep thoughts.

“Why?”

“We should send someone more experienced. Look how it went in Rurica. They almost got killed and the guy lost an arm!”

“What do you…want me to do?” He asked as he looked out the window. It was windy. “Erase their memories and order you to find new people?”

He should really have gone to bed earlier.

“No. Find someone to train them, as we usually do with groups that bad.”

He quickly turned his head to her; it had almost become a reflex now. She raised her eyebrows at him, as if her patience was lacking, which he should have foretold.

“Don’t judge them from their first world. The fault was my judegement, I should have told them more, but Rurica needed help fast.” If only he could have this conversation some other time.

“At least find someone to help them with their powers. I’ve seen how their world is through the mirrors, they can hardly practice there. Their world doesn’t believe or approve of magic or powers. It’s actually almost non-existent, and they don’t know anything about us. If they did they would probably find us and kill us; they would lock in the girls and experiment on them. So please listen to me. You must to do something about them.”

Then she left. If they hadn’t been friends since before he became the Head of the Heads, he would’ve been insulted that she woke him up and didn’t say goodbye when she left. She was right, though. The girls could need someone to teach them a bit more. This was all new to them and they weren’t as good as they could be, but that had to wait. There were more important things that needed his attention.

As he walked towards the library, he saw old Advol sitting alone on a bench with his eyes closed and his cane across his knees.

“Tenso.” The old man said, “I need to talk with you, now that Univs, my Helper you remember, is not here.” He gestured with to the bench. “Here, sit.”

At first Tenso was about to say he had other things to do, but no one said no to Advol. Especially not if he taught you when you were new.

“Were you going to the library?” He had probably been going there himself to escape from his helper. Tenso couldn’t blame him; Unvis could sometimes be too eager to show everything he knew and could do.

“I have noted how many times you have been there lately. It is not good for you.” He continued. Tenso had to smile as he sat down. Nothing escaped him, but then again, Advol was known for his sharp senses. “What are you reading about?”

“What about you? You’ve…been thinking a lot lately.”

The old man laughed quietly.

“Touché…” He looked away from Tenso and moved his eyes to the window. “You have always liked books. Especially when there is something troubling you.”

“I have learned from the best.”

“A sharp mind is as good as any sword, my father used to say.”

Tenso looked out through the window on the opposite wall. Outside the wind blew in the Lonly tree. At times like this he had to admit he missed his brother. Even though they had often fought he had always known what to do, where to look and what to keep the eyes open for. Advol was good too, but his brother had been the very best. If he’d been here Tenso knew he would’ve had Advols title as the Head of the Advisors. Well, Tenso hadn’t been the only one thinking that, both Ingya and Advol had admired the brother’s mind.

The old man sighed.

“Is it about Rurica?”

Tenso turned his head to him.

“It is, is it not? You have encountered a high mountain, have you not?”

He waited for Advol to continue, but when the old man silently turned his head to Tenso it was clear he didn’t mean to say anything more.

“A…high mountain, yes.” He sighed and took a deep breath. The slow voice of the man beside often made him say what he had on his heart. “I cannot understand what happened to the Bearded man, who he was and how he got his hand on dazzellills. I’ve been looking through the archives of the Killers, but I haven’t been able to find anything of importance. Rurica hasn’t had any killers for many, many years and we haven’t been there for a long time. What can they have against us? And just this morning Urora came and said to me in the morning that I should get someone to help the new girls with their powers.”

“Just as I helped you once.”

“Yes.” He smiled at the memory, he had been hopeless at first, even the other group members had thought so, but after Advol had polished him Tenso had become a person to rely on.

“How is the climb going, then?” The old man asked as he turned his head to the window again.

“It could go better and it could go worse. Will you help me?”

“You need to stop being so careful. You are a leader now; you should order me to do my job. Where is the fire you had in Winet?”

“That was…different.”

They sat in silence and looked out the window. Tenso thought back on his time in Winet. It had been his first mission after Advol’s hard training and the mission when he got to the Next Level. He remembered how surprised his teammates had become when the result of the training showed; he himself had actually been surprised as well.

He felt something touch his elbow and saw Advol’s arms shaking and his hands gripping his cane so hard the fingers had become white. Then he said:

“Have you…ever…considered the possibility of…”

“Good! You’re not in the library yet!” Ingya came up the corridor with her usual smile, “We’ve looked everywhere for you. And Advol, you’re here too? Unvis, he’s here! He was terribly worried about you, Head. He claims you left him without telling him where you went.”

The old man grunted.

“I needed to be alone and think.”

“You could do that in your room.” Unvis placed himself next to Ingya.

“I am not helpless yet. There is still energy in these legs for me to walk around by myself.”

Advol slowly rose from the bench and leaned on his cane; he looked out at the window and sighed again.

 “Tenso,” He said as he began to walk away with his Helper, “About your problems…Look for the Lonely tree.” Then he made a slight bow to the two of them. “Have a good day to both of you.”

Ingya turned to Tenso with a big smile on her face.

 “The mirror wanderer is finally done for testing and you have to see it!”

“Have you already tested it?” He returned her smile, though not as enthusiastic.

“Of course.”

“Well then, let’s go see if it’s as fantastic as you say.”

He guessed he wouldn't be able to think about Advol’s words until later.