"Ahhh! I'm fed up!"
The weather was cruel, the sun seemed to have dawned wanting to make a delicious plate of roasted snot. It was their fourth day of traveling together, Layd was already feeling good to walk, but he kept quiet about it. Walk? Ha ha ha! Not while Airys has that little sand wolf.
Seng and Natsume were hardly affected by the weather at all. Anyone would think it was because they were rude, secretly trying to ignore the annoying temperature… nope, they were too focused on another stupid discussion —for Airys —meaningless.
"No! What kind of teacher are you?!" Natsume growled like a chimera between lion and eagle "How do you think to make Airys pass out and starve?!"
"I know what I am doing!" Seng affirmed with the solidity of an iceberg. "That's the best way to get someone to have their awakening! That you and your people who imagine choosing resonances waste time in their imaginary world is another matter."
Seng's teasing tone drove Natsume out of her pits. She clenched her fists and took a deep breath to keep from hitting him, a wish that had only been entrenched in her heart day after day.
"That some madman taught you is not Airys's fault!" Natsume pouted and the vein on Seng's forehead bulged.
"Stop disrespecting MY masters!" The idea of a practice duel —full of broken bones —ran through Seng's mind with some constancy, he had already thought about the possibilities, a fight at noon would be the best, an open space, to counteract Natsume's speed with his shadow's defense.
And all that discussion started because Seng from the second day was sending exercises to Airys. First it was doing an exaggerated amount of push-ups in the evening, forcing her to spend a day fasting to "bond more with her soul" and now he had demanded that she go chicken-like all day, threatened to kick her every time she stayed too far back.
"Are you okay?" Layd was behind that pair, about seven meter away.
"What the hell do you think it means to be fed up?!" screeched Airys.
To have been the reason for the argument, Natsume was not paying attention to the girl she was supposed to be defending.
"Why don't you stop for a moment? You can get on Sandy if you want" Layd smiled tasty offering a seat behind him to which Sandy responded with an inviting bark waving his tail.
"I think they forget who summoned who here." Airys gritted her teeth with her eyes closed. "I guess it's an option..."
"Don't you dare stop!" Seng exclaimed.
Airys deduced that he must have heard them with his resonance.
"Ignore him Airys! This guy is crazy!" Natsume intervened.
"Who are you calling crazy?!"
"Well, you idiot! You have her walking for kilometers like this and she hasn't eaten anything since yesterday!"
Airys stopped advancing.
"That's nothing!"
Airys turned red.
"Nothing?! Nothing?!"
Airys took a deep breath, for an instant the noise disappeared, she raised her face to receive more of that embracing sun and lived what many would call an epiphany.
"MAKE SILENCE DAMN!!!" She got up and screamed. "I don't want to hear another word of your nonsense! I don't want to hear another word from the idiot Seng or Natsume! If you want to fight so badly, get the hell out of here!"
"H-hey Airys /"
"You too!" Airys interrupted Layd and clapped her hands to de-summon Sandy on the spot, dropping Layd on his rear.
What she did not know was that Layd tried to warn her of the danger that was coming on top of her.
When she finished with her whimpering, she looked at that pair expecting some kind of response, and yes she got it.
Natsume looked offended, however, what attracted Airys's attention was the intense silver glow from Seng's fury-infused eyes. It didn't take Airys a second to feel like her life was in danger, though admittedly it was easy as Seng started running in her direction.
Airys lost all the impetus of recently and ran away. She first made sure had any chance of survival by pulling the hidden leaf out of her pocket and summoning Hojita.
"Oh no, no you won't!" Natsume said running to stop Seng.
Hojita appeared and found the terrifying image of Seng and Natsume looming like two ogres, by reflex she turned as far as she could to throw a gust of wind that got Airys. at most, half a second.
Airys was not even able to say something to Hojita before realizing that she was forcibly de-summoned, so she devoted all her strength to climb the hill to her left, which she managed out of the mere fear of receiving a spanking and when she reached the top, all that she had been enduring —heat, hunger, sleepiness, fatigue —mixed to make her lose energy and fall to the other side of the hill.
Seng climbed the hill fighting Natsume who weakened her grip when she saw her fall. They stood still when they saw what was underneath were the pieces of a broken mirror, zero traces of Airys.
Natsume let go of Seng's hand in contempt.
In front of them, a couple of kilometers away, you could see the city of Dingars, the city of two planes, the mirror city.
———————————————————————————————————
The first thing she felt was sand, lots of it. Airys opened her eyes, still a little dizzy.
"What the hell?"
The landscape underwent a drastic change, from a fairly open meadow, with some bushes and hills, to a wide desert, with dunes everywhere. She got up and paced the sand as she could, stumbling and sinking by accident.
"Seng! Layd! Natsume!" she called for them with no answer. "Seriously, where am I?" she squealed sadly.
She walked to the only place she could think of: Another peak. With turtle steps she ascended the dune, if she had any hope of locating herself it was by going to high ground, although she was sure that something strange had happened.
"I'm here!" she said when she reached the top.
The hunger, the exhaustion, it all became irrelevant when she looked at the emptiness around her. Sand and more sand, in front of her, behind her, to the left and to the right. She didn't distinguish anything other than that.
She checked her pocket for the leaf to summon Hojita and made a crying gesture when remembered that she spent it earlier. Out of nowhere it was difficult for her to breathe. She was alone, lost, with no trace of life apart from her.
"Wait!" She dropped to her knees. "This is sand; I'll be able to summon Sandy!"
She immediately proceeded to gather a mountain of sand and apply the resonance on it, however, Sandy did not come.
"Eh…? Damn! I forgot I just un-summoned him!" She grabbed her hair and plunged into a drama of despair. "Maybe... this is the other world and I died..."
Talán, tolón, talán, tolón.
"Oh no, am I freaking out already? So fast?" she said after looking in the direction of the sound and not distinguishing anything but sand.
Talán, tolón.
"Whatever…" she glided to go in the direction of the bells.
She walked for about a minute, until the sound stopped. During that time, she noticed details that bothered her: The place did not seem to have any kind of wind or breeze, although it was not so hot the light on her skin irritated her as if it were the worst of the summer suns; and by the way...
"Where the hell is the sun?" she questioned open-mouthed, unaware of the distortion in her field of vision.
After another time walking, a noise entered her ear. People laughing, running, arguing loudly and singing at the top of their lungs.
"That sounds like... a plaza!" she screeched and sped towards the source of the sound, excitedly agitated her head hoping to find a building or someone, yet the only thing she made was get even more confused. "Ouch!" She hit what she assumed was a wall. "What is this?" touched the front, and indeed, there was some kind of invisible wall.
She frowned to immediately smile excitedly, tapped it with her knuckles.
"Hello! Please let me in! I don't like being out here!"
There was no answer.
The noise on the other side was clearly human, of many humans, to the point of her understanding that she was hitting a wall that could be made of rock. She leaned her face against the invisible wall and tried to hear about how to get inside. She heard a couple were getting engaged, she heard a drunken trio sing a tacky ballad and a salesman yelling worse than her.
Nothing about going in or out.
With a disappointed face and a lazy pout, she concluded that if she didn't want to spend the night with sand in her pants, she should walk around that wall.
"Note to myself, wish my resonance lets me climb things..."
As she started her simple plan, a dark man with no shirt and white pants stood in "the air" and when he saw her, he began to walk sideways, as if gravity didn't matter, towards her.
"I knew it."