We jaunt our way down the road. Asphodel stops and grabs onto me, placing a hand over my mouth to stifle the gasp. She pulls me behind a bush and holds a finger up to her lips. It's a signal to keep quiet. I catch onto this immediately.
It seems she saw or heard something. I wait quietly with her. My hand instinctively rests upon my wand.
"What do you think that's going to do?" Asphodel whispers to me.
"Can't I use magic offensively?" I ask.
"Offensive magic doesn't exist. This isn't the movies, Annie." She stifles her laugh.
"Well, sorry, I don't know this stuff."
"Shh." She places her hand over my mouth.
I can hear three sets of footsteps. We both slowly back away from the sounds. I hold my breath. Asphodel shakes her head and waves her wand over us to make a weird dome like field around us.
"You can talk now." She says.
I exhale and sigh with relief. I don't know why we are hiding anyway. I don't see why she's afraid of normal people.
"So, why are we hiding away?" I ask.
"The eaters." She says.
"I don't get it."
"You probably won't ever have to understand it." She huffs. "Me and mom went through hell during the war of the pink moon. You won't ever have to experience half of what I did if you're lucky."
Asphodel shifts and checks the way. It seems safe to her, I would assume. She disables the field.
"They've gone." She says.
I don't even know where to begin. I don't know anything about back then. Even if I do, I don't even understand half of this world, let alone know what I can or can't do. I feel so utterly useless.
"Yeah, alright. Let's get to finding Garth and his car." I get up and start walking my way down the road again.
"Did I do something wrong?" Asphodel catches up to me as she asks the question.
"No. I just hardly know anything about this magic thing, and it's kind of a lot to wrap my head around." I admit.
"Annie, you'll get it in time." Asphodel speaks softly to me.
The road curves and goes forward. This walk is seemingly going on endlessly. I can't deal with it.
"How much farther?" I quander.
"Honestly, we should almost be there."
"Okay.."
"I know it's a distance Annie, but this car is worth it. I promise. Not to mention Garth too." She admits.
"You have a bit of a crush on him, don't you?"
"N-no... what makes you think that?" Asphodel, for once, seems to be surprised.
"I don't know. Ya kinda talk pretty highly of him. Are you guys close?" I tease lightly.
"Well, I guess."
"What do you mean, you 'guess'?"
"He was there a lot during the war. We kept each other pretty safe back then." She smiles softly in her reply.
I look up the road to see where we are, as I don't want to miss the destination. It seems Asphodel isn't bothering to keep track. Perhaps she's been there before. The road must stretch for miles on end. I can't fathom the end of being anywhere near reach.
"Wait, a second. Hey, Sven." I tap the wyvern lightly. "Instead of just hitching a ride on me, how about you loan me a second point of view? Show me is the car is."
'Alright.' Sven says to me.
They take off full throttle as I almost fall from the sheer force of its takeoff. Asphodel looks rather impressed as she makes what I think to be the same observation. Wyverns have crazy, powerful wings.
"That's impressive." Asphodel giggles.
"Agreed." I say.
'Sven, let me see what you do.' I think about it.
"So, any luck sharing eyes with the Draconid?" Ashpodel asks skeptically.
My eyes then start to see multicoloured lenses showing me what Sven sees from above. I am exasperated by the sight. It's truly breathtaking for me.
'Is this how you always see Sven?' I ask in my head.
'Yes, but I can also change how I see,' Sven replies.
Wicked." I say.
"What am I missing?" Asphodel asks.
"This is the most amazing sight you could see. The eyes of a wyvern see everything so beautifully." I explain.
"Oh, cool."
Sven goes to turn around and in the corner of his view I can see the car. I smile widely. We are almost there.
"We are almost there." I say.
'No sign of the man, Garth.' Sven informs me.
"I can't see Garth." I say. "Although he may be still down there somewhere." I try to lighten the mood. The last thing Asphodel needs it to be concerned with yet another death.
"Right." She picks her pace up.
I follow along as closely as possible. We can't afford to be separated right now. What if there is something wrong? Now Asphodel has me all paranoid, great. I think to myself. She is rubbing off on me.
I start to just play with my fingers in my pockets. I don't want to say anything about it. If anything, I just want Garth to be alright. This has been a long two days for me and I just can't possibly imagine trying to do this without someone of his knowledge. Sure, Asphodel is smart, but not Garth smart.
Am I really caught up in comparing how come I enjoy his friendship? I shake my head. I am all over the place. Just let him be in the car and okay. Let this just be a false alarm. Let this be a false alarm. My mind is racing.
"He's gonna be fine." Asphodel says. "Garth could handle a swarm of ten eaters. He should be fine." I think that she is doing this to comfort herself more so than myself.
She seems to be just as discomforted by his sudden vanishing. He was so kind. I see the fencing in the yard of the farm.
"Hop the fence here. It's faster." I say as Sven lets my eyes be normal.
I hop the fence. I smirk at Asphodel. She seems to be nervous about the idea. C'mon, don't tell me you haven't ever hopped a fence. I think.
She gets over the fence in a very awkward manner. Almost falling over before coming to me. She clearly hasn't spent much time running from bullies.
"You're not too nimble, are you Asphodel?" I ask.
"Apparently you are quite nimble."
"Yeah, kinda has to be."
"Oh?"
"Bullies when I was a bit younger. I ran faster than any of them thanks to track." I admit. "The only useful thing I did in school, honestly." I chuckle.
"I see. For me, it was home economics. I couldn't cook at all before then." She smiles and laughs with me.
We walk over to where the car is. I can't help but still laugh lightly at the idea of Asphodel not knowing how to cook. I knew some cooking by then. My aunt taught me stuff when I was little.
"So why did I have to go to Auntie's, anyway?" I ask.
"Oof, starting with the heavy stuff, huh?"
"Yeah. I wanna know."
"Well, we didn't want you involved in the war between witches and eaters." She sighs. "We know eaters as that because of the select group that tried to become witches, even though they can't. So they become nephilim."
"What's a nephilim?" I ask.
"According to old legends, nephilim were just really powerful beings. Some suspect they were giants. But I think truly, it's a cursed human soul for doing something unforgivable." She explains.
"I see." I don't even want to know examples.
I shudder at the thought. I couldn't begin to imagine what they may call unforgivable. Every culture has laws. So what is considered unforgivable to them, I don't think I wish to know.