The woman whispered something to the other woman before turning her attention back to Beth. "You said it was by the library?" the woman asked as she stood up, motioning for Beth to follow her.
"Yeah, it is. That's why me and my friends were there," Beth reiterated, following the woman towards the door, as she carried her puppy in her arms.
"So, why did you have it open there?" she asked as she opened the door.
Beth merely laughed as the woman led the way down the hall. "We don't have a choice where they open up. My friends and I are searching for a world that has a griffin canyon in it, but we don't have a map as to which gate leads to which world. So, we have to go to other worlds and see if we can find the world we're looking for," Beth answered.
"Why are you searching for that world with the, uh, griffin canyon?"
"Oh, my friend Charlie dropped something when she walked through a gate that opened up above the canyon. So, we're trying to find it so she can get it back," Beth replied, trying to avoid explaining exactly what it was that Charlie dropped.
"Must be important. Though, why did she open the gate to that world if she didn't know where it led?"
"It is important," Beth assured the woman. "But, when she opened the gate, she had been told that it was supposed to lead to a grassy field. She barely was able to grab ahold of the ground on my world before she fell to her death."
"Why wouldn't it have opened up to that grassy field?" the woman asked as they turned around a corner, leading them to what looked like the front desk at what Beth could only assume was a police station. "Oh, and how did she open the gate in the first place?"
"Well, it didn't open up to the grassy field, because of something that happens to gates every once in a long while. Uh, I think it was called a gate shift or something? I can't really remember, but anyway, how she opened it was with the Heart of the Forest," Beth answered as they left the building.
As Beth walked outside into the night, she stopped when she realized the woman wasn't with her anymore.
"Come on!" Beth called to her, turning to look at her. "I thought you wanted to me to show you where the gate was."
The woman seemed to hesitate, making Beth wonder if she said something that struck a chord with something her or something. Beth wasn't sure what was going on, but she had a feeling that it wasn't going to hurt her or her friends. Regardless of what it was.
"How did your friend get ahold of a Heart of the Forest?" the woman asked, as she walked towards Beth carefully, as if Beth might run off any moment.
Beth merely shrugged. "Kind of a story. Want me to tell you on our way to the gate?"
The woman sighed and shook her head. "Actually, I'm going to have to take you somewhere else. Somewhere you're not going to like," the woman answered, her tone sounding like she was trying to scare Beth.
"Cool. Where're we going then, Sidney?" Beth asked, giving the woman a smile. She couldn't help but wonder how much fun this was going to be.
Ralph leaned back over the chair he was sitting in. The two men sitting across from him weren't being any fun. At the moment he wished that he didn't have the ability to understand what they were saying. If he couldn't understand them, then he'd be able to entertain himself rather than trying to figure out how to get these guys to leave him alone.
One of the men looked like he was starting to get up there in his years, wrinkles starting to form, wore rather thick glasses, had robes that made his look more scholarly, and had blond-white hair. It looked like his hair was blond originally, but the color was fading to white. His eyes were a bright green that almost looked like they could be a nightlight for a little kid.
The other man looked like he might be a rookie cop or something, with his uniform cleaned up as if he was expecting an inspection any moment, his blond hair cut neatly, but still with a casual look to it, and green eyes that looked like they could be emeralds or pieces of jade. Geology wasn't Ralph's strong suit, so he couldn't be sure.
"So, uh, Ralph," the older of the men asked. "What was it that made you come to our world out all the others you said are out there?"
Ralph merely rolled his eyes. This seemed to be their idea of torture. Asking him pointless questions that didn't matter and boring him to death. Then any answer he gave would be countered with either the accusation of him lying or wasting their time. When in truth they were wasting his time more than anything else.
"Do you even care?" Ralph drawled. "I've told you several times already. We don't control where the gates lead. Nor do we have an option of where the gates are in the first place. We have to travel to the gates and accept whatever world they lead to. There's nothing that we get to decide about it. Though, if you'd like, just give us our things back and we can leave and not come back to this world. I mean, it sounds like a good idea to me. Getting out of this place, that is."
"So, you're telling us that you really don't know where you are?"
"Well, I probably shouldn't have taken that right at Albuquerque, maybe I should have taken the ship in Houston to Boise, but I think my biggest travel error was to have to have stopped at Kansas City on my way to Phoenix from Denver," Ralph answered, laying on the sarcasm as thick as he could.
The men across from him didn't seem to show any signs of reaction, but their eyes showed how much he was working on their last nerve. Ralph couldn't help but smile at that encouraging piece of news. He was sure he'd break them eventually.
"If you're not interested in helping yourself, cut-ear, we'll just have to show you how we deal with those who would resist progress," the older man informed Ralph.
"Wait. Cut-ear?" Ralph asked incredulously. "I haven't done anything to my ears. See for yourself!" Ralph turned his head and moved what little hair was around his ear out of the way.
"Yes, we see," the man answered dismissively. "Easy enough to heal once they've been cut. Doesn't mean anything."
Ralph quieted down a little, pulling on his magic to send out a 'hand' to 'feel' what kind of boots the men wore. When he learned that they had laces and rubber soles, he used the 'hand' to their boots together, before he started to heat up the rubber as best as he could to destroy the treads on the boots. He was almost done with that when the older man slapped his hand on the table.
"Are you listening to me? We have you dead to rights. You and your 'friends' were planning on harming the library, weren't you?" the man demanded.
"You know, I was wondering," Raplh replied calmly. "What are you on? I'd like to get some of that stuff. It sounds like it'd be an amazing trip."
The man looked at Ralph incredulously, then tried to stand up to walk away, but fell as his laces wouldn't let him walk very far. Then the other man fell as he tried to get up to help the older man.
Ralph couldn't help but laugh. He wasn't worried about what they might do to him because of his pranks. He had a feeling that he was already in some pretty hot water just because of when they went through the gate to this world as well as where it led to. Yet, at the same time, he couldn't help himself. These guys were just too serious.
"Having trouble, officer?" he asked innocently.
The man merely glared at Ralph as he untied his boots from each other before tying them again. Ralph was sure the man couldn't say Ralph did it, since Ralph had kept his hands in sight the entire time, but Ralph was sure he suspected Ralph had done that somehow.
Neither man said anything to Ralph once they had their boots tied again. They merely left. Ralph couldn't say he was sorry to see them go. If nothing else, he couldn't help but wonder what they might do next. Though, he didn't get the feeling that it'd be that bad.
The worst part about this had been the lack of imagination the two men had. He couldn't help but wonder how the others were holding up. However, Ralph couldn't help but feel the need to take a nap. Messing around with the two men he could tell that weren't going to do anything drastic to him was rather tiring.
Laying his head on the table, using his arms as a pillow, he closed his eyes. The light in the room was annoying, but he could deal with that discomfort. He just hoped the two men didn't return that quickly. It would allow him time to rest up and he how much he could continue to mess with them when they came back.
_
Charlie was bored. They'd left her in a room that had a table and three chairs. She couldn't say for how long she'd been in there, but when she'd tried using her magic to see how her friends were doing, she couldn't get anything. Even though she knew Hannah had been put in the room across from hers, she still couldn't use her magic to talk with her.
She'd seen several people walk past the door to the room she was abandoned in, yet no one came in to talk with her. She was aware someone had gone into speak with Hannah, but they left a while ago, making Charlie assume they gave up, since Hannah couldn't be understood without magic.
In the end, she put all three chairs together, which allowed her to lay down on them, with just her feet and a little of her legs below her knees hanging of the end. Though, she could have had more of her body laying on the chairs, she didn't think it would be very comfortable.
She merely put her arms behind her head and closed her eyes, doing her best to ignore the light shining above her. While she didn't really like it, she couldn't say that it would keep her awake. She'd just like it off, but didn't feel like doing anything to figure out how to go about doing that.
She couldn't say how long it was before she was woken up when the door to the room she was in slammed shut. Charlie looked over and saw a woman in a uniform walking over to Charlie, her eyebrow arched.
She had blond hair and dark green eyes, but Charlie couldn't say if the woman was annoyed or unhappy that Charlie had been laying on the chairs like that, but she quickly sat up. She also moved one of the chairs over to the other side of the table, the one farthest from the door and sat like she was in Mr. Samuels math class.
The woman didn't sit in the chair, but rather regarded Charlie carefully. She was quiet for so long that Charlie was starting to wonder if she was going to say anything at all. Though, Charlie wasn't sure what to expect if the woman didn't say anything at all.
However, her thoughts were pushed aside as the woman spoke. "What can you tell me about the Heart of the Forest?"
"A Heart of the Forest is what keeps a unicorn's forest stable. Removing one from the forest will cause the forest to destabilize and eventually collapse. The Heart of the Forest can be used by a Friend of a Unicorn to open or close gates, so long as they are holding the Heart of the Forest and have the intent in their heart to do that to a gate nearby," Charlie answered.
"What does it look like?" the woman asked, although Charlie got the impression that she was thinking of her second question as a clarification of her first.
"It's a round crystal, about like this," Charlie answered, using her hands to give an approximate size. "Oh, and it's also kept in the center of the Unicorn's Forest."
The woman nodded, looking at Charlie like she was debating something. Yet, as Charlie waited, she couldn't help but be bored. She'd waited so long already that she was still rather bored. So, she merely pulled on her magic and tried to look in the woman's mind. At the very least, she'd know what the big deal with her and her friends being by that building.
However, as she tried, she felt her magic slide off the woman like it hit a glass wall. While she could pierce the woman's defenses, she wouldn't be able to keep it from the woman, so she wasn't sure she should right then. After all, she didn't want to give too much of her abilities away if she could help it.
However, a moment after she had that happen, the woman sighed. "When did you use the Heart of the Forest?" the woman asked, surprising Charlie with how much she'd already known.
"I think maybe, six or seven months ago?" Charlie answered, not sure how the woman knew that Charlie herself was the one who used it. Though, what surprised her most was that she wouldn't have expected Ralph to really talk much with these people. Not that she was upset with him. As apparently it seemed to be something that got their attention.
"How many gates have you opened with it?" the woman asked. "No need to hide it from us. We can extract what information we need from the Heart of the Forest when we find it with your belongings."
"All of them," Charlie replied. "I opened all of them when I first spoke with the Heart."
The woman blinked. "A- all of them?" she stammered. Charlie nodded. "wh-wh-why?"
Charlie shrugged. "Well, I guess mostly because I didn't really trust those who wanted me to open the first one."
"Don't you know why they were closed in the first place?"
"Not really. I really only learned about the gates maybe a month or two before that, I think."
"Do you realize what you've done?!" the woman shrieked at Charlie.
"If anyone here would actually tell us anything, maybe we might know something," Charlie retorted, fed up with the people demanding answers yet not telling them anything at all. Though, after taking a breath, she added, in a more quiet tone, "I mean, I've been told by others already that opening up all the gates is going to be unpredictable. So, probably not, I'd guess."
The woman merely sighed, looking rather incensed, not that she gave Charlie any indication of what the core of the problem was. Although, since they weren't going to try and explain things to her, she found it hard to care if she ruffled a few feathers or hurt a few feelings. Especially when they seemed to want her to give them information and not give any back in return.
"So, when can I get my phone call?" Charlie asked, even though she was quite sure these people didn't know, or have, anything even resembling Miranda rights.
"Phone call?" the woman echoed, looking confused.
"Yeah, I know my rights," Charlie replied, casually. "I have the right to remain silent, uh, anything I say can and will be used against me in a court of law, and I have a right to an attorney." She felt like she was forgetting part of it, but wasn't too worried about it. She was looking for the 'attorney' aspect of it anyway.
The woman blinked. There was silence for a minute before she started laughing. "Wait, you think we'll give a cut-ear like you something like that? You're crazier than we first thought," the woman said.
"What if I can prove to you that I'm not… uh, whatever it was you just called me?" Charlie asked, doing her best to challenge the woman with her gaze.
The woman shook her head. "How do you plan on doing that?" she asked.
Charlie held out her hand, not saying anything more.
"What's this supposed to be?" the woman asked, looking a little confused.
"Take my hand and you'll see everything about me," Charlie replied.
The woman scoffed and shook her head. "This had better be worth you life then. I don't se how-" the woman's statement stopped as she took Charlie's hand and Charlie suddenly, without any warning, did the same thing she'd done with the bear-kin leader and the few pronghorn-kin who were present at that time. Only, this time, she included the events that occurred after that time she'd shown them her life through her magic.
When Charlie let go of the woman's hand, she was gasping for breath, her eyes looking like they were about to pop out of her head on their own. While Charlie hadn't expected her to react like this, she couldn't say she knew what to have expected. Especially since she didn't know what this culture was like or even what it was like to have that happen to her herself.
A moment after Charlie let go of the woman's hand, she looked at Charlie, her eyes no longer bulging, but with a look of fear and wariness in them that hadn't been there before. All the self-confidence was gone from her eyes.
The woman then stood up after a moment and turned to head to the door, only to trip over the chair she'd just vacated in her rush, and picked herself up before Charlie could even think to try and see if she could heal any bruises the fall had caused. Then she opened the door and ran out, screaming, "Thought mage! Thought mage!"
While she had left the door open, Charlie waited a few minutes where she was sitting. When nothing else occurred, she merely moved the chairs back to where she had them before the woman came in and resumed her position, and continued to try and fall asleep. While the talk with the woman had been a distraction from the boredom, it was clear that Charlie was going to have to wait a while longer before she could be cleared to leave. So, meanwhile, she wanted to pass the time as quickly as she could. Which meant sleeping would be her best move at the moment.
Although, it didn't help that she could hear the woman still screaming in the distance. If anything did start to happen because of that, Charlie hoped that it would happen sooner rather than later. Either than or that things would quiet down. She wasn't interested in listening to the screams and would like for them to stop so she could have the quiet necessary for her to fall asleep.