Vance watched as Ash touched the door and the darkness around them moved with ease, creeping through the corners of the door into the room. Slowly, like fog creeping along the waters or smoke spreading through the air, darkness moved at Ash's will. Ash's worrisome heart had also calmed down since she received a text. Once that anxiousness was gone, she was focused and driven. By now, he was familiar with the determination that set into his chest- a determination that belonged to Ash. This was the determination he had felt when Ash was avoiding him. And somewhere, somehow, he too, was avoiding what they had.
Now, with their friends in danger and an entire race running rampant in the institute, their problems, their resistance to each other, seemed unimportant, silly even. He wanted to thank Karlene, to have pushed her so she accepted their bond. Caution he felt with the determination when she said, "I just know," surprised him. She knew. She knew they were mates. She knew what he felt. She knew who he was to her. Who he was meant to be.
Vance looked at her without hesitation this time, a small admiration and happiness rose in his chest. His heart swelled but it was not enough to make it beat. He wanted to make it beat again but the situation was different now. There was acknowledgement between them. Or was there? Did he read that right, her unwilling determination to accept it? Those words she said, could they really mean what he wanted them to mean? He wanted it?
"You are staring." she said. Vance took a chance, "can't I look at my blessing?"
A slight color rose under the corner of her eyes, flushing all the way to her ears. His heart gave a heavy thud. It was an endearing sight. But that embarrassment did not deter her. Her determination and focus never wavered from the door. She responded in kind, "we can talk after all this is done with."
"I want to talk now." Vance said, enjoying the sudden kick of embarrassment his words brought to her heart. Ash narrowed her eyes at him, "stop it."
Vance heart thudded once again. Had she sensed his happiness and eagerness to see her blush?
Vance did not tease her again, but he couldn't help himself from asking, "can I ask you something?"
And he felt the walls, the guard, the caution in her heart surge. Vance spoke cautiously, "how and when did you find out?"
And suddenly Ash sighed. Vance asked, "if you fear I will make it difficult for you, I will not."
"That is not... I... I thought you were going to tell me that we should wait for the investigators to come down instead of taking action ourselves."
That is what he should do. That is what he should have said. He groaned, "being with you always messed with my head."
Then he bit his tongue. He did not mean to say it out loud. They should wait for investigators but looking at the circumstances, "since your friend has been taken hostage, we can consider it as our hands are tied to act."
Ash removed her hand from the door and said, "let's see if I managed to release some of the siren's hypnosis."
Vance turned the knob, "already?"
No matter how and where he turned, the door wouldn't budge. Ash tapped his hand and stiffened. Vance removed his hand and Ash turned the knob easily. "The door is enchanted not to open under curfew hours by the warden. Since I am resistant, it doesn't work on me."
As she pushed it, she said, "if it makes you feel any better, your presence messes with my head too."
Vance heart kicked a couple times and Ash slipped in.
Was that the mate bond making them say things they wouldn't say, making them act like they wouldn't act? Even if it wasn't. It was certainly easier to put the responsibility of their small actions on the mate bond, than themselves.
Ash felt a weight had lifted off her shoulders. A door has opened, as if acknowledgement had gave her permission to feel things she dare not feel before. Embarrassment, happiness and relief. The unwillingness had died along the way, replaced by determination.
She was determined not to let this affect the bigger play of things.
Suddenly, a siren stood in front of her, Vance, besides her, without his glasses, put a hand on the other woman's shoulder, trying to hold her off. He didn't need to. The woman looked at them with narrowed eyes, unable to see them clearly in the smog and dark. Vance let go, "free of hypnosis."
Ash held the siren's hand and asked, "did you know you were hypnotised?"
The siren nodded. "We. Us. We are different. Possessing our own hypnotic ability doesn't make us resistant but it does let us hold a small awareness. It was a fairies. I remember. A lot of them. We sometimes ask them to open the door for us because the enchantment on the door doesn't work on them. Witch and fairy magic cancel each other."
Ash asked, "what did they do?"
"They opened the door and came in- one to three. We held no chance."
She asked, "can you sing? free your sisters of hypnosis?"
The siren nodded eagerly first and paused second. "They took Mayra. Mayra tried to sing us out of it. They took her." The siren shook her head eyes pinched. "I will sing. Go find your friend."
Ash stood still, pushing out the smoky darkness away. The siren began to sing. Ash caught Vance's wrist and extended her layer of resistance to him. The hypnosis that had moved out of the sirens' bodies had taken a smoky form. As it pushed out of the windows and doors, and the room cleared, the lights flickered back on in their sockets, Ash heart shuddered with a heaviness she hadn't felt around Vance before. She looked over as she opened the door, "are you alright?"
They slipped out of the room before it had cleared completely. Vance looked down at their hands as the door slammed shut, blocking all sound. Vance slid his hand over to hold hers.
Ash let go quickly. She couldn't. They couldn't. Vance looked at her but Ash couldn't tell what he was thinking- feeling. Ash could only change the subject. "If the fairies know Mayra is not hypnotized, then she is in much greater danger than we anticipated."
Vance gave her a curt nod and Ash gut twisted. Unlike her, if Vance could sense her feelings, he could sense her unease too. If their bonding intensified any further, she won't be able to keep the distance necessary.
In silence, they walked through the dormitories, under the inky sty under the curious looks of many, through the backwall and came to a pause.
"The backwaters cover a long area. Where will they be?"
"I am not sure. We can seperate and scour the banks." Ash continued walking. Vance caught her, "we should not separate. Who knows what is going on."
Ash pulled her arm away, gently, "I can take care of myself. We are short on people and resources."
"And possibly against a much larger force." Vance added. Ash shook her head. "Where ever they are, they are not all alongside my friend. She was simply a distraction to get me away and out. Maybe they will try to catch me or subdue me, but I feel like they were after you or Akiye. Lady Bree just happened to be caught in their plans in the wrong way. They didn't measure for Lady Bree coming out at such a time, nor did they think of her sending you away. It was like a fake you wanted to be discovered. It was simply bad luck that the one to discover it was Lady Bree."
"When B came to me at the end of the year, I didn't realize it was for this reason. She kept on insisting that I had been hypnotised. I simply thought someone had pulled a bad prank on her. But it could also be Akiye. She is.. you havn't known her for long. She is quite the witch and very insecure which puts her in a very vulnerable position to be taken advantage of."
Ash could tell there was history. She didn't trust what she didn't know but Vance's words made her want to have Akiye in the clear. She, herself, wanted Akiye to be innocent, influenced even. If she had respect for Lady Bree, her heart for some reason went out to Akiye, in an unexplainable way.
"My lady?" she heard Mayra from a distance. She was... singing? No she was using her siren voice. "My lady come and rescue me. Don't give the what they want. You can't."
Vance's knees bent, eyes sharp and looked at her, ready to run in. Ash caught his wrist again and exteneded her resistance to him. "She is fine."
Vance frowned. They walked faster and from a distance saw Mayra, sitting by the banks, flanked by four fairies each holding a wooden staff. Mayra was fine, but her legs were a tail and it was trapped in a mesh of roots woven over her tail snuggly.
The fairies saw them and raised their staff. Vance grit his teeth. "The fairies aren't allowed to have a channeling tool. How did they acquire a staff?"
The little wooden sticks in their hands were each fashioned in their own way. Ash felt the foots crawl up on her feet and knew she had to move. She pulled Ash and focused on the darkness that was coming from the east. She expanded her consiousness and pulled the dark clouds from the depths of the sky to cloud the west. Thunder boomed in the sky. Ash had barely began to run when he felt her feet go off the ground while in speed. Vance had her in the air, in his arms. Their eyes met. Vance's red ones were focuses straight ahead. "just while you use your while. For a little bit."
When he put her down, she was further away from Mayra but still in clear view. Vance ran hard and fast as the fairies all four focused on Vance, roots and branches and stems and leaves, all becoming their weapons. Mayra looked about frantically, twisting and turning. Their eyes met. Ash was far away down the bank. Mayra beamed once, laid flat on the ground and slipped tail first under the mesh and into the water. The fairies didn't take notice.
Ash called, "get out of there," not only to warn Vance but to distract the fairies.
Vance must have noticed Mayra gone too, for he started running back. The fairies ignored her and ignored Mayra's absence, focusing solely on Vance. Ash's desire to have her close one safe thickened as did the darkness around them.
Mayra swam down hill at full speed and juumped out of the water in full form, her sleep shirt coming barely to her knees. She groaned, shrugged and adjusted her height. Ash ran inwards, back to the wall when her steps halted. How had she not noticed before. Nor had Vance?
Three trees were growing clos together. Were they always like this or did someone move them? Unsure, Ash pulled Mayra towards it. Sur enough, there was a big space between them and sitting there was Akiye with a couple fairies on her shoulders, each. Akiye did not seem to take notice of them as she dug the earth with her hands, pilling wet mud on top of each other. From where they stood, the angle was just right to see in.
Ash worked on the darkness. Mayra stiffened. Ash extended her resistance to her best friend and inched closer, both as silent as they could be. Ash felt her thoughts fray between darkness, Akiye's conditions, Vance running from the fairy and Mayra beside her. She had too much to loose.
She looked over at Vance and found the forest too dark for her to see. In her sea of consiousness, she could feel him moving but not fast enough. He was moving towards the fairies, and caught one. The fight went on. The other three aimed in the dark, unaware of their mate's fate. Ash and Mayra stopped and Ash worked to cover the whole forest in her power. There was no way she was going to let anyone hurt her people. She thickened the darkness between the three fairies and the loud commotion closest to her. She moved again, much of their footsteps covered by the silence.
the darkness between the trees was no thick enough for the fairies not to see much of they looked out but she could feel Akiye working through the mud, pilling one top of the other. As a earth witch, there was no reason to work with her hands, even under hypnosis. The fairies were too crule to make Akiye do that.
Once she knew what she needed what in place and Vance was moving slowly but surely, she started working on the darkness in Akiye's mind. She picture hypnosis as a magic of dark kind that wrapped around the mind and started to pull at it.
A different smoky black rose within the set of three trees. The fairies, she couldn't hear began to be restless- because Akiye was slowing down. Ash hoped it was because she was regaining consciousness.
Then Akiye suddenly burst with speed and began digging.