“I thought you were better than this! Are you really hibernating in here? How childish,” taunted the Derin-speaking voice coming from the ball as big as Abeni’s heads mouth. With a familiar-sounding female voice, a pair of coral eyes and petals sticking out of it.

Abeni froze at the sight as she stared. The female ẹda…why was she here? The white-haired girl already accepted that she wouldn’t see the female ẹda ever again. The female ẹda returned back to her home in the maze. That she left her alone. So, what was this? A dream? Abeni reached up to touch her bitten right ear. No, she was awake.

The female ẹda was really here.

Yes...yes, she really was!

Once Abeni broke out of the shock, the white-haired girl couldn’t help but let out a little sniffle and roughly rub at her nose. “I’m not hibernating. I’m going through a lot, alright?”

“Oh…” the ball sounded regretful, “Oh yeah. I can imagine. Sorry about that.”

Did she hear that right? Sorry? Someone just said sorry to her? After everything that happened yesterday that almost weirded her out as much as this form did. Since when could the female ẹda transform into a ball? “Just…come in. I was looking for you, you know? Where did you go?”

A raised eyebrow. “Home.”

Oh…so Abeni had been right.

The female ẹda rolled into the hut as a ball, taking some time looking around her quaint stone hut. At the pots and pans, the bare wooden chairs and the low table. All things taken from the surface many many years ago according to her parents. Albeit the smaller torches and fireplaces which were built and sold by the villagers. Abeni closed the door behind her.

“Nice place you have here.”

“It’s not mine. It’s my parents.”

“Oh…” The female ẹda hummed, settling on the low table by the fireplace still in ball form as if she owned the place. “Sounds like you’re still grieving.”

Abeni felt herself clamp up at the words, fingers tensing as even her body went on the defensive this time. “Look, I know I should get over it—” but the female ẹda’s eyebrow raised again, rolling off of the table before soundlessly transforming into her normal eniyan-sized form. Arms and all.

“You don’t have to get over it, though? What are you talking about? Grieve if you have to, it’s normal,” she shrugged, and it was strange. Really strange to watch the female ẹda settle so comfortably in her hut saying the words Abeni had been dying to hear the eniyans in this village say for the past few days so easily.

“Man, Aajiz Village…what a place,” the female ẹda laid down on the smoothed stone floor, coral petals fluttering as she stretched her body and tail. Abeni was too stunned to speak. “The eniyans here are so on edge. But, except your parents, they can’t fight to save their lives! It was way too easy to slip in.”

“...Wait…why are you here? What was that form?” Didn’t the female ẹda say that she would only follow Abeni up to the village?

She looked up at Abeni who was stood stiffly by the door. “Isn’t it obvious that I would have more than two forms?” No, it wasn’t. And even if it was, Abeni was admittedly not focused on how many potential forms ẹda had during their trip back. “I don’t have more than three forms though, this one being my primary one. I’m normal in that sense. Oh, and I’m here because…well,” she looked away with a frown but Abeni’s eyes stayed latched onto her, expectant. The female ẹda must’ve felt it too because soon she’s looking back at the white-haired girl with a sigh.

“OK. It’s not like I was worried or anything! But just before I went home, I overheard you talking to your…uncle, was it? And I’m not gonna lie, it didn’t sound like he cared about you. So, I was a bit…I don’t know…concerned? Something like that. It would be bad if I took the time to escort you home only for something to happen to you, so I’m just here to check up on you, that’s all. That curse is crazy, you know? Who knew what he could’ve done with that attitude of his?”

“You overhead us?” This was a lot to take in. Abeni thought…Abeni had genuinely thought she just left that day. Without a second thought. So, to hear this…

“Yeah, I did. What? Are you creeped out? Well, excuse me, but I don’t think it’s so ba—”

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“No, no that’s not what I meant,” she swallowed, crossing her arms and shifting her weight to her other leg. “You…cared enough about me to come back?”

“…So, what if I did?”

Abeni was beyond confused. The female ẹda cared for her.

Why?

Why?

She eventually mumbled out a separate question though, leaning her weight onto the door, which didn’t have a lock, behind her. “How did you find me?”

Then, for the first time since the beginning of this conversation, the female ẹda sounded unsure. “I-I…Speaking of finding, it took a while for me to find you! So, be a dear and let me stay with you for a while? Pretty please?”

Evading the question, huh? Did she stalk her? “Are you sure about that?”

And what kind of turn of events was this Could this become a problem in the future? Well, as long as the female ẹda kept to herself and Abeni didn’t slip up, it wasn’t likely that anyone would find out. Not that any eniyans were even paying attention to what Abeni was doing right now. So, this arrangement shouldn’t impede on their safety.

In fact, if the female ẹda wanted to stay here, didn’t that mean she was willing to protect her again if the time came?

“Yeah…I have nothing else to do anyway,” the female ẹda muttered the last bit to herself, but Abeni still caught it.

“Huh?”

But the female ẹda just blinked at her, blinking innocently. “Huh?”

It was unlikely they would ever get caught if the female ẹda was able to get in so easily. And it’s even more unlikely that the villagers would assume that Abeni was helping her, except for Uncle Ibrahim, maybe the guards by the gate and the irrational one by the graveyard the day she returned. Either way, if push came to shove, Abeni could always lie and say thay this was different ẹda from the one she claimed to have travelled with.

No one would know.

So, Abeni nodded her head and verbally agreed. Telling the female ẹda that she could stay if she wanted, unable to decided whether she hated or loved this situation she was suddenly in.

On one hand, Abeni’s safe haven where her pleasant memories roamed freely and no one was there to tell her to forget her parents was being disrupted by a being. A being the same race as the one that killed said parents. On the other hand, the female ẹda who was the first to tell her it’s OK to grieve wanted to stay here because she cared for her. Her. An eniyan child who did nothing but bring her trouble.

She was torn.

But sorting out her feelings about this arrangement was not a priority right now. The funeral was.

Yes, the funeral. The funeral.

Abeni cleaned herself off, ate the leftovers from yesterday night before belatedly checking whether she caught the flu from Mary or Martin the day before. But she didn’t have a cough, didn’t feel lethargic and seemed to have fully functioning taste buds. She should be fine.

After making sure the female ẹda wouldn’t leave the stone hut and cause the village to breakdown. “I won’t leave! You worry too much,” Abeni wandered outside with twelve zincs in her white purse this time. Tentatively using the rest of her parents’ money that she found this morning, hoping she didn’t run into anyone she met yesterday as she meticulously planned what she needed to buy. It wasn’t a lot of money.

Abeni approached an appropriate-looking shop in the shopping district near the centre of the village with a wooden door just like her stone hut and windows like the fabric shops she saw on the day she returned alone. It was a place where you walked into shops and weren’t pressured to buy! Buy! Buy! The quietness already made her prefer it here over the insensitive flow of the village’s main marketplace. At least…considering what she was buying.

You see, this morning Abeni recalled what her parents said about funerals some years ago...about a shrine...a display of some kind with an offering and decided to try making that. It would probably be good to get some fabric and ink to write the funeral instructions on and a list of guests too. That must be everything right? She could only guess as she pressed her hand on the wood and pressed on the shop door.

Was there anything else she needed at the funeral? The shop keeper would probably know.

“Abeni Tejuosho?”

The white-haired girl jolted in place, almost dropping her purse in the middle of the shop entrance. Looking behind her to the pale, blonde attendant, who she recognised as the woman by the chief’s side. What was her name again? “Caterina.” That’s right. Why was she here? What did she want with Abeni? What was going on?

“Is there a problem?” The shop keeper asked. After all, Abeni had stopped in the middle of the wooden shop door, eyeing the hanging fabric and stone plaques in the display. “Would you like to come in?”

But instead of answering, Abeni just stared at the woman behind her dressed in white again standing outside of the shop with wonder. “...do you need something?”

“The village chief would like to see you.”

“Why?” Hadn’t she already said all that she had to say to him? Did he want her to bow to him in apology as well? “What does he want to speak about?”

Caterina huffed, looking at her like she was a nuisance. “…You know what. Don’t make me say something unnecessary and come with me.”

“No…I don’t,” What was this about? Abeni didn’t want to see him. Not now.

But Caterina paused, stepped closer to Abeni and leant down to stare into her confused grey eyes, hissing as if her tongue was made of fire. “Don’t play dumb. You have something he wants. Now…come along, little girl. You should consider yourself lucky to even be invited.”

And Abeni was tempted to refuse, who wouldn’t be in that situation? But she had a suspicion that this wasn’t a request that she could simply say no to. So, she let herself be dragged out of the shop by her wrist and gave up on plans to buy what she needed. At least…until after she heard what the chief wanted with her only three days after their last meeting.

[Current Total Beings In ‘Abeni’s Army’ – 1]