“But last I checked, you don’t use magic,” Evin told Cooper, glaring at him pointedly. "And really, I was hoping to find Rasha. But I suppose if she's not here, you'll do," he said to Harmoni.
"I am here."
Harmoni wasn't surprised Rasha was here. Fleck could smell her getting close before. Though she hadn't expected her to step into sight and start speaking right that second.
Evin did look surprised, but he recovered in a second. "Ah excellent. If you’re willing, you can come take a look,” Evin said.
He gestured for Rasha to follow, but looked over his shoulder to see if she was.
Rasha did follow, so of course Harmoni and Fleck did as well. But Moon and Cooper hung back a moment longer. Harmoni could see the shocked look on their faces.
Fleck didn’t bother to hide his little snicker about it. The ones who weren’t dragons might not even realize it was a laugh.
The two fell in step beside them a moment later, Moon shooting Fleck an annoyed look.
“He seems, nice to you,” Cooper muttered to Rasha.
There were enough of them, spread apart far enough, that Evin might not be able to make out the words. But Harmoni could.
Rasha just hummed along as confirmation.
“Do you think . . . are you at all worried he wants something else?” Cooper managed.
Rasha kept walking, but Harmoni saw her shoulders tense, her fingers twitch. It wasn’t in the way Cooper meant it, probably, but Rasha was familiar with men wanting something else.
“I . . . he doesn’t seem. . .” Rasha stammered.
“If. It. Helps.” Evin turned around, walking backwards as he spoke. Ah. Seemed he could hear. He wasn’t glaring, didn’t even sound super angry. More of his usual dismissive and mocking tone. Yet Harmoni could still tell he was mad, low on patience. “I’m not interested in sixteen-year-olds.”
“I’m seventeen,” Rasha quietly corrected.
“And I'm not really interested in aliens either, if we're being honest. I know you like to have zero faith in my morals or claims, but I think you can at least have faith in my own self-interest.” He folded his hands behind his back. “Now, I only need magic users, and if we’re being perfectly honest, I only need one of them. So if you want to continue this discussion when I'm right here, you can get out.”
Cooper didn't respond, didn't even show much in his expression, just let his gaze drift to the side so he wasn't looking at Evin head on. This was apparently enough to satisfy Evin. He turned around and kept leading the way, but he was skulking, compared to before.
He led them to a cliff. It was close enough to the pink ocean, Harmoni wasn’t surprised he’d seen it. But bushes and mosses still grew in the area, contrasted to the ocean’s sands and rocks. Spiky rocks poked up from the base of the cliff. And there, in the clump of jagged rocks, was one that was translucent. It wasn’t completely clear, matching the color of the other rocks and looking foggy, but if you waved a hand under it, you’d notice. And a few white sparks came off it, dissipating in the air and making it look like white smoke was around.
“Here we are. This thing’s magic, right?” Evin asked, waving to it.
“Neat,” Cooper said.
Rasha crouched down, staring at it. “Well, it is magic,” she confirmed. Right. Harmoni could’ve connected to the power of the universe, and also known that. “I don’t know what it does though.”
She reached for the spike at the top of the crystal.
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
“Um,” Harmoni started. If they didn’t know what it was, maybe it was time to get a teacher? Tolith, at least, she trusted. “Is it really a good idea to-”
Rasha touched it before she could finish. There was a white light and a snap, like a firecracker had gone off.
Harmoni blinked, her eyes fluttering after being blinded. As she recovered her sight, things seemed decidedly unfamiliar. They were no longer by cliffs, but on a flat plain.
The air smelled different. It was still a lot wetter than he was used to, but fresh water. Based on the smell, they must be near mountains, not forests and sandy oceans.
Harmoni wasn’t sure about oceans, but there were still trees around her. Maybe it wasn’t dense enough to qualify as a forest. The trees were even further apart than the ones near Edinar school, with fewer branches. There were also fewer bushes and mosses beneath.
The trunks were the same brown or gray as most of the trees she’d seen, in the same gnarled patterns, but the top was unusual. The branches didn’t have leaves or needles. Instead, it was covered in a thick fluffy fuzz, in vaguely the same texture as cotton candy. While there was the rare green fuzz, a lot of the trees were white or blue.
Evin groaned. “Great. We’re in 'The Lorax’.”
Harmoni frowned. “What’s that?”
“You don’t get out much, do you?”
Fleck also had no idea what he was talking about.
And he was getting a little concerned. Nothing here smelled familiar. Wherever Edinar was, it was out of his range.
Evin stepped forward, spinning around to face Cooper, and throwing his arms out. “So, still think that was neat?”
“Yes,” Cooper said. Harmoni couldn’t tell if he genuinely meant it. “A teleporting crystal? That is incredibly cool. And, it means a part of the planet none of us have seen.”
Evin pressed his finger tips together. At least, he certainly came close. The green sludge was still complicating things. He narrowed his eyes. “And do you know what part of Iva this is? Or how to get back?”
Rasha had already been spinning around on the spot, had been since they arrived. Harmoni found out why when she turned towards them. “There’s no crystal on this side,” she gasped.
Well, Fleck could’ve told her that. With his sense of smell he noticed right away.
So there was no clear way to know where they were, or how to get back.
Cooper pressed his fingers to his forehead. He looked a little more nervous than usual, but honestly not by much.
“OK . . . OK. Well, there’s got to be people somewhere,” he said. “If we can find them, we can get help. And we’re not going to die in the meantime. Moon can smell where water is. And food shouldn’t be too hard either.”
“Assuming we don’t poison ourselves,” Evin muttered.
Cooper smiled, but it was definitely fake by now. “Well then, we’d better start searching. If uh . . . if that’s alright with everyone.”
~~~
In the end, it was the dragons who went searching for civilization. Not surprising. They could always find their way back to the group by smell if they got turned around. The riders couldn’t.
Also, the two had a better chance of finding civilization, or something familiar. They had their sense of smell, and they could fly. It was faster than going on foot, and let them see farther.
Both jumped into the air, gliding over the treetops. With the fluffy blue and white trees below, the ground looked a lot like the sky.
Moon whooped, squiggling and flying in loops with greater flexibility than Fleck could manage.
But he did have more powerful wings. One flap and he was caught up with her.
They flew like that for a while, chasing each other around open air, or trying to show off. Moon spun in a tight coil up, like she was on a spiral staircase, and Fleck returned the favor by flying almost straight up. Then he folded his wings up and dropped towards the ground, making it close enough to worry Moon before spreading his wings out again and shooting forward. Though he did have to pull his feet up to avoid slamming into a rock.
Moon didn’t try that, but she did dive straight down, only to spread her wings back up and curve into the air. It was like moving on a roller-coaster as opposed to leveling out like Fleck had done.
He grunted.
He knew Harmoni was worried, but he also knew it didn’t matter if they were searching this way, or studiously scanning. They were covering ground either way, possibly even more this way, and this was more fun.
And he knew Harmoni knew this, even if she would still worry.
Cooper apparently didn’t know this. Moon came up beside him.
“Cooper said we should stop racing. Mentally. He didn’t just shout it out to the others. But, uh, he said something about conserving energy.”
Fleck huffed. “You think he’s right?”
Moon’s look was annoyed. “I’m going to listen to him, yeah.”
Fine.
They glided across the sky, no longer putting so much effort in.
Fleck scanned the ground below him, looking out as far as the eye could see. He sniffed the air too, of course.
He could see Moon doing the same beside him.
“See anything familiar?” she asked.
Fleck once again scanned the horizon, and sniffed in a deeper breath than usual, but there was no change. He shook his head.
“Don’t worry,” he said, for Harmoni as much as Moon. “We’ve only just started. We’ll find something.”