Ash took the winding stairs down for the basement with Vots and Tharin grumbling behind her. Suddenly Vots stopped talking.
Tharin poked again, "did a fairy kiss your mouth?"
Vots shot out and caught the dwarf's mouth, pressing it between a pinch and tapped his nose. Then Vots let go and wipped his hand with the side of his pants. The dwarf sniffed like the goblin but shrugged. The goblin pointed to the side, "I smell fairy that side. Let's go around."
The dwarf paused, "let's."
Ash laughed, "this is the first time I have seen the two of you agree to something."
"We earthly things know what we like and dislike. Fairies are higher on the list that dwarfs." Vots said and Tharin build up, "same goes for our list."
Ash said, "it will leave anytime now. This is the shortest path. Going around through the corridors of vampire dormitory feels invasive."
The three of them waited for some time. Vots frowned, "why is it still there?"
Ash put a finger to her lips and took a soft step forward. With pressed feet, with the training of a hunter, she pressed forward, coiled to act if the fairy was really lurking. She extended her hand behind her back and mouthed to Vots- Scale. Vots passed the scale and Ash opened the knife quickly and pressed the cold blade above her wrist. Holding a weapon she felt more at ease dealing with the lurking creatures.
When they turned around a corner, the fairy was lurking right out of sight, behind the wall. It's back was to them, and its miniscule head poked out of the corner. Ash threw her knife at the Fairy's wing from the distance. When her eyes moved. Vance's wide eyes met hers and he was jumping over the table, running at her. The fairy turned around and moved out of the way of the knife. The little thing was fast but Ash had trained for this all her life. The end of the fairy's little wing caught into the wall. Vance paused in the dormitory corridor and looked at what she had caught. Lady Bree and Drew reached fast, right behind Vance. The fairy screamed, an unheard sound that made Vance shiver and cover his ears. Red flashed in her vision. Anger clouded her mind. Ash closed the distance and put a hand on Vance, hoping her magic could wrap around him, like a second skin.
When she looked at the fairy again, it's large black iris expanded. "Cower."
Hypnosis?
Van shivered under her hand and his hand shot out. Relief flooded her body. The little thing, the fairy, stopped screaming and shot sideways, tearing its wing away from the knife and shot into the corridor. Drew ran after it. Even with a broken wing, the fairy was fast but loosing height, moving up and down, out of Drew's reach. B said, "Drew can't catch it," and ran after her.
"That leads to the new construction," Tharin spoke behind her. She had forgotten everyone around them but Vance for a moment. Seeing him in trouble had made her move without thinking. Suddenly, her chest was filled with unusual things- confusion, the awareness of someone's hand on her shoulder. She removed her hand from Vance' shoulder, feeling awkward as she looked back. Nothing. Vots watched the chase vanish from the corridor into the deeper part of the underground maze and met her eyes, wide and surprised. She couldn't ask him anything before he said, "I am going to help," and took off running.
Akiye spoke from the back of the group, unseen, "someone wants to spy on our conversations?"
Ash was surprised Akiye was in the room. If she was, who was trying to spy on their conversations? Vance shook his head, as if to clear his mind, almost humane, "the fairy tried to hypnotize you?"
Ash couldn't answer immediately. Her mind shot ahead. If the fairy tried to hypnotise her, it would do the same to Drew, Lady Bree, Tharin or Vots. Ash ran after them, "shit."
She thought of darkness, of the hiding spots that the fairy could find. Vance shot past her. Ash's heart hammered in her chest, knife still in hand, she concentrated on the darkness. Past the corridor was a darkness that spread around the tunnels and rooms dug up by the dwarf. She felt the individual parts in the darkness, big and small, just like the training and in them, she felt Vance, distinct and clear, blended with it, a part of it and yet, not. She called the darkness, asked it to thicken, to expand. She wanted the darkness to press into the people running within it. Her consious expanded, as if she was darkness herself, it her skin and her senses. She was everywhere and around her skin, a fairy buzzed, taking advantage of the darkness. Drew was nowhere. Or she was. Two women were fighting and the fluid movements of Bree against the jerky moments of Drew surprised her. Vots was about to reach the fight. Vance stood in the darkness, still and unmoving.
Ash reached him first. Around them she could see little but she could feel Vance by her side. Slowly, she pushed back the darkness into multiple tunnels. The loss of darkness leaves more darkness. But as she pushed back everything from the room, she aimed it at the fairy, struggling alone, to fly away from the commotion. The thicker the darkness, the easier it was for her to find the commotions, the fairy and... Tharin, who dropped down from a hole and started walking backwards. Straight for the eavesdropping fairy.
Vance stepped towards the thicker darkness. Ash warned him, "that fairy hypnotized Drew into fighting Bree."
Vance asked, "how did... um.. then, what about the goblin and the dwarf?"
"The goblin is with Bree, trying to help her. The dwarf dropped into the end of the tunnel and is trapping the fairy from the other side but there are other connections and rooms between them. The fairy can move in either direction, we need to trap her without getting hypnotised."
"I can't be hypnotized. Wait here..." Vance said but Ash stiffened. "Far away, something else is moving, large. Larger than usual. Big for underground. As tall as as centaur... hunched."
Ash closed her eyes to concentrate. The darkness, she willed to move around the tunnels, thickening over the fairy and the new thing. It was moving steadily towards the fairy's direction. It was getting closer, moving in cross direction.
Vance ran, Ash didn't have time to stop him. She ran into a different tunnel, a simpler path she could sense. The thing moved steadily towards the resting fairy. Vots and B managed to subdue Drew, all three of them clustered together in the darkness. The creature walked right past the fairy and continued on. Tharin was close too, he must have sensed something else, for he stopped. Or did the fairy hypnotise him too. Ash wished that wasn't the cass as she came into the tunnel that was just crossed by another thing. Tharin stood frozen. The fairy began to move- as she susepeted, sideways, coming towards her now. Vance, light a bright beacon to her consiousness that travelled with the darkness, ran past the trio, ran past the tunnel, and came to a stop at Tharin. Then Vance moved, fast, very fast, faster than usual and ran for the fairy. They were two in a two way tunnel and the fairy was in the middle.
She pulled the darkness from the entire underground- the class rooms, the meeting room, the corridors, the dorms, the tunnels, away from her friends and their friends and their friends, until all the darkness let her understand was Vance, fairy and herself. All the darkness of the underground filled into one single tunnel. The fairy paused, slowed down, turned back and flew low. Her control and power within one single tunnel of confined space was expectionally sharp. She could feel the little thing move back and forth. Was it unsure of its path?
Ash couldn't move in the darkness, she couldn't see in it but she could sense it and that was the best part the high priestess had taught her. Ash moved slower than Vance even when Vance's speed had slowed to a walk.
Ash was close enough now. Close enough to stab it again if the fairy moved past her and far enough to be unseen in the darkness. Fairy must have felt the thickness of the darkness around her, and found it impossible to move without seeing who was coming for her. Vance, however, was moving fast and steady, like a powerwalk, as if he was able to see through her darkness.
With a straight shot, Vance was upon the fairy and soon the two of them were together. Ash didn't know what Vance had done to silence the fairy but once she felt Vance walking ahead, coming for her, she left the guard of darkness drop. Instead of leaving it to disperse on its own, she pushed it away from her, to head back where it came from. Like smoke, the darkness dispersed, travelling back to its spots, back to the dorm, the classroom, the meeting room and so on.
By the time Vance reached her, the fairy, securely in his fist, face squeezed just enough to keep it shut, Ash could see his silhouette from a distance and see him entirely when he was close. The fairy's face was turned away from them both. He stopped right in front of her.
Ash looked at his long lashed eyes, glasses missing, staring right back at her through the darkness. The distance between them was closer. In it, his eyes were darker, warmer. Ash wanted to step closer, see him better and that was her indication to step away. The time away from him had only strengthened the desire to look at him. As if the closed distance between them wasn't enough he stepped closer and the darkness wrapped around them, isolating them from the world. Unseen, in it, just the two of them, it felt like the worldly matters were not to affect them. Her eyes drank in all she could in that moment, as if that was what she would ever get. The straight brow that gave him a serious look, the sharp squared jaw and sunken cheeks, a small nose and sharply pointed eyes. The red in them, she wished to see again this close. She liked the warmth of them in the dark and the cold of them in the light. She liked how no expression crossed his face ever since he came face to face with her with his wandering eyes seem to look at her with the same intensity she felt, desperately trying to preserve this moment.
"Why is it darker in here?" Tharin asked from the end of the tunnel. "Did someone close the hole above this part?"
Ash felt a tinge of annoyance cross her heart and Vance closed his eyes, head almost hung. It was as close to a sigh as her eyes moving away from him. She did not want to step away. She should. She knew she should but her feet refused to move. The darkness around them refused to relent, just like she refused to relent.
In that moment, without acknowledging it with her heart or her word, she had already acknowledged what she didn't know. There was something more than attraction between them. Something strong enough to guide her emotions and her body despite the large part of her in reluctance. She looked at him again, the sharp like of his jaw and the sharp bone ticking out under his eye. He was gaunt without his glasses. She smiled at her own thoughts and acknowledged once, in the blanket of that darkness that she liked him. Liked him way too much than was normal. Vance head snapped to look at her suddenly. Surprise ringing in them. Ash could mask the fondness that poured out of her as quickly. She saw it, the tinge of happiness, a ghost of a smile rise at the corner of his lips. But it wasn't happiness in his eyes. It was... relief? And the reluctance took over. It was one thing for her to acknowledge it and another thing for him to know. Each grew large in her chest, each fighting a loosing battle. And just like that, as if he had seen the reluctance in her like he had seen the relief in him, his smile was gone. His lips were thin and moist. Just...
"Let us head back." Ash said hastily. Behind her back, enveloped in her darkness she felt his body moved, quaked. What was that? Did he just...
Shiver? She smiled. She wasn't the only one affected. It was good to know there was some affect on the other person too.