The Quiet Ever After

A Lawn of Leaves and Grass - 6

Unfortunately for Axel, Ryan had just as much access to magic power and didn't much care for the time or place.

The competition committee came around, in an unsubtle fashion as a gaggle of old men with their polo shirts tucked in idly chatting about the lawns, and pointedly stopped at each one that had the little flag signifying they were partaking in the competition.

Axel hid within one of the trees above, entirely consumed with watching their report and listening in. He wouldn't be able to hear them too well from within the house and had concealed himself well within the tree.

He wasn't alone.

Ryan materialized next to him, the two startling one another.

"What are you doing here?" Axel asked.

Ryan glowered. "Watching to see what they say about my lawn."

"Why'd you enter the competition?"

"Seemed a fun thing to do. A good way to spend my time outside of, uh, work." Ryan narrowed his eyes. "Do you work? All I ever see you do is walk around and do lawn work."

"Yes, I do work for the county," was the answer Axel gave, because it was the answer he always gave.

The much longer, more complicated answer, would be, "My friend, codenamed Sevenfold, came into a ton of wealth developing technology that was stolen by a couple of teenagers, who later became my friends, that was able to manipulate energies from the Starlit Plane. As part of his will, he gave Nina and me enough money to find a home for ourselves, fully paid off. We still need a bit of cash so over the summer I work day in and out for the county cleaning up around town and doing odd jobs in low-income parts of town that I definitely don't use my powers for. "

"Are you sure you didn't enter the competition just to spite me?" Axel asked.

"I'd be lying if I said it didn't do my heart good knowing I'm going to beat you," Ryan said as the men left Axel's house.

Damn! Ryan didn't let him hear a peep about his evaluation. They moved with big grins to Geoff's lawn and didn't even feel the need to look at it. Geoff automatically qualified. It was a given. Good.

"Besides, you've been splitting your time just trying to get credit for that old man's place, too," Ryan said. "Riding the coattails of his success. Typical, honestly. You never were one to be able to do anything on your own."

Axel let that little biting remark sit while the scouts continued.

"Better than having to cheat and use magic."

"How is it cheating? Show me the rules where magic isn't allowed."

"I can't show you the rules where it says not to trip someone on a busy street but I can tell you it's a given, Malian."

That one got to Ryan. Axel regretted the word. It still lingered on his tongue.

"Winning by any means necessary is still winning." Ryan shook his head. "You just won't let me have anything, will you?"

"I—okay. Look. It's a competition, right? Do whatever you want, and whoever comes out on top...well, they had the better lawn. It's as simple as that."

Ryan shuffled a bit in the tree. "What the hell did you even just say?"

"I'm trying to justify you being a jerk."

The judges settled in front of Ryan's house. He paid more attention. A cheeky little grin spread on Axel's face while Ryan clearly leaned in closer to try and get a good listen.

"Wait so what do you do?"

Ryan held a hand up to silence Axel. The grin widened.

"Oh, and how did you pay for all of this? I know Titania's hordes of treasure were left behind somewhere between the worlds, did you find some of that? I figured she'd have given it off to—"