The Sky Demons Part One: Journey

Chapter Seven- Home sweet home...

Serefk’na- Home sweet home…

 

I looked around us in wonder, remembering why I had missed my home so much. There were things the size of skyscrapers towering all around us but they were not hand-made, they were trees. Here was no new-age technology, no cars polluting the air: only forest. Our buildings are created by using a teratha spell on trees to make them grow into the shape we desire so none of them are cut down. We contact people with the help of telepaths, teleporters or most often the phoenix postal service. It is nature that gives us life and therefore it should be treated with the utmost respect, to pollute it would be dangerous. Really dangerous.

I smiled as I watched an orange phoenix flying above us; it circled over the trees, leaving a blazing trail of fire in its wake that flickered from its wings and tail feathers.

“Serefk’na? Serefk’na? Hey, did you plan any further than ‘make a portal’? Or are we just going to stand here looking at trees and birds for a while?” said Tigre, moving to stand directly in front of, so close that I could more or less only see her, because she’s good with personal space like that.

“So anyway” I said, mentally shaking myself from the pleasure of being somewhere familiar, even if it was dangerous. “From here my plan is to hide immediately-”

“Nope,” said Senka.

“-And once we’re sure no one sensed us arriving,” I continued, “I know of a hideout that we can start travelling to.”

“Wait, you knew of a hideout all this time and you had us sleeping in the open forest?” snapped Tigre.

I was never going to manage to finish this sentence without more interruptions unless I explained a few things.

“Look, the hideout was a last resort, I hadn’t known you that long and I didn’t want there to be any chance of endangering my friends who live there.”

“You have other friends? Why haven’t we heard of them before?” asked Tigre.

“The subject never came up” I replied evasively, not really wishing to go into my full life story, “I had a life in the eleven and a half years before I met both of you, you know.”

“No you didn’t, we are your life. I will accept nothing less,” laughed Tigre in that way that made me pretty sure she was joking.

“What’s this hideout like?” asked Senka, thankfully changing the subject.

“The hideout is a good place, but so that no one finds out about it, it’s just a little hard to reach” I said, knowing that I was phrasing this too lightly whatever way you looked at it.

“How much is a little?”

“I’m talking about mazes, angry dragons and solve the complicated maths problem to get through the door levels of difficult.”

“Maths problems!” they both cried together.

I sighed. Trust those two to be more phased by having to solve maths problems than by enormous, flying, angry, fire-breathing dinosaurs.

 “Look, forget about that for just a second. You may not agree to hiding but we at least need to get away from this area.” 

*** 

“We should stop here for tonight.”

“Why here?” I asked.

“Because I’m tired of walking,” grumbled Senka, “and my leg hurts.”