Can I Really Love A Shadow?

Chapter Seventeen: Owl Lady

I didn't dream of  much, it was just darkness until, I felt two soft voices creeping into my subconscious."

"Lucy wake up, the owl lady said we are close to Malba City." I let out a soft groan and peeled my eyes open. The soft rays of the waking sun flooded my brown eyes. Two small heads popped into my line of sight. "Lucy you have to wake up."

I pushed myself up and rubbed my eyes. "I'm up, where are we." I shifted around to look at the exceeds. they looked like they had just woken up like me. Their fur was a little matted along with their clothes being wrinkled. I continued to wipe the dry drool off my cheek and the sleep out of my eyes.

"Malba City is just ahead," An ethereal voice announced over the wind. I perked up at the voice. Aelia was in a standing position as she eyed the skyline in front of her. Images of last night flooded my system refreshing my memory. I quickly scrambled to my feet and approached the woman at the helm. Following her gaze, I eyed the outline of the approaching city.

"You might want to hold onto something, Soren is going to descend," Aelia instructed. The exceeds wrapped themselves in my arms as I clasped onto Aelia's shoulder. Soren began to swiftly lose altitude as we grew closer to the city. Once we were a few meters from the city, Soren came to complete stop in a small section of the woods. The landing was kind of rocky but overall I didn't fall off. As soon as the four of us jumped down off of Soren, Aelia immediately sent him back to do a survey of the area.

"Are we ready," I inquired looking at Aelia. She sent a wave off to her owl, then faced me, then hummed in return. I turned to the exceeds floating beside me.

"Aye sir!" They both saluted me. Pride swelled up inside me like a balloon. I clenched my fist in determination.

"Then let's go!" The three of us started  to walk in the direction of Malba. The area that Soren dropped us off at was incredibly close to the entrance of the  town, so we made it there in no time.

"What do you know about this city?" Aelia observed the quaint and quiet town. Since the sun was still coming up, there weren't as many people walking the streets.

"Not much, I just know that it is being terrorized by a dark guild located in the Malkage Forest," I replied. I mimicked her actions and took a glance around the town. Stores and vendors littered every street corner. As well as a ton of greenery. I mean trees lined each side of the street along with gorgeously styled homes and boutiques. 

"I see," She stopped and knit her eybrows, "we are not working on much information."

"Flying cats, do you remember anything about this guild?" I chuckled at what she said. She gave me a perplexed look. "What is so funny."

"Nothing, lets see what they have to say," I chuckled softly. I peered down at the cats trailing beside us. Their faces scrunched up in thought.

"Frosch remembers that we passed by a park." I prompted them to go on with the wave of my hand.

"Yeah Frosch is right, we passed by a park then a stone archway that lead to this outdoor market,"Lector added.

"That seems to be a good place to start, lets find these places and along the way we can ask people about this guild," Aelia decided quikly, "lead the way cats."

Lector and surprisingly Frosch took the lead in guiding us through the fairly small town.  We made some rights then some lefts around street corners then found ourselves in front of the park, they were at.