Legend

Ten

TEN

“I’M STILL NOT TOO SURE ABOUT THIS.” Zxander said doubtfully as he slowed his horse, following my lead. We stopped at the large boulder, where we would meet Amandla.

I’d somehow convinced Zxander to come with me, after hours of pleading. I guessed he was slightly curious too, or just worried about me.

“Trust me. We’ll be fine.” I assured him, for the hundredth time.

Just then, Amandla came out to us.

"Hi, Kristen!” She said as she approached us. When she noticed Zxander, she added. “Umm… and hi, Zxander.”

I was pretty sure all of us felt the awkwardness, but I had larger matters to attend to. I needed to find out what the answer was, if my guess was right.

“Hey.” I said, “Hop on, we should go now.”

Legend whined as Amandla was just about to hop on. There was a bruise near his belly that I hadn’t noticed before. Weird. What a weird horse. Legend must be part of this new world, I thought suddenly.

“Umm…I don’t think we should let Legend bear the weight of two people.” Amandla pointed out.

“Yeah…I think he must be tired from yesterday, too.” I thought aloud. “Umm… well… we can’t exactly let you walk either. You can’t catch up.  So…”

“She can ride on my horse, then.” Zxander offered.

“Yeah, sure. Good idea.”

It took Amandla some time to get on, since she was only used to getting onto Legend, a rather small horse compared to Zxander’s. And it took an even longer amount of time to get her to place her arms comfortably enough on Zxander’s waist, so that she wouldn’t fall off. That was probably the most awkward position I’d seen them in before.

When that was done, we continued onto the small clearing and I was careful to curve to the back entrance so that I could spare us all from seeing the freaky trapped souls again.

It seemed that since Amandla joined us, Zxander stopped complaining about how bad an idea he thought this was.

When we reached the back entrance, Viola was waiting for us. We tied up Legend and Zxander’s horse, fed them each an apple, and followed Viola in, like we did the other time.

“Well, you’re lucky ones. Atala just left about a minute or two ago.” She told us as she led us in. As her eyes rested on Zxander, she said, “Now… who is this young man?”

She looked at Amandla and me expectantly. She squinted at him and then looked at me. She squinted at him again and asked Amandla, “Your boyfriend?”

“No, no, no!” Amandla and Zxander exclaimed at the same time, both of them picking up a beet red blush. I couldn’t help but laugh at both the thought of Zxander and Amandla dating, and the way they blushed.

“No, Viola.” I said when I finally stopped laughing. “Viola, this is Zxander, my brother. Zxander, this is Viola.”

Viola gave a cackle worn with age. “Ha! Did you see how you blushed?” When she was done cackling, she said, “Okay, good to meet you, Zxander.”

“Yes, good to meet you too.”  He answered with his blush still visible.

We reached the same ‘room’ as from the day before.

“So.” Viola said. “What brings you here, Zxander?”

“You said the Hope would be one of us or one close to us, so I thought of him.” I answered. That was partly true, but mainly because I needed Zxander to help me, I needed his comfort the most, and maybe his approval, but I didn’t want to admit that in front of him.