Reversed

xxii. twenty-two

Sophie held up a slimy, hot pink tuber with two fingers, angling it away from her body. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "This?" she asked, aghast. "This is what we came here for?"

Oman bobbed her head. "Hell yeah. They are delicious. Cram as many as you can into the bags."

Sophie rolled her eyes. "They look exactly like the kind of food that we've been eating at the hideout."

"No," Oman stepped over some of the overly-saturated green leaves that hadn't grown any whatever-they-were-gathering yet. "These are so much better. You just wait."

"Well, we should get something else, too. Just in case we get sick of these... things." Sophie reluctantly dropped some of the mystery food into the bad she'd brought to take back.

Oman sighed. "Impossible. But fine. I swear, you could live off 'these things' for years."

Sophie didn't want to touch them anymore. "Here, take my bag. Fill it up, and I'll keep watch."

Oman took it from her outstretched hand. "You're going to have to slap me if I start eating any. Because if I start, I might not be able to stop."

Sophie rolled her eyes and didn't turn around. "Gross." 

After Oman had filled the bags, Sophie teleported them to a place called Amnessia. Oman had showed her a picture of the wooded area before they left the hideout. There was an estate there, called Glistfawn. Because of the rich, natural sunlight, there would most likely be many gardens filled with delicious food.

And there were. Sophie's mouth dropped open when she saw that there was actually a kind of blue plant with sparkles that glittered in the moonlight.

Oman rubbed her hands together. "Here we go."

Sophie couldn't have agreed more. Finally, decent food—and food that didn't look like it would blend in nicely with hot pink slugs, at that. She couldn't fill the rest of the bags fast enough.

One nice thing about crime like food-raiding in the Lost Cities was that nobody expected it. There were no defenses or precautions, for all the technology the elves had. Everyone's doors were wide open, so to speak.

Maybe that was why the Neverseen had a bad reputation, but if people would talk anyways, why not have a little fun with it? 

And Sophie had a feeling that it wouldn't always be that easy. It had been a long time since the Neverseen had made a big, game-changing move; and she felt anticipation looming like a large, brooding shadow swallowing everything whole. But...

The Neverseen had the Moonlark this time. And the Black Swan didn't.

That made all the difference.

"Pack it up and move out," Oman whispered, putting one last green fruit into the bag she was carrying.

Sophie started at her in confusion. "What did you say?"

"Isn't that what they say in human movies?" she asked. "I wanted to be cool. Oh yeah—and then they do a swooshy hand motion that all their other partners-in-crime are supposed to magically understand. But I didn't want to go overboard."

Sophie's brain was trying to make it. Really, it was. "I... I'm not even going to comment on that."

Both girls whipped their heads towards the trees when they heard the sound of a twig snapping in the distance. Sophie could just make out the small outline of a gnome walking towards the garden.

Oman and Sophie glanced at each other with matching panicked expressions. 

Sophie took out an Obscurer. It would protect them, for now. They quickly made their way in the opposite direction.

At the edge of the woods, Sophie pulled them into the air, Oman helped fuel their levitation upwards, giggling like they were playing a game of Base Quest. 

"Wait," Sophie said, slowing them down. "When I teleport, it makes a loud bang, and the gnome will probably hear us. It would be like screaming our location for everyone to hear."

"Good thing I brought a crystal, then." Oman pulled a deep purple pathfinder out of her bag. Sophie knew that that color led to all the Neverseen hideouts. She had seen Gisela and Vespera use them before. Which was why she was astonished when Oman held hers up to the moonlight.

"How did you get your hands on one of those?" She marveled. Oman winked.

The beam that came out from the crystal shone like a black light. Sophie and Oman stepped into it, and the wooded scenery of Amnessia glittered away.

"Can we keep it?" Sophie begged her when the hideout glittered back in front of them. "Imagine all the Neverseen hideouts we could go to. There must be thousands!"

Oman considered the numerous purple facets of the pathfinder. They glimmered when she tilted it. "Not unless we want to avoid painful punishment," she said.

Sophie sighed. "True." Her mood soured when the memory of Ruy's injured arms surfaced. She shivered. "Let's take this food back inside."

"With you on that," Oman said, her head bobbing as she popped one of the tuber-like foods into her mouth. "Although I'm keeping this whole bag."

Sophie cringed. "Suit yourself." They had made it to the looming metal door in the mountainside, and she pried it open using telekinesis. Once they were inside, it slammed shut behind them.

The girls carried their raid profits into the dining room. Gethen, Asher, and Trix were already sitting at the table, playing some sort of game that involved daggers. It looked a lot like a Neverseen version of chicken.

Trix looked up when they walked in. "Could that be?" he mock-gasped.

Oman and Sophie dropped their bags down on the table. "Healthy, non-questionable food? You bet," Oman said around the mouthful of food she was eating.

"Except those tuber-looking things," Sophie added. "Those are slightly questionable."

Oman smacked her.

Trix reached into the bag for and gasped for real when he saw what she had been talking about. "No way!" he said. "These are delicious."

"You too?" Sophie grumbled. "I'll stick to the safe, delicious berries." She popped one into her mouth.

The contents were dumped out onto the table, and the Neverseen members attacked the pile like starved animals. "I'm going to have so much trouble going back to eating the mush we're usually served," Gethen mumbled around a mouthful.

Their food party was cut short when Lady Gisela swiftly walked through the door. "Sophie?"

When she met Gisela's gaze, her smile chilled Sophie down to the bones. "I think taking the next step in the Lodestar Initiative is long overdue, don't you? I have something to show you."