The star i saw that day

Chapter 3: Enemies

The first time we noticed it was outside the Wallath forest. And by then we didn't think much of it. Mostly because of its appearance - it was just a little tree nymph. Right? But when it was unexpectedly standing right in front of us, we could sense something was wrong with its magical power. Maybe once it had been a tree nymph or a fairy; but it certainly wasn't anymore. 

As I got closer to it, I got a crazy migraine. It was a pain like nothing I had ever experienced before, and with this weird dark aura surrounding the tree nymph.
"Leila!"

Hiroshi cathed me right before I hit the ground, and when I woke up again, I was laying on the ground and everyone were fighting the nymph. It was fast; but so was Nephele, she fired an arrow and hit the nymph in its right arm. It quickly changed its course, and disappeared in the treetops.

****

"Why did you make it run away!?"
"Be patient Shiloh, I want to know what's so special about that girl." Abigor flashed a dark smirk as he answered her cold. 
Shiloh leaned on the doorframe and gushed, "Fine, but Ahmya wants you to kill them." she turned around as she added, "So don't take too long."
"Oh," Shiloh added from down the hall. "and maybe you should send another one as well while you're at it."

****

After Nephele had checked that I was okay, we continued our way through the forest. At the edge of the forest, was a big meadow filled with flowers; that only minutes after we stepped onto it, started drying out. And when I slowly started getting the same headache again. Before I could even act on it I stopped,

"EVERYONE GET DOWN!" I desperately yelled.

And just seconds later, a giant fireball flew over our heads and hit less than a meter behind us. In that spot there were now nothing but a crater, and from it raised a man whose body was covered with nothing else but red flames. It looked as if the blast had put him on fire. With both amusement and disappointment he mumbled,

"Hmm, I though for sure that would've killed you. I guess I miscalculated something." he then straightened up and looked at us, smirking, "I suppose I'll just have to do it the hard way then."

In that same moment, a certain black-haired boy charged against the man, and the next, he was laying on the ground.
"Pathetic."

I was panicking, going over every detail of what had just happened. I stood frozen there for what seemed like an eternity, but instantly snapped out of it the moment I heard Nephele yell that I had to move. I shook my head, 'I need to find a way to get us out of here'. The thing was just - that the nymph from earlier wasn't done yet. It jumped down in front of me, and all I could do, was to draw my swords.

The fight didn't last that long. Though I'm pretty sure it was just because of the wound Nephele had earlier inflicted on it. As soon as I had knocked the nymph unconscious, it disappeared. For a little while I looked around to makes sure it was really gone.
In the meadow, Celeste and Nephele were still fighting the man, and I could now think of something to do. That was when I remembered the spellbook Celeste had given me. If I could just focus, I could send the man back where he came from - wherever that was. But I was scared; I knew that if I managed to mess up in the slightest I could end up sending Nephele or Celeste away somewhere. The facts were just also that if I didn't try something, this man would end up killing us all, so quickly I searched through the spellbook.

"There it is, okay here goes nothing." I sat down on the grass and started chanting, "Nolles stare alta facito tempus daemon ruinam. Ad inferno miserabili condicione constrictos, ad quos eieci huic sanctae lumen." With shaking voice I chanted the spell three times.

When I opened my eyes again, everything was quiet and the man had disappeared, but so had Hiroshi. This was the very thing had feared would happen, and now Hiroshi had disappeared. 
"Where's Hiroshi?" Nephele asked confused.

It took a while for me to wrap my head around it. My eyes widening the moment it did, I stumbled towards the others, "What happened? Why did Hiroshi disappear as well?"

"What do mean?" Celeste said

"I tried to banish the man who attacked us, and now Hiroshi is gone too."
Celeste looked at me, wide eyed and sort of impressed, "The demon must've grabbed him when he felt the spell being activated."

"Well then how do we get him back!?"

Her expression fading she answered, "Well, to start with we calm down. And then you'll use a location spell to get him back here."

And so I did; though it took a while because I couldn't figure out how to make the spell work right. The most annoying part: Celeste telling me to 'just' do it. Especially when I was still so bad at magic. 

"Come on, just focus on Hiroshi and what you want to do." she declared, "It isn't as hard as you think."

'Why don't you just do it yourself then?' I glared at her silently telling her to shut the fuck up.

After another 30 minutes or so, both her and Nephele decided they had too step in. Shortly after a loud bump was heard, and in a way I was a bit anxious to open my eyes. 

"Hiroshi!" I got up as fast as I could when I realised we had suceeded, "Oh god, are you okay?! What happened to you?"

"I'm fine... It's just.... a few scratches.... Argh."

He had a large open wound in his side, and most of his body had been covered with second degree burns. We helped him up as carefully and fast as we could and moved him to sit by a tree, so I would be able to heal his wounds as fast as possible. 

"You don't have to do this you know." he commented a little after gaining back consciousness.

I didn't look back at him, "What do mean? I was the reason you got hurt in the first place."

"I mean you don't have to do what all of these people tell you to. You don't have to be the one to save this world."

"I know." I answered and looked up, his indigo eyes meeting my hazel ones "But somehow I can't just leave now; I made a promise."

When I had treated Hiroshis wounds, the others had set up a small camp and started preparing dinner for us all. While we were eating we agreed that we would have to be more careful from that time on. Only when the moon was hanging high and the only sounds were those of crickets and the peaceful breaths of my sleeping comrades filling the air, I finally fell asleep.

'You can't hide forever Leilana. One day this world will fall alongside you.'

I woke up sweating. It was just a dream, but there was something about it, something that made it feel real. Like I had actually been standing in front of that man.

"Leila are you okay?" Hiroshi sounded concerned. I had woken him up, and through my shock he had crawled over to sit beside me.

"Yeah, it was just a dream."
"Are you sure?" he reassured, "I can stay here for the rest of the night if you want me to."

I smiled at him. "No, really. I'm fine. Just go back to sleep. You'll need your rest if you're gonna take the trip, with those burns."

"Okay."

He smiled back at me, squeezed my hand and went back to his own sleeping bag. The rest of the night I couldn't fall asleep. I was thinking of that man in my dream, it really felt like I had seen him before. Felt like I knew him.

The next morning I still couldn't get him out of my head. Even when we stopped for lunch at the frontier of Idori - his face - and what he said, was still on my mind. Just then, Nephele broke me out of my thinking:

"Hey, Leila. Are you ready? We really have to get going now."

I shook my head, "Yeah, I guess I just got lost in my own thinking."