Lucidity

Chapter Ten: Looking for Trouble

The sun rose and so did Dale. Quietly, not wanting to wake the others so early, he stepped outside to admire the sight. In the distance was the tower and as so many had done before him, Dale blinded himself by looking at its reflective surface.

"Crikey," he muttered under his breath as he returned inside. Technically he should be making his way to the town to cast the protective spell on it, but right now there were more urgent matters to attend to. Namely, plucking out hairs.

Carefully, he went through them all, pulling out hairs, one by one. This was proving itself to be ridiculously easy. That was until Dale reached Yaz. Thanks to Junior's rude remarks and pestering her to take off her headscarf, Yaz had started sleeping with it on. Now it was like a protective helmet, defending her hair from whatever Dale might use it for in the future. Unfortunately for her, he would not give up that easily. He crouched down next to her head and stretched out his arm, summoning all his muscle control for the task ahead. Carefully, he reached towards a hair that was peaking out from under her hijab and tugged. Well, he would have if Yaz's eyes hadn't fluttered open in that moment.

"What are you doing?", she asked, for the first time feeling slightly afraid of the newest addition to the group. Dale just played it off with a shrug, "I need some help with the whole protecting the town thing and you seemed approachable, so I thought I'd come over and wake you up."

Normally Yaz wasn't so easily decieved, but it was dawn, the excuse seemed like a reasonable one and Dale was an exceptional actor.

"Oh. Alright," she said. Feeling that she should have incorporated more enthusiasm, she added on, "Of course I'll help you."

Dale grinned and Yaz smiled back, convinced he was genuine. In reality, Dale was annoyed to now be saddled with the friendly woman, he'd been hoping for some time to think and reflect on the odd situation he'd found his way into. Then again, talking to one of the chosen ones could prove itself to be rather enlightening.

The two of them hastily left the sandstone building the group had now made camp within and instead headed towards the village. Each time Yaz saw it, she was struck with a new wave of grief. Even though she'd spent a fair portion of her childhood confronted with her mother's debt and financial problems, she still felt that in comparison to what life seemed to be like in Belmoth, she'd led quite a privileged life. After all, back when she'd lived with her father, things had been rather simple.

"It must be hard to grow up in a place like this," mumbled Yaz, mainly talking to herself, but Dale nodded. Now that he felt that they were close enough to the village's centre, he knelt down on the floor and let the palms of his hands dance over the floor. It was too early for the grains of sand to feel like burning embers, right now they were merely warm, but he still almost gagged at the texture. Dale didn't like how coarse it was. Trying not to let that distract him, he closed his eyes and started whispering an incantation. Speaking out spells didn't tend to be obligatory in the school of magic Dale had been taught in, but it could strengthen the spell and considering this and its purpose, saying it out loud seemed like a stupid thing not to do.

Yaz watched as a web of white and silver built itself around the village before rendering itself invisible. Without noticing it herself, she began to smile, glad to know that the civilians were somewhat safe. These sentiments distracted her briefly, but then a question slided off her tongue, "If that was the spell, why did you need me here?"

Dale looked up briefly, then pushed up from the ground to come to a standing position. "I wanted to ask you who you think is the chosen one." Right now he was feeling rather smug. He'd managed to take a failure and turn it into a way of getting some useful information, or at least he hoped that it would end up being that.