27: Rooftop Talk

"How is the search going?" Natsume asked.

"I guess bad…" Airys took a bite of a pear.

They were both sitting on the roof of Seng's hut, watching the little birds that crossed from side to side in that reddish sky made of leaves. The only one who was eating was Airys, who couldn't stand the environment inside the hideout, and apparently neither did Natsume.

"And how do you know?"

Airys was sorry to see her, during these days she saw her cry more than once, however, on none of those occasions did she let Natsume know that she could see her. Inside herself, her voice struggled to decide what to do; on the one hand, she wanted to comfort Natsume, but on the other, the strange —and short —relationship they had didn't allow her to open up because it might be disrespectful on her part.

Especially... knowing "that."

"Don't... don't you have any creatures you can summon?" She gathered her knees and settled down.

"No."

"Really? Have you tried?"

"No, I do not think so." Natsume's soft, fragile voice permeated Airys's heart.

"Here" Airys handed her a scarlet leaf that had fallen. "You have to, hm…" she tilted her head to the right and raised her eyes in that direction. "It's like trying to use your resonance, but instead of using your resonance, you give part of your soul to the object... something like that" she smiled slightly, offering the leaf again.

Natsume grabbed the leaf, stared at it for a few seconds, and looked back at Airys.

"Nothing happens."

"No, no, not like that" Airys took another leaf. "You have to focus, at first it's not easy." Airys squeezed her eyes shut and held the leaf in both hands. "You see?"

Natsume imitated Airys's gesture, with null results.

"I don't think it's my thing" Natsume commented dismissively, the nuances in her voice losing more of their brilliance.

"Why couldn't she have some spirit to cheer her up?" Airys thought.

"C-calm down! Seng explained to me that it's basically being lucky!" Airys waved her hands to distract her from the leaf. "For example," she approached with a smile saturated with mischief. "Seng has tried over a hundred materials and has summoned nothing."

"One hundred?"

"Yes!" She took another bite of her pear. "It turns out that to summon a creature you need two things, a material that meets the requirements of the spirit and... well the spirit" she clarified with her mouth full.

Natsume's expression brightened a bit, Airys didn't hesitate to continue with the talk.

"For example, I can summon Leaf with any blade roughly this size." She measured the distance with the index finger and thumb of her hand. "There are supposed to be some guys who are trying to make a book with all the possible creatures, because most likely you have one or two spirits willing to help you."

"But there is no way of knowing what the material is" added Natsume.

"Exactly!"

"And what is it like to have one? I saw you were talking to... Hojita."

"Well…" Airys crossed her arms. "It's like having a little sister, or a puppy, or a cousin around fifty years old..."

"Eh? How ridiculous" Natsume giggled briefly.

"That's right! Since I was a child I can summon Hojita and Terry, it was in this year that I met Sandy and Sutil." Airys could see Natsume's surprised face, surely it was from having four creatures instead of two. "The funniest thing is that even though others can't understand them, I can."

"And do they have time limits?" Natsume started to play with the blade in his hand.

"Summoning them and having them takes energy, you know, of the soul." Airys took the final bite of her pear. "It's complicated, I feel like Sandy consumes more in general, but Hojita can use energy faster... ah, and I think Terry costs more to summon him, but then like no, do you understand?"

"A little, I guess."

"The truth is Seng has me restricted because he says I can go blank, although being honest" she again approached Natsume. "I've been ignoring him all these days" she whispered.

"Uh?"

"Terry is downstairs, he has been standing all these days" she pointed out jokingly.

"Isn't that dangerous?"

"Also Sandy and Hojita, only they are far away and Hojita comes back every afternoon."

"Isn't that very dangerous?"

"I thought so, after…" Airys remembered meeting Maryon and Andra and knowingly omitted it. "From a test, I decided to test our limits. It turns out that as long as they don't do much, just move, eat and sleep, they don't consume as much."

"Oh yeah?"

"Uhum!" she affirmed she proudly. "Especially Terry, he told me that by putting down roots and staying put he shouldn't waste any energy."

"That's amazing, it sounds fun, it sounds good…" Natsume looked up. "Always have company."

A gust of wind crossed the center of the dome of leaves, the wind ruffled their hair, Airys held her head tightly to avoid ending up shaggy, Natsume narrowed her eyes and ignored the shaking that her hair gave. In the end, Airys ended up with knots around her face while Natsume only had a lousy hairstyle that would take like five minutes to set, nothing serious.

"What was that?!" Airys hyperbolized between high-pitched giggles. Her silver eyes released a faint reflection of light that stood out within those celestial lines.

It was clear to Natsume that her hair was not dyed, and although she has not traveled that much, those silver eyes that suddenly shine from her did not seem normal. For days she was thinking —distracted by that event —about what would have happened if Echsos hadn't run into Airys and Seng. Perhaps, nothing would change, Echsos would die or... in the worst case, not even she herself would be alive.

"Airys ..."

Due to the mysterious eyesight problems that day, she could not see well, but... if Echsos was willing to go to her for help ...

"Yes, what's up?"

…It was because he trusted her.

"Thank you..." Natsume expressed, with a smile of suppressed tears and a reddish nose.

Airys didn't know what to say back to her, the most she could reason was to lower her head so as not to meet her eyes. She opened her mouth —she had to be polite and answer her— yet the itching sensation on her left hand reminded her that she was an accomplice in that poor boy's death. Outraged, she swallowed her concern for herself and the friendship she was developing, she was going to tell her what she knew.

"Na/"

"You still don't answer the first thing I asked you" Natsume interrupted, gently brushing her hair away from her face, surely because Airys had lowered her voice and that her mouth was not visible.

"Oh yeah…" she lost her courage. "I can feel their location and they mine."

"That is surprising."

"Yes, although it is not exact I gave them orders to..."

Airys went silent, since most of her hairs were not on her face, so it was easy for Natsume to appreciate how the desert that until then was the inland of Airys was flooded with fear. Airys got up suddenly and jumped down at the entrance to the hut.

"Airys?!" Natsume called her.

Airys didn't answer, she fell to her knees and crawled as she rose to enter as soon as possible where Seng. Natsume walked to the edge of the roof.

"Seng!" screeched Airys. "Garyon found Hojita!"

Until that moment Seng was asleep, because of the impact and the annoying voice of Airys, he grunted and sat up after wiping his saliva. Layd woke up scared.

"What? You don't mean otherwise?"

"No! Hojita uninvoked!" Airys kept screaming.

"Could it be that you no longer have energy for/"

"No!" She walked quickly towards Seng. "If it had been that I would know!" she exclaimed close to Seng, who barely resisted the urge to murder her. "She had orders to fly high if she found something, plus I felt the same as last time!"

"Garyon's resonance?"

"Yes!" Seng squeezed her cheeks with his hand to stop her screaming. "It's the same thing that made Sandy and Sutil disappear that day" she clarified, although she sounded dumber than usual with her tongue almost sticking out of her.

"Well for now let's stay here and then/" Seng let go of Airys and she immediately screamed in his face again.

"We have to get out of here! I have a bad feeling!"

Seng was furious, however, the honesty and —especially —the fear in AIrys eyes convinced him, anyway, the plan was to get away from that madman, the problem was...

"Do you think you can move Layd?" Seng said.

"Yeah sure, I'm better now."

"He's lying," Natsume sputtered. "You can tell on his face that everything still hurts."

"T-that... okay, but I'm really better, a little" Layd gave up before even arguing.

"Well, you'll have to hold on" Seng commented.

"No need" assured Airys happily. "Sandy is on his way, he will take you."

Airys crossed glances with Natsume, she understood instantly that her creatures also felt each other, but, what Airys wanted to do was show off to her new friend how smart Sandy is with that smug expression.