Twilight Tales XV: Darkness, Halt! [I]
In the village, Rose and Derek ate and tasted almost all the food. From spicy to sweet, then bitter, salty and sour. Almost none of the delicacies there were new to Derek. He was a wizard in training and also someone who loves adventures, allowing the opportunity to eat various food and fruits, also drinking different kinds of juices.
Flavors decorated the tongue as the taste buds danced asking for more.
Going here and there wasn't tirin since they had each other. But having to check around was the main priority.
The sun danced to the music of the breeze, with the morning exquisite and beautiful. Lacking the knowledge of the time and how it flew, Rose decided to check around some houses and shops.
"Be careful Rose, I feel like this is the hundredth time I'm saying this to you" Derek warned her, Without humor or expression of happiness.
"I'll be, promise. Just three more shops and maybe we'll head back to the castle. Tell me the last time I wasn't careful?" Rose asked him with a simper.
"In all four thousand counts of; not looking at where you are going, not being alert around, stumbling into a vampire more than twice..."
"For if you say so, then shall I be more careful" Rose's words were guaranteed but still not assuring to Derek.
He knew the darkness because he had seen it, attack and destroy. Demolish, annihilate, defeat and consume what stood rigid.
He had seen the darkness face to face, eyes to eyes. However, I couldn't do anything. Not that he was deprived, he was just young, naive towards magic and any judgment, Unsophisticated.
The darkness didn't come now, it was present during the start of time, it only became more pronounced during this age. For time began with darkness.
"Okay, but do remember that your magic attracts what destroys light!" Derek told her with wisdom in his words.
"I do know that. Now let's look around, Lord Anargon instructed us to do so, it's by his words we follow for now, and also he as a vampire lord is yet another reason for obeying…, " Rose said, eyes locked at a shop, "Why don't we try that shop over there?".
"All those speeches and finally ending with trying a shop?," Derek let out a sigh, "I don't think that's a shop, in the sense that it looks more like a drinking spot!".
Rose looked at the shop closely before realizing it wasn't what she thought, "okay, then let's check it out. By any luck, we'll or might find some information".
Walking towards the wooden door, which had been eaten by termites with hunger. Rose pushed it open.
Inside was quiet with men drinking beer, women talking with milk in their hands and sateen gowns. Hair raised up and pinned, some hair rolled into a heavy bun and french bread on some wooden tray.
A little girl in furs ascending the stairs, two at a time with sky blue eyes and golden locks of hair, soles made from thick leather and heels raising her from the ground. Her eyes meet Rose's and she lets out a beautiful smile.
"Looks like children are really good with you Rose" Derek remarked before having a seat.
The little girl seemed to say a word or two, something unreadable before disappearing to a room up the stairs.
"Good gracious! What happened to you Amanda?" An old woman wrapped a white cotton cloth on a teenage girl barely seventeen, hands which bleed.
"I was attacked in the forest by this creature I haven't seen in my life. Oh Mama, it was hideous, grotesque and did I mention frightening. I was so afraid that the basket filled with apples and oranges fell from my hands with my legs racing home but before I could react, it sliced deep into my hands but I escaped" the girl said, tears almost falling down.
Derek and Rose on the other hand listened to all that was said, "You hear that Rose?" He questioned her.
"Loud and clear!".
Derek stood up and headed straight to where the girl and her grandmother sat...
"If I may ask and sorry for being so inquisitive, which forest do you speak of young lady?".
"The forest right behind this town, leading to another direction I haven't seen. Some say the forest leads to the underworld, others say they've seen Azrael in the shadows, the main thing that left me trembling was when Dracula passed through that forest years ago" the girl told him.
"Then why do you go into this forest?, with all that has been said concerning it?"
"My good man," the girl replied, "for the forest is the only way and possible route leading to my great grandfather's garden. There, he grows apples and oranges, but when he died, there wasn't no one to care for it. His children abandoned it, none cared for it. Until when I was right of age, my grandmother took me there showing everything that was now growing in thorns. Little did I know, a mansion old and ageless as the sun standing unshakeable belonged to a vampire lord. But with the time I check, no one occupies the house, Not a single soul. The gates are still kept wide open like a mother wanting to receive her child".
Derek listened to all with understanding and patience, he knew exactly what was just said was concerning the darkness,
"Thanks for the information and sorry for the injury".
The girl smiled with a yes and continued looking at her grandmother who cleaned her wounds.
"Rose," Derek called, "We need to visit a forest….."
"I heard all that was said Derek, so no need for further explanation" Rose went on her feet following Derek who raced outside.
Both heading towards the forest the girl had described earlier.
"Sure you want to do this?" Derek asked Rose who slightly nodded.
"I'm supposed to be the one asking that to you Derek" Rose's smile was again slight without care for the answer.
"Okay, our answers are both Yes!"
Leaving the main hope of success behind and digging into the screams of danger, venturing into the unknown while looking for the darkness which feeds upon souls.