A/N: Again, not as good as it could be, but it'll get exiting further on, I promise! And please remember to review!
"So, how long do you think it would take to fix this… watch?" Harry asked.
"Let's see… ah… it might take my Teknoguilders about… a week," Garth replied, peering at the time-turner. "Though we may have to disassemble and examine it, for we haven't dealt with things such as this…"
"What do you mean?" Ron exclaimed. "You're amateurs?"
"This is from the Beforetime," Garth hastily explained. "There haven't been things like this for hundreds of years. No one knows -for sure, anyway- how to fix these things."
"I might be able to work it out from a book, and do it myself," Hermione said.
"Are you sure?" Harry asked, and looked at Garth. He looked crestfallen at missing the chance to examine the time-turner.
"My Teknoguilders are very capable," Garth assured them.
"That's nice t o know," Luna said absently as she joined them. "But we're going now."
"We're leaving!" Elspeth called from the cart.
"We know," Garth called back. Elspeth blinked, confused, as Garth went over.
"So, should we go with them?" Harry asked once Garth had left.
"I guess," Hermione shrugged.
"I'm with you, Harry," Ron said, but Harry noted he was watching Hermione.
"Whatever," Luna said.
"Let's go then," Harry said nervously. "Okay."
They looked out at the dark, blackened landscape, and followed.
They travelled in the horse-drawn cart for hours. Luna and Garth chatted about what Garth and Elspeth called the 'Beforetime'-Harry, Hermione, Ron & Luna's time-while they all travelled. Eventually, they reached a proper road, then a dark forest, which reminded Harry of the Forbidden Forest. Soon after that they reached some plains, then the tainted mountains.
"Home!" Elspeth exclaimed delightfully. "Home to Obernewtyn!"
"What's Obernewtyn?" Hermione asked.
"You'll see," Jak replied. Hermione looked at Ron, who shrugged, and lay back, waiting for the journey to end.
Elspeth sat in silence for the rest of the journey, Hermione seemed to have talents, probably latent though, but Elspeth didn't dare delve, remembering Luna. When they came in sight of the mountains that hid and protected Obernewtyn, however, her thoughts changed to Rushton, Maruman and others at home, and pondering how Ceirwan was going with the Farseekers' Guild.
The cart had reached the base of the mountains when Elspeth realised she'd been dozing. She looked around to find that everyone else had been dozing too, except for Qwinn, who was driving. Ahead, the road curved, and Elspeth finally found that she could sense familiar mind voices.
'Ceirwan! We're on our way,' Elspeth sent.
'Elspeth! Ye won' like what's happened,' Ceirwan sent in reply anxiously.
'What is it?' Elspeth urged, but the cart gave a jolt, which broke the connection. Elspeth held up her hands, expecting a cauldron to land on her, but nothing happened. At the front of the cart, she heard Qwinn swear as he started up the cart again.
"That's why I told them not to stack the cauldrons up," Luna remarked. "It would have hurt…"
'Oh great, I woke someone up,' Elspeth thought.
"It's okay, I was only pretending to sleep anyway," Luna said, pulling out an apple and munching on it. It took a moment for Elspeth to realise that Luna must have picked up on her thoughts, as Elspeth hadn't said that aloud.
'You can farspeak?' Elspeth sent, surprised.
'You finally figured it out,' Luna replied dryly. 'I call it telepathy, or mind speaking, but whatever. I spoke to you before when you rudely poked into my mind.'
'Oh,' Elspeth remembered, and blushed. 'Normally I would ask, but for all I know you could be some sort of spy from the Herder Faction or something. I'll tell you about them, seeing as you don't know and all.'
'I come from another dimension, so please, enlighten me.' Luna replied.