Days passed, and the feeling of loneliness would not abate. The greenery and the changing landscape did nothing to alleviate the feeling of being isolated, and Lavi could feel it itching at his mind. Days after Dia de la Tequila, he had woken up with a massive headache along with his arms around Esperanza's waist. That had not gone over well with either of them, and Darrin had snickered the entire way up the mountain as Lavi and his Hispanic companion traded uneasy and awkward looks, especially when working together. He even had an allegedly scandalous sketch of the both of them huddled together in what seemed to the passerby as an amorous embrace. Esperanza had discreetly searched through his things, but she had not come back victorious.
"Perhaps we should burn all of his things. Say it was an accident," Esperanza muttered once to Lavi, who only laughed in response.
"That's actually sounding like a pretty good idea. I don't know what Bookman would do to me if he found that," Lavi answered, and suddenly he sobered upon thinking of Bookman. What would he have done in regards to his behavior? He was past the point of punishment by now - he was a legal adult, after all. Still, there was a part of Lavi that acted like a small child around Bookman, striving for attention and recognition. It was also the part that cringed into a ball upon receiving a scathing remark about how he screwed up or missed something important. He had no doubt earned one of those few scalding speeches by now, especially with... He glanced at Esperanza furtively, averting his eyes when she noticed his stare.
He couldn't help but stare sometimes, though, because he wanted to be sure that what he saw that one night, the panther on her shoulder, was real...or perhaps willing that it wasn't. Seeing again would only add to his anxiety and bring another wave of dejavu upon him. Realizing that it wasn't there would only spark more questions. There were so many unanswered inquiries he had...
Bomb-fire wreathing the face of a young woman...
Memories of another life seeped into his waking days more frequently now. He didn't know how to control them. They just slipped on fog-feet into his mind, swirling and lingering there like a bad taste in his mouth. Sometimes, he'd be overtaken completely by a memory and sit there, unaware that he was even in a memory. Bookmen memories were 'programmed' to be so vivid that every detail can be recounted, and Bookman had warned him that allowing himself to delve too deep could mean a loss in recognition between what was reality and what was the past. Usually something startled him out of these vivid flashbacks. Most oftentimes it was Chuleta who knocked him back into the present, whinnying or snorting when noticing that his rider was no longer giving him instruction where to go. He had not told either of his traveling companions, fearing that they would think him crazy or realize that he could possibly be endangered this way and head back. They usually thought he was daydreaming or something like that, which wasn't too far from the truth.
"We should prob'ly stop here for a bit. There's a stream over yonder that don't feed into the main headwater 'at's got the problems, so go and water yer horses for a bit," Darrin said, dismounting. Esperanza and Lavi got off their own horses, and they readied their own horses for a good rest. Darrin whistled a tune while he worked, and he none-too-discreetly waved a bit of paper in his face like it was a fan, showing a rather scandalous picture... Esperanza caught the gesture, and her eyes widened. Darrin started off on a three second headstart, Esperanza following close behind shouting profane things in rapid Spanish. Darrin cackled as he ran, being surprisingly nimble for a guy who looked like he'd met Methusalah and Moses and Abraham all in the same lifetime.
As their drifting voices faded, Lavi was left alone by himself. He stood in the clearing, amazed for a moment just how silent it happened to be, despite the sound of birds chirping and the rustling of leaves. As he stood there, almost transfixed, he had to fend of another memory, one that was of another place and time with the same sounds and smells of forest and wildlife. Suddenly, something caught his attention, an intuition of sorts, and he turned to look behind him. One green eye widened. He dropped the reins of his horse as he stared.
A boy, redheaded and very lightly freckled with an eye patch and poncho, stood there staring at Lavi with what he knew was disdain. The boy turned his head away from Lavi, staring up the Inca's excuse for a road. In the high-pitched fluted voice of a youth, he asked, "Are you sure you want to continue this road?" Lavi felt as if he were frozen. He'd only ever seen this part of himself, this deadened young part that had remained so suppressed these last two years, in Rhode's dream worlds. He could dismiss that as just a gimmick on Rhode's part, but this... this was insanity. He should not be seeing apparitions like this. Lavi felt his breath quicken as panic gripped him.
"I asked you a question," the boy asked Lavi harshly in biting tones. His eye was like a shard of glass, cold and cutting straight into Lavi to the heart of his guilty pleasures. Lavi shook his head and stated, "I don't want to keep going." The boy shrugged, and he pointed back down the road the way he came.
"Then you can always go back," the boy stated. Lavi frowned, and he realized he'd just answered an apparition of a younger form of himself. He shook his head, holding it between his hands as he backed away. He suddenly stared at the boy, and he stated, "Go away." The boy continued to stare as Lavi stood on the other side of the road.
"You heard me! Go!" Lavi shouted at him, and the boy smirked, the only facial expression Lavi knew the boy could make other than a frown of scorn. The boy stated, "You can't kill what you are." Esperanza's shrill Spanish curses painted the air with bright streaks of sound, and Lavi was momentarily distracted. He turned to look but suddenly remembered his adversary; however, upon turning back, he saw that the boy was no longer there. Lavi stood there, perplexed and frightened.
He had gone too far with this mask. He had separated his Bookman self and his persona too well, and now...
Esperanza came back, winded and grumpy, as she muttered, "That bastard ran off with the sketch and now I cannot find him again." She spat into the dirt contemptuously, and she asked, "Why did you not help me? We could have caught him if you had come followed. That sketch is dangerous." This piece of wit would usually be merited with a quick titter and a smile on Lavi's part, but the lack thereof caused Esperanza to look at him with greater scrutiny.
"Amigo, what is the matter? You look like you saw your grandmother in the tub naked," Esperanza asked, and Lavi actually gave a small laugh, though it sounded slightly hysterical. Recalling Bookman training, he carefully overlaid his feelings with a padding of indifference. He did not care, he did not want to care, his feelings meant nothing to this person, he should not care about his own being, he was a human recorder and nothing else... With a slight smile, he said, "I was just... I thought I saw something in the forest, something big, and I got a bit worried, but I think it was probably just a deer." Esperanza still looked slightly skeptical, but she said no more.
Darrin came to the road nearly twenty feet behind them, and Esperanza gave him a hard-edged glare of annoyance. The little man didn't even look like he'd broken a sweat. He laughed and said, "I ain't had a run like that in years! Shoot damn, I should travel witcha more often, girly-girl, jus' cuz ya keep me in shape and I like lookin' at ya." Esperanza rolled her eyes, grumbling something in Spanish under her breath as she started to lead her horse towards water. Lavi followed behind along with Darrin, and they watered the horses before going on.
As they rode along the road Lavi kept an eye out for the apparition that had appeared to him, but he didn't see it again. However, he did find something rather interesting as they set up camp, a fire scar that had been recent. He frowned, looking at the prints around the camp site. This road was well used, yes, but these shoes... He'd never seen their type of print before, and he would know. He'd seen many, many bootprints in his life and he'd actually memorized all of them. Each cobbler from each country made the tracks and shapes of their shoes unique, and these were only from the region they were currently in, which made sense save for one thing; there were only eight or nine towns in the area due to the lack of water and the arid climate, so that narrowed down the places these people could've come from, the biggest being Rio Seco. He didn't like the coincidence of Argentinian boots specifically from this region, much less this country (if the road was frequented by rich Argentinians from abroad) being so fresh when they themselves had just arrived. It seemed too much of a coincidence.
That night, Lavi decided to look around for some things, telltale signs of habitation by a specific group. There would be markers for that sort of thing, and Lavi wanted to make sure that there weren't people following them or leading ahead of them in waiting. He knew the Inca were around, but they weren't dangerous, mostly, from what Darrin had told him. Rich people went up this road now and again, but these were work boots, not the rich sort of soles a rich soul would use. There were small traces of black chewing tobacco, the same type Lavi got stuck on his shoes while in town. He could make out hoof marks from a team of horses. Who ever they were, they had not hid their tracks. Lavi was surprised that he hadn't noticed any other tracks until now.
Lavi continued searching for more signs, but he came up with nothing, going as far out as a hundred feet from the camp. He came down near the water, thinking perhaps he'd find something there, when he heard a voice. It was humming off key, but it was also recognizable. He frowned as he edged closer to the water, keeping quiet. He could see a woman's outline near the water, and he realized it was Esperanza taking a bath. He was about to high tail it back as fast as he could (after all, it was ungentlemanly to watch a young woman bathing, especially if said woman could shoot you from two hundred paces and not be an inch off her mark), but something stopped him momentarily.
Her shirt was already hung over a branch, and she was standing at the water's edge with just her bra, underwear, and pants. Across the front of her shoulder the smooth outline of a leaping jaguar pounced across the canvas of skin. Lavi stood still for several moments, realizing that the tattoo he had seen on her shoulder that night had not been a dream or a figment of his imagination. In one way, he was sort of relieved, because that just added more credibility to the fact he wasn't crazy. However, the dejavu also gained credibility as a real memory, meaning that Lavi had somehow lost a memory, and he wasn't sure if that was even possible. It still begged the question - what was that tattoo for and where had Lavi seen it before?
Realizing he was actually staring at Esperanza as she was undressing, Lavi immediately began to leave, the conundrum in his head as he walked back. Something rushed somewhere in the forest, however, and Lavi frowned. He looked towards the noise, and he saw the flash of a poncho. His eyes widened, and he realized there was another person watching them. He immediately started towards them, startling birds and animals as he weaved in and out of trees. The figure became more and more solid, and Lavi realized that he was being led... by a redhead with an eye patch. He stopped when he realized what he was following. In his haste to follow, though, he hadn't thoroughly memorized the path he'd taken, and now he was alone again.
It was deathly quiet. Lavi's eye narrowed, on the look out for the hallucination that was no doubt waiting for the appropriate time to attack him. He started to walk back the way he thought he'd come, but he stopped immediately upon spying the phantasm. They tensely stared at one another before the phantasm said, "Who do you think I am?" Lavi frowned at the question, and he decided to ignore him all together. Lavi walked straight past him, trying to go back towards the camp. He could faintly hear Esperanza humming, but it was farther off than he'd expected. Had he strayed so far?
"You aren't going to answer me?" the boy asked, trotting to keep up with Lavi's long-legged pace. Lavi didn't even acknowledge him as he walked on, resolutely headed towards the camp. The boy fell back... and he said, "So be it." Lavi kept walking, and the boy shouted, "You know what will happen! It's your own damn fault! You'll kill both of us, and you know it!" The words, for once, held a hint of anger and fear in them, and Lavi knew that in walking away from this part of himself, this figment... that a part of him was dying, and it was trying so hard to cling and become once more the core of his being. The Bookman in him was like an entirely separate entity, and he still wasn't sure what he was. He kept walking -
His foot suddenly was pulled from beneath him, and his head hit the ground with a resounding thunk. He could tell he was hanging upside down, but he was too disoriented to figure out why. His vision spun for a few moments...and then everything sudden went under a massive sheet of black.
Lavi woke up with a sick feeling in his stomach and a whooshing feeling in his head. It took him several moments to realize he was hanging off of a tree by his ankle. He looked up blearily, noting the rope snare around his leg, and he sighed. He must've walked into some trap that someone had put out, and now he was stuck here. His hammer was on the ground below him, far out of his reach. He was at least five feet off the ground, and he didn't know if he had the strength to lift himself up to untie the knot in the snare. He swung back and forth for a moment, gathering his various mental faculties.
He looked up, straining to see the snare around his ankle. He hung there again before jerking his entire top half towards his feet, but his hand just feel a scant few inches away from his target. He sighed as he swung there like a human chandelier, completely and utterly miffed that he'd been beaten by such an easy trap. Suddenly, the sound of rustling leaves reached his ears, and Lavi fought to spin around towards its source. He deflated as he groaned, "You have to be kidding me."
A jaguar padded across the ground quietly, inching towards him with a hungry look in its eyes. Lavi felt sweat dribble down his face, and he stuttered, "N-n-nice kitty. Good kitty. Come on, you don't want to eat me! I'm skin and bones! I don't taste good!" He started frantically swinging back and forth, hoping to catch a branch or something like that, but there wasn't anything within reach. The jaguar continued to come forwards, circling around the poor, lone human, and Lavi lifted himself up by sheer force of will, as well as good abdominal muscles, towards the rope trapping him. He managed to grab it, but he hung there awkwardly, bent in half as the jaguar circled below. It sat on its haunches and settled in for a good pounce. Lavi gave a girlish squeal as it came within several inches of his backside. It landed deftly on its paws and circled again. Lavi lowered himself again into his normal hanging position. It was tiring work to stay upright.
The jaguar jumped again, but Lavi was ready for it. He heaved himself up, and claws raked across his back for a moment, but gravity reclaimed the large feline. Its tail twitched in irritation that it couldn't grab such an easy meal, and it growled at Lavi as if that would make him drop to the ground. The jaguar settled in on its haunches a third time, and Lavi sucked in a breath for another girlish scream. Suddenly, though, a gunshot sounded, and the predator quickly disappeared into the underbrush. Lavi sighed with relief, but he realized his problems had only gotten bigger. Several men were now underneath him, pointing and laughing as they spoke in a language that he couldn't understand.
"This can't be good," he muttered to himself.
Several hundred feet away a few hours later, Esperanza and Darrin traipsed through the woods, looking for their lost comrade. Darrin whistled as he walked with his mule and Esperanza huffed as she tried to lead Relampago through the dense undergrowth.
"Nino inutil, making me go searching for him, the dumb ass..." she grumbled in irritation under her breath, and Darrin snickered. Suddenly, Darrin stopped, and he said, "Hey, ya might wanna look at this here. I found somethin' o' his." Esperanza looked back, and she asked, "Well, what is it?" Darrin picked up his hammer, turning it over and over.
"Don't look like no scuffle. A little blood here, and a bit of somebody dragging here, but other than that, ain't nothin' said he's had a fight with somebody," Darrin stated, kneeling on the ground and pointing to where the leaves and twigs had been disturbed. Esperanza's frown deepened upon seeing the blood, but she knew Lavi could handle himself quite well. She nodded and said, "Very well. Where do you think he has gone?" Darrin pointed up, and they saw the dangling piece of rope that had once been a snare.
"Got hisself caught in a snare. He ain't such a educated feller after all," Darrin murmured as he stood up on his mule's back. He examined the rope and stated, "He didn't get himself down. This was cut with a sharp knife, and I know he didn't have one. He woulda used it already if that was the case. Like when you two got caught in that rope." Darrin snickered at the remembered mishap of a coil of rope getting tangled around their legs, but Esperanza was not quite so fond of that memory. She shoved his ankles, and he shouted, "WHOA!" He hung on to the rope, swinging from it as the mule walked out from underneath him, and he swung.
"Okay, okay! Damn it, woman, that ain't funny! Now get me down!"
After putting Darrin on the ground, Esperanza looked down into the brush and found footprints. One set belonged to Lavi, and the others belonged to Inca trappers living in the mountains. She frowned. They were fairly fresh, making deep impressions into the damp ground. She followed the tracks, and she waved for Darrin to follow. About an hour later, they arrived at a half-burned village, and Esperanza sucked in a breath. The burns were recent as they were still smoking, and she wondered if Lavi could make fires without the use of his hammer. Still, it was hard to believe that Lavi -
She was suddenly hit full on in the head with a ball, the round thing making a hollow thung as it smashed into her. She felt her eye twitch as she turned to stare at a group of children all frozen like deer in front of a predator as well as Lavi, looking extremely guilty with the open-mouthed gape on his face. All the children ran away from him, shouting and screaming gleefully as they pointed at him and named him the culprit. Esperanza's mouth was a tight line, and Lavi sheepishly shrugged with a chagrined smile.
"Ohohohoho, yer in for it now, boy," Darrin said as Esperanza rolled up her sleeves and headed towards Lavi.
Moments later, they were sitting in the hut of the town's leader while Esperanza tended to the scratches on Lavi's back. She was none too gentle, and he was not one to complain.
Darrin translated for the man of the house while Lavi was being tended. After several minutes of talking, Darrin said, "There were men here long before us, but the burns were from another group of men who'd come up here only a few hours ago. They demanded to see some ruins, but they're a guarded secret 'round these parts, so the men burned most of the village down. They're still around here somewhere, but the Inca can't find them. The first group of men who came up were right strange, with glassy looks and a woman was leading them, which was really, really weird. They wanted to see the ruins, too, but they were smarter and they took the children as hostages." Lavi frowned.
"What did the woman look like?" Darrin translated, and the man immediately answered. His long, beak nose and smooth, hairless face gave him an appearance of timelessness, and Lavi felt strange, as if he were talking with a figment of the past.
"He says that she was blond with dark round circles in front of her eyes, and she wore a suit like the rich people down the mountain," Darrin relayed, and Lavi looked to Esperanza behind him. They stared at each other for a while. Lavi had told her about Lulu, and Esperanza was a quick woman with a quicker mind. They nodded infinitesimally to one another.
"We've got to see these ruins, then. We're looking for that woman." The man, understanding a good bit of English despite not speaking it, nodded. He spoke to Darrin, and the old man said, "He said he'll take us there, especially if we're against the guys who took their kids. They still got them." Lavi bit his lip. It would be hard to keep himself from getting personal in his endeavor to find out what was going on. Lavi had a soft spot for small children, one that few people knew. Yet another one of his failings...
"We'll find them. Just take us to the ruins."
They were soon brought before an impressive opening in the ground. The ruins were covered in layers of dirt and vegetation, so if one was to walk by, they wouldn't even notice anything was there unless they were looking for it. Darrin rode back to camp with Relampago in order to keep an eye on the horses and things.
"I'll come back with all the gear, and I'll wait for ya here," Darrin stated before leaving, and as Darrin left, it was as if he'd taken all the oxygen and light out of the air. The old man had done more for them than they knew, and they were feeling the effects of his absence. He'd acted as a buffer between Lavi and Esperanza what with their now awkward behavior towards each other. An uncomfortable silence now existed between them, and they had no choice but to either suffer through it or try and face the issues plaguing them both.
They were given lamps, rope, and other equipment by the Inca, and Lavi thanked them all. He attempted to pay them, but they shooed him off. Instead, they gestured to the children and said, "Bring. Bring." Lavi sobered as he realized that they only wanted their children back, and he smiled and nodded to them. He gave them a thumbs up as Esperanza began to lower the both of them into the tunnel lead into the ruin.
It was dark inside, with little sunlight drifting through the cracks. Lavi immediately felt claustrophobic, but he kept it under a lid. This wouldn't bother him near as much as anything else had today. They lit their lamps, throwing the walls of the ruins into relief. His eye widened, and he stared at the walls with awe. They were covered in pictures etched in stone, massive depictions of people and scenes of life. Esperanza ignored them, walking down the hallway as if they were the most normal thing in the world.
"Did the Inca build this?" Lavi asked, his voice hushed in amazement. He lagged behind her, staring at the walls of pictures. Esperanza answered, "Yes, while at their peak. The locals must've slowly buried these walls and tunnels. The Spanish would have destroyed them in order to kill what culture still survived." Lavi touched one picture of a long-nosed woman stirring a pot while smiling to the woman next to her shelling some sort of vegetable. He traced the edges of the pictures with his fingers. Another bit of history undiscovered, just waiting for someone to come and whip off the cloth, let it see the light-
"Amigo? We do not have all day. These lamps will not burn forever." Lavi had been so lost in his examination of the walls that he'd completely stopped to stare and touch and scrutinize.
"Oh, uh, right. Sorry." Lavi and Esperanza walked for nearly an hour into the darkness, and the air continually became cooler and cooler. The breeze dissipated, and they were very suddenly aware that they were now deep underground. Several time they came to forks in the road. They opted to stay together rather than split up, despite the fact they had emergency communications. Being lost under the ground was not high on their list of priorities. However, after what had to be several miles, their oil was half-way burned through. Esperanza suggested turning back before it got too low and they had to go by feel.
"Sounds good to me," Lavi said, but something caught his eye right before they began to head back. Esperanza had explained to him that this must've once been a street or something along those lines. Doors into what were once houses periodically cropped up every few meters, and Lavi had thought he'd seen a glint of something inside of one of the rooms. Lavi tugged on Esperanza's sleeve, letting her know that he was heading in a different direction. She followed, more out of curiosity than concern, and the both of them squeezed into one of the rooms.
The glint Lavi had seen was a piece of gold jewelry on the floor. It was rather large, a gold disk ornately etched. The other lay somewhere else on the floor in the corner, and he picked them both up.
"Amigo, you have not seen enough adventure movies. Put those back," Esperanza said drily. Lavi playfully dangled them next to his ears with a grin on his face, and Esperanza rolled her eyes.
"Do you want me to get you a dress, too?" she asked sarcastically as Lavi walked behind her. He dangled them next to her own ears, and she half-heartedly swatted them away.
"Oh, come on! You know you like shiny, yellow metal. You've got Inca blood in you. Technically, they could be yours," Lavi said, jingling them. Esperanza lifted her scarred eyebrow, and Lavi pouted. Esperanza snatched the earrings and put them on, and Lavi smiled. He dug into the knapsack at his side full of rope, finding a mirror.
"Amigo, why do you carry a mirror in your bag? Is there something I should be knowing?"
"Hey! It's handy whenever there's food stuck in your teeth!"
"And does this automatically make your bag a purse? It has a mirror in it."
"NO! It's a manbag! It is perfectly masculine."
"What else do you have in that bag? Lipstick? Hair ointment?"
"It's only the essential stuff, gosh. Leave me alone already. You give a woman an inch and she takes a damn mile..." He looked up at her finally, and he stopped for a moment in surprise. It was as if he were staring at someone from another time. The earrings completely changed Esperanza's face, highlighting certain features and downplaying others. He'd never seen her with ostentatious jewelry before, and he had to say that it actually worked well for her. She looked like some Incan warrior princess, or at least her face did. The rest of her clothes were horribly incongruous.
"That's it. I'm keeping them, and I'm making you wear them later." Esperanza deflated visibly.
"I was afraid that you might say something like that." She took off the earrings and tossed them carelessly to Lavi. He managed to catch the first, but the second he fumbled with, bouncing it across the room. Finally, it landed next to the doorpost, and Lavi smashed into it in his haste to grab it. He sat on the ground with his head in his hands, groaning to himself while Esperanza snickered, the closest he'd ever heard her to laughing. He looked up with a pained smile. At least he'd gotten some sort of reaction out of her... albeit painfully...
He heard something outside the door, and he stole a glance outside into the dark, pitch black street. Esperanza asked in a hushed voice, "What is it?" They quietly stood still, waiting for the noise to come closer. It was a human noise, metal on metal, and they dimmed their lantern until only a dime's worth of light showed through. A light rose like the dawn rays across the street walls, slowly brighter and brighter. Finally, a villager, nervous and jumpy, ran down the street, his lantern clanking. They waited until his light disappeared before brightening their lamp.
"Looks like we've got ourselves a mole," Lavi said. Esperanza stared in the man's direction -
and promptly took off running after him into the dark, leaving her lantern behind. Lavi scrambled to pick up her lantern and follow her, weighed down by his pack of ropes and things along with the two lanterns. He wasn't quite as fast or as reckless as Esperanza, so his pace was a bit slower. By the time he'd caught up with her, she already had the man on the ground with his hands behind his back, pressed against a wall like he was a criminal, which he very well could've been. The man blubbered in a different language, and Esperanza shoved him against the wall roughly.
"Easy, easy... be careful with him, he's one of the villagers," Lavi said. Esperanza glared at him and asked, "So that means the very man who could be selling our lives to the demons you fight should be getting the treatment of an innocent?" The man spoke again, his voice high and reedy as he pleaded in his native tongue. Lavi stood there, trying to decide what to do. Finally, he said, "Let him go, but keep an eye on him. Maybe he understands a word or two of English or Spanish." Esperanza obeyed, and the man promptly fell to his knees, rubbing his wrists painfully. The man looked up at both fearfully.
"What are you doing here?" Lavi asked slowly, and Esperanza repeated the question in Spanish. The man looked between them both, and he bowed his head in fear.
"Come... come talk... talk demonios. Black... come tunel demonios." Esperanza narrowed her eyes, and she muttered, "He must've wanted to talk to Dominguez's men and those Akuma. I am not surprised that they are still on the mountain. They must be guarding something or someone. I do not know." She roughly shoved the man to his feet and spoke in slow Spanish to the man. The shivering villager nodded hesitantly to Esperanza when she asked, "Comprendes?" The man began walking ahead with Esperanza right behind.
"What are you doing?" Lavi asked, lengthening his stride to keep up. She stated, "He is taking us to them. The demonios." Lavi nodded. This was dangerous though... still, just being here was dangerous. They could be cornered, trapped, lost... Lavi sighed. He didn't need to start thinking that.
"We don't have enough lamp oil, though. How are we going to make it as far as he's going?" Lavi asked. Esperanza pointed to the man's own personal lantern, and Lavi nodded in understanding.
"It will be a long trek. He has a large lamp. We will be gone longer than we expected." The lantern light flickered across Esperanza's face, and Lavi again had that moment of dejavu, that strange sense that he'd seen her somewhere before but just couldn't remember. Still, he left it alone. If it was going to be as long in walking as Esperanza had said, it was best that they start this journey underground off right. No need to be making the only understandable companion you had angry.
A/N: Thank you, my dear readers, for your attentiveness towards this story. I am sorry if I scared you off with the whole review thing. I honestly don't mind what sort of review as long as I get a review (be it good or bad - go ahead, say it sucks, I don't really mind as long as you back it up). So far, though this story's in a bit of a slump, and the plot is starting to slow to the speed of molasses. That should change in the next chapter or two.
Thank you all for being such good readers!
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