“Eniyan.”

No, baba…stop.

“Eniyan!”

Iya! Did she really have to get up, already?

“Oi, eniyan!”

Wait, whose voice was that?

“Ya! You stupid eniyan, get up! It’s morning!”

So, Abeni opened her grey eyes only to be greeted with the sight of an eniyan-sized ẹda leaning over her body causing the white-haired girl to jolt upright into a sitting position.

Was it about to attack her? “Y-you!” Abeni pointed with shock, almost accusatory. But the female ẹda just rolled its…her eyes before deeming it safe enough to remove her tail from behind Abeni’s body.

Hesitantly, Abeni shifted away from the female ẹda and assessed the situation. They were currently sitting on the moss-covered path that they had been looking for. The first checkpoint. There were larger rocks as tall as her back here that had been intentionally placed on either side of Pessimum Path and acted as a proper edge compared to the usual ankle-high one.

Abeni was currently leant back on some of them as she looked to the walls surrounding her. There were two wall torches that she could see from where she was sitting that were well lit. And beside the one in front of her was the female ẹda who was…stretching her tail? How strange.

Abeni watched her until the other being took notice of her. “Oi…speak. Don’t just stare like a creep.”

Abeni gripped her adire-patterned shorts with pink at the bottom and the moss beneath her legs, feeling the cold settle into her bones as she woke up. “I...slept here?”

“Yeah. I did as well,” a pause. “Some eniyans came past this way when you were asleep.”

The guards on patrol? Is that why the torches were so bright? “Where did they go?” Wait… “You didn’t…kill them, did you?”

“No! When they saw me, they ran away. What do you take me for? I’m not a wild animal,” but for an ẹda who clearly had a vendetta against eniyans, it was very plausible that she would’ve killed them as soon as she saw them. Not to mention the universal curse that Abeni had yet to confirm whether this female ẹda could control or not.

“I only hurt the ones that try to hurt me. To shake them off,” she continued.

Abeni hummed absentmindedly. How long would it be until she could shake this female ẹda off? “Did you at least ask them for directions?”

“…Enough about that. What’s the next checkpoint?” That’s a no then. Abeni sighed, rising to her feet and brushing her clothes off. Trying to ignore her dry throat and growling stomach.

Her eyes drifted off to look at the female ẹda who seemed to be doing well and Abeni felt envy begin to taint her thoughts. Why was she born like this while an ẹda like that was overwhelmingly stronger than her? Why was there no food for her to eat? Why was she the only one with a rumbling tummy?

“Mole tunnels,” Abeni eventually responded. Then, not able to settle her bitter inquisitiveness, asked. “How are you not...hungry?”

The female ẹda finally stopped stretching and looked down at her. “Why would I be? I ate before I met you.”

“What…what kind of food do you eat?” Moss? Fungi?

“Moles mostly.”

Oh right.

Moles.

Mole tunnels.

Abeni jumped to her feet with renewed energy. You know what? There was no point in worrying about eating! As long as she got to the village...she would survive! As long as she just kept moving and found those tunnels. There was only five hours of walking left before she’d be home!

“We can eat eniyans too,” the female ẹda continued way too casually as if just those words don’t make Abeni want to throw up, “but it’s not common to. It would take too much effort to catch you guys and it’s a bit immoral...hey!” She protested as soon as she noticed Abeni begin to walk down Pessimum Path without her, trying to block the female ẹda’s words out.

“But what about you? What are you doing? Don’t you need to eat or something? I heard you weak little eniyans can’t last even a full day without food.”

But Abeni shook her head, hating that nickname and feeling uneasy as she heard the female ẹda slither behind her, still on her trail. “That can’t be right. I’ve fasted for days before with only water…”

A year ago, some of the villagers were not able to find food to eat, so, against her parents' rule of ‘never interacting with villagers without either of them present’, Abeni started secretly handing out her own food to them for a while before she got unwell and couldn’t do it anymore. “We don’t have to fast,” her crush and only friend, Martin, reassured her at the time. “that’s for the adults to do.”

Oh yeah, how was Martin doing? And Uncle Ibrahim? Was everyone well? She wanted to see them. She needed to.

“OK, you have clothes, you’ve slept. What else? What about shelter? Oh yeah, we don’t need it. We’re travelling.”

Why was this female ẹda acting concerned? “I’m fine.”

“Look!” The other’s voice made Abeni flinch, badly. So, she sighed and tried again. “Look…you had a nightmare.”

The white-haired girl couldn’t help but let out a laugh at that. She couldn’t recall anything, but she was not surprised in the slightest. Who wouldn’t have one given the circumstances? “Obviously.”

“No, this is serious, you imbecile. It looked like you were hurti—”

“Why do you care!” Abeni suddenly exploded, emotions all over the place as she clenched her fists and stopped walking. The curse pulsed through her veins for the first time since she left the maze.

Shut her up. Shut her up. Shut her up. Hurt her. Hurt her. Hurt her. Kill her. Kill her. Kill h— but then she took a deep breath, remembering what her father told her to do at times like these.

“The curse convinced you to punch me, but you could’ve resisted it. Just think of it like this. The curse is telling you to do one thing, right? So, all you have to do is tell yourself that you don’t need to do that thing. Force yourself, no, convince yourself that you don’t have to do it. You are in control of your own body, OK? Remember that.”

And it helped. It was alright. Everything would be fine. As long as this ẹda disappeared from her life forever. Everything would be fine.

Abeni looked to the female ẹda who stared at her with an unreadable expression, muscles taunt as if ready for a fight, but was relaxed in posture. “Eniyan…? What was that?”

Abeni didn’t want to discuss her shouting just then, so she simply continued walking. “I just want to go home. Please…leave me alone.”

But Abeni knew she still wouldn’t get what she wanted. “I...can’t do that,” came the awkward response.

The white-haired girl stopped in her steps again and looked at the female ẹda, feeling as lost as ever. Being a more similar height now made it easier. “Why?”

“You’re...incredibly weak. So, I have a responsibility to get you home. Maybe...it’s some weird sense of guilt, OK? The ẹda that killed your parents was the one who…well. I know him. So, I want to see you home.”

No, that’s not why. That’s not the reason at all! Abeni made a mistake. In a split-second, she wanted to save her life and her body reacted. But she couldn’t control her abilities or her emotions and made a dumb mistake that anyone would be ecstatic to have made.

To have such a powerful being “protect me!” and “follow me home then.”

But to her, it meant that her parents’ killer was tormenting her, stalking her until she got home despite her protests. She knew that was not the full picture. This female ẹda had no part in their deaths and hadn’t yet laid a hand on her, but trauma didn’t make logical sense.

Let’s just focus on the second checkpoint instead. The moles. The moles. The moles. Everything else was a problem for future Abeni to deal with.

So, she changed the topic, hoping the female ẹda would just let it go. “…Do you have a way of finding moles? Since you hunt them?”

Rejoicing when she did, even going so far as to move in front of Abeni to explain with her hands. “...Well, of course, I do!”

“Really?”

“OK, so, I wouldn’t usually tell an eniyan my secrets,” she looked at Abeni’s curious expression, “but it seems that I don’t have a choice.”

It wasn’t complex nor was it particularly useful information, but it helped pass the time until they reached their next destination. Which was exactly what Abeni was looking for.

The female ẹda explained that she visited sporadic mole tunnels in the maze regularly and checked if they were active by stuffing sand inside, and if by the next visit the sand was on the ground, then moles were using the tunnel. Then she waited all day with her hands in the hole until one came, transformed into her bigger form and then easily stabbed it with her elongated nails. “Efficency” she boasted.

But to the white-haired girl that just sounded like…

“Aren’t you just…” Abeni swallowed, not out of nerves this time, but out of thirst. “really bored?”

A pregnant silence before. “I...ah. Well…So…”

And the female ẹda’s poor attempt at denial that followed them until they spotted the wall of mole tunnels an hour and a half later…made the corner of Abeni’s lips turn up ever so slightly.

[Current Total Beings In ‘Abeni’s Army’ – 1]