Immediately when they reached the graveyard an hour later, they spotted someone. Someone kneeling on the rocky ground next to what seemed to be over fifty well-spaced tombstones, dying flowers and strange burning scents that filled the delicately lit space.

He was dressed in what Abeni recognised as a guard uniform from her village, tight white fabric wrapped around his tall body as he sobbed uncontrollably according to what Abeni and the female ẹda could hear from the Pessimum Path.

Slowly, Abeni approached the man on the left of the path, ignoring the protests she heard from her acquaintance out of sympathy for the man. As someone who just lost those she held so, so dear, she felt for him. Plus, maybe she could help console him and they could all go home together!

But the moment he saw the untransformed female ẹda, too bold to hide against one lone guard that she could easily overpower, he unsheathed a short sword with a white handle from his waist – that Abeni didn’t notice was there – and pointed it towards them, snot running down his face and all.

“Get away from me!” He screamed in Derin. “You blasted ẹda! I heard about you!”

Oh, the guard was terrified of the female ẹda. Abeni almost forgot that was the natural reaction. That’s how she had been until just today. “Don’t worry! She isn’t going to hurt you,” Abeni turned to the female ẹda who didn’t look impressed. “Right?”

“I should be the scared one…seriously, you eniyans…” she shook her head. “No. I won’t hurt you.”

Abeni released a breath, then tried to give the man a small smile, willing him to put down his sword. “See. It’s alright. I just wanted to come over and give my condole—”

“It speaks Derin! Bastard child! Witch! You taught it our language? You’re just as bad as it is, aren’t you? What? You’ve come over here to kill me for dinner, haven’t you? Well, you’ll not be getting a taste of me! Stay back!” He yelled before clumsily swing his sword around, trying to cut them. The guard may be just following what the curse was telling him to...but his veins weren’t pulsating. This was probably just who he was.

Unreasonable.

Slash! Abeni jolted backwards, falling on her hip and immediately gripping a stray stone she spotted on the ground as she dodged his swings. Slash! Despite him being careless, a blow from an adult of his stature could seriously injure her. Slash! She must block it at all costs. Slash! Even a small stone would do!

But before Abeni got to counterattack, his swinging seemed to piss the female ẹda off enough to make her slither in front of Abeni in a protective stance, surprising even the white-haired girl who slowly got back up. “You…you’re the bastard! You’re actually trying to kill an eniyan child!”

“Shut up, you monster! I-it’s every man for himself out here! I’m used to coming out here, I have experience…” his eyes drift towards the grave he had clearly been visiting.

Before snapping his eyes to look at the two of them again. “I will fight to the death! Where’s my oil? I will light the both of you on fire and rid the underworld of you! Don’t challenge me!” He glared, using his other hand to frantically reach down into his pocket.

“Just…drop your sword,” Abeni nervously laughed, eying his searching hand. So, that must be his ability, something related to fire. It made sense. Like Abeni had to go with her parents, she’s pretty sure that no one was supposed to be alone this far out from the village. The only explanation for this that came to mind was that this guard was in charge of lighting the wall torches. “We’re not challenging you. I just wanted to tell you I’m sorry for your loss and ask you if you wanted—”

But he cut her off again as he directed his sword to Abeni’s face.

That’s it. She had recuperated all of her outer soul energy in the time it took for them to get here, so Abeni was going to try to use her words to force him to relax. Nothing good would come from a fight right now. They only have one checkpoint left! She couldn’t die now! She wouldn’t!

“Don’t point your sword towards us ever again.”

Then his hand twisted, pointing the sword to the sky, to the ground, to the grave, unable to aim in their direction.

“What did you just do?”

The lone guard kept swinging it around helplessly, but just before the sword moved their way, his own hands stopped it.

“What is this!” He screeched, still ruffling his pockets for his oil. “What did you do?”

The female ẹda scoffed, crossing her arms. “More than you could ever do.”

However, instead of making Abeni feel smug, she was disappointed. She understood the feeling. She used to be beyond terrified of the female ẹda too until some hours ago. But the white-haired girl couldn’t help but find it sad and a bit pathetic that a guard reacted like this and even tried to kill her without even hearing them out.

But who was Abeni to judge?

With that thought, the white-haired girl sighed and made her way back to the middle of Pessimum Path, hearing the much quieter slithering behind her as they headed back down it without another word. Ignoring the gibberish shouting of an chronically aggressive man as they resumed their tedious journey.

And maybe it was because that was the first time they had ever faced an enemy together, but some kind of mental barrier between them disappeared after that encounter. Made them talk a bit more than usual. Of course, it wasn’t anything damning. They only mentioned their likes and dislikes, but that was enough for now. That was something.

The female ẹda told her about her collection of coloured rocks, mole heads and flowers back in the maze. And Abeni told the female ẹda about her obsession with board games like Oware, that she loved going exploring with her mother and eating her father’s tomato-based stews until she had to pause so that she didn’t cry again.

The female ẹda took a deep breath then. “I’m sorry, you know.”

Abeni looked at her, clearly bewildered as she continued walking towards the direction of the sign. The final checkpoint.

“I’m sorry for what he did. The other ẹda. He was...I mean, sure I might’ve still killed you if you hadn’t stopped me depending on how I felt. But that male ẹda...he was insane. He couldn’t resist the curse for the life of him. There’s nothing you or your parents could’ve done to stop him from killing them.”

Abeni tried to accept that. This was the first time the female ẹda had tried to sympathise with her so she’d take what she said to heart. Flip them over in her head. Let those words calm her down. After all, They did not have long to go. But, as always, the period of calm waa short lived.

“Abeni! Abeni!”

“Huh?” Why did the female ẹda look so high-energy all of a sudden?

“That’s the sign, right? It must be!”

So, Abeni looked ahead of her and almost wept with relief.

It was.

It took them an hour to get from the maze to the moss-covered path and an hour and a half to get to the group of mole tunnels from there. That’s two and a half hours. Then it took another hour and a half to get to the groundwater pond. Four hours. An hour to travel from the pond to the graveyard. Five hours. Half an hour to get to the village sign and it would take a final thirty minutes to reach the village from here.

Six hours. Just as she recalled.

All the sign read was ‘Aajiz Village’ and a downward arrow, but that was more than enough.

Huh…Abeni always assumed her parents were saying ‘Eyes’ when describing the place. “Aajiz Village...so that’s the name of the village again.”

“Pft!” She heard from behind her.

Abeni turned to ask, hesitant. “…What?” 

But the look that the female ẹda gave her was enough to make the dark-skinned girl’s cheeks heat up. “How could you not know the name of your own village until now? What a child,” she chuckled.

So, what if Abeni didn’t know its proper name! “I am not!”

“Haha, what do you mean? You literally are!”

“Well…you’re an old woman!”

“What?”

“Y-you heard me!”

Their bickering didn’t stop as they continued down the pathway, all the way down until they could see a large defensive stone wall and two men guarding two grimy metal gates double their height. Not to mention the multitude of torches hanging around truly brightening up the atmosphere.

“Abeni! Is that you?”

In fact, it only stopped as her embarrassment faded and her eyes laid on Uncle Ibrahim for the first time in what seemed like forever.

“Uncle!”

Finally, she’s home.

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