Teleporting Away
Teleporting Away
Osanna was tying the lace of Ariel's bodice when Joyce walked into her room.
Ariel felt as though Joyce was there to tease her early in the morning when she asked her about Damien. Thus, she frowned and dismissed Joyce's question. "Stop it, Joy. I am not in the mood to be teased."
However, Joyce went and stood right beside her and asked in a rather serious voice, "No, Ariel. I am not teasing you. I need to know where Damien is for real. I was with him and… um… with him and Kenneth a while ago. But…"
"But?" Ariel suddenly looked interested in the conversation because Joyce mentioned Damien and Kenneth in the same sentence. She was afraid that the two of them might have been involved in a fight like how they used to.
Joyce adjusted the hairclip on Ariel's head that was about to fall off, and then replied a bit restlessly, "But now, I can't find both of them. So, I was–"
Ariel abruptly got up on her feet, startling poor Osanna and making her retrieve her hands away.
Ariel quickly pressed her palm over her chest to stop the bodice from falling and repeated what Joyce had just mentioned. "You can't find both of them?" She furrowed her brows and asked, worry lines visible between her brows, "Where did they go?"
"That's what I wanted to know!" Joyce replied. "Arghhhh!" she grumbled and sighed when she could only think of a place where the two of them might have gone off to. She then covered her face with both of her palms and softly murmured, "I think I know where they are headed."
"Where? Tell me now!" Ariel demanded the answer with haste.
Joyce could feel that the sweat beads had started to form around her hairline. She quickly ran her palm across her forehead, and then answered a bit hesitantly, "Umm… A guest of mine had mentioned that Kenneth resembled someone from her village."
Ariel furrowed her brows because her mind didn't immediately comprehend what that meant. And she asked, "What does that have to do anything with–" She suddenly stopped midsentence when she suddenly got the answer herself.
"Holy hell! For real?" Ariel exclaimed.
"Yes." Joyce inhaled deeply and then said, "And Kenneth happened to hear it. He rushed back to his room. I followed him. And when I reached there, both Damien and Kenneth had disappeared from the room by then."
"Well, they obviously went to that village then, wherever it is," Ariel mumbled to herself after thinking for a few seconds.
And before Joyce could talk or make plans with Ariel regarding the next steps that they should be taking, the very next moment, Ariel went solo and disappeared from the room.
"Um… your dress!" Osanna held out her hand and tried to warn Ariel that the lace of her bodice hadn't been knotted properly. However, Ariel had disappeared by then.
"Ugh!" Joyce stomped her foot on the floor, irritated by how the ones with the teleportation ability tend to disappear so fast. "Now, she is gone too!"
Joyce sighed and shrugged. "Oh well… They are the most powerful beings I know. They can certainly take care of themsel–" She suddenly closed her eyes when she recalled that there were far more powerful entities in existence.
"Oh my goodness!" She made her way outside of the room while restlessly mumbling to herself, "I need to find Uncle Theodore and let him know that Ariel went after Damien and Kenneth. Ugh! I should have thought twice before revealing everything to her…"
As Joyce made her way towards the guest quarter where Theodore was currently residing, Ariel had already reached the place where Damien currently was.
Ariel was expecting to find herself in some new place. However, she was a bit taken aback when she found herself in a room that looked similar to the guest room where she was staying in.
She found Damien rummaging through a suitcase which clearly wasn't his. So, she figured that she was in Kenneth's room.
"Damien?" She slightly tilted her head and then questioningly looked at him. "What are you… doing here?"
Damien felt his heart skipping a beat when he heard Ariel's voice. "Ariel!" He quickly looked up to see her and gave a wide smile. "I was going to find you in a while. I'm glad that you came here."
"Joyce was telling me that she couldn't find you and Kenneth anywhere." Ariel furrowed her brows and then asked Damien in a concerned voice, "Did you go somewhere?"
"Umm… Yes…" Damien picked up a set of Kenneth's clothes from the suitcase and then began to subconsciously roll them in his hand while answering Ariel, "Please don't be angry at me for leaving without informing you, okay?"
Ariel smiled at how he was still scared of getting scolded by her for leaving without getting her permission first. "Damien, it's okay. I understand that it might have been something urgent for Kenneth. Joyce told me about it. So, tell me where the two of you disappeared to."
Damien sighed in relief when Ariel didn't get mad at him at all. He cleared his throat and then said, "I took Kenneth to Paradise Edge. And we were heading to the village called Stormford, but Kenneth was still in his robe. So, I came here to get his clothes and a few other things."
He shook the clothes in his hand and then said dejectedly, "But I can't seem to figure out which clothes to take with me. He was saying that he wanted to look good if he was to meet his birth mother. But I don't know what looks good on him."
"Okay, let me help you then." Ariel forgot why she was pressing her palms over her bodice until now and let go of her hold on it so that she could lift the gown to walk closer to where Damien was standing.
However, the moment she let go of the bodice, it slipped down from her chest to reveal the sheer chemise underneath.
And almost instantly, Damien got so flustered to see her upper body in that see-through chemise that he dropped the clothes that he was holding.
Both of them looked at each other with dumbfounded looks on their faces. Both of them could feel their cheeks and ears burning up.
After a few seconds, Ariel broke the eye contact and dramatically looked down at her chest, and back at Damien. She caught him moving his gaze from her chest to her face.
"Aaahhh!" And she finally screamed and quickly turned around. She pressed her palms across her chest and asked embarrassedly, "Y-You didn't see anything, right?"
"Er... no?" Damien replied while nervously pressing his palms on his cheeks.
Ariel winced and hung her head low because she was now sure that he noticed things he shouldn't have.
Suddenly, Ariel widened her eyes and goosebumps ran all over her body when she felt Damien embracing her from the back, his warm body pressed against her back, and his arms tightly wrapped around her stomach.
He rested his chin on her shoulder and then said in a ragged whisper, "I missed you so much, Ary."