Thank you everyone who is reading my story despite my lack of language or writing skill. Still hope to find a beta reader so that i can overwork it but until then i am thankfull for the attention.
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Hot corny sand cushioned her landing.
The mage had let go of her and as the result she rolled down the small dune until she landed in the uncomfortable position of lying on her backpack at the feet of the small sand hill.
This became even more uncomfortable since her body was still stiff as a board and a hot sun beamed mercilessly down upon her.
Unable to do anything else Rose remained in this position for a few minutes before she heard the quick steps of the wizard hurrying down the dune to her.
She had no idea what had happened. Hadn't the mage planned to bring her back to the Dursleys? And hadn't it been at the evening? Yet the sun stood high as at midday.
"Well, that is quite the strange predicament, isn't it young Miss?" The wizard started to chatter good-heartedly while he tried to position Rose in a less strange position.
A nervous glint in his eyes betrayed his true feelings.
Wherever they were, it had not been his intention to bring them here.
Pulling his robe over his head he used it to cover Rose stiff body, protecting her against the hot sun rays.
"I hope this isn't too uncomfortable.
I fear I need a second or two to figure out how I messed our destination up.
Ah but don't worry!" He laughed but couldn't hide his growing nervosity.
"Once I tried to apparate down to my house door but ended up three villages away in just my bathrobe! This is nothing compared to that!"
With some struggle he climbed the dune again, causing a small avalanche of sand to fall on Rose.
Teaching the peak of the hill he started to mumble loudly, seemingly thinking her being unable to hear him.
"How screwed I this up? I must have almost travel around the globe…."
More sand felled down the hill as the mage walked around. A part fall on Rose face that he had only covered slightly to allow her to breath.
"… desert… Mad-Eye is going to kill me… Didn't even believe it to be possible to apparate that far away!"
While she couldn't hear everything the wizard said, she did realize that his tone become more and more nervous.
"I don't understand! Why isn't Tinty reacting to me calling her?"
Soon nervosity made place for frustration.
"Too far away or some wards? No, that shouldn't stop a house elf, it shouldn't matter where on earth I am!"
This monolog continued for a while and slowly did Roses muscles lost their stiffness.
If she wasn't nervous about their relocation herself, she would have felt a form of relief.
It happened from one moment to the next.
In one second, she sweated under the heavy robe of the mage while the sun shined mercilessly on her, in the next an ice-cold wind caused her to want the heat back.
At first, she thought that her perception of the temperature had gone crazy, she had felt something similar once when the Dursleys had let her outside in the winter and refused to let her inside before she finished shovelling the snow away.
Yet then she saw her breath becoming white clouds before her eyes.
What was happening?
On the top of the dune the wizard too had recognized the sudden change in temperature and contrary to Rose he seemed to have identify its source.
"Hello! You there!" He screamed out with the full force of his lungs.
"We need help!"
Loud stomping noises and vibrations through the sand made it clear to her that something heavy and big had just run up to the hill.
Sadly, her position under the rising sand masses and her still painfully stiff body didn't allow her to look up to see who had joined the wizard up there.
Though it appeared like another human had joined them.
"Creasa ess zireael, dh'oine!? Deie na marw!" A deep voice commanded.
Rose didn't know why but something of this voice caused her to shiver innately for fear.
Who was that? And was it truly a human?
Its voice had something strangely inhuman in itself.
"Excuse me, I fear I don't speak your language. Do you perhaps speak English?
Thank you for the cold wind by the way, that was exactly what we needed in this blazing sun."
The wizard seemed to feel uneasy too.
"Dice dh'oine!"
The sound of metal on metal could be heard.
"Hey we don't want any-Protego!" Whatever was happening, it clearly made the old wizard panic.
The cold became even stronger and Rose could see her breath to cause the spread of frost near her nose.
"I warn you! Stu…"
All Rose heard was the singing of metal as something big and heavy fall on her.
Then something else rolled next to her face and if Rose wouldn't still have lacked any control over her body, she would have screamed at what she saw:
It was the severed wizard's head!
Roses heart beat loudly in her ears.
Was she going to get killed next? She didn't want to die!
"She wanted to be with Cirilla again!
Fearful she listened to the sounds of the creature on the hill, while being forced to look at the dead head of Dedalus Diggle.
After a way to long time the icy voice thundered angrily from the top of the dune.
"Słac sygnał, mój tyłek! Neén y tearth aep het! Nawigator éigean spadł na jakiś geas!"
Another icy cold gust of air blow over the sand.
"Na on ess pijané…"
And all of the sudden the cold wind stopped and the warmth of the sun came back in all its radiating glory.
Hours passed where the cold slowly faded away and the heat returned.
Rose didn't move.
Not even when the curse stopped working on her.
The fear that she would be discovered if she moved was simply too great.
Only when a long time had passed yet still nothing happened, she dared to crawl out from under the headless corpse.
Sand rained down from the wizard's robe while she was doing so.
With unease did she started to realize that the amount of sand on the robe and the corpse had perfectly hidden her from view.
Her body having been unable to move from the other wizard's curse may have accidently saved her life.
With still slightly stiff limbs she climbed the dune herself now.
Keeping her head low she looks at her surroundings.
What she saw was kind of disappointing.
Around her was a landscape of pure desolation. Sand dunes after sand dunes only interrupted by big wooden crosses that stacked out of the sand, some still standing, more fallen to the ground or broken. Further away she saw monoliths staking out of the sand, giving the impression of ruins.
What however was far more important and in fact brought her some form of relief was the absence of any kind of human or animal nearby.
That had to mean that whatever had killed the wizard had moved on.
Her relief was quickly blown away when she saw the scarlet red traces on the ground before her.
Her gaze wandered back down the dune.
There still the headless corpse of the wizard lay, now partly covered by sand thanks to Roses clumsy attempt at climbing the dune.
A pit opened in her stomach and her eyes started to tear up.
She hadn't wanted that.
Sure, she didn't like the mages and especially that Mad-Eye fellow. In fact, she would have preferred if all of them would have stayed out of her life.
But she hadn't wanted anyone to die!
A cold shiver overcame her. What if whoever had killed the wizard would have found her?
Rose felt very scared right now.
She wanted home! No, not home.
An image of a certain white-haired woman appeared before her eyes.
Yes, that was right. She wanted to find her mother and prove her worth to her so that she could stay with her.
Wiping the already drying tears away, her face took a more determent expression again.
A few minutes later Rose pathed her way through the desert around her.
She had tried to buried the wizard to the best of her abilities, in other words she had suppressed her nausea when she laid his head to its proper place and tried to push more sand on his corpse.
Her thoughts wandered to the wizard's wand in her backpack as she struggled down another dune.
The man still had it in his hand when she laid his head near his neck.
Sadly, she hadn't managed to do anything magical like with it.
A few sparks had flown out of it when she swung it, but no lightning beams like the other wizards had done.
She should have known that it wasn't at easy as that to use a magic stick.
Though a bit additional magic would have served her well right now.
It was truly unbearable hot right now. The sun threatened to grill her and she could really need a glass of water right now.
The heat was truly killing her, but even worse she was not even making any real progress.
Walking through a desert become very fast a slow and draining exercise.
It was hard to walk through the sand and every step seemed to demand more and more energy from her.
Even worse, she didn't even know if she was going in the right direction, she had actually nothing to go by and could potentially just walk deeper into the deadly desert.
Currently she was just walking to the monoliths in the distant, hoping that she would find civilisation or at least some water there.
As such despite her marker being visible from the top of the dunes she needed to walk of hours before even coming near it.
The sun was setting, when she finally reached it.
The monolith turned out to be a single big black obelisk who had been constructed out of multiple round pillars. Its completely dark stone seemed to absorb all the light while contrasting greatly against the red sky behind it.
Exhausted Rose sunk to knees.
She was so tired.
And she needed desperately something to drink.
Yet the monolith had not been the promise of safety or civilisation she had hoped for.
Behind the obelisk all that could be seen were crumbling ruins and the remnants of what was once a road but now was covered by sand.
A warm wind blowed through between the decaying walls and abounded remnants of a fallen civilisation.
The air had been dry and dusty.
Yet now there seemed to be something else mixed with it. A smell Rose couldn't identify.
Something inside her recoiled from it. Told her to run back into the desert.
For a second Rose was tempted to actually do so, yet where else was she to turn to?
There was nothing else around them!
"´Nothing´ didn't kill the wizard." A cynical voice in her mind reminded her.
She shacked her head, trying to drive away the inner voice.
The heat had gotten to her and she had felt dizzy for a while already.
Frustrated Rose struggled to her feet again.
Strange feelings or inner voices weren't helping her one bit and she currently lacked the concentration to actually think things through. But she knew that she had continue her search for something to drink.
"Perhaps that strange smell is water?" She mumbled while falling almost down the hill she had stood at.
"Does water have a smell?" She couldn't remember one. Most likely not since it was tasteless too.
But then again this may not be clear water from the tub like she had with the Dursleys.
The pond near her school had smelled quite badly once before it had been cleaned up.
The thought alone remembered her even more about her dry throat. Given the option she would drink that murky water with pleasure right now.
Reaching the end of the dune she stepped on the hard, formed stones of what once had been a road.
For a second, she swung dangerously, delirium and the lack of squishy sand confusing her for a moment.
Then she caught herself and continued her path, now making progress way faster as she had not to wander through sand all the time.
Soon the shadows of hills and the ruins around her became longer while the sky become darker and darker.
With the light of the setting sun quickly diminishing she pulled Dudley's old flashlight out of her backpack. Its plastic casing had a few cracks and dents from when her cousin had used his expensive junior-camper torch as a club but it was still functional enough to illuminate the way before. Even its dials to change the light setting were still operational.
Setting the lamp on a low setting to safe its power Rose illuminated the path before her. This was she should be able to see where she is walking.
For some time, she wandered along the old road like this, passing old walls and ruined buildings sticking out between the sand.
All while becoming steadily more tired yet kept awake by her overwhelming thirst.
Then she found it.
The road had gone uphill for a while now and finally started to become steps for her to climb on, leading to the open area surrounded by thick pillars.
She heard it before she saw it.
The all-encompassing silence of the desert suddenly disturbed by a consistent crunching and tearing sound, only getting interrupted by the occasional animalistic panting.
The shine of Roses flashlight danced between the old stonework as she searched for the source of the noise.
Not seeing anything she adjusted the switch on her lamp to intensify its light beam.
Then she saw it.
It was a bat, or at least what reminded her of the bats she had seen in books at school.
Only that this bat was easily twice her own size!
It stood leaning over in front, leaning on its huge wings, its gigantic ugly head with its huge ears turned at something below it.
The moment shine of Roses flashlight fell upon it, its head jerked into her direction, giving her a perfect view on its long, razor sharp teethes and its pitch-black demonic eyes.
Rose falls backwards for shock, the flashlight still directed at the giant bats face. She screamed- and so did the creature before her.
With two powerful beats of its wings, it swore into the air and -disapeared?
Rose lay where she had fallen for a while, ready for the beast to fall down from the dark sky and doing well whatever monsters were doing. Most likely eating her.
Only when a few minutes had passed by did she realize that the giant bat was not coming back.
Had she somehow chased it away?
Perhaps the light of her flashlight had confused it? She had heard somewhere that wild animals feared fire. Maybe it had thought her lamp to be some source of fire or something like that?
Calming down her fast-beating heart she shined the light of her lamp at where the bat had kneeled before.
She froze up when she saw what the bat had sat upon.
The realization how narrowly she had escaped death again hit her hard.
Before her was the almost methodically mutilated body of a human.
It had been a man, that much was clear to her thanks to the half of his head that stared at her out of its one remaining eye.
He also seemed to have warn some kind of armour, for thick pieces of metal laid between the mixture of meat and intestines.
Though the armour didn't seem to have done him much good. It had been ripped apart and disassembled by long sharp claws, leaving deep scares on the bigger pieces of metal remaining.
Rose couldn't stop herself this time and emptied the meagre content of her stomach on the dark stone beneath her.
The wizard had been bad enough, but this? Alone the smell brought tears to her eyes.
She had to get away! She didn't wanted to end up like this!
Deliriously she stumbled around the pile of gore, the shine of the lamp kept on it. She didn't know where she was going anymore, she didn't even care, she just wanted to move away from all of this and if she moved back into the desert.
Her foot hit something hard and wet.
For a second, she paused, eyes still fixed on the gruesome sight before she looked down.
It was a human arm- or better it mostly was a human hand with a bit of arm.
The skin looked waxen and burnt, a yellowish, sourish liquid trickled viscously down it. Rose felt a bit reminded by her own vomit and in fact thought for a second that she had accidentally had puked on someone hand.
She already wanted to make a huge step above it when a thought crossed her mind.
Why had the bat spit it out?
It seemed happy to devour the rest of the corpse, yet had apparently discarded this part?
Morbid curiosity overcame quickly her disgust.
With her shoed foot she kicked carefully against the hand. Something was stuck at it, scratching against the stone beneath it.
With a bit of further probing the rotting appendage fall to the side revealing the remnants of what had once been some kind of armband.
The leather part was mostly dissolved, likely thanks to the bats stomach, and what remained just sticked to the etched skin. But a bronze looking frame and a big ornament were still more or less intact. More or less, because when Roses turned the whole thing with her shoe around the big ornament fall down to from it.
Curiosity still guiding her hand, using the sleeve of her jacket she took up the free ornament and tried to clean it up.
Her eyes became big when she started to see what a treasure she had found.
The ornament had been made from bronze like the frame of the armband. Yet instead of simple rings it formed a detailly formed snake that was biting its own tail. Yet the truly eye-catching facet was the big green gemstone which the snake coiled around.
For a second Rose had forgotten both her own thirst and the gruesome beast that she had survived by mere luck.
Now Rose had never been allowed to have many pretty things, not to speak about jewellery. So perhaps this was the reason why she pushed it into her pocket despite the gruesome nature of her find.
But perhaps something besides the curiosity of a child or the inherent wish to own something beautiful had made her pause to inspect that armband. And maybe that something had caused her to pick it up. Yet just as she never seemed to recognize the thin dark purple aura rising like smoke from the arm just seconds before she had stumbled over it, she never questioned her action in that second.
She didn't know when she had fallen at sleep or even for how long she had slept.
Yet at some point she must have broken down on the ruined road. When she awoke the sun was shining at her face and her throat hurt from thirst.
With some difficulty she stood up from the pill of sand she had slept in and took in her surroundings.
Before her was the road ahead of her. A gaze back showed her a familiar building in some distance behind her.
Her thoughts were now a bit clearer than they had been and last nights happenings appeared more like another of her nightmares.
Had this monster been real? Perhaps it had just been some terrible dream?
But then she felt a treacherous weight in her pocket.
She knew what it was before she even looked at it. The mesmerizing green jewel from the corpse.
So that meant it had been all real?
The dead wizard, the bat monster, that pile of gore.
The knowledge, the certainty of what had happened send a shiver over her back when she continued her path across the ruined road.
Sleeping had somewhat restored her strength, though it had done little against the thirst and the hunger. This itself wouldn't have been that much of a trouble. Rose was used to going a day or two with little to no substance.
However, it was a big different when you were confined in a comfortable cupboard or wandering hopelessly through a desert.
And this hopelessness started to creep back in her mind when the ruins became more scars and the road disappeared under the sand.
Rose knew instinctually that the very thought of her search for water and civilisation being pointless would drain what little strength she had regained.
So, she forced herself to go on, less so that she may yet find something, but more so that she didn't have to deal the idea of being doomed.
In the distant see saw small mountains, rocky formations that stood out clearly against the desert surrounding it. Who knew what could be there?
Rose continued to walk even when dark points started to impair her vision again.
She continued when the sun became strong enough that it burned her again, and she continued when she threatened to be swallowed by the sand surrounding her.
And then finally, despite all the odds and the inner voices that told her how hopeless her search was, she found it.
A cold wind blew through the rocky formations gently against her, causing her to stop in her shuffling to pause and to look up from the corny sand before her feet.
The green of vegetation blooming between the steep mountains like a candle shined in the darkness.
"Water!" Was all Rose thought.
"There had to be water!"
Pulling at the last resources of strength she still had, she run to it.
Stumbling and tripping through the sand, falling and rolling through the dunes with reckless abandonment.
When the sand under her feet was replaced by plants, she felt like having entered another world.
She paused only for a moment, a second where her eyes danced around until they found what they had searched:
The shimmering surface of a sea.
She didn't lose any time.
Before she realized it, she had plunged forward and started to drink from it with the enthusiasms only those dying of thirst could apply.
Rose didn't care when her wild and untamed manner of shovelling water down her throat caused the water, she drank to become murky with dirt.
She only stopped drinking when she recognized movement at the corner of her eye.
When she looked up her heart stopped for a second.
Rose hadn't paid attention to her surroundings when she stormed to the shores.
She hadn't seen what stood just a few meters aside from her and thought of it at most as some big green bolder.
Said bolder was now rising on two gorilla like forearms, stemming its enormous scaly body upwards and gave a deep grumbling sound from its big turtle head.
It looked like a mixture of a gorilla and a turtle in Roses eyes as she tried to crawl backwards away from it.
Luckily the turtle-gorilla didn't seem to care above her.
With another grumbling sound it turned around and moved away from her.
Looking beyond the strange creature she saw other similar huge and greenish creatures standing around the shore and the vegetation of palm trees and bushes.
"They are harmless." Rose mumbled to convince herself.
Heart still beating quickly in her chest, she looked after the turtle-gorillas hybrids grazing peacefully in the shadows between palm trees or wandering to the sea to drink.
Still sitting on the ground near the shore, her breathing started to quicken.
Soon the first tears started to drop down her cheeks.
She started to cry.
This was all too much.
She wanted back; she was sorry for what she did.
It was safer with the Dursleys! She wanted to feel safe again, she wanted to feel Cirilla hugging her and saying that everything was going to be fine.
After having spent all her tears and having her sobs answered by nothing but uncaring silence, Rose decided to focus her avoided dying of thirst and cleaning herself up a bit -she seemed to have wet herself at some point since last night if she was going by the smell of her jeans- Rose tried to get an overview of her surroundings.
The oasis was far bigger than she had at first believed.
Protected through the steep mountains from the harsh desert a big blue sea stretched itself from her left and right as far as her eyes could see.
Lush full green vegetation growing all around the shore.
What was she going to do now?
Perhaps the other wizards would search for her and their friend?
In that case she could only hope that they found her before some monster eat her.
For a second, she contemplated that thought.
Since she had been small, she had been scared of monsters. Like every little child she had her fears and her vivid nightmares did nothing but fed her imagination in that regard.
Yet this was the first time she ever actually had seen any real monsters.
Taking down her backpack she started to look through what she had with her.
It wasn't much.
She had -besides her journal and the carefully wrapped blood compass- only packed a few winter clothes and what had remained from Dudley's junior camper equipment.
And while the last part sounded good at first, Dudley's reckless behaviour had caused it to be restricted to one sleeping bag, a flashlight with empty batteries and a small booklet about safe camping.
In theory there had been once both a compass, a multitool and flint and steel set been part of it, but either Dudley had broken or actually kept them.
One way or the other it wasn't anything that gave her the feeling to be safe from any monster searching for prey in the night.
Oh well… she pulled a thin piece of wood out.
She did have that wizard's wand, not that it had helped him much.
With a wave a shower of green sparks shot out of its tip. The smell of burning wood filled the air and the wands tip started to produce smoke.
"Very useful." She thought sarcastically as she quickly extinguished the wand by holding it under water.
What else did she have?
She looked at the jewel with its coiling snake ornament. Well, it definitely looked pretty.
Looking back at the giant turtles in the distance she thought about the bat creature from last night. Perhaps it was only coming out at night? Bats were nocturnal after all.
Maybe the smartest thing to do would simply hide at night.
Though something had killed the wizard at day so she should be careful in general.
And if she managed to keep her dead down and to survive for long enough, the just perhaps someone would find and save her.
A kindly looking white-haired woman with a scar under her left eye appeared for a second in her mind.
A small smiled appeared on Roses face. Cirilla definitely wouldn't think that she was a waste of space when she saw that she could survive under monsters right?
But how to start?
Frankly camping or surviving in the wilds had never been any of her interests.
Though she had read a book about human society through the ages. For example, how they lived in the stone age in caves and made tools out of stone.
Of course, the book hadn't been that detailed, it mostly consisted out of colourful pictures and short info texts about the topics. It had been a children book in the end after all.
Still the importance of proper shelter both against the elements and apparently man-eating monsters was something that wouldn't be lost to any child.
Since the big green reptilian creatures appeared peaceful, Rose didn't saw harm in searching a safe haven near them. In the best case the muscular reptiles would keep predators away, at worst their presence may distract them of her. One way or the other she felt safer around them than being alone.
So, while keeping an eye on the green herd, she looked at the nearby shore for something like a cave.
Sadly, caves proved themselves rarer than the library books had made her belief and as she didn't dare to wander to far of for now, she made do with the space between a particular big rook and the oasis surrounding steep cliffs.
The place between the stones was narrow, but still big enough to allow her to move comfortable in and out of it. And thanks to a few fallen down palm fonds she had an improvised roof and bedding.
Laying under her quickly fashioned palm roof, a feeling of satisfaction overcame her. Perhaps the whole survival stuff would be easier than she had thought?
The sound of a rumbling stomach broke through the idle silence.
Ah, yes, she should try and find something to eat right? It had been a while that she had anything to eat.
Crawling out of her manmade cave, she looked around.
Frankly to only immediately eatable thing that came to her mind where the chicken sized young reptiles that grassed together with their bigger counterparts.
Yeah, no way that would work out.
Besides her basically having no idea how to do hunt anything, she didn't expect the gorilla sized creatures to stay peacefully when she attacked their kids.
She also didn't feel good attacking these little animals right now. She wasn't against hunting in general, just not ready to do so herself.
Any way weren't there any other options?
She couldn't eat grass and plants like the turtle-apes, she had tried that once in her aunt's garden and had only upset her stomach. Not to mention that she didn't know if perhaps some plants were poisonous.
Again, with barely a cohesive plan formed to find something to eat that might not try to unalive her, she started to search or something that resembled anything she knew or looked remotely fruitlike.
Her search was rather fruitless.
The best she found were some seeds that might or might not be editable since they reminded her of pictures of wheat she once saw.
So far, they hadn't killed her, though she would lie if she would claim to be anywhere near sated.
The sun was setting again when she sunk down near her camp, exhausted and hungry.
She let herself fall on the pile of dried leaves that were meant to serve her as bedding, when a small but sickening crunching sound reached her ears.
Immediately she jumped up, almost ripping the roof from the bolder.
In the setting light she soon saw what that crunching sound had been: between the leaves a gigantic white caterpillar had hidden himself and now had gotten partly smashed to a pulp by Roses behind.
With a look of disgust Rose pulled the parts of the caterpillar out of the leaves and through the smashed and squishy parts far away from her.
She intended to do the same thing with the unsmashed half, but then she saw a shovelling between the nearby turtle-creatures. A few of the younger ones, barely as big as a chicken run up to the discarded pieces of caterpillar slush and started to gobble it up like crazy.
"Right." Rose thought while looking at the unsmashed piece in her hand. "I suppose there isn't much difference between this and some unknown seeds."
Hesitantly she moved the caterpillar to her mouth, it didn't smell or anything in that regard.
It didn't look very tasty. Not with the thick white exterior and the sticky fluids of the same colour dropping out of it. But certainly, the turtle-apes wouldn't eat them if they were inedible.
And she did need something to eat…
Slowly she took a bite, sticky white fluids dripping down from her chin.
Well, it tasted uniquely. Not very tasteful but somehow familiar?
She swallowed and took another bite from the unfortunate insect.
Perhaps a bit like chicken? Of course, not really. Way to squishy and watery for that.
Ah, she should have cooked it shouldn't she?
After a peculiar yet finally filling meal, Rose prepared her camp again.
She hadn't really realized it last night, with being delirious for thirst and everything, but it become pretty cold without the sun.
Luckily, she had taken Dudley's sleeping bag with her.
Still, she had difficulty falling asleep that night and when she finally did, she had restless dreams.
In them she saw giant human-like monsters with long heads and grey skin dressed in flowing robes of precious silk strode through a city of black stone, hordes of half-starved humans serving their every desire.
The same giants throwing hordes of dead humans on an ever-growing pile of flesh, all of this in the name of some ritual, a summoning for some creature beyond the mortal planes.
And to her horror their calls were answered.
Space ripped apart like wet paper, creating an opening to places better not spoken of.
Something beyond the rift reached through the opening, its long and winding extremity clawing at the stones of the ritual chamber. Slowly but surely pulling itself through the hole in time and space.
Rose woke up with a scream.
For a few seconds she was confused where she was and struggled against the restriction of the sleeping bag.
Then the memories came back.
Calming down she sunk back on her bedding of leaves and sticks.
A part of her still had hoped that this all had just been a dream, but laying here under a few dry palm leaves and seeing the first beams of sunlight shining through, she accepted the truth of it.
What was she meant to do know?
So far neither the caterpillar nor the seed had killed her, so supposedly she had food and water secured for now. Hell, if she regularly found something she mighty actually eat more often than back then before she run away.
But what else? Waiting until the wizards come and brought her back to the Dursleys? Hoping that Cirilla would search for her again?
Both sounded kind of stupid. Then she could have just stayed with the Dursleys in the first place.
No, she had started all of this to find her mother and prove her worth to her!
She nodded determinate. The fear and insecurity of yesterday blown away.
Nothing had changed.
Find a way to London, get the blood compass repaired, then find Cirilla and finally prove your worth. Very simple, easy peasy.
Completely ignoring the new hindrances in this plan, she rolled up her sleeping bag and packed her stuff back into her bag.
First of all, she had to learn more about her surroundings. Thanks to the ruins she was certain that once some kind of civilisation must have lived here. Perhaps some humans were still around?
Well, she could only hope so. It seemed reasonable with there still being an oasis here.
The previous day Rose hadn't been braved enough to move too far away from the turtle-apes. She had been too scared to move away from what she considered to be a safe area.
Shouldering her backpack, she looked into the distance.
Time to be brave!