Expecto Patronum

“Stop it,” Anna replied, shaking her head. “We didn’t fall for some kind of master plan.”

Clayton reached out to take Anna by the forearm, abruptly halting her search while the wind whipped through his rain soaked hair.

“Listen to me.” He made eye contact. “It contains the trapped soul of a necromancer. Undead energies are slowly but progressively worsening in the realm. The catacombs were a physical barrier separating the two. It seems like an incredibly bad idea to remove that barrier.”

Anna’s expression softened as rain beaded on her brow. “So we’re just going to leave it?”

“Yes. Better that it is lost here, rather than take it into Deadwater Bog or someplace else that it could possibly corrupt something or someone.”

“It isn’t the One Ring.”

Clayton blinked with confusion. “Ring? What ring?”

“Ugh.” Anna pulled away, wiping the rain from her brow with the back of a hand, resuming the search. “The stylus isn’t evil incarnate.”

“How do you know that it is not?”

Anna stooped abruptly, sighting the object. Then on a second look, she realized it was only a stick.

“I just do, ok?”

“Can we debate this some other time? Preferably when arrows are not being shot at us.”

“No.” Anna resumed the search. “I’m not leaving it.” She turned Clayton’s rationale around on him. “What if someone with bad intentions finds it. Then what?”

“What if they do not?” Thunder rolled again, interrupting him.

“Anna, why is this so important to you?”

“Because. I woke up laying on top of it. I want to go home. To my own world. Anything that was there with me when I woke up could be required for returning home.”

“The stylus is a dangerous object. Are you willing to risk the safety of the realm over your ability to return home?”

Anna stopped, spotting another potential look alike. Nope. Another stick darkened by precipitation. She wiped the rivulets of rain from her face before turning to face Clayton.

“So what you're actually asking is, how selfish I am.” Her voice fell at the end.

“Well…” His voice trailed off as he realized he accidentally made things too personal. “Sorry… but… should you not consider it? What if you return home but you inadvertently unleash a force upon the realm that kills many? … Then what?”

Anna paused her search, lost in thought.

She frowned after a while. “You’re asking me to make a decision based on a hypothetical.”

“Hypothetically speaking, you two are going to get run over by a courser if you keep at it.” The voice came from uphill.

Clayton’s expression hardened. Apparently the brief vacation from the stylus was over.

Anna turned towards the voice, honing in on it. It seemed to be located about halfway between where she tripped and where she stopped.

The young man made a cutting motion with his hand. “Anna. Do not.”

She ignored Clayton, walking uphill towards the source.

“Haha, I win,” the stylus mocked. “Who's a good apprentice,” it said, with a faux pet owner's affection.

“Shut it, stick.” Anna bent to collect the irreverent utensil as the rain made a mud puddle around it, covering the object in grime. Rather than wipe it clean first, she just dropped it unceremoniously into her joey pocket. “Back in your pen.”

“I hope we do not regret that choice,” Clayton muttered with disappointment.

“Good or evil, it is a member of our party. I’m not going to just abandon it.”

“It is an object. Not a living person.”

“The stylus has a conscious intelligence. As far as I’m concerned, it's a person. So it's worth saving.”

“A sarcastic intelligence that is nothing but trouble.”

“You two assume a lot. A lot of wrong things.”

“You are too trusting. It will betray us.”

Snap.

The roar of the storm dimmed enough that Anna heard the branch break under the weight of a stalker.

She spun just as an archer stepped out from behind a nearby large pine, string drawn back, arrow knocked. He released it as Anna weaved in a last ditch effort to avoid being impaled by the short range shot.

Fffzt! The arrow flew past her right sleeve with incredible speed, the razor sharp black iron head fraying the fabric open.

It had been aimed at her heart.

The archer’s hand flew to his hip quiver to reload.

Faced with nothing to fight back with, Anna reached for her only weapon. First her joey pocket. No, that would do nothing. She needed something else. And fast!

He knocked another arrow. Think faster!

“Expecto!” Anna waved her pointed right index finger dramatically at the hunter, writing large invisible scribbly letters in the air.

“Patronum!”

Oh no! The witch hunter’s eyes went wide with fear. He immediately dove for cover behind the large pine before he could be hit by a massive blast of imaginative magic.

'That worked?!'

'It worked!'

While he ate mud, Anna ran, grabbing Clayton along the way.

The two followed the trail the limestone mass had furrowed, until it reached the bottom of the slope, lodging itself in a dry seasonal creek.

Anna signaled to stop with a raised finger, huffing for breath. Her café life was one spent on her feet for hours on end, but not running cross country. Not in cute heels.

“When will- they stop- chasing us?”

“When we are dead, I suppose. Bounty or not, you are a threat of the highest magnitude.”

“Why does- everyone- assume- I am- evil?”

“It is not that. It is that magic is too powerful and even the best of intentions can go terribly wrong. Magic nearly destroyed the realm on several occasions.” Clayton paused to search for the appropriate allegory. “You are like a natural disaster. Immensely powerful and wholly unpredictable.”

“I’m a disaster.” Anna gave him a look between breaths. “Thanks.”

“N-n-n-no,” Clayton quickly backpeddled with raised hands. “I did not mean it that way.”

“What way did you mean it then, virtuoso?”

“Umm…”

“Don’t finish that," Anna warned.

“Ahem. Which way now, homing pigeon?”