ASRAN SERIES- ACROSS THE BORDER

Chapter - 5

Sussan closed her eyes and started to mumble some magical words. Immediately, the plant reacted and loosened its tight grip on her legs and eased its tentacles. Then the plant moved away slowly and calmed down a little as its color started to change into raw red.

She realized that the plant had an almost worn-out look and also on the verge of dying. Without wasting a minute, she took out a piece of meat that she had saved for her son from inside her magical bag and fed the plant. 

At that moment, she found a few new saplings attached to the plant. So, she cut the meat into several small pieces and fed them too. They ate quickly and revived again. She looked at David and said,

“Do you know we had been thinking that these plants had almost gone extinct! I never expected to see one so close to the border and that too with several new saplings...” 

Sussan spoke in a very mild tone as she did not want to scare the plant once again.

“...” David did not respond to her and kept on staring at the carnivorous plant with wary eyes.

The plant stopped eating once it got full and abruptly went into a dormant state.

"Did the plant die?" David asked Sussan while taking a stick from the ground to poke it.

But Sussan stopped him from doing that and whispered, "Don't!"

Suddenly, a shiny golden flower appeared from the plant's head. One of the tentacles moved upward and plucked the flower from the top. The tentacle moved closer to Sussan and shoved the flower in her hands.

She glanced at the glossy deep yellow flower in her palm and then lifted her head to look at the plant with bright eyes. But the plant had already disappeared from her sight.

She was utterly shocked as she had never in her life expected to have such an encounter with one of the most powerful plants on their planet. The flower in her hand has the most healing property and also has multiple magical elements in each part of its body.

She hardly did any help to recover the wilting of the plant by offering some food. But the plant in turn gave her a precious golden flower which made her wonder, 'What is wrong with that plant? It was never known for any kindness towards any other beings on this planet.' 

She then shook her head to clear her thoughts and told David,

“David, do you know this is not a common flower? It's very rare to get one as the plant does not produce flowers that often.”

She lifted the flower in front of David and exclaimed in surprise. Sussan then continued to say, 

“Moreover, most of the people who went to search for this flower have gone missing forever or only to find their bones left scattered around that area where they found the plant. A few on the expedition did escape but they would have almost had a near-death experience because of the plant's ferociousness. But we got a flower without putting much effort!”

She still could not believe that she was holding such a valuable flower in her hand. David looked at her excitement and wondered,

‘Is the flower more important than her missing son and daughter? Will she now agree to go away from this border and the militants guarding it?’

Meanwhile, without knowing the thoughts in David’s head, Sussan said, “This one petal of the flower could even melt the hardest metals in any universe along with a very few magical ingredients. At the same time, a single drop of the liquid in this petal could cure any diseases in this wide world. This is a treasure and I got one right here in my hands!”

Then she carefully placed the flower inside her infinite magical pouch and said, 

“David, we must follow that flower and find out what happened to its guardian. Usually, each plant gets a guardian assigned from the old tribe when they decide to produce new saplings. Other than them no one is allowed to even get near the plant when they are producing offsprings.”

“Ok,” David immediately agreed as Sussan was now diverted from searching for Peter.

On the way, she kept on talking about the plant's origin and the magical value it holds in society. David did not show any interest in listening to what Sussan was saying. Instead, his eyes kept on roaming around and he had a feeling that they were moving closer to the border than walking away from it. 

At once, he stopped walking and asked her, “So, what is the name of this plant?”

Sussan immediately answered, “The original name is Hygelnewl but we call it a miracle plant. I can’t believe we encountered such a treasure while we were searching for ... “

She stopped speaking and shouted, “Peter! Peter… We were searching for him and why did I get distracted so easily? What is wrong with me? Why have I gotten so forgetful nowadays?”

She knocked her head with her hands and turned around to go near the border where the militants had gathered. She was angry with herself for forgetting about Peter and chasing behind a wild carnivorous plant.

At that moment, David pointed at the border wall next to them and shouted, “Isn’t that the miracle plant, we saw earlier? Look, I think we almost reached the northern border near the Laphire mountain.”

Sussan turned around and saw the plant hopping towards a small portal next to the border. After finding that it was the same hygelnewl plant they saw before, Sussan rushed near the plant to search for its guardian.

But when she looked keenly, she noticed that the guardian was nowhere to be found near the plant. Before she could analyze the situation further the plant moved close to the portal which was created by Robert sometime ago.

The plant hissed at Sussan and David once before jumping into the portal and disappearing once again from their sight. After the plant entered the portal, it shrunk into a tiny dot and again became almost invisible.

Sussan and David went close to the portal and examined the structure as it looked different from the usual machine-formed portals. Then they looked at one another in awe and whispered together, “ROBERT!!!”

“So, if Robert is with Peter then who is with Brenda?” David exclaimed to her as he was confused now.

He knew that Robert was the only son to Brenda and he had no other siblings. He remembered something and took out the pouch that Linda gave him.

David showed it to Sussan and asked her, “Sussan, do you think this belongs to Peter?”.

Sussan held the pouch in her hands and opened it. In the inner corner of the pouch, she saw an initial engraved on it which read, ‘R’ in a different style. She immediately knew who this pouch belonged to.

“No, it’s not Peter’s… This one belongs to Robert. His mother stitched the pouch for him when he turned three and he always carried it with him,” Sussan told him.

She then slowly said, “Either Brenda is lying to us and pretending that Robert is with her. Or it must be the other twin brother Nameless who had stayed hiding inside Robert's body until now and has taken his place to replace him.”

“Robert’s twin brother? I thought Robert was the only son, Brenda has! I never knew that he had a twin brother.” David said to her.

“Do you remember, I once told you that every time a lady in the Collwalt family got pregnant, they would always have twins? But either one of the twins died or would disappear right before the delivery when only one baby gets the opportunity to see the outside world?” Sussan asked with her heart racing against her chest.

She clenched David’s hand when she recalled that clan’s family history and said to him, “According to their ancestor registry, the kids born with one body and two souls would be highly intelligent. They could stay separated from each other for a short period of time by practicing hard magic for several years.

 But it's very risky as if they can't become one in that particular amount of time then they both might die. Robert is so young and if he could separate one of the souls from him at this age, then that means he doesn’t have a long time to live... We have to warn Brenda... We cannot let the kids stay apart from each other..."