Am I Being Followed? 1.7

**Disclaimer**

Do not distribute or post elsewhere without my approval

This series may contain:

Disassociation, Blood, Gore, Violence, Seeing things, Hearing voices, Dangerous situations, possible crude language and mental breakdowns.

Please read with caution as it is still in progress and as I remember specific parts of this dream it could change what the disclaimer will hold

I grab the string that I’ve already prepped and walk over to Andy and Alex, “Okay, Alex if you want to say no, you can, but like I said I won’t leave with you unless you do this. So now is your only chance to back out of this.” Alex, unsure of what I’m about to do, he takes a deep breath before exhaling his response, “Well, then I guess I don’t have much of a choice. What do I need to do?” I look at Alex then at Andy, “Alright. I need you guys to take each other’s right hands and then don’t move.” They take each other’s hands and then I start chanting the spell and contract while the string starts wrapping itself around their hands. While still chanting I start writing symbols on their hands and wrists with the oils I grabbed earlier, before I start the binding, “…Alexander. Do you promise to keep Andrexlin safe, even if it could cost you your life?” Alex, looking uneasy and sweat starting to bead on his temples, “Yes.” I nod, “And Andrexlin, do you promise to do everything in your power to stay out of danger to make Alexanders task easier?” Alex scowls at me for a moment but doesn’t want to mess this up, “Yes.” I nod again and then strike a match and light the string on fire while saying, “These two souls have agreed to work together in keeping their promises with each other, and are now bound together until I myself unbind them. As I will it, so it be.” Neither of them move while the string creates a binding mark that can be seen from all angles on their hand.

Once the string is fully burnt up and the mark is finished I let the guys know they can let go now, “Alright! So each set of people that do this can experience different things for different reasons. With this binding, if for whatever reason, Andy is in danger you’ll get a type of notification, and your body may react without you thinking about it if the need for assistance is great enough, and as Andy has promised he’ll make this as easy as possible for you, so that hopefully your assistance isn’t needed during my time with the council; but I’m taking no chances of losing him Alex, do you understand your position?” Alex takes a moment before responding, “So I don’t have to be around him the entire time, but I am still responsible for his safety?” He asks looking for confirmation. “Right! If he’s in need of help, safety wise, you’ll know before he does.” Alex nods his head in understanding, “Okay, seems simple enough.” I look to Andy, “I know you aren’t happy about this, but thank you for going through with this.” Andy steps closer to me and embraces me in his arms and places a kiss on the top of my head, “I know you are just worried about me. Plus, you probably wouldn’t have let me go if we didn’t do this. I love you, Autumn.” I wrap my arms around him, smiling, and take in the amount of love I feel coming from his body, “I love you too, Andy.”

Andy steps back and takes a good look at me before kissing my forehead and then asking Alex, “So when are we leaving?” Alex turns to me as if asking me if everything is in order. “I think we should be good, but the only thing that is left is to wait for the hourglass to run out. If we leave before that then some of the stuff that we did today may not stay intact. I think we have a couple more minutes at least.” Alex nods and Andy decides to add a little bit more to his painting while we wait for the hourglass to run out.

As soon as the hourglass finishes its cycle, I can feel most of the power I put into it return to me, but it hurt a bit more than the last time I did this. There must have been someone trying to watch what we were doing. As I get my energy back Alex goes straight into protection mode, “WE NEED TO LEAVE, NOW! TAKE MY HAND!” “Shit!” Andy jumps and he slams his supplies down and takes his bag out of my hands in a rush, and then we quickly grab Alex’s hands.

In the blink of an eye we are now inside the Forest Spirits Council building. Where we appeared, the walls were sculpted out of trees that were taught how to curve to form covering that makes a Hallway with openings for sunshine to creep in and rest on the polished stone floors. While I take a look around, I ask Alex, “So this is the council building?” Alex responds rather uncomfortable about how the binding ended up working, “Yes Autumn, this is the council building. What the hell was that?” I turn around to look him in the directly in his face, “First off, the binding spell did its job for sure, and second, it turns out that someone or something was trying to watch in on us and wasn’t able to until the hourglass had finished its timer. That must have made them angry, and considering they were able to even get that close to the house means they aren’t a normal individual; they already knew that I was there, but couldn’t move in.” I start looking around again while Alex paints the irritation he feels on his face for everyone to see.

He obviously ready for the sudden intense change in energy. While still pacing around and taking in every piece of the architecture, I address the real issue, “Alex. I know that you are probably already stressed out with the changes to how this should have gone, and that now you can go from being mellow to being in protective mode in 0.02 seconds, but trust me, it’ll get easier. Plus, you never know, maybe you guys will become really good friends soon.” I give a quick look to both of them sticking my tongue at them. If Alex relaxed at all, you couldn’t tell, “I really don’t like how it makes me feel! Not like I can do anything about it now, can I?” He talks himself down, closes his eyes, trying to force his heart to slow down and gives a defeated sigh, “Well, we’re here now, we should let the head of the council know that you are here.” He says before he starts leading us to his boss.

We walk through long hallways and climb stairs for what feels like hours, before we finally reach the heads office. Alex knocks on the door with both of us behind him, “Come in!” I hear the dry voice of an older man from the other side of door, and Alex opens the door. On the other side of the door was a room that had bookcases from floor to ceiling covering the walls with a large desk that has legs that look like rooted Quaking Aspen tree trunks that meet to form a flat surface.

We are greeted by an elderly man, with straight and long white hair, in a floor length white rob with gold leafy vines embroidered up his sleeve from his gold bordered cuff, coughing quietly, trying not to alarm us, “Ah! Alexander! I see you have returned with Autumn, but who is the other one?” Alex looks towards Andy and I, and back to the older gentleman. Andy motions towards Andy with his arm, “This is Autumn’s husband, Andrexin. He goes by Andy. He insisted on joining us, Lord Greshan.” Greshan gave a polite nod before getting up and examining each of us individually.

He starts with Andy, walking around him a couple of times before walking up to him and puts his hand out and waits for Andy. Andy looks at me confused so I tell him, “He wants to look at your hand.” Andy looks a bit concerned because of the binding, “It’s okay love, just let him see.” Andy slowly puts his right hand in Greshan’s so he can examine it. Greshan turns his hand over a couple of times before running a couple fingers across the fresh mark on Andy’s hand before bowing to Andy and letting go of his hand.

Greshan moves on to me and makes the same circles but sees I have no extra marks anywhere but puts a hand hovering over my head and I believe he is measuring and recording my energy, which I let him do because this has been a pretty standard procedure whenever I do any kind of help for the spiritual councils, “Ah! I see you have been through this several times before, haven’t you?” I give a small bow as I respond, “Yes, sir. I have done much more council work than I’d like to remember.” Greshan smiles and nods while his eyes seem to gather tears that he refuses to release, “Thank you for coming today, I know you are tired of this kind of work and I know it has taken a toll on both you and your husband.” I hold back the same tears. I really am tired of it, but I’m hoping that this will be my last one. We both bow to each other before he moves on to Alex.

He doesn’t need to circle Alex, but he does notice the same markings on Alex’s hand that was on Andy’s. He takes Alex’s hand with care and shakes his head, “Did she bind you to Andy?” Alex tries hiding his shock from being found out so quickly, “Um, Yes my Lord. That was the only way that she would come, but it has proven to be useful so far.” Lord Greshan understands what Alex means. They bow to each other before Greshan lets go of Alex’s hand and walks back over to his desk to sit down. “Alright, you all are free to roam through the council building and the city if you so please, but please keep your reason for being here a secret. We don’t need the people to be in a panic over something they can’t control.” We all bow in agreement. Greshan nods, “Thank you for your cooperation. I am also aware that you don’t have all of the details of why you are here. Here is the case file, I would like you to look this over today and I will call a council meeting for tomorrow morning so that we can go over everything with the rest of the council. I reach out and accept the file, “Where will we be residing while we stay here.” Greshan takes a moment to reply, “Oh yes! You will be staying in the spare house on my family’s estate. Alex, you know which house it is, yes?” “Yes my Lord. I do need the key though sir.” Alex says before stepping closer to Lord Greshan’s desk and accepting the key that he has pulled out of the top left desk drawer, “Please help them to their place and give them a quick tour on the way there.” Alex bows to him, “Yes, sir. Thank you for seeing us on such short notice.” Andy and I also bow trying to be polite. He smiles before he looks down and engulfs himself into his paperwork.

To be continued...