The tomorrow when we had already met: February 2013

~Wilma~

They were walking through the forest, but not on the thick tree branches that were easy to walk on, no, they were on the ground with all the roots and trees and rocks and annoying plants. Now why were they there, Wilma had asked herself many times. Wasn’t there any way of reaching the place by walking on the branches?

Last night they had stayed up what felt like the whole night. The people had celebrated their ‘return’. The people had thrown a huge feast to their honor with plates and plates of delicious looking and too spicy food. They had even sung songs about other groups that had come to Heris before. The Great twins Teragat and Tagaret who had saved them many, many, many years ago and the greatest hero’s of them all, The Sun group they were called, because they had saved them during the Sun War. After that Dab had made them climb up one of the trees and watch the night sky. Wilma had to give it to the girl; it had really felt like they were watching the whole universe. It had also made her think of her boyfriend Lennie, he would have liked it; him being the Science Fiction nerd he was. Then they got to sleep in one of the tree houses, many meters above ground. The mattresses were stuffed with leaves so they were pretty uncomfortable, which she had heard Arbell mutter to herself more than once. The she had heard the heavy thump against the floor. Wilma had looked to her left and seen Arbell use her mattress as a pillow and the floor as her mattress. Wilma begun thinking about doing the same thing; the mattresses weren’t exactly something you dreamt laying on. This had proved to be a bad choice, since her back now ached horribly.

The floor was hard, as one might expect, and it had been hard to fall asleep, especially since some people had still tried to sleep on the mattresses and tossed and turned what had felt like every ten second. Eventually she must’ve fallen asleep, because she had woken by Hannah telling her someone had come in and said someone was looking for their group.

As they had walked out Wilma had felt she hadn’t slept nearly as much as she would’ve needed. Outside there had been a girl who didn’t seem much younger than they were. She had sobbed and panted. She did also have pointy ears and light green skin with darker, green stripes.

“Her sister was taken by two wizards two days ago and the girl went all the way here to get help.” A man had explained, “Their family is one of the few of us who live down on the ground, so it took longer time to get here, since she walked on the ground because she idn’t used to walk on the branches.”

Then the girl had turned her head to them and said with the dark voice everyone had:

“If you’ve really come to help, if her prayers really did reach you, then go show her your faces and save us.”

That’s why they were in on the ground. They were going to the girl’s, whose name was Ber, house to get more privacy since everyone at the town up in the trees had wanted them to stay and bless their children, thank them for coming and more things Wilma had never ever though she would do.

It’d take them close to three days to go there. Ber had gotten to them in two, which Wilma thought was like a miracle.

“Tell me again,” She said to Hannah, “Why can’t we go at least half the way on the branches?” Behind her Eleanor burst out “Oh my God!” she had probably stumbled again.

“She only knows the way from the ground and I heard Miranda get the answer that the trees are thinner where Ber live, ‘cause they live closer to the ‘normals’. Oh, and that’s their word for people without pointy ears.”

“’Normals’? Really?” Wilma had to let out a laugh. Why ‘normals’? “They could’ve given us any other name, like ‘round-ears’ or ‘not us’, or something.”

“Shhh! Dab’s in the front, don’t let her hear!” Hannah said, “What if she thinks it offensive? And why did you ask about the branches, anyway? You don’t like nature?”

Before she could answer Arbell came up behind them.

“How’s it going? Have you begun wishin’ for an axe yet?”

“Haha.” Wilma answered, “It’s not like you’re doing so great either, what are those things on your arms? I do believe I see more scratch-wounds there then on my own. Oh, I do see them, indeed!”

“However,” she said, “I do believe your nose is a little red? Is the sun burning you, perhaps?”

“Oh, how rude! No, but seriously is it red? I don’t want to get burned.”

“It’s very red.” Arbell said.

“No, it isn’t, but you might want to tie your waist cloth around your head. If you’re so sensitive to heat you need protection, don’t want you to faint so we have to carry you.”

“Oh, so that’s what they made us wear it for!” Arbell mumbled, “I just wondered why the heck we have them.”

“That’s just cold.” Wilma said as she pushed yet another big, annoying leaf from hell away from her face, “But I don’t want to look like an old lady.”

“Maybe the old ladies here don’t wear them.” Hannah said, “And besides, everyone should understand why you wear it like that.”

“But I still don’t want to wear it.

She ended up wearing it.

When it became darker they stopped for the day. Wilma and Miranda went out to get water from a nearby stream. Wilma was happy it was cooler outside and the cloth had helped. Not that she was going to admit it.

“What a day,” Miranda said, “I’m so tired.”

“Me too, I’m not used to movin’ around like this all the time. By the time we’ve finished this mission, I’ll probably be as fit as Arbell.” Miranda laughed.

“She is pretty fit, isn’t she? You know, I talked some with Natalie before and she said one of the children back in the village had told her there’s a group called ‘The White’ who specializes in fighting, in the capital. Doesn’t it make you proud to hear that even though you know you haven’t done anything to really earn it?”

Yeah, they hadn’t done anything to earn anything good the people said, but this time they were going to make them sing songs about them. Wilma played with the thought of their visit in this Heris would be made into a story and children many years from now would know her name…and the fact that she had accidentally walked to close to the edge and almost fallen down to her death. God, she would probably lay awake and think about it while wanting to bang her head to the ground in an attempt to get the memory out of her head.

“Did you count the breaks?” Miranda asked, “I think we had around five.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

And the conversation was cut off.

”Well,” Miranda cleared her throat, ”Anyways, you…see the stream?”

“Think I hear it.”

They filled the two improvised leaf baskets with water and started to go back, but it was so hard to walk and not to mention how heavy the basket was so Wilma spilled some.

”Can I ask you why you have the waist cloth on your head?”

“… I don’t take heat so well.”

When they came back to the others she smelled food, Charlotte was cooking meat over the fire. Wilma and Miranda went to her and put down the baskets.

“Why are you wearing that? You look a little like an old lady.” Dab said. Arbell snorted and Hannah’s mouth seemed to have a life of its own.

“…I don’t take heat so well…” She removed it and tied it around her waist; then she walked to Arbell. “Don’t laugh. What’s over the fire?”

“Dab caught some insanely big lizard. You should’ve seen her makin’ it ready, she did it crazy fast. She must be some kind of hunter; why else did we meet her in the forest and why else would she have that bow?”

“She could be a soldier.” Hannah said.

“Nah,” Arbell answered, “I don’t think she would be able to skin an animal that fast if she was a soldier.”

“It was disgusting, though.”

“Don’t forget awesome.”

“And I just had to get water when she did it…” Wilma said, “What did you do, then?”

“I collected firewood with Natalie.” Hannah said.

“And I tried to make this place look cozy, which I think I did pretty good ‘cause now we don’t have those leaf mattresses.” Arbell said.

After two more days of walking Ber finally said they were almost there. Wilma heard water and soon they came to a little river. Over the river was a simple wood bridge that, to Wilma’s surprise, didn’t creak at all when they walked over it. On the other side were more trees. When she thought back she noted how much thinner these trees were compared to the ones Dab lived in. She remembered what Hannah said on the first day:

…the trees are thinner where Ber live, ‘cause they live closer to the ‘normals’.

Was it less magic closer to the ‘normals’? As if, not if they really had wizards.

Behind the Thinner trees, as Wilma decided to call them, was a glade with the greenest, most soft-looking grass she had ever seen. The glade was split in two by the little river and just beside the little river and under a big tree was a wooden house with a roof of sticks. It looked like the houses they had seen in the trees.

Beautiful and serene fit perfectly. Though, the serene part was destroyed for a moment when dark smoke began to come out through a window.

“Grandfather?”

Ber rushed in before them and when the other came into the smoky house they saw an old man who tried to put out a fire with what looked like a skirt. Not much of the fire was left, though. He did also have the green skin and pointy ears.

“What happened?” Ber asked.

“Oh, nothing.” He said with his back towards them, “I just forgot the rice. But where have you been? I have been worr…” He had turned around and was now staring at them. It was slightly uncomfortable.

“The People in White…” he said, ”So you heard her prayers, after all…” He went over to a bed by one of the walls. “Honey, they really came.”

Ber had thrown away the severely burned rice and given them what she called ‘sengri’, rice mixed with some spicy sauce wrapped in leaves. Wilma was very skeptical to it at first and she could see she was not the only one, like Natalie who looked at it as if it made her sick. Wilma didn’t know how to eat it, either. Was she supposed to take off the leaf or eat the leaf, which she didn’t find tempting? Though when she saw Ber and her grandfather eat it with the leaf, what else could she do? It did taste very good, though, but too spicy if you asked her. It was the village food all over again. Eleanor, who sat next to her, must’ve thought the same thing; she looked as if she had a hard time not touching her glass of water. Charlotte chewed fast, Natalie really looked like she had a hard time to swallow, but Hannah and Miranda looked as if they enjoyed it. Wilma didn’t even have to look at Arbell to know if she liked it or not, since she always over spiced her cooking.

“Where are your parents?” Dab asked.

“Don’t have any.” Ber said.

The conversation ended.

“Why do you prefer to live down here instead of up in the trees with us?” Dab asked the grandfather when they had eaten. “It must be lonely here, what I know you live closest to the normal than any many of us.”

“Well, my wife doesn’t feel well up in the trees, and it’s not that lonely. We have each other.” He sighed. ”But it can be inconvenient if we need help.”

Wilma saw watched Ber as she mashed sengri in a bowl and went over to the bed to feed the old lady.

“Why was the girl taken?” Miranda asked, “I’ve heard she’s not even 10 years old.”

“She’s a wind listener.” The old man said after a while, “Two wizards came to get her a few days ago, because of that. The rumors say the Wizard is trying to find all of the Nature’s listeners and lock put them in cells back in their capital.”

“The rumors say the Wizard finds them, takes them and kills them.” Ber said from the corner, ”Don’t lie to them.” She continued to feed her grandmother.

“We should’ve just moved up in the trees.” She then said.

“Dear, you know the wind is loud to your grandmother, she can’t…” Ber threw the wooden bowl on the floor and the mashed sengri fell to the floor. Wilma flinched at the sudden outrage.

“But if we had, just as I said, then they wouldn’t have taken her!” Then she went out of the room. They could hear the heavy thumps from her footsteps and a loud crash, then nothing. Arbell cleared her throat.

“You have to forgive her.” The old man said. He went to his wife and picked up the bowl. “What a waste of food…” He sighed.

“We believe in the Nature, you see. The Nature is everything, and it comes in forms of the elements and their creatures. The Nature can speak to us through fire, water, wind and plants and animals. Lesis and my Inmosi are wind listeneres. The Nature speaks to them through the wind; my wife hears it all the time and very loud. Down here it isn’t as loud as up in the trees.

Anyway, the Wizard thinks of the listeners as a threat. Why, no one knows. They don’t harm anyone. They can only listen, I don’t know what they actually hear, but Lesis heard wind tell her about something bad. She has followed the river many times, so one day I followed her. I saw the signs of black magic, the normals in town have seen them, too, but they don’t understand. And now you’ve come. I guess you’re going to go and save the listeners. When you find Lesis, tell her…tell her ‘The Wind and Son-Gind’. If she remembers, it might help you.”

27.2.13

I'm going on a trip

19.2.13

Chapter 17, Wind listener

11.2.13

About chapter 17