FALAHA'S JOURNEY 2: Graveyard of the Gods

Episode #24: A Testament to Trust (Interlude)

I crashed into love faster than the stone, that just hit bradoh between the eyes, fell to the ground. The massive bird convulsed and followed the stone down, dead.

I watched my little sister clinging to the leg of a young regna of twelve, maybe thirteen, who just leisurely slaughtered one of the renowned predators on the mountain. My four-year-old Rifa wholeheartedly sprayed snot and tears all over her savior's trousers, screaming as if she had a third lung there somewhere... How embarrassing.

The search and rescue party consisting of Orewen and myself paused until I was jolted back to reality by the sudden quietness of the forest. Orewen picked up Rifa, who, sensing safety, shut up immediately, and my friend was already digging in the young woman's foraging back-basket, throwing stuff out and saying, "These are not edible! You'll be puking blood for hours!"

Has she no Node?

A year behind me, Orewen was as reliable as always, while I, Kieren Fargann, twenty-two standard years old, stood here like an idiot.

Confused, the young woman blushed, and we all clearly heard her stomach growling.

Without further ado, Orewen carefully put Rifa down, took out his long knife, walked up to the bird and cut its belly open, taking out the liver. Cutting it into pieces, he was handing the meat out to the females, leaving some for himself, and then looked at me. I truly wished I had this guy in my kennar and eventually on my crew. When we talked about it, he usually smiled and replied, I have the Eater, you know.

"Kieren, you swallowed an unmovable boulder or something?" Orewen waved his bloody hand. "It's still warm." No longer scared of the flying beast, Rifa was hungrily biting her young teeth into the juicy tissue. So was the woman who set my heart on fire and turned my legs into moss. Or maybe there actually was some slimy, soft moss under my feet. I wasn't paying much attention to anything except her and embarrassed myself further, tripping and sliding down the hill slope on my face.

"Maybe he doesn't want any meat. He is already eating putrescent moss!" my sister commented, laughing. "Gross!" The other two chuckling as well made me bite deep into the blue-black growth and dirt right under my face.

"Rifa—how do you know it's gross?" I mumbled. "Sounds like you've tasted it, too, at some point in your forest adventure."

"Did not!" she replied with a loud discontent, but that was enough to prevent her further uninvited comments on my not-so-well-starting love story.

I got up, spitting out disgustingly tasting 'gifts of the forest' and wiping dirty face with fingers and palms. Too late I figured those were dirty as well and painted my forehead, nose, chin and cheeks with another lush layer of black and ruddy wet soil.

"As a man of tradition, Kieren takes ritualistic approach to things," Orewen noted, adding loud to laughs. Having a lover of many years and an older sister, he was pretty relaxed around females of any age, which in turn made women of all ages relaxed around him, and those his words made me angry then, yet they turned out to be not far from truth, because that's how my courtship rite began. But by the time I joined the dining trio, I strongly believed she must have been thinking I was a complete moron.

So I took my share of liver and ate it in silence with dirt still crunching on my teeth. And when I was done, I noticed our mysterious huntress was nowhere to be seen. Finishing her meal fast, she ran off, disappeared into the black forest, leaving her basket behind and me heartbroken for the rest of the day.

And the worst part was I forgot to thank her for saving my sister.

I picked up Rifa and we returned to our camp. I'm also a horrible older brother.