Myth Land (unedited)

XXI

Note: I'm sorry for being away for almost a month. I had to work on my school assignment and final exams. Hope you enjoy this part <3

At first I thought my heart was moved to my toes.

'E—excuse me?'

'Well you want to be human. Then, you need to be able to write, unlike animals.'

'And how is it supposed to benefit me?'

She shrugged her shoulders, 'I don't know? Maybe because it makes you more human than the other animals whom you forget are actually your competitors? Or maybe because it makes you more human without even having to go to Myth Land. I don't know! I don't know. So um, You don't want it?'

I still didn't get the answer as to why she was more eager in winning Myth Land than I was. Sometimes I wonder if I actually had such excitement and eagerness to win. I was just a completely lost creature stuck inside a battlefield with no goal and purpose.

'All right. I'll do it.'

'That's my girl!' she gave a light punch on my shoulder.

I rolled my eyes.

'Teach me, Mmmaster.'

And so it happened. She scooped a full cup of water with the used coconut shell then poured it to the ground we stood on. She taught me to write Latin alphabets from A to Z by carving the semi-wet ground with her claw. Uppercase and lowercase. I made carves with my paws. Stuck my paw quite deep to the ground and dragged it in an arc shape to crate the letter C. An upside down triangle without the horizontal line to make the letter V.

Then she taught me numbers from one to nine. We argued on which one was six or nine, for they looked very much tricky if we did not sit side to side. My favorite was, and until now, the number 'eight'. My paw felt like dancing when I wrote it. Not to mention that once you write it, it is as if you will never find a way to end writing the number.

She didn't stop there. After some tiring letters and numbers learning, she taught me some of humans' vocabulary by doing the action and giving names to it. She stood up on her four feet, and then when she placed her buttocks to the ground with her front feet straight in front of her chest, she said to me 'sit.' Or when she took a random leaf lying next to her and stuck it in her mouth, she said 'eat.' She immediately spit the almost-chewed leaf, of course, since she didn't eat plants.

The best part was when she taught me names of emotions. Happy, sad, angry, disappointed, confused, scared, furious, blue—which is also a name of color—and other terms. My favorite kind of emotion was actually different than the others. It was an extraordinary feeling. When you feel happy, you know the symptoms of being happy. When you feel sad, you cry. When you feel confused, you have a mixed feeling, and you got a sort kind of headache.

It was 'lost'. I had been looking for the word to express how I felt all that time, and I found it at last. Being 'lost' is not an easy feeling. You feel numb, and you cannot decide whether feeling numb is an emotion or not. But that was how I felt. I was clueless. I was unsure about my feelings toward everything. Towards Ieiunium for leaving me, towards Insulsus for wearing those invisible masks, towards Decorus and all his secrecy.

Towards me.

I was somewhere yet nowhere in between the Christmas tree and my home.

I loved being at home with my mama. I loved listening to my little brothers' voices before I woke up. I loved playing at the open space with my friends, and roses, and dandelions, and sunflowers. Yet I was politely forced to compete for something which I did not know whether I wanted it or not. And my helper. My helper, Sphynx. She wanted me to win not to win me. She hid another motive. She never told me about that of course, but I knew. I knew she hid something. She was on a mission. Just like everyone else.

Then there I was in the center with my mind and soul wandering elsewhere looking for I don't know what. If I stayed then I confused myself, but if I left then I disappointed those who believed me.

I was drowned into my own emptiness; not realizing that Sphynx was actually gone for a while. She came back with funny-shaped huge leaves carried on her back. Some leaves were my size, and some others were hers. She told me to put those leaves on my body.

'Clothes, my dear. Humans wear clothes.'

Her naked seemed-to-be furless body was finally covered with leaves. She looked like a disguised cat sneaking in a bush spying on two monkeys in a jungle who were trapped into a forbidden love to later report it to the authority. If that makes sense.

All these trying-to-be-human activity that we'd been doing had shown me nothing but how silly Sphynx was in every session.

I think she noticed how I held my giggle, so she laughed at herself before I could. Feeling that I got my permission, we threw our back to the ground and laughed together. Laughing at her. At the sky. At me. At the trees. I didn't know. But I did know that we didn't laugh because of something funny. We only needed to let it go.

Let that heavy stone on our chests go.

Which made me could at least feel less empty for a while.

We lied there for a moment. Not knowing if it was noon or night. The sun was completely blocked. She told me about her old times at the Christmas tree out of the blue. How she was working with no helper. How she used to work with monkeys until she found out that they were dumb monkeys who used her intelligence for their own good. How she tried to work with another monkey, yet she was being discriminated because: first, she is not a monkey, and second, she is a female animal.

I usually only listened to her, but that time, she suddenly asked me to talk before I could ask her for details. And so, I told her about this particular aye-aye, Insulsus. Everything. I told her everything that I knew and experienced. My body and eyes were boiling as I spoke. Sphynx told me to relax, for such person would always exist. No matter where I'd be. No matter how old I'd become.

'So she served what? Body paints?'

'Sort of. She was a part of the—what do you call it? Festival? And I wasn't.'

'And the last thing she said to you was...'

'Blah, blah, blah, you will not make it.'

Sphynx were shaking on the ground, and for a moment I thought she was about to die. I couldn't tell whether she was laughing or being possessed.

'You do NOT—have to worry about her.'

I widened my eyes as a demand for further explanation.

'A person who verbally tries to put someone else down is the most insecure kind of person. She is the one who feels scared to never have a chance to win, and to give herself confidence and assurance, she tells other people that they are the one who cannot make it. If she is truly a strong person, if she really has the power, she will not have times to bother to let other people down.'

No words were fit enough for me to thank her. I only smiled at her and looked up to the sky filled with darkness. A light peeked through the gap of the giant leaves.

'I'm still scared. But... I think I'll do something with this foreign, weird, and difficult language you just taught me. Maybe it can send me to Myth Land. Maybe I can make my mama proud.'

Sphynx defied her back from the gravity.

'Girl. Do it. Do it. I know it's still foreign for you. I know it's hard. But do it. Nothing can stop you.'

She pulled me up and pushed me to the exit.

I smiled her a 'thank you.' Then headed back to the Christmas tree.

Sometimes I wonder why Sphynx was being so nice to me. It was indeed a privilege which not all animals could get. But... but I wonder why she never let me had her borrowed book and read it myself.

-tsl

*Hiii! I hope you enjoyed reading this chapter <3 Any comments or feedbacks will be much appreciated, feel free to leave some of them if you have something in mind! Don't forget to give your votes for this story. It will mean a lot to me! Oh and if you want to know what the next chapter is about, please kindly follow my Instagram on @tsl.26. Just DM me if you want me to follow you back, and I will. I hope you have/had a great day!

Rise and shine,
The Sunflower Lady