In The World Of Losinanda (Completed)

CHAPTER THIRTEEN - The Child

The child found the Master in the gardens. The garden was a beautiful place, it embraced nature in its true glory; the man-made little forest wasn't the well-manicured types that had three blossoming flowers here and there and the rest would be well groomed short grass. This garden had no grass, it was clustered with wild plants adorned with different colors of leaves, different sizes of flowers and a different arrangement of growth pattern, only a true plant lover would appreciate the beauty in this splendor of wildness.

And it was because of this beautiful disarray, that the child couldn't spot the Master upon entering the garden, he had to roam through a maze of passages to find him, seated, studying an unusual plant. The plant was a shrub of sorts; what made it strange was that its leaves were maroon but its flowers were green and its little pollens jutting from the flowers were brown while the stem was white, the daunting vegetation appeared to be deep in the game of opposites.

The boy made his approach heard but not loud, he was always scared of fatally upsetting the master who was in a delicate phase of old age. The sound his feet made against the ground was enough to interrupt the master's investigation, he turned and located the boy, bringing a humble smile to his face.

"You return from turbulent times my boy! Come sit!", he moved to make space for the child, "I have been looking forward to you return, let's start from where we last left off. How are the silver lands?"

First, the child hugged his anxious master then occupied the space made for him. He took a little while to begin his narrative; he had a feeling the Master had already seen what had happened but just wanted to hear of the events in the child's view, and the boy always found himself biased.

"How have you been, Master? You look better than when I last saw you." The old man laughed. "I just drank some lemon water every morning as instructed. In a few months, I will be running around these gardens like a child." They both laughed, the masters sense of humor never failed to lighten the mood.

"No need to hurry, your persona as of late is already of a charming little boy." The master narrowed his eyes at the boy then broke into a chuckle. "You tease me because am stuck in Zeal and you get to have all those adventures."

"Forgive me, master."

"There's no need, it's all just the cycle of life, am here and your there and at another time, you will be here and someone else will be there." The master rearranged his robes, his face in a trance; having spoken aloud a thought that was accustomed to the privacy of his mind.

"I have been nervously waiting to hear of the events in Losinanda, don't torture me any longer." The child grinned at his old friend, he moved closer, taking some of the loose fabric from his master's robe to cover his cold feet.

"I want to tell you about the war, but I will have to make this tale longer, I have to start with the girl in the devil's den. She is not a girl anymore, that cave changed her."

The master smirked, "How could a cave change her, my boy?"

"Well, it's not the cave, it was something in there that triggered a change. Ever since we settled in it, the girl had bad dreams, awful nightmares, I had never bothered to ask if she had them before she entered the cave or the silver islands, but they definitely grew more alarming as the days passed."

"In the first week when I would shake her, to wake her, she said she felt like she was drowning; in the second week, I could hear her screaming for help from the little space I set out for cooking outside the cave. One day as I held her, she claimed she had been suffocating in sand and nobody would help her, but it was only me and her in the dark island." The boy moved his arms around as if drawing images to explain the events.