Hauntingly Beautiful Girls

"A Goddesses' Hand (Part 7)"

The next morning I am happy there were others tucked around me as woke up.

My forlorn mood has grown deeper.

There are many foods here (pastes, eaten with fingers). They have familiar inner tastes, but so many other tastes and textures. The kind of thing that takes time, labor, and money.

The mother leads me out of that one room with three other girls. This building has many areas of color to the walls and floors created of small chips. Patterns only. No stories show in image.

They take me to a room that has two robe-wearing men of different nations. On a table is laid out scrolls and other parchments.

I am the tallest person here. The men stare up for a while, then turn their gazes to the papers.

My mother had taught me letters (she told me it was an important skill in finding buildings in other cities).

None of the letters looked familiar at all.

They gave me a small stick with a burned end and some sheaves, so I wrote the name of our city.

They all looked without sign of hope, but one man walked over and wrote on the paper and had me write again.

There was a clue. He ordered his letters opposite (a thing I have heard about foreign lands).

I did not see how that was helpful. Most foreign lands write different from ours.

But the mood was excited.

Then I got it, few nations write letters in the direction as we do. Letters can vary much, but the direction of writing informed them. It was a clue.

On the trip back to the room, the mother stopped at a wall hanging.

It showed (from top to bottom) a girl and boy. By the bottom, there were children amongst them.

She pointed to one image of the girl. A large gem at her forehead.

She stepped back a few small steps to let me consider the wall hanging.

When I touch the gem at my forehead, she slides up to hug me.

They want me to get married!