Chapter 41 - 42. A Snake
"Don't turn your head away when I am teaching you." She shouted. That creature quickly went away and I was back to my lesson.
One, two and three meetings passed, and I still did not learn anything. I was so slow. Perhaps I was too tired, or it was possible all was non sense for my logical thoughts so that weird lessons from Azalea were hard to comprehend.
Azalea was going out somewhere. I decided to walk out of the building to know my surrounding.
Not far from where my feet took me walking, I saw a flock of people were walking between the ruins. They looked so strange, like human but with half body.
One of them called me. I approached them. At first I was afraid, but there was something in my body saying they were no harm for me. "Where are you from, kid?" he asked softly.
"I am from Euron," I replied politely.
"Euron?," He looked confused. "I have never heard it."
"My city is famous with pumpkin cakes. It has the best glass artisan, wood artisan, and wooden doll art." I was explaining to them the characteristics of my city. "Ah! Dark Hall, a war monument that was built in the down town, a symbol of peace and freedom." But they still looked confused.
"it seems that she is not from this place," one of them that looked younger intruded the silence. "Are you human?" Automatically all the eyes turned to me.
I could not say anything. It was too confusing for me. I was afraid of saying either yes or no, because I was unaware of the risks I would face. "Err"
"How could human understand our language?" The other joined in, looking at me like something really strange
I did not want to attract more attention. I left that place as fast as I could. I heard they shouted at me, but I ignored them. I went into that building again.
…
When the white light was on the peak for the third times, Azalea would meet me. This time she brought seven glasses containing clear liquids. "Drink it!"
At first I was worried it could be poison. My hands were trembling hard when I stretched out to reach the first glass. When I smelled it, sweet scent of flowers was so strong and my danger alarm did not ring as well, so I assumed it was okay and quite safe to drink.
I finished the first glass until the third glass. And they were all safe. Coming to the fourth glass, I smelled strange aroma. Something in me also ordered me to drop it. So threw it to the floor. And to my shock, the place where the liquid spilled turned to dark black. "What is that?" I asked her.
"Poison, dear," Azalea looked pleased. "Tell me about the fourth glass" She looked at me in great curiosity.
"the scent is so strong, pricking sweet and a bit different," I did not manage well how to explain word 'different'. It was just not like the others.
"Good," She praised me. "We continue tomorrow,"
I nodded, looking at her walking out of the room, and leaving the three remaining cups with me.
…
My days were spent for the training. During those days she always brought up new things, such as mushrooms, pieces of wood skin, even several kinds of soils. She asked me to learn many kinds of scents, the edible ones, and the poisonous ones.
To tell the truth, I did not really understand the scents I smelled. It was just anytime I was given things, my danger alarm would tell me if those things were safe or not.
That morning Azalea took me out somewhere. She took along with her two guards. We walked along the ruins of buildings. I could not remember how long I had lived here since there was no day time and night time. The sky was always cloudy, dark clouds. There was only one light rose from another side and set down to another one, something bright like a star. The lands in this place were also very different, and the buildings were casted from iron, black iron.
After passing through those ruined buildings, we arrived at a place that looked like a forest for me. Thin mist started going down in that forest making it looked even more mysterious. Azalea guards were on guard with their weapons making me anticipate any unpredictable possibilities ahead of me.
Dark. That was all when we reached the middle part of that place. Nothing was visible, but the trees that were looking so dark like coal. But not long after that, the peace was cracked when I heard something moving not far from where we were waiting.
And Azalea was aware of that too, of course. "We are hunting one inhabitant creature of this place," she spoke softly. "Unfortunately, I never see it directly, so I don't know where it is and what it is like."
I did not like her explanation, 'If she never sees it, how can we catch it?' my thought protested. "Err.." I did not know how to say it to Azalea.
"I will tell you what it is like, but if you see it first, you've got to tell me. How is that?" her words were beneath her laughter.
That sounded good and fair. By splitting, it would be easier to find it.
Azalea gave me a small book of many kinds of pictures in it. In one part she gave a ribbon as a divider. She said that I could find the characteristics of the creatures in there. But to my eyes, I could not read the letters at all. It was like a deer with one straight horn.
One of the guards went with me, the other one was with Azalea. We were split and went for that creature.
...
We spread up to make it easy to find the target the creature Azalea wanted. One of her guards helped me find the route we had to take to locate the place that the creature might be likely to find. I searched around the lake. To be there we had to go straight from where we started searching, while that woman had to go around and hunt from another direction.
"They usually drink from this area," the guard who was with me explained, "They live in groups with their colony of seven to ten with one leader, the biggest size is their leader," He added.
"Have you ever seen them by your own eyes?" I wanted to know. I was just afraid it was an illustration they had like Antonie's, about Falak, which he described it to me but it was proven wrong description.
"Only once," He said. That was a relieved. At least we both were not totally 'blind' about our hunted target. "When I was 12 years old, I saw them drinking in this lake. Miss Azalea only chooses guards with special skills. Yoru, the other one, for example, is a very good archer. And I have ability with my sight, although it cannot be called very well. I can see them, but only clod of moving smoke," He introduced himself as Naar.
I just nodded, did not know what to response. I was just thinking about myself, a question about me, 'What can I do? What skill do I have so that she asked me to join in?'
We were still walking along the lake. My eyes were carefully combing the area so that nothing would be missed, when suddenly a little child attracted my attention. She was on a boat, rowing it to the middle of the lake. It looked like she wanted to cross it.
Then my eyes switched to the end of the lake where that child was heading to. I saw a woman was standing there, she might be her mother.
The girl rowed the little boat slowly and she seemed to have trouble with it. As we also directed to where she was going, indirectly we followed her.
When we were getting closer to where she was standing, there was something strange. 'Is she human?' I wondered where that thought intrigued me.
I ran to her place and when I was closer, she ran away because she was aware of my presence. The white gown she was wearing was faded, her body changed into an animal, like a deer with a horn protruding from her head.
That changing shocked me a lot. That strong curiosity urged me to keep running for her. Several times I stumbled but it was for nothing. That creature ran much faster than I did. I lost her.
Even when I fell headlong, I ran my eyes to search for that woman. The girl in the boat was gone too, leaving small ruffles of the moving boat and the row in the middle of the lake.
My eyes were still looking at the empty space in front of me until a tap on my shoulder ruined my focus. I stood up quickly helped by one of Azalea's guards and I cleaned up dirt on my clothes from the ground.
"Your other skill?!" he exclaimed in awed.