T
he journey took longer than what Sora had in mind. She thought the giant spiders were crawling faster than running horses, and that they would arrive at the camp soon. To her surprise, they hurried through the forest all night without stopping, even for short rest.
Sora was already worn out by her family’s evacuation from Misty Rift and attempting to flee into the forest. The rests were fewer than stars in a night of pouring rain; you strained yourself and could only find few. On the way she sank into a cycle of having on and off fevers, countless of times, let alone other wounds over her skin, in addition to the melancholy that resulted from long-lasting fatigue and pain that tangled up in her heart. In fact, until the enemies started a fight with her parents, her tiredness and melancholy mostly concealed her fear. Afterwards, as the fight got ferocious and the lips of death whispered into her ears upon capture by the Paladin, she became indifferent to death.
Nothing mattered. Her younger sister had died and it pained her to leave Misty Rift, leaving her behind; she had barely just left it all. Her thoughts spun deeper as the journey continued. This frail body of hers was merely a parcel of contaminating disease and a burden to her parents. She sometimes wondered if she could just succumb to death by sickness so her parents could run faster and farther. But, when the shiny swords and daggers of the enemies could have put an end to her, her cowardliness came to her rescue once again.
She lived a life plagued by depression and fear, and she could barely live, not being able to hand herself over to death.
Until, that is, the young swordsman appeared before her. She knew he was also a knight, a knight from the Da’Khaee.
Although he was not especially strong, even in armor, and he was at best slightly bigger than her mother, nevertheless, when he laid down his own sword for her, something within became revitalized, flinging away melancholy and fear.
Then, that look in his eyes, making death shiver, she discovered she was wrong.
He was so powerful! Like a giant. She could barely breathe, making her entire body shake. He chased away her fear and it dared not reveal itself. It was not because of his wizardly magic, it was simply the look in his eyes.
Those simple, but powerful eyes!
The eyes of anger because she was about to be slain.
Of course, eventually the bounty hunter was killed. A normal person would say he was slain by a dagger, but she knew too well. That evil person was killed by his eyes…no, by the powerful soul behind his eyes. The soul seemed to be guaranteeing the spirits in the mortal world that he would find a way to kill this fiend even without magic.
There seemed to be another heartbeat, another type of rhythm in her, which hadn’t stopped since then.
And then, when he was sent away from his own father and she watched the view of his back fade in the woods, the melody changed.
The melancholy was back, the fear was back, but both were no longer her masters. The new master was glorious like the sun, but now, because he was gone, the melody became an aria of sadness.
But the song did not last long, because at night, he returned.
His ride was terrifying, but as long as he stared at her, nothing could be truly horrible.
Though the fear and melancholy remained and the pain from her wounds and fever remained— and the coarse hair of the spider on which she rode rubbed her raw, and its motion—up and down—made her nauseous, nothing mattered now, since the giant was sitting before her.
The warrior who saved her,
His name is Darcy.
The Camp
“May I ask when we will get there?” Rieza inquired.
“Almost there.” The young warrior replied matter-of-factly.
Somehow, upon hearing his voice, Sora became more curious. Brightness came to her life, simply because of his eyes.
She had the desire, the great desire to know him further, to dig into his soul deeper, to find the pure and kind soul, and dance with it.
But she did not have the courage to look him in the eye.
She wondered how would their first conversation begin? Maybe with him holding her if she were to faint? Perhaps by him introducing her at the camp somehow? Or meeting privately, he might tear off his mask of coldness to shed some tenderness in front of her alone?
Wondering, wondering and wondering. This was really her world. She was too frail to ever leave the rift to take an adventure, go hunting, or even more, travel afar to human villages for trading. Everything was so bright yet she always stayed at the bottom level of the rift reading some literature on parchments under the dimmed light of soft luminous moss, such as the history of “Mal’Des” or “A Basic Introduction to the Da’Khaee.” However, there wasn’t enough literature to keep her occupied all of the time in bed, so for the remaining time, she could only wander in her own imaginary world…the world of depression, colored in grey. Only the world narrated by her younger sister would the real world be filled with colors.
Therefore, she knew well that things might not go exactly as she imagined. In fact, he might remain indifferent, and she might keep herself silent. But the rhythms in her heart would not want this. This was the first time she wanted more than just being a sick child tucked away, she wanted to do something…express something…even just a word with the boy.
Just one sentence would be great.
Anything would be great.
Sora opened her mouth, but her head grew dizzy due to stress and fever. Words flashing through her mind kept bouncing over her tongue, not willing to form a sentence.
And, as she tried to spit out the sentence she tried to compose, Darcy uttered first.
“We are here.”
Her mother seemed to be questioning what Darcy just said, as they were situated in the middle of the woods. Not a guard, a house or sights of a campsite met their eyes. Her mother asked Darcy something, but Sora was distracted, busy picking out the words scattered in her head. “Hello” or “Thank you.” Gosh, these words were all so normal, how could these be put into a special sentence…
But they had arrived.
The Da’Khaee
Caught off guard as she obsessed over what she would say to Darcy, Sora gasped. One moment they were in the middle of the forest, and then the next, suddenly, the trees around her, and grass and bushes beside the trees all disappeared and bungalows popped out. The bungalows were not built with wood, stones or bricks, but were winding, long burls, one after another, as if they were born for such a purpose. Every tree grew curved and bent, slightly stretched to the sky; the Da’Khaee here only needed to build a wall with stone or wood and a door to complete building a house.
Sora learned from “A Basic Introduction to the Da’Khaee” that legend had it the Da’Khaee were in good relationship with the feudal elves, and the elf empress gifted them some simple Woodspeak. But no one expected the legend to be true. These houses were very similar to the houses of elves in legends.
The camp was more than just houses, this camp had grass, flowers, trees, and, several groups of bungalows circling high-rising trees with several burrows for many people to live in or to house important people. Sora looked to the right and saw from afar five gigantic trees intertwined with roots covered with spider webs. Between the webs and roots were the giant spiders they rode, with a number no less than ten. As she looked right, she saw many special prick shrubs stretching long tentacles, reaching for the sky, each at a height of seven to eight meters and bearing numerous fruits she had never seen before. Some Da’Khaee climbed the tentacles to pick the fruit and threw them in the bamboo baskets they wore on their backs. As she looked back, she saw the border between the forest and this campsite was occupied with some houses special in appearances: those were grown from trees, but they looked like giant mushrooms—hollowed and mounted with doors. Lights shed from the houses. Lastly, when she looked to the front, she saw an enormous sacred tree, rooted at the center of the entire tree. This tree was about five times bigger than a tree used for a bungalow, and the sacred tree was also about five times bigger than that. The sacred tree contained burrows accommodating people, giant fruits hanging from the sacred tree’s branches were also hollowed and accommodated people, plus, the treetop was a close-knitted terrace formed by luxuriant leaves and intertwined branches. Countless Da’Khaee were in glamourous outfits standing over the terrace, doing things she had no idea. These trees, grasses, flowers, and Da’Khaee, utterly gave Sora— who had never left the Rift until now— a visual sensation, making her unable to hold her excitement.
“How beautiful!”
“Of course it is,” Darcy agreed.
Sora turned her head and saw Darcy smile.
“There are more.” He turned his head away.
Wow. As it turned out, her first line was simpler than what she imagined!
Meeting the Great Chief
Darcy took them all the way to the biggest giant tree. When they were almost to the tree, joyful music came from the top of it.
The spider stopped.
“What happened?” asked Rieza.
Darcy was silent. Dawsama’s spider crept beside Darcy’s and stopped.
“What is the matter?” asked his father.
Darcy looked at Dawsama, and turned to the giant tree again, and kept riding without saying anything. Dawsama looked at his son from behind without saying more, and he followed again.
As they reached the treetop, both spider riders made their spiders kneel to let Sora’s family get off. Due to her high fever and exhaustion, Sora nearly fell when she stepped onto the ground, but her mother’s strong arms held her, as usual.
“You happened to witness our festival,” said Dawsama. We planned to take your family here to introduce you to the Great Chief and have the accommodation settled; however, since it is the festival now, I would like to see if you want to savor the fun together: we have wine, dishes, and also meat.”
Billogot and Rieza whispered in each other’s ears, seemingly discussing whether to join or not; and Darcy was still handling the two giant spider.
“Might I bother to ask why Darcy was so quiet when we arrived?” thought Sora. However, as the idea flashed in her mind, there was something constricting her chest and throat. She was more than just fearing to walk over and talk to him; she could now no longer look him in the eye and wanted to turn her head away.
Come on, this was a golden opportunity. Was opening her mouth that difficult?
But he was in a bad mood now. What happened? Would he keep his anger to himself? Did he need some space, not wanting to be disturbed by a strange girl whom he had known for less than half a day— a sickly and ordinary looking girl?
As she kept her head low, struggling to keep the fear from crippling her, her mother went over, and embraced her shoulders with tender arms.
“Baby, are you tired?”
Rieza touched her daughter’s forehead with her hand. “You still have a fever, but we just got here. It might be nice to greet the people. Could you please hang in there for a little while longer?”
Sora stood there dumbfound for a while before she fully understood what her mother meant, and nodded.
“Good girl.” Her mother hugged her tight, and gently kissed her on the forehead.
The people started pouring in towards the treetop. The giant tree was hollow, and as they entered from the opening situated near the roots—its size almost bigger than a bungalow, they discovered the entire tree was hollow. Inside the tree were five tree vines for people to climb up and down, two among the five vines were a slightly different color. It took a while for Sora to realize that the two vines were respectively attached to two big vine platforms for disabled people or guests to ride to let people from the treetop go up or down. Dawsama invited them to enter the vine platform, had them wait for a moment, and climbed up on the vines with Darcy. Surprisingly, Dawsama (having one arm) climbed faster than a monkey, and Darcy, not knowing why he had not had his heavy gears off, was climbing up at a speed not much slower than his father.
It did not take long for the vine platform to ascend. At the beginning, they only saw the thick tree trunk, but not long after, some huge tree burrows appeared before them, and some wooden platforms, corridors between the branches, hollow fruits for people to live in, some moving gears hanging under the branches, and of course, the great view afar could be seen as they looked through the burrow. However, it seemed that all of the people went to the treetop, and yet they couldn’t be seen. Sora looked down and watched as they gradually elevated from the ground through the seams of the vine-platformed floor. She quickly felt dizzy and hurried to grab on to her mother.
Not long after, the vine platform was pulled to the top level. After all the people left the platform, Dawsama led them through the twigs and branches and they wormed their way out from the exit between the tangled branches to the treetop.
The view from the treetop was magnificent! Sora was speechless with amazement. The tree they stood on was taller than all the trees in the forest. In addition, on the treetop were various Sapria himalayana teardrop scent and Gentiana lutea, which, along with the tree leaves, formed a flora meadow of white, yellow and green. Plus, as the sunset was looming, the camel sunlight rayed from afar, drizzling all things with warm colors, expelling the sadness and coldness in Sora’s mind instantly. Sora took a few breaths, and smelled the unique scent of salty water from the Forest of Tears, and some light scent of flowers. Could the scent travel this far, or it was just her imagination? It didn’t really matter, as the smells colored her pale white past with brilliant scenes, making everything worthwhile.
Sora's mother pulled her sleeve gently, reminding her to leave. She turned around and saw the scene in the middle of the treetop. A large piece of smooth slate was mounted in the center of the tree top, which accounts for one third of the entire tree top. In the middle, wood was piled up in a heap. Several Da’Khaee were trying to start a fire. Beside the campfire, there were many Da’Khaee men and women, some formed groups of two or three, some gathered in a dozen, standing or sitting on the stone, or sitting on the edge of the stone, holding food and drinks in their hands, chatting while eating. They all looked happy.
"Fortunately we made it," Dawsama said. "The prayer dance hasn't started yet."
Then, Dawsama whispered something to Darcy, making Darcy leave the crowd and walk towards the center of the treetop. Sora’s family followed Dawsama, toward the center of the treetop as Darcy did, but in a slightly different direction. When Sora stepped on the dense leaves of the tree, she noticed that the large and small branches were densely intertwined on the treetop, as flat as earth and strong as wood. Even if someone took a knife and wanted to dig a hole in the treetop, they couldn’t dig it through even if they tried for an entire day.
When the gang arrived at the slate, many people enthusiastically greeted Dawsama as they saw him, wanting to toast with him, shaking his hand, patting his shoulder, or wanting to pull him aside to talk about something, but stopped when they saw his guests. However, they stared at Sora’s family, all with the same look on their faces.
Was it rejection? Seemingly not.
Was it unfamiliarity? Not exactly.
Was it curiosity? Were they just observing them? Maybe yes, maybe no.
But after a while, Sora suddenly came to a realization.
They all knew it.
They all knew what had happened to her family, what happened to her tribe.
Sora had read about the intuitiveness of the Da’Khaee from the literature of angels, she did not expect that the Da'Khaee needed just a look at her to understand.
A shocking, hard to understand and appalling thing— they all knew it.
Sorrowful, grievous, but understandable.
A corner of sorrow existed in Sora’s heart and sadness reemerged because of their eyes of sympathy, but she forced it back down inside. Not now. Now was not the time to open this box of sorrow.
Just at that moment, a girl suddenly ran toward Dawsama from behind and threw herself upon Dawsama’s back, entangling his neck with her slim white arms.
“Daddy!”
“Hey! You startled me! Why did you come so suddenly?”
“Just worried about you…” the girl said with a grin. “Did you not know your daughter would be worried about your well-being? What am I supposed to do if something life-threatening happened to you?”
“Your brother would take care of you.”
“What! I thought you two went out together? How would he come back without you? Are your words, at best, tricking a little girl?”
“Fine, fine, whatever,” said Dawsama.
“Speaking of which,” she said, “where is Brother?”
Dawsama pointed in the other direction.
The girl immediately yelled, “Brother!” and ran toward him.
Sora, watching the girl, seeing her dashing toward Darcy, almost knocking over the food he held, had her spellbound.
Darcy had a sister?
“Sora, look,” Rieza whispered into Sora’s ear. “This is the girl.”
“Which girl?” Sora asked. “Ah, that girl!
Sora glanced to and fro, and turned back to her mother. How she was laughing, and the color of her eyes, Sora hadn’t paid attention to those.
“Mom, how did you know that?”
Rieza laughed. “No idea, I just knew it. Grand Master loves this girl a lot,” She continued. “His footsteps. When the girl was running, the Grand Master’s feet had consciously stabilized to face any attacks, subconsciously.”
Sora could not help looking at the girl. The girl was smiling at Darcy, but from this distance she could barely tell what was so special about that smile.214Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡeFb8EuboAm
