Akim lu'e Taala --- (Private)

[Aeirlana]

"Picture? I don't understa-..." he paused, seeing that Monika was now taking back her flashing-light-box. He had thought the machine to be a weapon of some kind, but no. Apparently it had a much simpler and nicer purpose. This facinated Naajra to no end.

"That's me! That's right before you blinded me! ...how amazing. You should figure out how to use that without blinding people though. The flashing light hurt my eyes that time. I'm sure most of the other vychri wouldn't appreciate it either."

...and then in response to the question about the Nishimna.

"Don't worry about it. The Nishimna is the voice of the spirits. She will know that you are good. She will probably use the learning-spell that I used to learn your language, so don't be surprised by that. Just be respectful and she'll talk with you."

[Sixteenth Order]

She watched as Naajra was fascinated with the camera device and the photograph that it produced. "I can easily turn off the flash option. I just used it against you because how else was I supposed to keep you off me long enough to help your shoulder?" She pointed out with a light laugh and hit a switch on the side of the camera, the flash option. "Here, I'll show you. It works perfectly well without the flashing light in the proper lighting." Monika was shaking but managed to hold the camera still enough to take a proper photo after gently nudging Naajra to Duemir's side. Contently she took their picture and there was no flash, only a nearly silent clicking sound. Easily she took out the filmy paper and shook it gently through the air to hurry its development. Within moments a picture of Duemir and Naajra was passed from her hands to theirs.

Monika still appeared to be rather nervous about this whole idea but she couldn't find it in her to leave. After all, there wouldn't be any harm in meeting the Nishimna. And the doctor seemed a little bit more all right with her presence. Monika wasn't put off by his yelling, she had enough of that on the ship with Harumi, but was rather not wanting to die. But the human couldn't be sure. Monika was more than half excited about meeting the woman Duemir suggested that they bring her to. Almost eagerly, she glanced back and fourth wondering where and who she was. "All right," Monika responded in agreement to meeting the Nishimna. Her heart raced and Monika slid off her glasses, cleaning them with her shirt before slipping them back on. She wanted to be able to see this all for herself.

[Aeirlana]

Not long after that all had been said, Naajra, being the ever currious fellow he was, had been intregued by Monika's glasses. He stared a moment at them.

"What are those?" he asked, and before she had a chance to answer, he had already snatched them away from her and was trying them on, "Huh? Everything is so blurry! How do you see a thing with these on?"

...it's worth noteing that most of the village had begun to grow braver and had inched closer to get a better look at Monika. The children especially were quite interested, but always held back by the adults.

[Sixteenth Order]

It was near impossible not to laugh and wear that wide grin that Monika expressed at that moment. All of this curiosity in Naajra had Monika calming down for the most part, at least from her fears. Even if right now she was nearly as blind as a bat and found it hard to focus. "And those are glasses." She chuckled, shaking her head because he already took them from her before she could even answer and then took a glance around her.

Strange, even without her glasses she knew all these red blurs had become a bit closer. Apparently some inched over, wanting to get a good look. Her heart pounded a bit and she glanced back to where his voice came from. "It's simple really. Those are corrective eyeglasses, which means they correct refractive errors which is an error in the focusing of light by the eye and a reason for bad eyesight." She began to kneel on the ground, staring at the ground before her before managing to squint and make out enough to see it well enough.

Tracing her finger through the dirt she began to draw the shape of an eye, then the iris, and a trail of light entering the rather but purposely steeped cornea. What Monika had forgotten is how much more attention this would bring her. "You see, those are glasses and they're made to fix my bad eyesight because I can't see much otherwise without them. Why?" She traced a bit more, drawing a few images in front of the eye. The closer to the eye she left fine and detailed, but began to blur what was left further away by lightly tapping her fingers into the dirt where she wished to decrease the ability to read the imaging.

"Because I have nearsightedness which means I can only see things that are close to me, not much farther than my hand." And with that she held her hand away from the ground, holding her hand less than a foot away from her face. And dropping her hand, she looked around once more. "Everything past that is blurred," she nodded toward the reference drawing in the dirt beside of her. "More easily put, I just have defective eyes and because yours are so great, when you look through my glasses things appear blurry whereas for me it makes things more clear."

Pausing, Monika slowly stood and brushed her hand against the back of her neck. What was she going on about it for? Looking at the red blurs before her, Monika could faintly make out a shimmer. A shimmering red amongst the rest.

[Aeirlana]

Of course Naajra had no idea what this crazy human was talking about. Duemir probably would have, but he didn't know english. But that wasn't important. The Nishimna was comeing.

Approaching the group now was yet another orange person, like the others, but she was distinctly different. She had very short white hair and wore a headband that was decorated with a wide assortment of shiny thisthats and whatnots. Arround her neck hung a necklace decorated similarly, but also containing what appeared to be a large red feather amongst it all. Her clothes were dark purple, and she had pale purple eyes.

Almost immediately, the first thing she did was to use the learning spell, just like Naajra had done. She was quick about this...much quicker than Naajra. It merely took a tap on the forehead and she automatically seemed to know.

"You are one of the people from Other World. Are you not?" she asked Monika rather firmly. Her grasp on english was much better than Naajra's, amazingly.

[Sixteenth Order]

With that bright red object that had first caught Monika's eyes, then she saw the rich and deep purples and to her surprise, white. Okay so one of them, one of them had the ability to not remind Monika of a watermelon. She smiled, grabbed Naajra's hand to pull him over and took her glasses back, and slid them on to get a better look. Monika looked at her in awe. The woman was beautiful.

And unlike Naajra, it took only one surprising tap to her forehead for her to have such a shockingly strong grip on Estonian, the language Monika spoke from her home country of Estonia. At her question Monika would have sooner answered but was lost at pursing her lips, still trying to take in all of this. Who gets kidnapped with a whole ship by some floating rock, sent through a living nightmare, nearly killed then sat on by a crazed but very kind watermelon, and approached by a very important person of the watermelon kind? ... Monika's first thought was to learn the correct racial title for their species. It wouldn't be right to go around and call them the watermelon people of watermelon island.

"Yes...?"

[Aeirlana]

"Your kind have murdered one of our own." the Nishimna said quite sternly to her at this point, "He was called Suun'det...and before he was cut open by your weapons of metal, he wished only to make peace and comunicate with you...humans. To take an innocent life in such a way as this is an unforgiveable crime. You must tell the one who killed Suun'det, next you see them, that the spirirs have set his fate. He will not live to see the Other World again, unless he has remorse."

She was quite adamant about what she had said just now, and had an icy gaze on Monika. But Naajra, at this point, cut in.

"Please, great Nishimna, Mo'nikha is not at fault! She saved my life twice already and-"

"Shut up Naajra." she said flatly without looking at him, and immediately he did just that. Keeping her gaze on Monika, she added, "The spirits smile upon you however. I was told by them that you alone of the humans are to be trusted. From how they spoke of you, I sense that you have some important destiny here. Only time will tell."

[Sixteenth Order]

Monika shuddered at the Nishima's words, looking up into the icy purple eyes. She remained silent, listening to the wise woman before her. The artist already was heart wrenched about the incident with Suun'det but to realize with confirmation that the killed man was only trying to bring peace between the two groups managed to bring tears welling to the rims of her eyes. But she couldn't look away from those eyes as Monika finally smelled the traces of Suun'det's blood, having been carried back to his family. It felt too difficult to even nod to the Nishima's order.

Without her eyes leaving her own, Monika continued to meet her gaze even if she felt cowardice. She felt that if she had glanced the other way the tears welling would spill past her eyes. And from there in no way would Monika be able to resist crying.

When softer words came out Monika couldn't help but look away, her vision blurring and watery as her eyes followed the path of green, her nose finding the smell of blood. But of course she didn't move from her spot. She couldn't. From the side of her eyes she looked back into the Nishima's, slowly nodding. "I'll... I'll just go tell him now. I... sorry." Her voice broke, more tears coming as Monika turned and hurried to the path from where they entered.

[Aeirlana]

"I coming with you!" Naajra announced, only to suddenly have his ponytail yanked back by the Nishimna.

"Idiot. Do you want to be cut open too?! ...no not yet. It's not safe."

"B-But...at least...I take her through the woods questionmark? So that Mo'nikha stays safe."

At this point the Nishimna paused long and looked off as if into space for a moment before answering him in a reluctant tone.

"Very well...but do not be seen." and she let him go.

With that, Naajra followed Monika out of the village. The other vychri parted so that it was easy for her to do so. The children all looked quite dissapointed and the adults looked glad that she was finally leaving. A few made some snyde remarks at Naajra in Vychri language, but he ignored them quite well.

[Sixteenth Order]

Monika left, moving past the crowd of vyrichi half catching the glance of the adults. Her heart raced a bit and she looked back to the ground, hastening her pace not looking back to Naajra. Rather she pretended as if he wasn't there, feeling humiliated enough as it was, not wishing to be seen crying especially by one she considered to be a friend.

Swallowing Monika moved forward through the greenery, feeling like her stumbling feet couldn't carry her any faster though she couldn't do more than walk. "Stupid... stupid..." Her hand rung through the top of her hair, nearly grabbing it at the roots as she whispered to herself, pressing forward as she walked. She didn't yank at her hair, just gripped at it tightly enough for it to sting. She was ringing it from frustration at the captain and more tears were coming.

"Naajra, shouldn't you just go back? Its a long walk and your friends don't seem to exactly approve of you accompanying me." Her voice was uneven even as she finally acknowledged him. "Besides what if one of them isn't at our ship but in these very woods?"

[Aeirlana]

Naajra only smiled and replied, "Do not worry. I run very fast if other humans show up. Naajra does after all mean swift. ...and it okay if other Vychri don'y approve of me. They are like that always with me even before Pink-people."

He took on a slightly more serious expression a bit later though, frowning in a puppydogish way.

"I not want you to be sad."

[Sixteenth Order]

A low and lifeless chuckle left her lips as he told her how fast he could run from her kind, picturing Penn coming from behind a tree and throwing a bomb at them. And of course Naajra would run as would she to avoid being blown up. Penn wasn't exactly the safest of people to be around.

She glanced back as he spoke again, caught off guard by that look of his and the frown he wore. A few more tears slid down her cheeks and she smiled a bit, shaking her head and looked back to the ground. "I just... now that stupid image of the captain shooting your friend is practically burned to memory and I can't..." A sigh passed her lips and Monika let go of her hair.

[Aeirlana]

"You must have been afraid of us when you first saw us." Naajra said, "I think...that man acted out of fear, not hate. If he has remorse, I think even Suun'det would forgive him."

As time passed, the sun of this world was begining to fall slowly under the horizon, and even in the twilight hours, through gaps in the trees, one could see that stars were already begining to light up and the two moons showed themselves. Naajra looked up at them once through a break in the cannopy.

"The spirits are showing themselves." he said calmly.

[Sixteenth Order]

"Two moons?" Monika breathed in amazement, after having looked up into the sky. She frowned a bit. "We really aren't anywhere near Earth anymore..." Monika went back to Naajra, glancing up into the canopy Naajra was looking through. Her frown left and her tears stopped as she looked up at all the beauty in their sky. "Back where I live we can hardly even see the sky anymore. This is just... stunning." Monika was calming quickly, till that is she heard the snapping of a twig nearby.

[Aeirlana]

Naajra now had a very alert posture, looking intently in the direction of the snapped twig. Instinctively he took up his dagger, which was kept in a holster at his side, and held it up at the ready. There was a long deep silence before the beast reared it's head.

It happened rather quickly. A monster with the physique of a lion, the sise of a horse, the skin of a dragon and rows of teeth like a shark burst forth, attempting to attack and kill Monika with one strike, but Naajra was quicker, grabbing her arround the waist and leaping to the trees whilst still hanging on tight to her. With three leaps, he was nearly three stories high, and the monster was now roaring beneath them.

"Tiger!" Naajra shouted breathlessly, "Is a tiger!"