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_________NOT AS FOREIGN
_________Location: Yael, near Zinris
Years spent in the jungle had ground down the sharp edges of his fear.
Maybe that wasn’t it. He still felt fear, but the fear had changed. Out here, fear wasn’t like that cold dagger-stab he had felt when he glimpsed one of the monstrous mainlanders for the first time. That was the fear of someone who lived in relative safety, a boy who had a soft bed to sleep in and a hot meal waiting at home if he wanted it. Sure, he’d spent much of his time in the jungle even then, avoiding distrustful village-folk… but he always had the option of safety.
Then he had seen the ships coming -- right for his village -- and he knew that place was not safe anymore. He had turned and run into the jungle.
But the jungle wasn’t safe either. Not for a moment. You just got used to that. You stayed alert, you got to know the safe plants from the poisonous ones, you read the tracks left in the moss and listened hard. All these things soon became second nature, though, as did fear itself. There was nothing quite so ordinary as wanting to stay alive, after all.
He hadn’t even noticed this change at first, and it was only when he ventured into towns and cities for trade did the difference between himself and the ‘normal’ folk become apparent. So many of them had fear and distrust in his eyes -- when they looked at him. At him! He was just an Yaeli like them, neither even full-grown nor armed for combat. He had no claws, no poisonous blood, nothing really worth being frightened of. Sure, he still remembered all those childhood whispers of a ‘curse’ surrounding him, but surely that was nonsense?
If he was cursed, he’d be dead. He had given his curse every chance to kill him, and he still walked the earth.
He realized then that things didn’t scare him the way they once used to, and that got him thinking about all those once-frightening things. His thoughts turned back to his abandoned village, and out of curiosity he set out in that direction.
Was he frightened? Yes, he figured. There was something wound tight in his stomach, and he shivered to think what he might find there. It didn’t however, seem like any reason not to find out.
It helped that he had Teymaw beside him. He had found the janarim to be so frightening when he first laid eyes on it that he was certain most others would be as well. His previous explorations of the more, er, ‘civilized’ parts of the island had proved this hypothesis to be (mostly) true, with folks giving the beast a wide berth. So far, no one had actually moved to attack them, but Teymaw’s strong armor plating and sharpened teeth (and occasional warning growls at strange sounds in the trees) made him believe that he’d be an excellent ally if it came to that.
The two of them made their way over rough terrain, avoiding roads as they usually did. Matchitemin never hurried; he gathered herbs and hunted along the way. It took them three days to reach the coast. Teymaw sniffed at the salty air, maybe remembering something.
They slept one night on the shore, camped out way out of the reach of the tide. The sun set brilliantly red that evening.
The next day he started through some of the villages that had surrounded his own. He was not in a mood for talking (as he rarely ever was), but he was disturbed to see that there weren’t many people around to talk to. The furthest village still had some semblance of normality, although many houses stood abandoned. The next was nearly abandoned, except for a couple of old women sitting by a fire and stirring a soup.
Finally he came to his own old village. It was empty. Entirely empty.
He walked through familiar packed-dirt alleyways between empty houses. Doors gaped open at him, just rectangles of dusty darkness. Teymaw sniffed at them and came away disinterested, a sure sign that the place had been untouched for a long while. What happened?
He found his aunt’s house and stepped inside, leaving the janarim to paw around in the dirt. It smelled dank and damp, as things by the coast were sure to be if they weren’t properly aired and maintained. He was surprised, however, to see that his corner of the house was still untouched. His bed was made, and the rattan chest at it’s foot was still filled with his childhood toys. Had his aunt been reluctant to get rid of his things, still afraid of his supposed curse? Or had the abandoning of the village happened so soon after his departure that she hadn’t had time to understand that he wasn’t coming back?
Her own prized possessions -- medicine-bags and the like -- were gone, so he had at least the benefit of knowing that she had left on her own free will, and was likely alive somewhere. No bandits would have taken trinkets like that.
He stepped back outside and wandered to what had been the village common. Things here were messier -- the few small market-stalls had been knocked aside, and various sorts of garbage littered the space. He found scraps of torn baskets, frayed fabric and cracked pottery. Much of it looked like it had been trampled by dozens of feet. It was as if all the residents of the village had gathered here in a panic, dropping, breaking and stomping over whatever had the misfortune to get lost in the fray.
“Hmph.” He huffed, perplexed. The village-folk were easily spooked, but most times they were more scared of what lay beyond their village than any ill omen within it.
He walked to the cliff where he had first seen the ship. Teymaw followed behind. His head was raised now, as if he had caught some more interesting scent in the distance. Matchitemin noticed this, and tread carefully.
The village was built on a rising cliff. From here, you could see clear off into the ocean. You could also look to their side and see the stretch of beach in either direction. He looked to the east first, and the view there was as peaceful as usual; rocky beach, patches of sand, and tall-rooted trees extending out into the surf. He could still spot the place where they had slept the night before.
Over to the west, though --
He ducked to the ground, and Teymaw lowered his head on cue.
There were women on the beach. Now that he was paying attention, he could hear their voices. They were carried up on the draft.
They were not Yaeli.
But… they did not look quite like the monster-woman he had seen as a kid. He still remembered that sight -- black-haired, with yellow-green skin and savage markings, eyes like glassy beads. She was dressed in many colours and she held a spear, or a sword… he wasn’t sure of that anymore, but a blade of some sort.
The women below were different. They were gray-skinned, a colour that seemed much more familiar to him. Their hair was dark red, only some shades redder than his own. Their eyes were not black but teal, like the colour of mist over the swamp.
He had never seen such things before, and he knew immediately that they must have some relation to the monster-women. However, they did not quite frighten him the same way. He had no intention to make his presence known to them, and once he was certain of what he saw he turned to retreat eastward. But he did not feel any knife-blade terror.
He felt, somehow, that they were not as foreign as the one he had seen all those years ago.
[ words : 1312 ]
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