The arrival of a new year always gave Zaskhea a renewed feeling of motivation. She used to think ‘this year I will definitely find my place in the world’. And, with that in mind, she embellished the living room and the dining room of her stone house with some colorful flower bouquets.
Her younger brothers, Olda and Lyngba set up the table and all the seating spots that would be used during the banquet that Rymalan, Fiomel, Do, Efraz, and Mina were preparing in the kitchen. Meanwhile, the large windows from both rooms were meticulously cleaned by her sister, Ynme, and decorated with the best curtains that Fiomel had in her repertoire.
Around noon, when everything was fully arranged, you were able to see the gentle sun rays that illuminated the big wooden table, they even made the flowers appear to shine on their own accord.
When everyone took their seats, the celebration started. All the attendants were delighted with the abundant dishes that Rymalan’s family had cooked: roasted fish with different types of vegetables, venison stew, wild boar with wild berries sauce, smoked turkey, seafood stuffed chickens, turkey, pork, shrimp and crab sausages, various types of cheese, and lots and lots of bread. For dessert, they enjoyed some fruit bread and fruit compote, although the star dessert was the one Fiomel always prepared for her children’s birthday and on year’s end, and one that no one could resist: a rose petals ice cream with yellow plum jelly and crushed almond cookies. Hmmm, I can almost taste it.
After the feast, the older Mëentu started exchanging childhood stories and some embarrassing stories about their parents. Everything sounded incredibly boring for the younger ones, so they excused themselves and soon were running around the beach, playing in the sea underneath the gentle rain that was falling.
Well, the stories were… boring. Still, Murdice and Zaskhea stayed inside with the elder ones, but the latter were already exchanging stories in Brichea Andii. This made Murdice feel left out of the conversation.
Brichea Andii is the language of the Rhelmu and the Beelef. While it is true that some of the descendants of the seven learned the language, Follen completely refused to let his children learn it. Rymalan and Fiomel, unlike his brother, did let Zaskhea and Efraz learn it, as they were quickly approaching their twentieth birthday, and to the decision of living a long or a short life.
So, Zaskhea was pretending to have a conversation with Murdice when actually she was listening intently to everything the older Mëentu were saying. Well, she had to admit that, since Mhylan and Dolan had arrived that day at her house, she had unfamiliar feelings that the outlander arose in her… and she did not know how to explain any of it.
When her cousin shook her shoulder a little to get her attention, she gave a little jump on her seat and looked at him startled “Sorry? I… I did… I didn’t catch that”
“I asked you if you wanted to come out and have a stroll through the beach, or maybe, we can go to the forest, if you prefer it. Just… let’s get out of here” Murdice repeated himself, muttering the last part.
“Sure. Go ahead, I will be out in a minute” she answered without looking at him. Zaskhea waited for Murdice to excuse himself and go out the door, then she sat close to her mother, whispering to both her parents “What are you talking about?”
“What do you mean?” Rymalan asked back in a murmur.
“Our… ‘guest’ said something about Murdice and about his… time? Something… I did not quite understand” curious Zaskhea stared at Dolan.
He stared back at her.
“No, regba, you are quite wrong” her mother patted her softly on her hand “He was referring to the time of the moon’s gleam”
That piqued Zaskhea’s interest “What gleam?”
“The gleam that happens every time there is a change in cycles” her father answered “Every time the moon comes out, the sun ‘breathes’ one last time and makes way for the moon, the gleam is the symbol of this exchange in the sky. It is so infinite that if you do not know it, you miss it”
“Ah” she muttered. She was really intrigued by this gleam they were speaking about since she was an avid observer of each change of cycle, and this was because she felt a particular connection with the moon. And now this new information made her realize that she had never noticed the gleam that Dolan and her parents were speaking of. She would have to pay extra attention in the next cycle exchange.
“Why don’t you go out with your siblings? I am afraid our conversation will only keep increasing in nostalgia and tediousness” her father smiled brightly.
The young Ballos nodded to her parents and excused herself with the rest of the guests. And yet, she kept having a strange feeling about everything that had occurred.
Outside of the house, Murdice was already waiting for her, his clumsy hands held a white and pink orchid. He, well actually everyone knew Zaskhea’s weakness for flowers, especially those with bright colors. Handing her the flower, he looked at her hopeful, his eyes seemed like deep black pools. And I compare them to pools, ixane, because his eyes had a depth that you rarely see in any other person, including all Mëentu and even the military chief of the Pimaatiltle. I really do not know how else I could describe them.
“Thank you” Zaskhea had no other choice but to receive the orchid, although she did it will very little enthusiasm. Something that he obviously did not notice.
“I know you are fond of them. And, I didn’t want to let the occasion pass without gifting you one” Murdice took her by the hand and started walking down the beach “You’ve not told me. Do you want to walk on the beach? Or, shall we go to the forest? I would like to agree on what and how we are going to tell our parents”
“Uhmmm… Let’s go with the young ones” Zaskhea said, releasing her hand from his, and scratching her head.
As they made their way towards her siblings, he was rambling on and on about his future plans. Exactly where he wanted to live, and how he was to build the house. But first, he must speak to his father so that he would help him sell some goods that he would trade for quality materials for this little house. Also, he was rambling on about a small boat he was building that would allow him to fish beyond the shallow of the sea and the little stream of the village.
When they found the young ones, minutes later after all of Murdice’s proclamations, the Ballos had an enjoyable time playing on the water.
At one point everyone got distracted when Efraz and Murdice took Ynme by the hands and feet and threw her into the sea, that is when Zaskhea took her chance and disappeared to her refuge. In that place she could be around her two favorite things, the forest’s flowers and the sea’s breeze that blew to the island, and which she always felt brought her a desire coming from the continent. Even when she never knew exactly what that desire was.
In the clearing, she felt weird, as if Dolan was right next to her. She told herself that she was far away from the house and that he would not even think of getting close to her hiding place; then, she approached her favorite tree, sighed deeply, and allowed all the burdens that the festivities had brought her, pour into it.
Though, if she was being honest, the whole past year had been particularly difficult to bear, especially conversations with Murdice and her aunt and uncle. Something that had never happened to her before. She had to admit to herself that since her parents started teaching her that new language, something had changed in her. She also needed to admit that, for reasons unknown, Murdice had become… overemotional towards her. Something that made her feel… desperate. It made her feel compelled to run towards the horizon and not look back.
The tears her eyes were shedding slid down her cheeks and onto the roots of the oak tree “I am sorry, my friend. I always bother you with my problems” she laid both her palms on the big trunk.
Behind her, someone laughed.
The young woman turned rapidly, trying to catch whoever had laughed, but she saw no one. Probably the wind coming from the sea, she said to herself, shaking slightly her head and moving towards the oak again.
But she heard the laughter again, and this time someone appeared between two trees on the opposite side of the clearing.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded through tight lips from the outlander.
“I am taking a stroll through your father’s land. Do you have any objection?” he said unpreoccupied while leaning his shoulders onto the trunk of a small oak tree.
Zaskhea placed one of her hands on her waist while pointing to the surroundings with the other one “Technically you are strolling through my terrains, so yes, I do have an objection”
Dolan crossed his arms, indifferently “Oh, I forgot that you live under the Gbëenafgu regime”
“¿Yan… gu? What are you talking about?”
He shook his head gently as he approached the Ballos’ favorite tree “I would like you to tell me, what makes you think that the tree cares about your problems?” Dolan tilted his head slightly to the left, resting his amber eyes on her black ones.
Despite her height, one meter ninety-three centimeters, Zaskhea felt that he was towering over her. Nonetheless, she searched rapidly through her many mental comebacks for something that would allow her to retaliate to the Mëentu. She didn’t want him to notice that in some way she felt… intimidated? Distressed? Or maybe she had indigestion, who knows! “And I want you to explain to me what did you mean about time running out for Murdice”
He pulled his head back and took a couple of steps back, away from Zaskhea “So, you do understand Brichea Andii”
“Yes, some”
“Hmm” Dolan turned his back on her and nodded vigorously “You speak very little, and I am not surprised you did not understand. That is not what I meant. As your parents explained to you previously, I was speaking of the moon’s gleam on the cycle’s exchange”
She did not reply, she just stared intently at him.
“Have you ever seen it?” he asked, turning his head a little towards her, but not quite looking at her.
“No” Zaskhea dropped her head to the floor. She felt unworthy of even thinking of watching such an event, for she was completely ignorant of its existence until then.
Dolan lazily raised his shoulders “I am not surprised, few Mëentu can distinguish it”
Mántu? What is this person talking about, she thought “Why do you speak so funny? What do all the words that are coming out of your mouth mean?”
“Ha, ha!” he now laughed brazenly “.Ale peinhy” [“Did I confuse you?”]
“Of course not!”
The Zedlon turned a little more towards her “Are you sure?”
“Yes! For your information, I understand Brichea Andii very well” she pointed at him with a fleshy finger.
“If you say so” Dolan turned his head again, and looked above the treetops “It’s about time”
“The gleam?”
He kept silent but started walking towards the beach, making his way through the forest. She followed him closely.
When they both reached the coast, the sun was almost on the edge of the horizon, and the moon was beginning to appear clearer in the middle of the sky. Suddenly, a ray of light that did not come from the sun illuminated the sky, while the sun disappeared completely behind the horizon.
Zaskhea gasped loudly at the sight.
And Dolan softly said “Todre malune cina nama” [“The heat quenches the fire”]
She looked at him, hopeful “I know it can be scorching. Don’t worry, you’ll get used to it”
—I need to pause here, son. You see, Zaskhea confused the word todre with tedro, which means ‘moist’. And the word malune (in Brichea Andii) for the Loemâncye word ‘leue’, that means ‘one’. So, in some twisted kind of way, she understood what Dolan was saying like this: ‘Moist one the heat’… or ‘The moist is one with the fire’. That is why she was telling him he would get used to the heat of the island—.
He shook his head, trying not to laugh as he walked down the beach. As Zaskhea watched him walk away, she was hit hard on the chest with that longing that assaulted her often.
The nostalgia overflowing from her body made him stop abruptly. He turned slowly and looked at her, torn, not knowing what to do. For an instant, in the eyes of them both you could see a glimmer of something more than the sorrow that had made its home in both their hearts. Obviously, he could sense there was something different, even though he could not put a finger on it. But she, well, being a Ballos and kind of absent-minded… all right, very absent-minded… well, she did not notice anything from what had happened between them on that brief moment.
Zaskhea took conscience of her surroundings, blinking rapidly and trying to make her familiar feeling go away. That is when she noticed that somewhere behind Dolan there was something that should not be there. But, since she was not completely sure of what she was seeing, she walked towards it, leaving the Mëentu behind her.
An unconscious man of dark complexion laid on the sand. Probably some shipwrecked fisherman, she thought. Not uncommon like you and I would think, ixane.48Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡvjsF9B1ynr
Catching up, Dolan knelt on the sand and examined the man “He is not dead”
She let out the breath she had unconsciously held “Let’s take him to my parents”
He nodded and lifted the man’s body with little effort, as he weighed no more than a dried leaf, surprising Zaskhea with his ability.
—I have been told by the ladies that Dolan possessed exceptional physical characteristics, his body was the cause of envy. Though I cannot confirm nor deny it at the moment—.
Both Zedlon and Ballos walked back to Rymalan’s house, to find out who the man was.48Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSRPWtgYk2n
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