The air was still damp in the forest that afternoon. Though it hadn't rained since the night before, the humidity was so thick that she almost felt as though she were swimming through the air rather than walking through it. Dew glistened on the ferns as she moved by, and the moisture filled her lungs with every breath. Even her hair was damp, and she loved how it felt against the back of her neck.
The leaves crunched underneath her feet. They should have been wet and mushy by then, but the canopy seemed to have protected the forest floor from the raindrops. There were breaks between the leaves high above and the sun did its best to peek through, but there was still a dryness underneath her bare feet. The patches of dirt that interspersed the grass were dry and powdery, and the dirt didn't stick. The sensation helped to relax her.
The quiver that she used to carry both her arrows and her bow had been hanging loose for what seemed like an hour. With so little to do along the way, she had made a sort of game of it: let the quiver dangle by a strap and see how long she could walk before letting it hang grew tiresome.
And grow tiresome it did. She slung it back over her shoulder and pressed on.
Insects and birds were the only sounds she heard. It had been three days since she had left the cave, and there were no other sentients since then. On the second day she heard the crunching of several deer grazing in a bush that was roughly two miles from her position. Trapping was her chosen class and career, and her long ears served her well.
But in the past day, there was nothing larger than a sparrow. Just birds, insects and her thoughts.
Fear never gripped her. Though she was soft at such a tender age, there was nothing that could scare her. She'd wake night or day depending on her mood, but they all preferred the darkness. Not even the ghostpaws and wild bears posed a threat. Seeking her way on her own had turned out to be much easier than she had expected. The only difficulty was loneliness.
She had never known it before. The forest was tranquil, as always. The echoes of the cicadas were soothing, as always. The songs of the birds were the most perfect music, as always. If only there was someone to share it with.
There. Ahead of her.
Despite her inexperience as a tracker, she put in the effort to learn and even had a natural talent for it. Perhaps the trail wouldn't be noticeable to some, but she could detect it. Underneath the lower ferns, the grass was matted down just enough such that she could recognize the traces of repeated movement. Feet that stepped on the same path over and over again across a long period of time. She didn't quite know where to go or where this trail would lead her, but it would lead to a place. After three days of walking based on pictures in her head, this was heartening. It was a sign of life, though what sort of life, she did not know.
She turned, and she followed. And for more than an hour more, she continued. On and on, she walked on the slight incline as she followed the footsteps of a person that had come before her. It couldn't have been a path beaten by more than one; she recognized only a single person's walkway as she examined the matted down grass.
The pictures returned to her. They mostly appeared in her dreams, but they were mixed with what were normal, mundane dreams as well. What was most vivid were the pictures during the day; there was no denying that they were special in some way. But they weren't that frequent. As she followed this trail, the began flashing again. It was always erratic since they had started; sometimes they were in the back of her mind, other times they occupied the space of her literal vision in a way she was incapable of describing to others. Not all of them made sense, but they were all from the first person, as though she were seeing something recorded within her from before.
There was something different this time. Not wrong; just different. She'd experienced pictures of white land with cold. There were white things like the feathers of a bird or clouds falling from the sky and covering the ground. It didn't match the ground she knew. There were images of blue lights buzzing around her like insects, but slowly. The images of people scared her. They were not people from her tribe. They were foreigners. But they behaved like they knew her in the split seconds she could see them. That scared her even though nothing outside of her head scared her.
And then the pictures became more vivid. The trail wound between trees and never became difficult to navigate. The entire path was logical, and the person who had walked it for so long must have been used to living in the area. But her tribe didn't live in the area, nor did any foreigners. There shouldn't be people here. Yet she saw pictures of people. More pictures. And when they moved entirely out of her head, her walking became jerky and uneven.
There were pictures of the trail she was walking on, but they weren't that day; they were pictures of the same trail from another time. And sometimes, another angle or direction. Pictures of walking that same path but not while she was walking that same path. Familiarity should feel comfortable. She just felt worried.
The images became more intense at the same time that noise stopped her. Pricking up her long ears, she could hear the creak of a hut. It was a hut built by people. There were people here, in at least one hut. Listening for forest sounds came easily to her, and she could detect the signs of people from far away.
She came this far because the pictures drove her to. She could walk forever, or she could find an end. The pictures indicated that she would find her end with people. And so she walked faster, and whenever the pictures increased in the rate of their flashing, she raised her hands to her head and waved the air in front of her vision like a crazy person. Maybe she was crazy.
Smells of dried vegetables and meat met her nose next, and she heard the sound of someone shift on a fur bedroll lying on the ground only a mile and a half away. She was very close. She had to continue. She had to continue or the pictures would continue, and she would wonder what they meant forever.
A trapper could also use stealth to stalk prey. Had she wanted, she could have snuck up on the person or people in the hut she could sense. But she didn't want to.
The pictures brought her here to these people; she had no reason to hide. She remained on the trail and didn't quiet the usually heavy steps of her two-toed feet as she approached. The people would hear her coming. That's okay.
She could not see the smoke but she smelled it as she approached. The shifting sounded off again and there was only one person. Somebody built a hut out here alone, days from the nearest sub branch of her tribe. Nobody traveled out here, not even the deer.
The sounds and smells were close, but her experience became even stranger: as she neared the top of the hill, the pictures slowed down. They were pictures of this place, but they weren't clear and they slowed down. She wasn't as worried as before, but she didn't know the reason. This place was doing things to her. She wanted to know why.
The hut wasn't exactly on the top of the hill; it was built against the side of the summit between large trees. Without the smell of food, nobody other than a good tracker would have seen it.
She stood in front of it, but nobody exited. The person was inside. She could hear the person shift. They were awake. If they hid their hut so well, they knew of her presence. But they didn't say anything.
She didn't quite know what to do at that moment. The pictures had driven her out there. She should do something so she could rest normally or know what they meant. She had left the entire tribe behind to come here; it was a dire situation. Day by day, she could feel herself truly going crazy. She didn't like that. Maybe the person she saw pictures of here would help her.
Finally, she spoke. Waiting wasn't her strong trait.
"Hello." It wasn't a question.
The person in the hut rolled over, but she could tell they were already awake and sensed her coming. When they didn't answer, it bothered her.
"Hello," she repeated in the same voice as before.
The person sat up and she felt relieved. A person in this place filling the pictures in her head might know about the pictures. Her heart raced in anticipation of meeting someone who could tell her, even if they were a foreigner.
Through the reeds of the hut's walls, she saw that it was a man and he moved. He was sitting on the bedroll and looking at her, and she looked at him. Her elders told her not to speak to foreigners. If they were aggressive, she should kill them. If they were docile, she should call for someone older to deal with them. But she wanted to talk to this one. Not knowing what the pictures meant was sapping her of her sanity bit by bit, and it was a dreadful feeling.
"Greetings," the man replied in her language. But he was still a foreigner. His accent wasn't like her tribe's and his voice was strange. It was deep but not rumbling. All men had rumbling voices. This man just had a deep voice. She didn't understand why.
They both remained in their places, she standing outside and he standing inside, the wall of the hut providing a measure of privacy that made approaching the stranger a bit easier. His breathing had a normal slow pace, but like his voice it didn't rumble, not the way a normal person's breathing should. It reminded her of the way the forest animals would breathe, not people.
To the relief of her befuddled mind, the man spoke next. The more he spoke, she hoped, the closer she would be to understanding the pictures in her head - especially the pictures that had led her there despite never having visited the place. Perhaps her life would cease to be a series of unanswered questions, mocking her confusion.
"This place is very far from other places," he said in a cautious tone that wasn't threatening but wasn't quite friendly either. "You traveled a long way."
His assumption, while correct, should have been obvious; it didn't help her. She hoped he would continue speaking, but he remained sitting inside his hut instead, offering no further words. She would have to extract the answers she wanted herself.
"I came a long way to find something, but I don't know what…"
Her voice trailed off as rationality gained the best of her. How could she explain her situation to anyone else? She had left her tribe one night and wandered because of pictures in her head of places she never visited and people she never knew. The images were not her imagination; she was seeing real things, but not things she had seen with her own eyes. If she couldn't confide in her kin, why had she come out here to talk to a stranger she happened upon? She suddenly felt very foolish.
"You don't know what exactly you're looking for?" he asked as if to take the words right out of her mouth.
That he spoke again relieved some of her tension. That he finished her question made her feel that he wouldn't be hostile. That he asked her a question seemed welcoming, like other hermits her people had encountered. She took a deep breath and tried to focus on her task.
"Yes. But I know I was supposed to come here." She glanced at the entryway on the side of his hut and saw drying pheasant meat and sweet potatoes hanging in a net tied to a branch. This person must be used to living without his tribe. "I was drawn to this spot."
He hummed as if to affirm he heard her and she saw him lean forward through the small gaps in his wicker hut. He appeared to fiddle with his kilt, and when he remained seated inside the hut without facing her directly, she felt more comfortable. The hut wall provided a barrier of privacy even when engaging in a conversation with this stranger.
"You were drawn to this spot, but you don't know what it is you seek here?" he asked calmly without a hint of disbelief.
"Yes. I came to find what it is." She didn't know what else to say, and hoped the stranger would keep talking.
There was a pause as he seemed to consider her words, and her hopes raised. "You do not know what, but do you know why?" he asked her.
"Why I came here?"
"Yes. Do you know the reason that compelled you to come here, not knowing the goal?" He spoke as if he were entirely at ease. Hermits were often kind but standoffish at first. This one seemed lonely, perhaps. She knew the feeling well.
She ran her hand through her charcoal grey hair, feeling one of the several braids she maintained among the loose locks. How could she explain it? She never could have expected to find this place for real, and thus had never planned on what she would say. Perhaps she should have, but now there was another person waiting on her. He seemed content to wait. She detested waiting.
"I had to come here…" she started, but her voice trailed off again when she realized how strange the words would sound.
"You felt compelled?" he asked after some time as if to help her finish. He seemed kind and he hadn't even stood up yet, but her tribe rarely dealt with foreigners. When they did, her elders would just give the order to kill them. Were they to ask her what she thought she waa doing, she wouldn't have had an answer.
But it didn't feel like breaking a rule. She felt compelled to talk to him, though to admit that would be madness. "Yes…no...I don't know."
"What compelled you?"
Her hands began trembling. Nothing scared her; even the wolves and bears were afraid of her tribe instead. Fear was not a concept grasped by her people, though it had been described to her before. And there, with a kind man speaking to her softly, her hands trembled and she felt scared. Other hermits asked her people where they came from and if they wanted to trade. Other tribes - if they weren't hostile - asked about geneologies and territories. This man wasn't asking about information normal people would want from strangers. He spoke as if he knew her, and even though he spoke slowly, the conversation felt rushed. Like he felt the suspense was driving him, too. She didn't like sensing what a stranger felt; it was too intimate.
"What is your name?" she asked him in an attempt to gain information that would make him seem more normal and less strange.
The man didn't move, and only sat on his bedroll, breathing in a way that didn't sound like the breathing of people. He stared at her for a long time and she couldn't see his expression, but she felt no ill intentions from him. She had no explanation for feeling that, and attempting to formulate one scared her as well. She sensed him turning his head toward her with no negative emotions, but his reply bothered her.
"What compelled you to come?" he asked her again with the same tone of voice.
She crooked her head back as she nearly took offense to his refusal of her question. This wasn't how people behave. People identify strangers so they don't seem as strange. Perhaps he hadn't been paying attention. "What's your name?" she asked him again.
The man didn't move this time, and only held his gaze on her through the tiny holes in the wall of his hut. "What compelled you to come?" he asked. She became flustered; the answer to her question would be simpler than the answer to his.
"What's your name?" she asked him stubbornly.
"What compelled you to come?" he asked without a hint of mockery or humor.
"What's your name, mister?"
"What compelled you to come?"
"Mister, I just want to know your name."
"What compelled you to come?" His tone carried no discernable feeling other than curiosity, yet he seemed interested only in sating his own.
"Why won't you tell me your name?"
He remained calm, but his patience frustrated her. "What compelled you to come?"
She gave up, allowing the defeat to show on her face. She felt as though he would continue forever, but she didn't want to leave. Even with how nervous she felt, she couldn't leave if he was asking her questions back; his curiosity meant he wanted to know about her. If he wanted to know about her, maybe he could help her. A man outside the tribe knowing about her was scary, but it wasn't what scared her this time. It was a good feeling this time, even if her people usually fought with foreigners. She didn't think he would fight her.
"If I tell you what made me come here, will you tell me your name?" she asked in a demure tone she could not control and disliked greatly.
The man snorted through his nose the way someone did when they were happy, but not quite happy enough to smile. "I will help you with what you want. But you will listen to what I say and answer me when I ask," he asserted firmly though not rudely.
Her eyebrows arched in slight irritation, which felt odd when mixed with her nervousness. He was very presumptuous to give her orders, she thought. This man is a foreigner, and he didn't even seem aggressive. How could he dictate to her?
Her head hung low when she realized it. He could dictate to her because he had something she wanted. He had answers; surely he must have. The pictures brought her there, and he was there first. She disliked the feeling, but not as much as she should. A strange man telling her to do things should make her fight or run. She wasn't ready to do either yet.
"I had to come here, mister."
"Why?"
"I had to!" she huffed with her brows uncontrollably arched again.
"What compelled you?"
"I…" Her throat hitched when she tried to speak. She felt unprepared. This man wanted her to tell him. She wanted to tell somebody. But she didn't know how.
She closed her mouth and rested her cheek on her palm, unsure of how to say it. She knew what she wanted to say, but that didn't make the how easier. Searching for the words in her head, she came up with nothing and looked back to him.
"It's hard to describe, mister. I can't find the words."
"Did another person tell you to come here?" he asked with a measure of concern..
"No. Nobody knows about this place."
He shifted around inside his hut but she couldn't tell what he was doing. "You know about this place."
"I don't, mister."
"But you came here."
"I had to come here-" she tried to say, cutting herself off as she realized the futility of her statement.
"What made you come here?"
The irritation at his patience, frustration at her inability to communicate her feelings and nervousness at being on her own with a stranger burst inside of her, and she went from feeling only slightly flustered to being rocked by a small storm inside. She didn't want to do this or to be there, but she didn't want to go on living without knowing what the images in her head meant. They perplexed and frightened her. She had two choices and she didn't like either of them, and instead of dealing with her condition, she allowed it to seep out as she spoke openly to a strange foreigner she shouldn't have been speaking to.
"Pictures, mister!" she exclaimed as her fear of what her own mind was showing her boiled over. "Pictures in my head! In my eyes! They showed me your trail down the hill!"
"Calm down."
"They showed me your hut, and they showed me other places! Places I've never been to!"
"Calm down."
"They show me people and faces, but I don't know who they are! They look at me like they know me!"
"Calm down."
"The picures lead me here mister, and now you're here! In the picture place!"
"Calm down."
"No I will NOT calm down! You won't answer my question and I have more questions that I think you won't answer!"
"I will answer them all on my own terms."
She tried to shout at him, but no sound came out of her throat and no words came to her mind. His entire demeanor was respectful and almost friendly, if guarded, and yet he wouldn't let her have control of the dialogue. In an attempt to gain some control of the converation back, she stood and watched the swaying of the leaves up high and waited for her pulse to slow down. The man said nothing, as if he understood she needed to wait. She detested waiting. He seemed to enjoy it.
"Mister, the pictures showed me this place and you're here. Please, have mercy on a traveler. You must know something about this."
"Define 'this.'"
She huffed again in frustration, though she knew she would have to react to his behavior better since it seemed like he would go on like this for as long as they spoke. This was his land, and he was being kind to her, she thought. Perhaps if she repeated that to herself, it would help her feel less upset with him.
"Do you know about the pictures in my head?" she asked as calmly as she could.
He blinked behind the walls of the hut, and she saw a flash of amber. They were his eyes. She lost her train of thought for a moment. Glowing eyes meant power, like the shadow hunters and high priests in her tribe, but their eyes glowed either red or blue; not amber. Was this man a shadow priest? Why were his eyes that color?
"What is your name?" he asked in her language but with that voice of his that was deep but not growling.
She could feel pinpricks along the hairs of her mane at his hypocritical question. Why would he identify her? He denied that right to her.
"I asked you your name first, mister."
"What is your name?"
"You have to tell me your name first!"
"What is your name?" he asked again, with a calmness she knew wasn't in the least bit forced. The conversation wasn't wearing on him.
It shouldn't wear on her either, but she was exhausted. The pictures had haunted her for years and were becoming more vivid and real. The pictures wanted her to find this man. Releasing control, she felt a new sort of apprehension as she let him have even more power over her.
"Anjula," she sighed. "Anjula of the Shadowtooth."
"Anjula of the Shadowtooth," he repeated. Her back tingled up and down in a way she wasn't used to when he said it and she found that it felt controlling but not unpleasant. It should have felt unpleasant. She wished it did.
"What's your name, mister?"
"Tell me about the pictures."
"You said you would help me!"
"Tell me about the pictures."
Shutting her mouth tightly, she acquiesced and secretly felt both thankful and regretful that he didn't say her name. Her patience was sapped, and she felt as though she would lose her mind if she didn't receive answers. Giving him the answers he wanted made him talk more.
"What do you want to know?" she huffed.
The man paused and pulled his legs in close to him, resting his elbows on what appeared to be his knees through the holes in the wall. If he exited the hut, she would run. But he remained seated, so she remained standing.
"Do you know of snow?" he stated more than asked.
She winced at the question. A picture of white ground under white clouds and white dust in between flashed in front of her eyes. It was a reaction to his question and it scared her again. The picture was so vivid that her bare arms felt cold.
Her eyes snapped open as she realized they had been closed and she clasped her arms in shock at the warm temperature. The hut was still there, on the very same hill. Amber glowed from through a tiny hole in the side of the hut, but the man left her to her fear. She felt her toe dig into the dirt involuntarily as the muscles in her legs tensed. She had felt the white dust on her hands, but it was gone now.
The man waited for her to answer. He didn't have to wait long.
"Snow is white…it's cold…mister…did you make me see that?" she asked urgently. "Did you see the picture too?"
"If I could make you see the pictures, I would show you enough to answer all of your questions. But the pictures are within your own mind."
"How do you know that?" she asked in exasperation. "Did you see it?"
"Do you know of statues?"
"Sta…tues?"
There was a lake in the clearing that night. From the shoreline, she could see a person standing in the middle. Its skin was like rocks, and it didn't move. It hands were held up toward the sky as though it were reaching for something. Its features weren't particularly foreign, but it had too many fingers. There were no tusks. From behind her, she could sense someone walking up next to her to gaze at the unmoving stone person.
Her eyes remained open this time and the hut before her body melded into the lake in her mind. She shook her head physically to rid herself of the image, finding her existence in two places at once disconcerting.
"Did you see the lake?" he asked.
She saw the reality before her now, but the lake with the statue in it also felt real, even if she wasn't near a lake at that moment. Her fear should have overtaken her, but her anxiety over finding the truth overpowered it.
"Mister…you said you would help me. Please, make me understand!" she pleaded as she shed any pretense over begging the stranger for help.
He exhaled deeply through his nose the way people did when they felt bad for someone else. "Tell me what compelled you to come here."
She felt like she wanted to explode. What is wrong with this person! "I told you, the pictures made me!"
"Were you forced?"
"Yes!" she practically shouted.
"Had you not come, would you have been harmed?"
"Wha…you asked me what compelled me to come here!"
"Not all questions have a direct answer."
"What! I…mister…why are you acting like this?"
"Did the pictures force your legs to walk?" His voice wasn't condescending, but she didn't want to be guided; she wanted to be shown.
"No, they don't control me. I came here to understand what they mean."
"If you are not controlled, then can you be compelled?"
Frustration leaned toward anger as she realized he was keeping one step ahead of her. Had he taken some sort of cruel pleasure in the ordeal, it would have made sense. "The pictures are driving me insane, mister. I had to know."
"Do you have control of your own actions?"
"Yes, I told you that. Why can't you just tell me what you know?"
"What compelled you to co-"
"Nothing forced me, I'm in control!" she yelled. She paused when she heard the echo of her own voice and remembered where she was. "I'm…sorry. I just need to know the truth. Please, I just want to know why I see things. Please, you have to help me!"
"So nothing compelled you to come?"
She sighed and waited for the dull feeling in her chest following the drop in her heart rate. "No, mister. Nothing forced me to come here."
"Are you here by choice?"
The question echoed in her mind. She felt a bit silly; as irritated as she was at his indirect nature, she still felt he was trying to help her.
"Yes," she sighed.
He exhaled quickly as his amber eyes narrowed, and she sensed his smile. "I'm happy to hear that, Anjula."
She didn't like the disadvantage. She said something he liked to hear; he was obligated to her now.
"What's your name, mister?" she asked very bluntly and insistently. "You said you would help me, but you're leading me around in circles. I came so far to find this place and you're upsetting me. That isn't fair."
"I am sorry."
"Then tell me your name," she demanded in her best attempt to mimic his way of speaking. "I told you my name and I don't know who you are."
"I don't want to overwhelm you," he said apologetically.
"Tell me your name. I want know."
He stretched his legs out in front of himself again and leaned forward, popping the joints in his fingers and ankles. There was silence for a moment as he seemed apprehensive. She liked that; it didn't make her feel in control, but it made him seem less in control. When he spoke, however, any semblance of an advantage she may have had was gone.
"Melas."
The air in front of her bulged, but it didn't move forward, backward, left or right. It didn't move up or down or to a side. The air took the shape of a stream and moved in a direction she didn't understand, like in a fifth dimension, and it came too close. The air seemed to have cuts inside of it, and there were ten or eleven images she could see behind the air through the cuts. A tree sprouted from the soil far too quickly to be normal. The royal purple color of her hand cupped lentils, but it couldn't be her hand because she had never seen lentils before; yet now she somehow knew what they were. A light violet hand that seemed familiar held the top of hers, but that had never happened. It had too many fingers like the statue, and she could feel it on her hand there in front of the hut. There were places and voices - she had never heard voices during her visions before - and all of them seemed familiar, yet she knew she had never visited the places or heard the voices.
"You're right here," the man said with such concern for her that she wished she could stop being nervous. "We're on this hill. You aren't anywhere else but here."
The air bubbled and swelled until if began to move in the opposite direction - which she still didn't understand - and shrank away. The images disappeared and the voices gradually died off as she fought off the shivers despite the warm, humid weather. Far more questions filled her head now than could ever be answered and chief among them was why she was being shown. Her anxious shakes grew until she felt like she would die if she didn't know what was happening.
"I know your name, but I've never heard it before," she complained in dismay. "Why do I know your name? You know the reason but you aren't telling me - I know that you know! Have mercy, please, just tell me everything."
"You have heard my name before, but in a different time," he explained with more readiness than he had shown during the entire conversation. "You can see the memories from those times."
She began to feel dizzy at the news, but not because it didn't make any sense; it made too much sense. These were real and she had always known that about the images. They were events that had happened, but not to her. This was not her life; she was only seventeen years old. She had no experience beyond the cave and the hunting grounds around it. But now this man named Melas - a name she felt like she knew as good as that of her fellow tribespeople - appeared to know more about her than even she knew.
"Why do I have all of these memories in my head?" she whimpered, on the verge of tears from the torment of bearing someone else's thoughts in her own mind. "Why do they stay with me…Melas?"
"You have these memories because they're yours. You lived these events at different times."
Her arms began shaking as her fear took over. It was an irrational fear she couldn't explain. Knowing the truth was what she had wanted; she should not feel afraid. Her instinct told her to flee and face whatever was out there in a forest she had never visited, and to continue running until the images went away or she dropped to the ground. But she felt paralyzed by her own fear, and helpless in that she didn't know what to do. She was afraid of what was happening around Melas, but not afraid of him personally and looked to him for a solution.
He seemed to understand her expression. Instead of waiting, he spoke quickly.
"Can I see you?" he requested almost shyly. Shyness didn't seem natural for him. Through her fear, she could still sense his discomfort.
"Ok-kay…if it wi…okay."
Ever so slowly, the man moved to his knees inside of the hut and hesitated for a second. She could see two amber eyes peek at her and then look out the entryway to the side again. He stood up straight and brushed off his kilt, and when he stopped himself just before stepping out, she could smell the worry on him. A light violet hand rested on the frame of the entrance, and she gasped out loud when she saw a thumb and four fingers.
The man stepped out in front of her and there was a light, numb tingling between her eyes. It leapt through to her spine and she had difficulty standing for a reason she did not know. He was outside of the hut, as well as by the lake. She had seen the man just a foot ahead of her in the snow, clad in furs, and they walked along a beach in the summer. She knew who Melas was, but she had never met him.
He was a tad bit shorter than her, and his mane was blue-black; she had never seen a color or texture like it. The hairs were fine and they stopped at the bottom of his skull to leave the back of his neck bare, and it didn't look like any mane she had ever seen. His face looked flat to her, and his chin didn't jut out any further than his brows - which had hair on them. His nose was small, but his beard and ears reminded her of normal people.
He had no tusks. He should look strange to her, but he didn't. She had seen him many times in the images.
"You are one of the Starchildren tribe," she whispered. "The big tribe of our people that got short and lost their tusks. You do plant magic." The familiarity overrode her fear, and she no longer wanted to run away; not immediately.
"Yes, we call ourselves children of the stars. We came from you." He examined her very closely, and she should have gripped her flint knife at a foreign man looking at her so intently. But she didn't want to.
"How do I kno…wait…" Before she could even finish her sentence, she saw it. Hanging from a rope around his neck, there was a fetish made from a rodent skull, sabre sinew and charcoal grey hair.
Every tribe had its own distinct design. They did not give their fetishes away to anyone, nor did they copy the designs of others. But something was amiss. A royal purple hand with a normal number of fingers stretched out to take it before she realized it was her hand and she stopped herself. She did not mean to do that, but she had tried to take it from his neck. He saw, and he removed it himself.
"Look closely," he said as he held it out to her. She reached for it but didn't touch it.
The rodent skull had lines and dots that were made with very, very old paint mixed from bear blood and toadstool powder. The hair was very old but like all hairs from normal people, it would remain for a long time. The skull was like any other, but the lines and dots formed the symbol of her sub branch of the Shadowtooth tribe. Her arm went limp as the familiarity returned to her.
One of her few braids was spilling over her shoulder and chest. She looked down and saw the fetish she had attached to it. With the lines and dots on a rodent skull. In the same positions.
Her fear and anxiety lingered, but diminished greatly in light of a desire - no, a need - to know that blotted out everything else.
"Melas…tell me. Why do I know you? Where to the pictures come from?"
He appeared anxious himself, but he did not hesitate anymore. He spoke as though he had said the words many times.
"They come from your past lives," he said. "The children of the stars did not age before; I would watch you age until you left me, and I was alone again to bury you and mourn. You had a different name and face each time, but you always found me. And I always waited."
She believed him; she had seen enough to believe him. But the information was too strange. How could it be real? It was real, but how?
"What do you mean, past life?" she asked.
"You are Shadowtooth. Do you not believe in reincarnation?"
Realization left her almost numb after having felt a whirlwind inside her heart moments ago. She felt physically nauseated at all the changes and swallowed down bile, trying to ignore the burning in her throat.
"Yes. The our tribe's high priest tells about this," she whispered.
"So do you understand, now?"
Her mouth dropped open, but she had difficulty forming coherent thoughts. She wasn't entirely sure what she felt. She knew this was true, but there was no way to process it fully.
"I come back to you after I die?" she asked despite having already understood.
"Yes."
"And…these memories are from staying with you?"
"Not all of them."
"What…what do you mean?"
He turned away to look back in his hut and leaned toward it, but stopped before actually taking a step. She thought he must feel shy again.
"The truth always scares you. Sometimes you stayed. Sometimes you ran. I never followed - you must choose to stay or to leave. I never compel you." He turned his head in her direction but avoided her red eyes topped by hairless brows furrowed in confusion. "Just like now."
He returned to his hut and sat with his back against one wall, crossing his legs in front of him. She moved forward to look inside, watching him but unable to speak as she tried and failed to find error with what he had said. There was a leather satchel in the process of being sewn together on the mat forming the floor of the hut, and he began to fiddle with it as though she weren't there. When he spoke, there was an emotion in his voice that had been absent before.
"I hope you will stay. I promise that if you do, I will help you understand the lives you've shared with me in the past. But if you do not wish for that, then I will not coerce you. You must choose your own way."
He began completing his work on the satchel, not looking up at her. Just barely, she could see his hands trembling as he waited. She had seen his hands tremble many times before, all of them in the same situation. Always trying to avoid pressuring her, but hoping she would choose to stay.
Anjula continued standing as she looked down at Melas, not knowing what to do. She wanted to find a reason to doubt everything he had said, but she could not doubt anything. The images were real, and his explanation initiated connections between the disjointed events that caused them all to make more sense in her head. What he had said was true, even the part about not staying every time she came back.
Melas' breathing was heavy as though he were upset, as she had been earlier. Beads of humidity mixed with sweat and she could tell from the strained muscles in his face that he was scared. She felt his fear that she would leave him this time, as she had done sometimes before.
Melas looked up when Anjula placed a hand in his, and his eyes met hers easily now that she was kneeling in front of him. She had dropped her travel bag and laid it among his belongings in the hut. His body was not as hot as hers, but there was a warm tingle on her palm and underneath her thumb and two fingers at the sensation of touching him. He stopped working on the satchel and stared back, unwilling to speak first. Always patient; forever waiting.
"Okay," she whispered once she regained control of her voice. "Show me who we are."
A/N: For those wondering, there is no troll accent because Anjula is speaking her native language. Obviously, you don't have an accent when it's yours.
This was practice to flesh out these two...their tale might be darker than the other romances I have in mind, though for those who enjoyed the story, this isn't the last of these two. There are currently at least two more planned with the chapter breakdown written.