Author's Note: You will notice Sloth's religion is stunningly like Roman
Catholicism-this is no coincidence, I am just THAT unoriginal, so stole
from my own religion and just used it. Yay. =D I hope that doesn't warrant
a one way ticket to Hell. O.o
Curiosity, at that time, had been yet another one of my many weaknesses. It had accounted for many of my toddler escapades, and would do the same in my adolescent age. However, as a toddler was "cute" when it is waddling around, exploring new places, an adolescent prying into places where she is not supposed to be is infinitely less cute, and arguably a pest. Yet I had never really cared what others thought of me, be it a nuisance or an asset, so usually went along with whatever I felt like, unless it would involve being removed from seer training.
The area in which they kept the stranger was strictly off-limits to anyone who did not work with the healing arts and who had not been instructed that they would participate in the assistance of the stranger. This made little difference to me-a burning desire to know what was occurring inside that small room, so obviously unlocked, (as Grundos were very trusting creatures for the most part, even seers) grew over the few days afterwards, and soon was like a sore thumb in my side. I was distracted by it during everything-emotion control sessions, meditation, dinner-you name it, I thought about the stranger during that time.
And finally one day I could not contain my interest anymore, and found it nearly taking over my body, my limbs finding themselves moving towards the direction of the door. Of course, I realized what an amount of trouble I could get into if there happened to be someone in the room at the moment, but it was during lunchtime, as I had decided to skip lunch to work on mind levitation, as for my current skill in the area was quite low. Quietly, I grasped the door handle and twisted it, opening the door a crack and poking my head in.
Nobody was currently occupying the room besides the stranger himself, asleep in a bed in the corner, adjacent to a window, sunlight streaming down onto a troubled face. The room looked like a common bedroom for a Grundo-just a bed, and perhaps a small table that contained a precious few items on it. The bed was very large, yet the stranger's feet still overlapped the bed, hanging off in a very awkward manner. Very little had changed in his appearance since I had seen him last, besides the oddly bent arm in a sling, a few bandages scattered here and there, his cloths lying on the table and a bandage covering his right eye. Slowly, I entered the room, closing the door behind me.
I snuck in, knowing I was trespassing. Adrenaline shot through my veins at the excitement, and I moved right up to the stranger's bed, my eyes unblinking as I inspected him. Everything about him was absolutely fascinating to me, although he did slightly resemble a very oddly shaped Grundo. I desired to wake him to ask him a plethora of questions, but knew that that would be risky at best, and probably should not be attempted. Tiptoeing from his bedside, I moved over to the table, running my fingers over the black cloths that he had been wearing. They were rough, though just freshly cleaned. On top of them was set a strip of white, longer than the notch had originally been. I picked this up, inspecting it carefully, tasting it, feeling it, smelling it.
"I don't enjoy people licking my attire, miss."
I nearly jumped at the voice, a deep, rich tone, much different from any Grundian voice. He spoke in that language that was not my native tongue, but still understandable, strangely enough. My head snapped over to the stranger, who was sitting comfortably on the bed, his arms crossed over his chest.
"I.I." I began, my eyes wide, heart thundering.
"Well, you're a new one, aren't you," he commented flatly, lifting an eyebrow. "With the hide of stars. Interesting."
"M.my name is C-c." I spoke the language almost effortlessly, if it had not been for my frightened stutter. He waited patiently for my answer, his one uncovered eye looking quite amused. ".Citali," I managed to stutter out, and dropped the white thing that I had been holding.
"Well, Citali, you may call me Father Frank Sloth. Just Frank is preferred, though. I don't expect you to know anything, or want to convert to, the religion I preach," stated the stranger. "Tell me, Citali, because nobody else will-where in the universe is your dignified planet located? Unfortunately, the little escape pod's radar went out as I left the galaxy Faerieland resides in."
"G-g-galaxy?" I stuttered, unfamiliar with the world.
"Yes, you know. The systems inside the universe, much larger than a solar system. Some spin, some don't spin.well, to tell you the truth, I don't know very much about the galaxies. Religion likes to think of its creatures as the center of the universe-I only recently discovered such things from the Space Faerie," explained Frank, his eye looking especially disturbed when he said 'Space Faerie.' I had very little idea of what he was talking about. "Thankfully, I have learned much on my travels-enough to know that you orbit around a red giant star."
"R-r-red giant?"
"No need to explain that now. Oh, I suppose you don't know as much as I would like. Anyway, you don't seem to be an adult of your species," he said, his tone mild.
"A-actually, I'm not supposed to be in here.you won't tell, will you?" I squeaked, nervous.
"No. What would it do to my benefit, anyway?" he said with a shrug. "I am but a stranger in a strange land."
"Wh-what are you?"
"Me? I am a faerie, albeit a wingless, male, mutated one at that. The mutant part is entirely not my fault-heredity has dealt me a lousy hand," he responded calmly with a bit of a wince. "Which is partially why I had to resort to being a holy man-if you're on the other end of a confessional 70% of the day, and the majority of faeries don't confess any of their sins, it's a pretty safe bet not to many people will see your face that often. Wingless, I'm afraid, is entirely my fault-some sins are unforgivable, despite what our laws say. And as for male-well, I suppose God messes up on all female species at times. What other way would they reproduce?" he asked, his question clearly rhetorical. "Well, now that you know a little bit more about me, what would you, pray tell, be? I can't even manage that out of my secretive healers."
"I am a Grundo," I responded lamely. "Starry Female Grundo seer." What else could I say? There was nothing extraordinary about myself-I wasn't good at playing any kind of Grundo sport, or had any hobbies. I was still in training as far as seers went, and hadn't developed a specialty, as many other Grundo seers had. The information, however, seemed to be enough for Frank.
"Then your species is Grundo. Never heard of them, not even from the Space Faerie. Peculiar." He looked out the window idly. "Do you by chance know what they did to my escape pod?"
"Your what?"
"You know, the thing I traveled in. Metallic, sort of round. Fell into the water, made a large splash. Also happened to run out of oxygen just as I came towards your planet, but that's another point entirely."
"The meteor?"
"Oh, dear, it's far from being a meteor. Traveling through space in rock would be very inconvenient."
"Yes." I fidgeted slightly, shifting my weight. "A few Grundo seers are currently studying it for research purposes." That had also caught my attention, and I made a mental note to check that out as well. Frank, however, did not seem very pleased with his, a weary look coming onto his face. Sighing, he shook his head and laid back down on the bed, bending his legs so that his body actually fit on the whole of the bed, tilting his head so he could look out the window.
"Your planet is cold," he said with a slight shiver.
"It is?" I asked, but got no reply, as he had dropped back into a sleeping state. Finding this as my cue to leave, I tiptoed back to the door and opened it, checking the hallway before slipping out. A sense of joy rushed through me-probably mostly from getting away with something that I wasn't supposed to, which was a natural high. And this stranger only interested me more-intriguing something inside of me. I wanted to know more about where he came from, what he was, what was this 'religion' he spoke of. (Grundos are not a religious species-if we have any "god" it may as well have been our sun.)
But at the moment, my stomach had been bothering me-and I hadn't even partially studied levitation. My hunger, however, won over my mind, and I found myself heading back home to make myself something for lunch.
"GIVE me that!"
The shouting could be heard all the way down the hallway, the voice loud and commanding, jarring me out of the meditation. Dipak, the Grundo seer which had been my teacher for the past three years of training, grimaced as he saw that my concentration had been broken. I had never been known for my attention span, and getting me to focus on something as dull as meditation usually took the majority of the lesson. That day I had gotten into the swing of things fairly quickly, but the voices easily jolted me out from the shallow meditation.
"B-but-is it some kind of weapon?"
"Are you an imbecile? It's an instrument-this is the bow, this is the cello, and that sharp stick on the end of the cello you're so phobic of is called an end pin. If my arm weren't in this unfortunate condition, I would be able to show you a sample of the music it can produce. I'm surprised that it's in such good condition from such a rough landing-even still decently tuned."
"Instrument? Music?"
"Don't tell me you've never heard music before. Even primitive species such as the humans in the Milky Way have a KIND of music-although it's mostly just beating random things to get a pitch. You're telling me you don't even have drums?"
"I'm sorry, it's nothing that we're familiar with."
My connection to the conversation was cut off as Dipak closed the door, obviously seeing that I was much more interested in the exchange between Frank and another Grundo seer than my lessons. Dipak returned to his seat, crossing his legs. "Now, let's try this again, okay?" he asked, his voice level, although carrying a bit of irritation underneath the false calm. Mentally, I sighed, and closed my eyes, forcing myself to drift away into darkness.
The days passed, but my interest in the stranger named Frank did not wean at all. He was beginning to wander out of the Great Hall much more frequently, much to the dismay of the seers overlooking his welfare. The villagers, however, did not seem to be shocked by the presence of an organism that was not of their species-in fact, most of the Green colored villagers were quite attracted to Frank, probably recognizing him looking remotely like themselves and followed after him, sometimes into the Great Hall itself. Slowly, the man healed, his arm soon functioning quite well. He insisted that he be able to use the escape pod as a temporary home, just outside of the village. I watched his actions from afar, never approaching him directly from that day which I had spoken to him. Yet there was that undeniable attraction to him that kept me sending longing looks towards the blackened metallic (as he called it, whatever metal was) escape pod, so much so that Dipak called me 'impossible' at least four times during lessons a day.
I finally found the guts to at least approach the escape pod one day, a few green Grundo villagers following after me. I wasn't quite fond on Grundos that weren't seers, as they were difficult to communicate with and even worse to keep a conversation with, but I tolerated them, as all seers were required to do. As I came closer to the escape pod, a peculiar noise flooded into my ears. It wasn't your average, everyday Grundo-at-work noise, or some kind produced by nature. No, it was flowing like a river, yet containing many different pitches, as a Grundo bird would. It left me stunned, stopping in my tracks, my senses astounded. The green Grundos did not seem concerned, however, smiling widely and quite blankly, crooning along in cracky tones, doing nearly the same thing with their vocal chords. My look of astonishment shifted to them, and I hardly noticed that the sound had stopped, as the Grundo villagers hadn't.
"Well, well, look who comes for a visit." I whipped around, nearly causing harm to my neck. Sitting on top of the escape pod comfortably was Frank, a very odd looking hunk of wood held nimbly in his blunt fingers, his other hand holding what almost looked like a spear, though significantly less sharp. A whimsical smile danced across his face, his expression almost laughing. My ear stalks felt very hot, and I knew that I was blushing. "It's been a while."
"What.what was that?" I asked, unable to ask anything else. The sounds still lingered in the back of my mind, hauntingly beautiful. Frank lifted an eyebrow.
"What, you mean this?" he asked, and pressed the spear-like object against the hunk of wood and pulled it across, his left hand's fingers trembling across the thin part of the block of wood. The sound began again, and I found myself paralyzed. He laughed audibly then, stopping the sound by lifting the spear from the wood. "It's called music, Citali. You Grundos certainly are strange little creatures, having not heard music. Your companions seem to like it well enough," he said, cocking his head to the side. "And your opinion?"
"I.er," I muttered, the flush staying on my face. I couldn't think of a thing to say now that I was confronted face to face with him. "It's.nice," I managed to blurt out, unable to describe it in any other way. It had been as if a bolt of lightning had smashed into my ears, producing something that I couldn't even imagine. And how could the villager Grundos reproduce that sound with their voices? It baffled me. How did the seers not know of such a thing? It seemed so utterly simple at first glance-although I hadn't known the complexity of such an instrument at the time to produce a solid sound, there was a sudden passion for such a mysterious sound, keeping with me even through its absence, almost.catchy.
"Would you care to come in?" he asked, waving a hand idly towards the door, still stationed on top of the metallic meteor, or rather, escape pod. It seemed larger than I had remembered it, expanded on the sides, certainly more homely than it had originally been. I nodded fiercely, perhaps appearing more desperate than I had intended. He opened the door and slipped down inside, and I followed after him, scrambling up the side of the escape pod clumsily and falling inside, landing hard on my back end.
What I found inside was not quite what I expected. My eyes were treated to a delicacy for the seeing, although I could not make a lick of sense of it at the time. I had not fallen onto the ground, but instead into a soft, green-colored chair made for a figure significantly larger than my size, dwarfing me. My feet barely even hung over the edge. In front of me was a blank white screen, accompanied by a multitude of switches and buttons, a control panel that was absolutely mind boggling. Behind the chair, which swiveled, much to my delight, was about the same amount of switches and gadgets. I stared, open-mouthed.
"Don't worry, it took me three years of wandering space to figure out her out," consoled Frank, his hand patting the top of the chair. "But this isn't my home-this is just a remnant of my past decade. My past few weeks, however, have been spent here." Ushering me out of the chair, he showed me the two rooms that had been built onto either side of the escape pod, though I was not exactly sure how he had managed such a feat. One side seemed to be a bedroom, complete with somewhere to lie and a few artifacts that I assumed were for his religion, for they did not look like things of comfort. The other side he seemed more hesitant to show to me, but did anyway.
It was, again, as something I had never seen-almost out of some kind of Grundo tale. There was a constant stream of noise from there, but not of a musical nature-it was the sound of snapping bubbles and other various chemicals bubbling, many different test tubes set up over steaming trays. For some reason, it struck me as more sac religious then a holy man should be doing.
"What are these?" I dared to ask, my face reflected in contorted shapes on the polished glass.
"Oh-just some hobbies. Nothing huge," he said hurriedly. "Although religion is officially my job, I can't help but delve in something that challenges the thing that I depend on the most. Besides, there happened to be some spare strontium and uranium lying around in the escape pod," he commented innocently. (It didn't matter to me really; I hadn't a clue what those elements were, or even what elements were at all. And if I had known what strontium was, I would probably not have tried to get as close as I had been in those moments.)
"Why did those Grundo villagers follow me here?" I asked, a bit confused on that subject.
"Oh.them. They've been visiting lately-I think they believe me to be one of their long lost ancestors. Besides, I promised them a little gift." he said with a shrug, "and they've been gunning for it the moment I got out of the Great Hall. Oh well. I have bigger fish to fry at the moment," he said, waving his hand dismissively towards the outside of the escape pod. "How have you been faring? I understand you're undergoing some sort of training.?"
"Horribly. I can't focus on anything anymore-minor little things distract me. It's completely inappropriate for a Grundo seer such as myself.we need to be able to concentrate on any one thing at a time," I said with a long sigh. I didn't completely know why I was answering his question. It just seemed when he asked something I was obligated to answer- something about the way he presented a question.
"Maybe you're not suited for being a seer then, eh?" he suggested. "Sometimes we are literally born into things we want nothing of-despite this," he began, tugging at the white notch at his neck, "-I never wanted anything to do with that God of the faeries. I wanted to see the stars, to love, to explore the universe.but unfortunately, this also greatly limits me to a single life putting faith in nothing but an invisible deity," he said bitterly, his fists clenching. "Yet faeries are a species of vanity. Without such, one has very few options."
For a moment, there seemed to be someone different in the room than Frank. A darkness filled the room, seeming to come from Frank himself, his red eyes narrowed to mere slits. "But maybe.there is another option." he said, his voice soft yet sinister, a smile slowly creeping across his lips. It was not the man that I had watched from afar in that room for that terrifying moment, but another, something that had been hiding behind a mask of holiness, of kindness. But no, it had not been a mask, for this was another person entirely, unknown to myself.
But much to my relief, this person went away quickly, replaced by the Frank that I had been talking with only moments earlier. He covered his face with one of his hands, breathing in deeply. "My apologies.I don't know what came over me for a second. I was just.remembering."
"Dare I ask what?"
"If you must," he said gravely, the color seeming to drain from his face. He moved backwards and collapsed into the chair, suddenly looking very old and tired. "I did not leave Faerieland-that's where my homeland is- out of choice. I left.because I had to. I was running away."
"Why?"
"It's difficult to explain. I must start from the beginning." He turned to the control panel for a moment, staring at it blankly, seemingly trying to regain his strength. Finally, he pressed his hand against a flat panel, and life sprang to the white screen. The image on the screen seemed to expand from being merely a flat surface to surrounding the two of us, leaving Frank and myself in a white expanse. "It's better if it is explained in this way.it is difficult to convey what happened merely through words." His hands seemed to press nothing, only air, but immediately Frank and the blankness were washed away, and I was elsewhere, somewhere I did not recognize.
Curiosity, at that time, had been yet another one of my many weaknesses. It had accounted for many of my toddler escapades, and would do the same in my adolescent age. However, as a toddler was "cute" when it is waddling around, exploring new places, an adolescent prying into places where she is not supposed to be is infinitely less cute, and arguably a pest. Yet I had never really cared what others thought of me, be it a nuisance or an asset, so usually went along with whatever I felt like, unless it would involve being removed from seer training.
The area in which they kept the stranger was strictly off-limits to anyone who did not work with the healing arts and who had not been instructed that they would participate in the assistance of the stranger. This made little difference to me-a burning desire to know what was occurring inside that small room, so obviously unlocked, (as Grundos were very trusting creatures for the most part, even seers) grew over the few days afterwards, and soon was like a sore thumb in my side. I was distracted by it during everything-emotion control sessions, meditation, dinner-you name it, I thought about the stranger during that time.
And finally one day I could not contain my interest anymore, and found it nearly taking over my body, my limbs finding themselves moving towards the direction of the door. Of course, I realized what an amount of trouble I could get into if there happened to be someone in the room at the moment, but it was during lunchtime, as I had decided to skip lunch to work on mind levitation, as for my current skill in the area was quite low. Quietly, I grasped the door handle and twisted it, opening the door a crack and poking my head in.
Nobody was currently occupying the room besides the stranger himself, asleep in a bed in the corner, adjacent to a window, sunlight streaming down onto a troubled face. The room looked like a common bedroom for a Grundo-just a bed, and perhaps a small table that contained a precious few items on it. The bed was very large, yet the stranger's feet still overlapped the bed, hanging off in a very awkward manner. Very little had changed in his appearance since I had seen him last, besides the oddly bent arm in a sling, a few bandages scattered here and there, his cloths lying on the table and a bandage covering his right eye. Slowly, I entered the room, closing the door behind me.
I snuck in, knowing I was trespassing. Adrenaline shot through my veins at the excitement, and I moved right up to the stranger's bed, my eyes unblinking as I inspected him. Everything about him was absolutely fascinating to me, although he did slightly resemble a very oddly shaped Grundo. I desired to wake him to ask him a plethora of questions, but knew that that would be risky at best, and probably should not be attempted. Tiptoeing from his bedside, I moved over to the table, running my fingers over the black cloths that he had been wearing. They were rough, though just freshly cleaned. On top of them was set a strip of white, longer than the notch had originally been. I picked this up, inspecting it carefully, tasting it, feeling it, smelling it.
"I don't enjoy people licking my attire, miss."
I nearly jumped at the voice, a deep, rich tone, much different from any Grundian voice. He spoke in that language that was not my native tongue, but still understandable, strangely enough. My head snapped over to the stranger, who was sitting comfortably on the bed, his arms crossed over his chest.
"I.I." I began, my eyes wide, heart thundering.
"Well, you're a new one, aren't you," he commented flatly, lifting an eyebrow. "With the hide of stars. Interesting."
"M.my name is C-c." I spoke the language almost effortlessly, if it had not been for my frightened stutter. He waited patiently for my answer, his one uncovered eye looking quite amused. ".Citali," I managed to stutter out, and dropped the white thing that I had been holding.
"Well, Citali, you may call me Father Frank Sloth. Just Frank is preferred, though. I don't expect you to know anything, or want to convert to, the religion I preach," stated the stranger. "Tell me, Citali, because nobody else will-where in the universe is your dignified planet located? Unfortunately, the little escape pod's radar went out as I left the galaxy Faerieland resides in."
"G-g-galaxy?" I stuttered, unfamiliar with the world.
"Yes, you know. The systems inside the universe, much larger than a solar system. Some spin, some don't spin.well, to tell you the truth, I don't know very much about the galaxies. Religion likes to think of its creatures as the center of the universe-I only recently discovered such things from the Space Faerie," explained Frank, his eye looking especially disturbed when he said 'Space Faerie.' I had very little idea of what he was talking about. "Thankfully, I have learned much on my travels-enough to know that you orbit around a red giant star."
"R-r-red giant?"
"No need to explain that now. Oh, I suppose you don't know as much as I would like. Anyway, you don't seem to be an adult of your species," he said, his tone mild.
"A-actually, I'm not supposed to be in here.you won't tell, will you?" I squeaked, nervous.
"No. What would it do to my benefit, anyway?" he said with a shrug. "I am but a stranger in a strange land."
"Wh-what are you?"
"Me? I am a faerie, albeit a wingless, male, mutated one at that. The mutant part is entirely not my fault-heredity has dealt me a lousy hand," he responded calmly with a bit of a wince. "Which is partially why I had to resort to being a holy man-if you're on the other end of a confessional 70% of the day, and the majority of faeries don't confess any of their sins, it's a pretty safe bet not to many people will see your face that often. Wingless, I'm afraid, is entirely my fault-some sins are unforgivable, despite what our laws say. And as for male-well, I suppose God messes up on all female species at times. What other way would they reproduce?" he asked, his question clearly rhetorical. "Well, now that you know a little bit more about me, what would you, pray tell, be? I can't even manage that out of my secretive healers."
"I am a Grundo," I responded lamely. "Starry Female Grundo seer." What else could I say? There was nothing extraordinary about myself-I wasn't good at playing any kind of Grundo sport, or had any hobbies. I was still in training as far as seers went, and hadn't developed a specialty, as many other Grundo seers had. The information, however, seemed to be enough for Frank.
"Then your species is Grundo. Never heard of them, not even from the Space Faerie. Peculiar." He looked out the window idly. "Do you by chance know what they did to my escape pod?"
"Your what?"
"You know, the thing I traveled in. Metallic, sort of round. Fell into the water, made a large splash. Also happened to run out of oxygen just as I came towards your planet, but that's another point entirely."
"The meteor?"
"Oh, dear, it's far from being a meteor. Traveling through space in rock would be very inconvenient."
"Yes." I fidgeted slightly, shifting my weight. "A few Grundo seers are currently studying it for research purposes." That had also caught my attention, and I made a mental note to check that out as well. Frank, however, did not seem very pleased with his, a weary look coming onto his face. Sighing, he shook his head and laid back down on the bed, bending his legs so that his body actually fit on the whole of the bed, tilting his head so he could look out the window.
"Your planet is cold," he said with a slight shiver.
"It is?" I asked, but got no reply, as he had dropped back into a sleeping state. Finding this as my cue to leave, I tiptoed back to the door and opened it, checking the hallway before slipping out. A sense of joy rushed through me-probably mostly from getting away with something that I wasn't supposed to, which was a natural high. And this stranger only interested me more-intriguing something inside of me. I wanted to know more about where he came from, what he was, what was this 'religion' he spoke of. (Grundos are not a religious species-if we have any "god" it may as well have been our sun.)
But at the moment, my stomach had been bothering me-and I hadn't even partially studied levitation. My hunger, however, won over my mind, and I found myself heading back home to make myself something for lunch.
"GIVE me that!"
The shouting could be heard all the way down the hallway, the voice loud and commanding, jarring me out of the meditation. Dipak, the Grundo seer which had been my teacher for the past three years of training, grimaced as he saw that my concentration had been broken. I had never been known for my attention span, and getting me to focus on something as dull as meditation usually took the majority of the lesson. That day I had gotten into the swing of things fairly quickly, but the voices easily jolted me out from the shallow meditation.
"B-but-is it some kind of weapon?"
"Are you an imbecile? It's an instrument-this is the bow, this is the cello, and that sharp stick on the end of the cello you're so phobic of is called an end pin. If my arm weren't in this unfortunate condition, I would be able to show you a sample of the music it can produce. I'm surprised that it's in such good condition from such a rough landing-even still decently tuned."
"Instrument? Music?"
"Don't tell me you've never heard music before. Even primitive species such as the humans in the Milky Way have a KIND of music-although it's mostly just beating random things to get a pitch. You're telling me you don't even have drums?"
"I'm sorry, it's nothing that we're familiar with."
My connection to the conversation was cut off as Dipak closed the door, obviously seeing that I was much more interested in the exchange between Frank and another Grundo seer than my lessons. Dipak returned to his seat, crossing his legs. "Now, let's try this again, okay?" he asked, his voice level, although carrying a bit of irritation underneath the false calm. Mentally, I sighed, and closed my eyes, forcing myself to drift away into darkness.
The days passed, but my interest in the stranger named Frank did not wean at all. He was beginning to wander out of the Great Hall much more frequently, much to the dismay of the seers overlooking his welfare. The villagers, however, did not seem to be shocked by the presence of an organism that was not of their species-in fact, most of the Green colored villagers were quite attracted to Frank, probably recognizing him looking remotely like themselves and followed after him, sometimes into the Great Hall itself. Slowly, the man healed, his arm soon functioning quite well. He insisted that he be able to use the escape pod as a temporary home, just outside of the village. I watched his actions from afar, never approaching him directly from that day which I had spoken to him. Yet there was that undeniable attraction to him that kept me sending longing looks towards the blackened metallic (as he called it, whatever metal was) escape pod, so much so that Dipak called me 'impossible' at least four times during lessons a day.
I finally found the guts to at least approach the escape pod one day, a few green Grundo villagers following after me. I wasn't quite fond on Grundos that weren't seers, as they were difficult to communicate with and even worse to keep a conversation with, but I tolerated them, as all seers were required to do. As I came closer to the escape pod, a peculiar noise flooded into my ears. It wasn't your average, everyday Grundo-at-work noise, or some kind produced by nature. No, it was flowing like a river, yet containing many different pitches, as a Grundo bird would. It left me stunned, stopping in my tracks, my senses astounded. The green Grundos did not seem concerned, however, smiling widely and quite blankly, crooning along in cracky tones, doing nearly the same thing with their vocal chords. My look of astonishment shifted to them, and I hardly noticed that the sound had stopped, as the Grundo villagers hadn't.
"Well, well, look who comes for a visit." I whipped around, nearly causing harm to my neck. Sitting on top of the escape pod comfortably was Frank, a very odd looking hunk of wood held nimbly in his blunt fingers, his other hand holding what almost looked like a spear, though significantly less sharp. A whimsical smile danced across his face, his expression almost laughing. My ear stalks felt very hot, and I knew that I was blushing. "It's been a while."
"What.what was that?" I asked, unable to ask anything else. The sounds still lingered in the back of my mind, hauntingly beautiful. Frank lifted an eyebrow.
"What, you mean this?" he asked, and pressed the spear-like object against the hunk of wood and pulled it across, his left hand's fingers trembling across the thin part of the block of wood. The sound began again, and I found myself paralyzed. He laughed audibly then, stopping the sound by lifting the spear from the wood. "It's called music, Citali. You Grundos certainly are strange little creatures, having not heard music. Your companions seem to like it well enough," he said, cocking his head to the side. "And your opinion?"
"I.er," I muttered, the flush staying on my face. I couldn't think of a thing to say now that I was confronted face to face with him. "It's.nice," I managed to blurt out, unable to describe it in any other way. It had been as if a bolt of lightning had smashed into my ears, producing something that I couldn't even imagine. And how could the villager Grundos reproduce that sound with their voices? It baffled me. How did the seers not know of such a thing? It seemed so utterly simple at first glance-although I hadn't known the complexity of such an instrument at the time to produce a solid sound, there was a sudden passion for such a mysterious sound, keeping with me even through its absence, almost.catchy.
"Would you care to come in?" he asked, waving a hand idly towards the door, still stationed on top of the metallic meteor, or rather, escape pod. It seemed larger than I had remembered it, expanded on the sides, certainly more homely than it had originally been. I nodded fiercely, perhaps appearing more desperate than I had intended. He opened the door and slipped down inside, and I followed after him, scrambling up the side of the escape pod clumsily and falling inside, landing hard on my back end.
What I found inside was not quite what I expected. My eyes were treated to a delicacy for the seeing, although I could not make a lick of sense of it at the time. I had not fallen onto the ground, but instead into a soft, green-colored chair made for a figure significantly larger than my size, dwarfing me. My feet barely even hung over the edge. In front of me was a blank white screen, accompanied by a multitude of switches and buttons, a control panel that was absolutely mind boggling. Behind the chair, which swiveled, much to my delight, was about the same amount of switches and gadgets. I stared, open-mouthed.
"Don't worry, it took me three years of wandering space to figure out her out," consoled Frank, his hand patting the top of the chair. "But this isn't my home-this is just a remnant of my past decade. My past few weeks, however, have been spent here." Ushering me out of the chair, he showed me the two rooms that had been built onto either side of the escape pod, though I was not exactly sure how he had managed such a feat. One side seemed to be a bedroom, complete with somewhere to lie and a few artifacts that I assumed were for his religion, for they did not look like things of comfort. The other side he seemed more hesitant to show to me, but did anyway.
It was, again, as something I had never seen-almost out of some kind of Grundo tale. There was a constant stream of noise from there, but not of a musical nature-it was the sound of snapping bubbles and other various chemicals bubbling, many different test tubes set up over steaming trays. For some reason, it struck me as more sac religious then a holy man should be doing.
"What are these?" I dared to ask, my face reflected in contorted shapes on the polished glass.
"Oh-just some hobbies. Nothing huge," he said hurriedly. "Although religion is officially my job, I can't help but delve in something that challenges the thing that I depend on the most. Besides, there happened to be some spare strontium and uranium lying around in the escape pod," he commented innocently. (It didn't matter to me really; I hadn't a clue what those elements were, or even what elements were at all. And if I had known what strontium was, I would probably not have tried to get as close as I had been in those moments.)
"Why did those Grundo villagers follow me here?" I asked, a bit confused on that subject.
"Oh.them. They've been visiting lately-I think they believe me to be one of their long lost ancestors. Besides, I promised them a little gift." he said with a shrug, "and they've been gunning for it the moment I got out of the Great Hall. Oh well. I have bigger fish to fry at the moment," he said, waving his hand dismissively towards the outside of the escape pod. "How have you been faring? I understand you're undergoing some sort of training.?"
"Horribly. I can't focus on anything anymore-minor little things distract me. It's completely inappropriate for a Grundo seer such as myself.we need to be able to concentrate on any one thing at a time," I said with a long sigh. I didn't completely know why I was answering his question. It just seemed when he asked something I was obligated to answer- something about the way he presented a question.
"Maybe you're not suited for being a seer then, eh?" he suggested. "Sometimes we are literally born into things we want nothing of-despite this," he began, tugging at the white notch at his neck, "-I never wanted anything to do with that God of the faeries. I wanted to see the stars, to love, to explore the universe.but unfortunately, this also greatly limits me to a single life putting faith in nothing but an invisible deity," he said bitterly, his fists clenching. "Yet faeries are a species of vanity. Without such, one has very few options."
For a moment, there seemed to be someone different in the room than Frank. A darkness filled the room, seeming to come from Frank himself, his red eyes narrowed to mere slits. "But maybe.there is another option." he said, his voice soft yet sinister, a smile slowly creeping across his lips. It was not the man that I had watched from afar in that room for that terrifying moment, but another, something that had been hiding behind a mask of holiness, of kindness. But no, it had not been a mask, for this was another person entirely, unknown to myself.
But much to my relief, this person went away quickly, replaced by the Frank that I had been talking with only moments earlier. He covered his face with one of his hands, breathing in deeply. "My apologies.I don't know what came over me for a second. I was just.remembering."
"Dare I ask what?"
"If you must," he said gravely, the color seeming to drain from his face. He moved backwards and collapsed into the chair, suddenly looking very old and tired. "I did not leave Faerieland-that's where my homeland is- out of choice. I left.because I had to. I was running away."
"Why?"
"It's difficult to explain. I must start from the beginning." He turned to the control panel for a moment, staring at it blankly, seemingly trying to regain his strength. Finally, he pressed his hand against a flat panel, and life sprang to the white screen. The image on the screen seemed to expand from being merely a flat surface to surrounding the two of us, leaving Frank and myself in a white expanse. "It's better if it is explained in this way.it is difficult to convey what happened merely through words." His hands seemed to press nothing, only air, but immediately Frank and the blankness were washed away, and I was elsewhere, somewhere I did not recognize.