Ja Maiu on naasenud kirjutamise juurde! Ülimalt hea meel seda ütelda. :) Ning nõnda võtsingi kätte selle alustatud kirjatüki, mis mul kõik need aastad peas on olnud kuid kuidagi paberile pole jõudnud, tõlkisin ümber ning laiendasin, seega siit tuleb uus versioon 'Latrodeniumist'.
Chapter one
’Good night!’ I said to my parents before I went to my room and jumped into my bed. I pulled the blanket one myself and closed my eyes. I felt how the fatigue made its impression on me by pushing my consciousness further and further behind in my mind.
Something light shone into my eyes so I opened them slowly to see the cause of it. Quickly I covered my eyes with my hand because the brightness blinded my momentarily. Automatically I motioned to push away the blanket to go and see what was going on, when my fingers couldn’t grasp anything. I tried again, felt on and around myself with my other hand but the only thing I touched was the surface on which I was lying, and that wasn’t soft comfortable mattress I was used to sleeping on. I reached my hand behind me to lean upon it in order to get up. My eyes were slowly starting to adjust to the environment and my sight went a couple of metres beyond the tip of my nose. I was thinking abashed where I had appeared, because everything looked so green, so fresh and young! When seeing further and further around myself, I could not understand where my healthy spring mattress had disappeared with my newly changed bedding.
‘Hello?!’ I yelled to find someone else in this off world. I did not receive an answer in a language I knew but a loud shrieking voice did sound from the distance. It resembled the noise of a vulture but something in this environment did not match with that picture. Large shrubs everywhere on otherwise uneven ground covered with bright green grass. Gigantic ferns, palm, mammoth and other trees were sprawling all around me. The location where I had woken appeared to be a more or less even cliff surface covered with thick layer of moss. As long as my eye could tell, there was pure nature everywhere, the sky was deep blue and constant light breeze was cooling down the heat from the unnaturally closely locating sun. When I finally noticed and observed it, I could see exactly that the source of light was moving. When I had woken up, it shone directly from the trees but at that moment it was already further right behind another tree.
The whole time I just stood at the same place and stared at my surroundings, that oh so impossible place. Huge ferns?? Too illogical to be reality. Suddenly there was a shriek, a cry for help from the distance, followed by a smashing sound and awful silence. I walked towards the sounds when I was suddenly being addressed.
‘A lost soul?’ someone said. I moved my eyes towards the voice. To my surprise I couldn’t see any humans around me, anywhere at all, but the most logical source of the speech was a centaur – half-horse from the main body and half-human from the upper body. Startled, it took me a few seconds to think of a response.
‘I’m afraid soul is the only thing that is still left. Mind, however, seems to have gone a long time ago already,’ I answered him carefully. Just to be sure, I let my glance go around just one more time and then stopped again at the animal, but this time with fear. Centaur? I asked myself in my thoughts but it seemed that there was nothing left to provide an answer. It seemed unfathomable what was going on, where I had ended up, but even more importantly – why?
‘This just cannot be real,’ I uttered when starting to back up with utmost fright in my eyes.
‘But of course it can. You’re not from around here, I take it?’ he said with a jolly look in his eyes, constantly following me with his glance and taking small steps towards me, not showing any sign whatsoever of attempt to hurt me or do anything I could interpret as negative.
‘No, don’t! Leave! You’re just my imagination. For God sake, I have never even tried drugs in my life!’ I wailed without knowing whether I said it out loud or only in my head as I could not understand how a centaur could be standing right in front of me and acting as if it was another beautiful Sunday morning. However I was left with a feeling that he could hear me. Oddly enough that still didn’t give me insurance that I had actually uttered those words. I turned around and started to run as quickly as my legs would allow it. While doing so I could hear the galloping sound following me but I did not waste any time looking for the source of it. It seemed to me that the trees were getting more tenuous, but I could as well have imagined that on top of everything. I suddenly started feeling slightly dizzy as if my head was going around and around in circles. My running speed decreased and eyesight blurred quickly. Total weight of my body pushed upon my feet and the carrying force decreased significantly until I could not move another inch. I flopped down, heard the galloping sounds fade away and before I knew I had fainted.
‘So you just found him in the forest?’
‘Yes, he walked straight to me and in a moment ran away in a terrified motion.’
‘Why did he... wait, wait! I think he’s waking up!’
I opened my eyes slowly, being positively surprised that the bright light was not there to blind me once again. Slowly I started to distinguish the figures above me: one centaur certainly, two females and one especially jolly looking man. I blinked my eyes and as soon as I understood what I was just thinking, I put my hands behind me and rose to a half-sitting position trying to slowly back away from them. It was clear from my expression how scared and confused I was.
‘Hey, there, big guy, relax! Watch it, don’t think you want to hurt yourself, right,’ said the centaur carefully. My sight got clearer and the surprise even bigger when I saw that the women’s hair was so long that they reached the ground when they were squatting next to me; it was also covering their otherwise naked bodies. The looks on their faces were so helpful and kind that I could not help but indeed relax a bit. For a moment I looked at the centaur after which my eyes moved to the fourth companion. He was incredibly short and hairy: brown beard to the hip, messy curly hair to the waist waiting a funny hat that’s sharp end had fallen down with the weight.
‘W-w.... Who are you?’ I finally uttered. ‘Where am I?’
‘This,’ said the centaur when motioning around us with his human hands ‘is Latrodenium.’
‘The only planet in Tholdrer’s galaxy,’ continued one woman.
‘A place that’s discovery would never bore you,’ added the other brown-haired woman. ‘By the way, I’m Ingyon,’ she said and stretched her hand gracefully towards me, which I slowly and carefully accepted and shook.
‘Etzimal,’ said the other woman presumably of same species as Ingyon.
‘Alexander von Triff,’ I had finally the courage to present myself, but could not help but ask: ‘who are you?’
‘Tree-nymphs,’ answered the golden-haired woman Etzimal.
‘Nymphs?’ I echoed with surprise and got yet another confirmation with both of them nodding strongly with their heads. ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ I said in hope that a more reasonable answer would then be made clear to me but they did not seem to be grasping the oddity of the situation, of this place and everything I had encountered since I had fallen asleep on my nice and comfy bed last night.
‘Falbir, dwarf,’ decided the small man not to make a fuzz about the state of mind I was in.
‘Nehorit, centaur, as you might have guessed,’ he said laughing as if trying to present himself in a very friendly manner. My expression was nonetheless still so utterly stunned that I had to remind myself to at least keep my lungs active and breathe in once in a while.
‘How are you feeling?’ asked Ingyon with a smile when touching my forehead. ‘Luckily there’s nothing serious as much as I can feel.’
‘ I'm fine, really, thanks,’ I said when trying to back up a bit more. My mind was going completely mental at the time without any chance of comprehending what was actually happening to me. I could have just sat there in this... Only then did I realise where I had ended up – on a glade at the edge of the forest. It looked a bit empty compared to the thick forest I had seen earlier, but even as the field was reasonably empty, it was still covered with grass and some sole bushes. I indeed could have just sat there staring the bit of the forest to my one side and every bit of the rest of the landscape to my other side, the deep blue cloudless sky above and living plants/animals all around me without still realising that it’s not a dream – I found it impossible to believe that I could have fainted in a dream and after such details spotted everywhere still be fast asleep actually in my bed on planet Earth. As they all had an expecting look in their eyes I felt the energy of the circle moving towards me so I felt the need to carry on the conversation, even though I was not exactly sure how to do that.
‘H-how can you exist?’ I finally uttered the question that had been lingering in my head for quite some time. I saw how Nehorit’s mouth opened to answer me but the noise of another pairs of hooves coming closer to us stopped him. It didn't take more than about ten seconds for us to eye one horse shape with a rider on him. As they got closer however I noticed a horn on the forehead of the ‘horse’. My otherwise smooth forehead got all wrinkly again as I also noticed long sharp-ended ears at the sides of the rider’s head. The boy rode right at us, stopped and looked at us with a cheerful curiosity.
‘Falbir, Nehorit, Etzimal, Ingyon,’ he greeted everybody with a slight nod with his head when his eyes stopped at me. ‘ I'm afraid I do not know you yet, however... human?’ he blurted with astonishment. ‘Must be the only one around here,’ he made more of a personal note than an overall observation. I was quite taken aback by these words as they increased the panicking feeling building up in my thoughts.
‘Are you trying to tell me, that there are no more humans here? B-b-but how will I get home? Where is home??’ I started to feel completely lost again, lost in an unknown place with unknown creatures of whom I had only read in children’s fantasy books without any mean to contact my family to let them know that I am safe and sound but just hopelessly lost in the unknown.
‘Humans?’ he laughed, ‘why? Why be a human when you can be absolutely anything and anyone you would want? And answer to your question – in Yarh’s village there is supposed to be a portal that can take you to a location you most desire, but whether it actually is there or what it looks like – my knowledge is limited. On other note – I’m Hugo Lanceleaf.’ He jumped off his ride and came towards me to shake my hand. He was unexpectedly short, only about 1.2 metres long with sharp from the top ears wearing a black fabric coat that was pulled together with a belt from the middle. He was also wearing wide baggy trousers underneath and no shoes whatsoever. I finally managed to get up and shook his ever-so-friendly hand when introducing myself to him.
‘And who exactly might you be?’ I tried asking politely with a bit raised eyebrow in a questioning manner.
‘The little people, elf, if you so insist,’ he answered in laughter. His ‘horse’ started to buck all of a sudden but he managed to calm him down with increased closeness between them and a few loving caresses from the top of his head. From the uttered words I could make out the ‘horse’s name was Travis. I was still staring at him in disbelief.
It took quite some time for me to start digesting everything that had been said and make sense – as much as it was possible – of it. ‘Why be human when you can be absolutely anything and anyone’ he had said. I could not fathom the meaning behind the words more than I could understand that this was a planet called Latrodenium. Surprisingly enough, at least the name got stuck in my head. With sarcasm I though how this would be a story to tell my grandchildren, with the assumption that there shall be such time following. Trying to remember all that had been said, I could make out that there were some sort of villages here, if they were defined like on Earth, I could cope with, if not then I had no idea what lay ahead. What I could set my mind on was finding the suburb called Yarh that was hopefully in charge of my only way home – the portal. Inevitably my mind got filled with different images of mirrors and colourful oval shapes that they go through like elastic water surface. Being buried deep in my own thoughts I already reasoned it all and was quite convinced that it would be possible.
‘Alex?’ asked Hugo with some concern when eyeing me. I raised my eyebrows in a questioning manner until I realised that I must have been quite far away when thinking so much.
‘How far is Earth from here?’ I decided to engage them in a conversation in order to ease their worry and gain some hopefully useful knowledge about my current situation.
‘Earth? I have only heard of it in myths and stories but no documented cases have been found of any evidence of the existence of such place, I have to say,’ he uttered peacefully. I was doubtlessly disappointed but in hope that others might know more of it I glanced at them one by one. When I got negative feedback from all of them, I sighed loudly and a bit desperately.
‘Then I’m left with no other choice but to go to this Yarh village and hope that I will find the portal to take me back home. Could anyone please point me to the right direction?’ I decided to concentrate at my biggest problem at the time instead of pondering any longer what the other words he had said actually mean or how, or even why such beings were inhabiting such a planet. However I could identify ignorance on all of their faces for they apparently did not even know where this village may be located. First one to speak was Nehorit.
‘I am truly sorry for I can not provide you with an answer that you seek. However, due to the nature of the lives here, I also would be the last fool to let you go on this journey that you are planning all alone without a comforting hand or a word of wisdom to ease the burden you seem to be bearing this instant. Consider my back as your loyal transportation to wherever we might go. I shall be helping you to find the village of Yarh and seek the portal from within it. You have my respect for adjusting to this situation as quickly as you have for not many make it past the first hour on this planet.’ To say that I was not moved by this altruistic behaviour would be a lie. Even though the words seemed to have taken out from a movie, I was in doubt that there even were such things here thus he must really mean them.
‘Honestly, you do not have to burden yourself with it. I do consider myself a young adult and can stand up for myself, whatever I may have to face, for I have no clue how I got here and only one thing in my mind is clear – I must return home.’ After having uttered these words I could not help but feel a bit like a hero.
‘Oh, so that’s the case?’ said Nehorit with a bit of a challenge in his voice. ‘What is your preparation thus far?’
‘I have had to stand up for myself at school, I am not sure what you know of these institutes but they can be a place for cruelty, mischief, lies and aggression. I have experienced it all but fought back and succeeded.’
‘But I can conclude that you have never conquered any winged beings or ones who breathe fire nor those who rule the forces of nature? No? That’s what I thought. Count me in, you cannot afford not to.’ I was really close to finding counterarguments but soon enough I realised that any experience of displeasure, pain, heat or other such is probably nothing compared to all the living creatures one might encounter on this still so unbelievable planet. Only then it hit me to question the way of me suddenly appearing here which made no sense whatsoever.
‘How did I get here?’ I uttered. A sudden silence took over the place as if they did not exactly know what to say neither who should say it. I raised an eyebrow and glanced at everyone one at a time. Nehorit as the first hu... being that I encountered took on the task and opened his mouth to speak, even though it took him several seconds to make sense of what he wanted to say.
‘Everyone’s journey is different, but even though they vary a lot, it never includes pain, fear, evil or other negative emotions. All those who are ready and chosen by the Council come here in the way that is the easiest for them.’ With these words I realised that none of them could tell me how I had come to being here. Only I have travelled the way that brought me to the point I was standing at that very instant and even though they have gone through a similar transportation or transformation, it has been a unique experience for every one of them. However, I was not bothered enough to start digging in my deepest thoughts in an attempt to try and memorise the path taken. After having realised that I was getting distracted from my main task, I made a proposal.
‘All right, if you really want to join me, I suggest we had better start going then.’
‘Wait!’ cried Hugo quickly. ‘I do understand that I am possibly not the best warrior, not that you would need one anyway on this planet, but I would be delighted to join you for the adventure that lay ahead. Shall we?’ he said in a jovial manner. I have to admit being taken aback by this gesture, be it for his or my sake. Nevertheless I reminded myself of the priorities in this situation and had to agree.
‘If you feel like you must then who am I to stop you?’
‘If this be the case then let us not waste any more of your precious time but rather start your farewell travel!’ Nehorit declared decisively. But then it struck me: all of them had indeed come here one way or another, but all of them were still there. I could not exclude the possibility that there might have been more of them before indeed, but I was left with the impression of there being many more than just them four. Despite my inner urge to just go, I took a moment and questioned them about it.
‘I don’t still understand one thing – why have none of you left?’ The nymphs were most eager to tell me their story thus Ingyon started to explain.
‘Our Elder nymph told us when we were born to this world that us being here has a bigger and more noble, if you please, purpose than we could ever imagine. Of course we were posed with the question whether to stay or begin our journey back but I was bewitched by the purity of this place and could not give up a chance of leading a completely different life on this planet. I have to say not a single day has passed when I had regretted this decision. I mean, just smell the air! It’s amazing, isn’t it?’ Etzimal was nodding eagerly when her ‘sister’ spoke.
‘That is true, Alexander von Triff, everyone has the choice to leave, this place is not keeping any one of us here against our will but we just lack the will to leave. Do not misunderstand me, however, no one is controlling our wishes or possibilities, it is our own conscious decision and up to no-one else to make, bear that in mind. I was too fascinated by the nature of Latrodenium. Every day there is something new to discover as it keeps on changing constantly as its inhabitants form it accordingly. The number of different species is increasing with every day for as long as I have lived here. I honestly have to say I feel blessed for the chance of being here, it is truly a unique place to experience life,’ explained Nehorit his point of view with reverence. I could see not complete agreement on Hugo’s facial expression and second after having felt the flow of energy towards him, he opened his mouth to carry on the conversation.
‘I do have to say that I have pondered about this grand question. When I woke up here, I was all alone in the Far Wood in utter silence. There was no-one there to introduce me to this place so admittedly I felt alone and the more I thought that I might have actually been alone the deeper the feeling went. Soon I figured that instead of killing myself with assumptions I might as well get over it and have a look around. As soon as I had made the decision I felt as light as a feather and had a surge of positive energy running through my body that assured me I was making the right decision. Thus I wondered about for quite a while in the woods, feasted on the delicious ripe fruits growing on the trees available for everyone to take as they please until the next day I found a couple of other elves. They took me under their wing and introduced me the land, the home, the history and the ways. I felt like a child again. But a child who’s longing for home, nonetheless, however much I enjoyed being here. The ways of living differ so much from what I used to experience. I mean, who thought of eating only fruits, right?!’ he laughed in between telling us his story. ‘But days passed and I began to see the beauty in all that was growing here. I’m not talking of just the visible beauty of the leaves of the trees or the straws of grass nor the fullness of every fruit you see growing on a tree, but the inner beauty, the doubtlessly wholesome energy every bit of this planet possessed. The way you can get your stomach full from only the purest energy from the sun, it is just magnificent beyond the words. And that’s how I started to see this as a blessing as well and appreciate the chance of being here so much that I would rather send all the healing energy I can to my home planet with my thoughts that will do it more good than me trying to convince the people there to believe in the existence of Latrodenium. Thus I decided to become an elf from the Khlordien village.’
This had proven to be altogether an educative little conversation; I was enthralled with the different stories they had to tell and I was completely caught up in their stories, their feelings had somehow carried on to me so that when the actual situation was reoccurring for them, the emotions arose as well and somehow I could feel exactly like they had. I found this fascinating beyond telling and thus when Hugo stopped talking the sudden emptiness took place inside of me. I did not understand why were my feelings playing such, but I felt a sudden need to make the conversation continue.
‘How about you, Falbir? ‘ I asked wanting to know his story as well.
‘Oh, you know, in the tunnels below the ground there’s not too much time to even think of such matters,’ said the dwarf. ‘Therefore I would rather give you some advice – do what your heart, hands and feet are doing. Just follow the feeling inside you that has guided you so far, you did make it here after all. No need to complicate matters in areas where it’s not needed.’
I knew I did not conceive all that was said in these few seconds, but I tried to at least memorise the words to recall later when they would make more sense to me. I answered with a kind smile as I knew they all had their best wishes at heart for me to find my way back because I so desired to return. I felt this overwhelming feeling of gratitude that a second after seemed to have carried out from my heart to all around me. Out of the blue I suddenly noticed a flower rising from the ground with phenomenal speed, it took literally three seconds for it to make its way out from the ground and blossom in the most beautiful colours I had ever seen. It seemed to have appeared there just for me, I felt like it was smiling straight at me encouragingly. My expression had changed within seconds from peacefulness to amazement of what had just happened.
‘How... Where did that flower just come from?’ I asked like a curious child from the people surrounding me.
‘You made it,’ said Hugo in pure admiration.
‘But how?’ I was still puzzled.
‘With your thoughts,’ he said simply.
‘How is that even possible?’
‘In this world, everything is possible,’ he answered with a wink, leaving me still with the ambiguous feeling from the unsolved mystery behind the words.
Pealkiri: Latrodenium (eng) 
22/2/2013, 23:41
