3. Chapter 3:
Chapter 3:
I spent the night in a bush. It was cold, and not at all pleasant, but I managed to keep the gloom away from me by thinking of all the great things that I would do once I returned to my village. My village was called Fhal, and nobody really knew much about its history. I remember being told tall tales by the older children back when I was young about the origin of the village. I soon learnt to disregard the dragons and kings, and acccept that it was veyr likely started by some goatherds, or pig farmers or somone otherwise just as ordinary and inunique as that.
Once the sprightly morning sun made itself seen over the horizon, I walked over to a local carriage spot, where you could hail carriages for a small fee, and be on your way. A good thing about it was the rrlative anonimity it offered to any travellers who chose this route, as opposed to hailing a personal horse-drawn cab. it also meant that I could chat witht he fellow travellers, and forget my worries for a while. I had also aways liekd the slightly bumpy journey the carriages offered.
Once I got there, I saw a dozen or so people eagerly waiting for a large Paraceratherium-dawn carriage slowlyu making its way towards us. The creature was massive, two or so storey's tall, and looking like some sort of enlarged Elephant mixed with a shrew. It whinnied and neighed as it came to a stop, and it kneeled down slowly, bringing the carriage to a level where some simple stairs could be sued to get onto its back. A small man, accompanied by a girl I assumed to be his daughter opened the door of the carriage, and a gaggle of people trundled out, quite obviously weary from their journey, and relieved to be able to stand on solid ground once more.
then he called the rest of us up. Once I came to the entrance, he asked for payment, and a gave him a few coins I had managed to gather from my measly savings (now lost forever to the guild). I was let in, and given a seat near the back, in between a spindly man and an eaqually spindly woman.
Bored as I was, I struck up a conversation with the man next to me. "Where are you going, good sir?" He looked at me jovially for a moment, and began to speak with terrifying speed. I had barely started to understand something about visiting a dying family member, before he receded back into another conversation with the woman next to him, just like a spider might after being taunted out by a child.
I then tried to chat with the group of people behind me. I asked them about their journey. One of the people seemed incredibly tired, and soon fell asleep on the lap of the person next to them. However, I did find a conversation partner here, and was greatly thankful for that.
"We're going to see the Klad'ee, have you been there?" She said, using her hands to convey the message as much as her mouth. "Well, I don't acutally know what the Klad'ee is, so I would not think so. Is there much to do there?" I ask. I have never heard of this place before, and it intrigues me. The name seems to be in a language that I once heard was common to the West, but I had never been any further west than the far shore of a lake near my village, and so I was confused. "Oh! What a silly little man you are!" I was slightly offended, but I chose not to interrupt her in order to hear the rest of her story. "The Klad'ee is one of the five Dhish sites, where the Pillgrims of Op can go in succession to save them from the Fesh Serpent. Haven't you been taught about any of this." I shook my head. I concluded that she must be part of some sort of religion I was not aware of. I did not get along well with religions, with most of them not really liking what I did on a daily basis and Sew never raising me with one. She then went on to talk about the other three sites she had visited - the beautiful flowers, the atmosphere, the ceremonies and the religious epiphanies. She explained how she had once bought a powder from a man she initially thought was a connman, and inhaled it by accident, onyl leading her to see the Fesh Serpent in the sky - firery and angry, bathed in a raging purple light. She had caught a fever only a few days ago, and now felt much better, onyl having lost her sense of smell.
Eventually, even she Tired, and I went to the front of the strapped on carriage-box, and looked over the head of the Paraceratherium, out into the countryside around me. It was mainy grassland or farms, no forest for miles in sight. I had heard stories - though I am unsure that any of them are true - that we once invented great automatons which cleared the land of trees to make way for forest, and were punished by the gods by forgetting how to talk to the trees we cut down, their screams having deafened the entire species to their words. Now, as far as I am aware, only one forest remains, a vast and unexplored forest right next to my forest , where I was found as a child by sew, and where otherwise nobody goes. Nobody dares cut down the ancient Jleb trees and Hrog Vines. Nobody dares think about the forest for too long or to often. It seems almost a phantom at times to the minds of those who live around it, a relic of a past world that was never supposed to survive. Sometimes, as children, we would hear strange sounds comijng from the inside, and we would say that they were witched, and out parents used the threat of witches to keep us well behaved. I never believed the stories, but I could never really shake the feeling that something was amiss about the woods. Maybe it was their lack of a name - maybe it was their lack of identity. It might have been the fact that nobody had a map of the woods, nobody knew quite how large it was or what was inside. The woods was an enigma which had haunted my life subtly from the time that I was found.
The paraceratherium's skin was a mottled tan, with miniscule cracks spreading around its body, its thick hide intensey physical to to the touch. as I reached down to feel it, it felt incredibly textured, and the creature grunted, as if achknowledging my petting. Its face held a certain melancholy which I could not ignore, but I assumed it was a mixture of fatigue and boredom. There is not much to do when tou are a giant steered by ants.
That night was largely restless, and try as I might, I was not able to get to sleep. it was a mixture of the anticipation of seeing my father again, and a fear I could not quite explain that my theft was not going to go unnoticed. I just could not quite rid myself of the worry that had wormed itself into my mind the day before and stayed there for today. I tried to distract myself by thinking about the things that I would do to the house with the money I would have. I would get Sew one of those newfangled tanning stretchers, so he would not have to use his old, cobbled together one. I would look at Sew smiling and be content with life, finally and I hoped that the restlessness that had gripped my during my time inside of the the town would leave me. I would build a small school in the village, teach them farming and reading and writing so no other child would be forced into a life of crime. I would become a famed traveller, and travel the world over, see all the strange creatures and the people of different coutnries and cities. I would explore the high seas, delve the depths of trenches and fight monsters, bringing back hair or teeth to prove the story by. Lost in these dreams, I slowly fell into another sort of dream alltogether.
I dreamt that I was walking on a slackline in between to otherwise amorphous buildings. One seemed like Sew's home, and the other had the flamboyant decoration of Welk's house. I was walking away from Welk's and towards Sew's but The line kept getting longer, slacker, bringing me down towards the empty and eternal blackness that was below me, the quick and fast-flowing nothingness I found my eyes drawn to time and time again.
The sudden Jerk forward of the cabin managed to wake me, and I found myself drenched in sweat. I looked outside to see Fhal just over the top of a hill I had rolled down as a child coming into view. I packed up mny sleeping bag, and got ready to leave.
Half an hour or so later, We had stopped outside the village, I was the only one to get off, the woman I had talked to the day before waved at me as the apraceratherium walked away. Suddenly, feeling the sweet air of the countryside fill my lungs, the grime and crime of the town seemed far away.
I jogged towards the houses, I ran through the streets I knew so innately, carefully noting the changes that had happend since the last time I had been here. The buthcher's shop seemed to have passed down to his daughter, there was a new landlord at the inn, one of the streets had been narrowed. eventually, I noticed that the streets were unnervingly empty, I has seen none of the people I would usually have seen.
As I continued walking, I saw the back of somebody's head. As i got closer, I realised that it was Derr, one of my childhood friends and the son of one of the carrot farmers. I tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around. Something seemed strange to me about his personality, he seemed less bubbly and excitable as I remmenbered him being. "Derr! How has it been?" I asked him, undeterred. I managed to convince myself that it was the effect of the years, even though I knew something was wrong. "Stuvlok. You're back. I'm not sure if you know but..." he trailed off, as I kept walking. I knew that something terrible had happened, but I needed to know what - Sew would be able to tell me, he knew everybody in the village really well. I walked around the old cobbler's shop and then under the colourful tents the market used, and arrived at my house.
A large crowd of what must have been most of the village was crowded around the house. I felt my stomach getting denser. I was worried. I pushed myself through the crowd, getting closer to my house. I suddenly smelt the acrid smell of smoke. I pushed faster, I saw a few old friends, but ignored them.
Something was wrong.
Once I got the front, I saw it. The house.
The house had been burnt to the ground. I looked around frantically for Sew, calling his name as loudly as I could in spite of the fact that the crows was otherwise silent, as quiet in shock as I was in fear. The primal, atavistic fear swelled, quickyl and overpoweringly. I needed to find Sew. I needed to Find him.
I went all the way around the house, looked at every face in the crowd. I could not see him. I crupled into a pile of flesh and clothes by the house's dessicated door. Kleh, the Butcher's daughter walked up to me, and put a hand on my shoulder. She was one of my oldest friends, and we had grown up together. Through tears, she told me that Sew had died. The fire had started yesterday night out of nowhere, and Sew was not able to get out. She spluttered as she told me what had happened, and I screamed. I screamed a scream so purely and so scaldingly that the clouds could have heard it. I began to cry, and I was exhausted.
Slowly, the rest of the village left, a few of my old friends saying that I could live with them if I wanted, and leaving some food with me for the night. I thanked them, and went into the house to look for Sew's body. I found it.
A small, delicate thing blackened by the soot of the fire and dehydrated by its heat. Bits of him fell of as I tried to take it outside. I kissed his cheek, but it only led to his jaw collapsing into putrid smelling dust. I used a shovel we had kept in the shed to dig a small grave outside the house. I put the body in it, and cover it back up again. i used an old rock nearby as the marker, carving sew's name onto it with a penknife I had hoped to gift to him.
I went back into the house to look for anything else that I could want to keep. I found a small silver coin, unblackened by dust and soot, perfectly shiny and preserved, propped up against the small shelf we had on the main room. It had on it a dragon intertwined with a dagger. Welk. The gold I had sent over via courier has also seemingly been taken. I had nothing.
I felt a whole new, more raw grief overcome me. I felt as if I was being pushed underwater by some force out of my control, prevented from being allowed to breath, and that I was struggling, apologising and crying but nothing would let me get out of the water. I was trapped here forever. Regret.
I slept in my sleeping bag that night, I wanted to punish myself in a way for what I had done. I had brought this upon my father. I had killed him. I was responsible. Nothing I could do or say or give could being Sew back. I felt as if I was the worst son anybody could have. I felt ungrateful. Sew had saved me from certain death in the forest, brought me up, gave me more love than I could ever need, and all I had done was do something that led to his death. No. His Murder. Welk, or at least his accomplishes, had Murdered Sew.
I knew that I could not do anything to make up for it, which only ever made me feel worse.
At some point, I closed by eyes and my mind quietened down, and I drifted off into a tormented sleep.