Chapter 56 Pleasure
ZORA
Cheerful birds chirped far above me, several distances away. A pack of hyenas released series of loud, high-pitched whoops into the serene atmosphere, announcing their excitement over a kill.
The ground drummed softly with the hooves of a herd of warthog heading towards a direction. Somewhere closeby, the whooshing of the downpour of a waterfall made it into my ears, and although my eyes weren't open, I could see them clearly. That's how I knew I was laying on a bed of daisies.
But consciousness required I lift my eyelids open. I could no longer lay doing nothing.
The first thing that flooded my vision wasn't the images that my ears provided. It was a young brown deer whose fur was spotted with white. Its black beady eyes peered down at me with precious intense curiosity, its head cocked to one side as if its mind had a question mark burned in it.
It was pondering and only after I raised myself up into a sitting position did I understand why the young deer looked at me that way.
I was in a garden. No…
A better term for it was paradise. Everything seemed perfect, and all the colours vibrant.
I looked up, the sky was a beautiful expanse of clouds. Blue with an artful display of puffy clouds.
The young deer was still here, on the side patiently busying itself with nibbling on the grass.
I looked down at myself. I was clothed in the finest of silk robes designed with gold embroidery at the tip of the sleeves and hem of the robes.
The collar too.
The pattern of the gold threads were not the ones I was accustomed to. I've never seen such designs in Ryker's palace, or even this garden.
I sat upright, my eyes scanning the luscious area again.
I wasn't at Ryker's palace house. So where the heck was I?
I couldn't tell if the deer was spooked by my suddenly realization of where I was but it raised it head and took off into the rest of the garden by my right.
That was my cue to get moving too.
Rising to my feet, I left the bed of daises and walked to the stream into which the waterfall poured itself into.
The gentle flow made me thirsty so I got down to my knees and dipped my hand into the water, scooping some of it with my hand into my mouth.
Only after I had satisfy my thirst did I care about my refelection.
On my head sat a gold crown in the shape of an hemisphere. Rays of light breaking through the sun-less sky bounced off the crown.
Golden clips held the sides if my hair, pulling it back and away from my face. My eyes were amber eyes were still the same excpet for one thing.
My pupils weren't black. They were the silvery grey colour of the moon.
It baffled me. My vision wasn't affected in any way. I coud see everything in their original colours clearly. I had questions.
Where was I and what is this place?
Why am I here and why do I look this way?
I wondered. More queston kept flooding into my mind as I started to move away from the stream, deciding to go into the garden in the direction the young deer had taken off.
Suddenly something moved, catching the corners of my eyes. I looked fast enough to get a glimpse of white fur disappearing into the garden in the opposite direction of the young deer's path.
I decided to follow the white fur, having an odd feeling that it was watching me and that it only took off because I had noticed its presence.
I breezed through the trees and shrubs in a speed that was unfamiliar to me.
The sole of my feet seemed to not touch the soil and my vision stayed clear despite my speed.
For a while, it was all green, roots and barks until I burst into a circluar clearing. I stopped and looked around, it was empty.
What direction had the white-furred creature taken.
There were five paths.
Each no doubt led into deeper parts of the garden.
The creature had only taken one path. Since I'd never been here before, I had no idea what I could encounter.
I closed my eyes and listened. At first, I heard nothing. Saw nothing but only darkness.
But I waited, focusing my desire on the creature I wanted to find.
Very slowly the darkness illuminated, receiving its light from the moon.
The beam of light grew brighter, extending in a direction before spreading to show me a single purple clover isolated on a mound of dirt and the path that went beyond it.
It stopped at the heel of the hind legs of a creature with snow white fur. Then everything turned black, like it was switched off. I felt my consciousness return to regular, I was aware of the circular clearing and when I opened my eyes, I immediately looked for which path has a purple clover on a mound of dirt at its entrance.
It was the foruth one. In the midst of green, tall and crawling plants, the purple clover plant stood distinctly. Up ahead, the path started to get thicker as I advanced into it. The narrow path broadened with every set of five steps that I took and soon I found myself in a dense forest with tall towering trees whose overstretched branches with thick leaves that did an excellent job of blocking out the slightest ray of light.
The dark forest was a stark contrast to the paradise I had woken up in that I almost couldn't believe that I had been in a place with daises and curious deers.
The forest seemed to have never known vibrant colours. All that existed was night and...
A furry of white!
It moved fast, passing through the bark of the trees like lightning, going round me. I followed it with my eyes, as much as I could without getting dizzy. It stopped behind me in an explosive puff of white smoke but when I turned around, I nearly kissed a child's face.
"Boo!" she said and I screamed, jumping back and staggeringly on my heel before eventually hitting the soil with my butt.
The child laughed, filling the forest with its light and playful laugh.
Light and playful. Two things that were the exact opposite of what I was feeling as I got back to my feet and dusted the sand off my silken behind.
"Not quite as I expected but is it more or less, I can't tell." She floated towards me and hovered in the air in front of me in a second.
"Who are you?" I inquired.
"Funny you should ask that, our kinds usually know each other before any official introduction or is it..." She looked around suddenly as if searching for something and then disappeared in a poof.
What the-
In another second she was back.
"Fixed it!" She twirled around then pushed her face into mine.
Her eyes were different, they were just like mine... with her pupils coloured like the silvery greyness of the moon.
Ahhh. I see recognition. Still nothing.
I frowned. "I don't know who you are."
"Oh bummer!" She sighed regrettably.
I stared at her.
"Oh! Bummer is a word I learned from the others who come in here. See, in my time, our langauges were more particular to our kind. You know... not English." She chuckled.
"O-okay... I-I need you to stop assuming that I know anything. I don't. I don't know why I'm dressed in such royal dressing or why I have a golden crown on my head or why I woke up on a bed of flowers only to end up in a dark forest tallking to..." I gave her a once-over.
What do I call her? A floating child?
She was definitely not a child.
With the way she talked about the "languages used in her time," she sounded quite ancient. And her appearance...
I squinted, noticing her the way her little ears were pointy at the top of the earlobe and the tip were earrings should stay.
And when she moved, her hair seemed to shimmer.
And her finger nails, they were like glass, well manicured and her skin, pearly textured.
"Oh I really thought this time will be different. I thought you would have gotten curious enough to learn about who you are and why certain things are happening to you." She flipped in the air backward in a smooth curve, tilted head as if she was puzzled.
"Aren't humans supposed to be the most curious creatures in the world? All through history, under the watchful eyes of the moon, men have burned candles and risked their lives discovering and questioning things that they had questions about. Why not you?"
"I- I'm the one asking the questions here."
She allowed her shoulders to droop, releasing a long rather exaggerated sigh. "Since you asked, I'll tell you but I like to do it with a bit of drama."
The whole forest started to hum while she was talking, and a fierce wind seemed to rush at us.
Soon I was struggling against a gathering tornado surrounding us both.
White smoke suddenly filled the space, wrapping itself around her.
The last thing I saw before she was smoldered in was a lopsided smirk.
The tornado grew fiercer and fiercer until it suddenly fell into a hush. Dead silence.
White smoke and then...
Puff!
The white smoke slowly faded out and standing before me wasn't the childish creature anymore.
A beautiful lady with crystal clear blues and skin made of diamond floated towards me.
"It's a pleasure to meet you, Zora. I am the first of the Sylunthys.”