Koronos sleeps for many hours in the middle of the Meibon village, the young ones stare at him in fascination, until they are gathered up by their respective mothers and ushered away from him. Amongst the enormous, towering trees, the great white apes of the village go about their daily routine, only slightly disrupted by the presence of their sleeping, strange blue-visitor. At some point, Shelove makes her way out of the front gate to hunt deer, and the denizens of the village give her a wide berth.
Although it is unfamiliar territory, and she must remain ever vigilant for the island’s apex predator, she is successful because she is a highly skilled and attuned hunter, and she feeds at last on a large deer, then returns with a full and satisfied belly full of meat but the gate is closed. She scratches at the gate to let the denizens that reside within know she has returned. Within a moment, they open the gate and step clear to let her pass. They were looking for her return. She finds her Kazarian friend and curls up next to him.
He awakens from her presence but doesn’t immediately rise, he gathers his wits and thinks about the next course of action. After a bit, and with Shelove being fast asleep, he rises and seeks out Nombi. He finds her weaving a basket from natural fibers from locally sourced materials; she is sitting with three Meibon, each of whom are also making baskets. They have a small campfire in a stone circle with a clay pot brewing some sort of broth or herbal tea, suspended above it on a tripod composed of sticks.
The group welcomes him and offers him some herbal tea, which he graciously accepts. They politely ask him questions about where he is from and what it’s like there, how he came to have a giant black cat. He obliges them and regales them about where he comes from and tells them that he is a leader of a nation. After they seem satisfied with certain details using Nombi as a translator, he then asks, “this human village, are they sailors, do they have boats to cross the water?”
In her heavily accented but sweet voice, Nombi respectfully replies, “my people sail the open sea, and there is one boat that can cross the deep blue, it’s the Lucky Lady, but I do not know if it’s docked at Little Rock, no other boat sails this far south in the island chain. You should make haste, because soon, the bay will freeze for winter and it won’t sail until the warmth of spring returns, to free the waters of the sea ice. It is a two-to-three-day journey from here, then you have to find a way to get out to Little Rock Island. The dory I used to flee with might still be pulled up onto the shore where I left it, unless my father came to retrieve it.”
“I see, how many stone can this dory hold?” Koronos says as he looks over at the sleeping Shelove, he knows she’s roughly the weight of nine or ten men.
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Nombi thinks for a moment, then cautiously answers, “I do not know, but it is the length of three men and a bit standing, it took everything I had just to pull it up on the shore a few paces and that was with it empty. I did not turn it over, so it will be filled with water from the rains, which is good; one must avoid allowing a boat to dry out or it will leak water when it returns to the waves, this is known.”
He nods, listening to the information, the Kazarian is unfamiliar with watercraft and sea life. “It may be large enough then. How did you cross the island without being eaten by the huge beast that roams these lands?”
She calmly and thoughtfully responds, “There are several but one is the dominant one, it hunts in the daylight and mostly in the lowlands, night is the safest way to travel across this land, this is known. That is why I waited for the time of the month for Sleeping Dragon to be its fullest and brightest, and I stayed in the highlands as much as possible.”
“You are wise and clever; this knowledge will be of use to me. I thank you.” Koronos says to her, now seeing her for the first time as he stands, “Nightfall fast approaches, I will seek out your people and attempt some negotiation for passage, because I have no coin in my possession at this time.”
“Here, take this; maybe you can exchange it for passage or sell it to get coin for passage.” She pulls off one of her silver bracelets and offers it to him. He accepts it, unsure how to respond to her generosity.
“Also, one moment.” She she says as she quickly assembles some food and places it in a woolen blanket, forming a bundle for him to put over his shoulder, “Here is some bread and berries for your journey, chase the direction of the setting sun, you will encounter the place where the land meets the sea, from the black sands you can see Little Rock easy enough, unless the fog rolls in. Gods-speed, master Koronos.”
“Once again, thank you.'' He looks her in the eyes as he speaks, then looks around at the village, even though they are not like the Kazarian people, it reminds him a little bit of his old life in the Helfire Mountains, and he finds some comfort in this.
From somewhere in the village, Soulseeker seems to appear from nowhere, as if from the shadows. In fact, he did appear from the shadows, literally; he wasn’t there, then he stepped from a shadow and was suddenly there. No one else seems to think anything of it, it would seem that they are accustomed to this occurrence.
“Perhaps this is his Everliving power?” Koronos thinks to himself but doesn’t speak it aloud.
Soulseeker makes a series of hand gestures, Nombi translates it into words, even though Koronos knows what the chief conveyed, because of the Bond, but she doesn’t know, “may you find your way home, wherever it may be, over the seas, on distant shores.”
With a nod, the Kazarian turns and calls for Shelove, who was already halfway paying attention and watching with one eye, she quickly joins him at his side. Shadow of the dusk descends upon the land as they slip out of the gate into the darkness of the giants of the forest, chasing the place where the sun hides each night.