In the morning Maya woke up completely confused. He confusion grew when Leo began to wash her as diligently as he always did.

“Do you like me?” She softly asked when he was finished and the alien showered her with the best compliments he could muster in the Greenland dialect.

Leo’s rule number one was ‘women are dangerous!’. But after observing Maya for over a month he grew certain that she was the exception to the rule. Her gentle personality and attitude towards the others, especially the children, made her seem just like Leo evaluated when he first saw her – a fairy.

Unfortunately in the evening she proved there were reasons for Leo’s rules to exist.

“Do you like me?” She asked again when they were lying in the bed.

“Of course!” Leo said as convincingly as he could. Why in the world would he be in her house otherwise?

“I want a baby!” She said and for the first time Leo realized there might be something terribly wrong with her.

“It’s night outside!” He tried to gently persuade her, “I’ll get you few in the morning. Now sleep!”

Clearly Leo’s language skills were lacking, because despite him being nice and polite, the next moment the beautiful fairy began to sob. She didn’t cry very loud and Leo managed to fall asleep, but in the morning the look on her face clearly showed she had been crying the whole night.

Sadly Leo’s skills were limited and catering to women’s unreasonable whims was none of them. He had spent years in Dreadlands almost every day balancing on the border between life and death, but at least the bossy women there had the common sense. Now, on the other hand, he had to start performing magic tricks to satisfy one’s needs. Nevertheless he washed her as usual in hopes she would come around till the evening – after all she was a beauty worth putting an effort into.

Unfortunately in the evening the story repeated and the next day again. It didn’t take too long for Leo to ‘realize’ why Maya had been alone for so long – probably all the villagers knew the pretty girl became unreasonable after dark. But sadly there was nothing he could do.

The biggest problem was that the girl became more muddleheaded the more time went by. She almost didn’t eat at all and completely stopped talking to Leo, although still let him wash her every morning. Her all attention was directed towards the children during the day, but at nights she went on with the crying.

Only Heavens knew how long it would’ve lasted if not for a tragedy striking one day.

At the time Leo, along with few men, was repairing a bridge not too far from Maya’s house while she, as usual, was taking cares of the small ones. Suddenly from who knows where, through the treetops a large, dark something fell towards the platform with the children and by throwing a glance in the direction of the breaking branches and rustling leaves, Leo immediately knew what was about to happen.

Long time ago he already witnessed something similar, but back then he was in the center of it. Now, despite the distance and the mist, he was the first who saw the attack and before anyone could react, darted towards the ‘kindergarten’ without a second though.

Unfortunately the eagle arrived first and clawed towards the two closest kids. But instead of two younglings eagle’s eight talons sunk in Maya’s chest. She instinctively threw herself in front of the children and even didn’t let out a whimper after getting badly hurt. She only glanced at the children below and sighed in relief realizing they were safe even though she was carried away.

It took only a single flap of the wings for the eagle to leave the platform and with another it was close to ten yards above it, but Leo didn’t care. With a mad roar he jumped as high as he could and the next moment the Cleaver appeared in his hand. The eagle was almost out of reach, but the tip of the weapon still cut through it’s chest and with an agonizing screech it tumbled down.

Leo tried to grab Maya’s hand, but during the event she never even looked at him. Her eyes were glued to the platform with the children, not bothering with anything else in the world. He could swear the crazy woman was smiling even though the fall in the thick fog meant her death and he got so confused by her indifferent attitude he almost missed the branch to land on.

“Maya! Alien! … Maya! Alien!” A short while later villagers began to call them and Leo shouted back so they would worry slightly less. Obviously him being alive meant little to the people who just lost one of their own.

‘F*ck it!’ In the end Leo decided, ‘Rule number one applies to ALL women! No matter how beautiful or kind they are – women are dangerous!’

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

He climbed up after regulating his breathing, but the image of Maya’s smiling face never left his mind. Her smile somewhat resembled Lana’s grin before she broke her neck, although it might’ve been the careless attitude towards their own lives that was similar.

After Maya’s death Leo had no reason to stay in the village. His options were either to return to the Sacred Order or to go north where according to Old Hebe was a ‘very big’ settlement. The old man tried to persuade Leo against such adventure since it would take ‘many, many’ days to get there and it was much more ‘fun’ and safe to stay in the village.

Obviously the youth didn’t agree and after replenishing his water supplies from the water-bells at Maya’s hut, said goodbyes and left.

Since through the thick mist in the sky he could see the sun and thus tell the cardinal directions, Leo was certain he could always find the way to the teleportation platform and there was no need for him to rush back to the sect. Maya’s death was tragic, but the attack clearly showed there was much more to this realm than the poisonous insects, ugly f*ckers on the ground and a single village in the treetops.

The dark-green feathered eagle was surely rank six and that meant there were beasts Leo could hunt for their cores and return to the sect as a rich or at least wealthy man. Obviously he didn’t care about his standing in the Aurora realm – his sights were set on the Golden city.

Also, after spending more than a month in the village, he had learned a bit of the local dialect and if he understood Old Hebe’s rumblings correctly, to the north was something like a regional capital. That meant he could stumble on information about the potential locations of the poison pearl there as well. In that case he could get actually get rich in one go or return as a hero, but it was up to his mood at the time.

Since the Cleaver was once again hidden in the amulet, Leo spent his days by jumping from tree to tree like an agile monkey. He continued to run through the treetops to the north for over a month and it was starting to become a rather monotone endeavor. Obviously he didn’t dare to go back down to the ground since there was no telling if he ever could come up. In addition, the mist above was not as poisonous as the fog below – at least he never passed out against his will.

To entertain himself, Leo began to observe the surrounding flora and analyze what Jamie would pick as spices around here, but unfortunately almost everything was of green color and looked the same. There were the flowers he recognized and their stamens along with the eggs he stole from nests formed his whole diet, but that was mostly it.

Unfortunately there was not that much wildlife to see. Apart from some birds, tree frogs and snakes, Leo didn’t meet anything else. Of course, he didn’t want to directly confront a rank six eagle or a similarly powerful beast, but it wouldn’t hurt to hunt some squirrels or monkeys, well … it wouldn’t hurt him.

There was one incident he almost didn’t survive. One day he carelessly jumped onto another tree which was the home of bunch of bats, more exactly – thousands of large, ugly looking rats with wings lived there. They were almost one foot long and their wingspan was close to four feet.

The moment Leo arrived, the whole flock attacked him like crazy either wanting to suck his blood or drive away and the bored youth used this opportunity to stretch his bones and exercise a little. To his horror this ‘a little’ turned into a half day battle where he continuously hit the bats with a thick branch and they kept on coming as if they could somehow return to life after Leo smacked them dead.

He had no clue how many bats were killed, but it was clear the little motherf*ckers on the ground had a sumptuous feast that night. Nevertheless he ran away the moment the intensity of the incoming bats subsided and swore to himself to never repeat such stupid action again.

Old Hebe turned out to be wrong. It took almost two months to reach the settlement he spoke about, but when Leo arrived, he realized it had been definitely worth it.

At first the place seemed to be identical to the village he came from, but after strolling through it a whole day, Leo realized he was not even close to reaching the other end. Of course, because of the never ending mist he couldn’t tell the exact size of the place, but it was surely enormous.

After entering the city deeper he saw endless rows of wide bridges stretching between trees in all directions, while people kept coming and going almost as if they traversed streets on a solid ground. Everyone was busy with their own thing, but if not for the scale, it looked all the same no matter one went.

The life here seemed to be similar to what Leo already experienced – all men were continuously repairing or building something, while women took care of the children, gathered food and crafted clothing. If at the small village it was normal, then here, in the place that had to be considered a city, it was strange to not see any shops, markets or even food stalls. In fact, there was no currency therefore no one actually sold or bought anything.

Nothing was free though and Leo learned it the hard way.

After the arrival on the first evening he as usual was rather hungry and when passing one of the huts carelessly picked a couple of flowers that bloomed nearby and ate their stamens. Suddenly from who knows where an old lady showed up and began to angrily hammer him with a wooden club while cursing in a loud voice.

Turns out that there was such thing as a private property around here after all and the huts and stuff that grew around them belonged to the person who lived there. Therefore without thinking much, Leo immediately began to apologize and promised to help the lady out the next day.

The old, wrinkled and green skinned hag turned out to be a cheeky one and enslaved the youth for three whole days, but in the end he simply got up and left despite her loudly cursing him. Neighbors heartily laughed at the sight and only then Leo realized he had not been the first one she had hoodwinked, but it was also fine. On the positive side while he fixed her hut and the platform it was built on, she kept continuously blabbing and it was highly likely Leo got all the available information one could get on the street.

First of all the place had no particular name therefore Leo decided to call it the Nameless city. It was governed by a bunch of people called dryads who resided on a tall mountain in the very north of the city.

Needless to say Leo couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that someone actually had to be a ruler here. With how simple, kind and honest the people here were, apart from one hateful hag, of course, it was fine if a couple of elderly looked after it. Of course, it was not his place to judge, thus he didn’t even try to comment.

Be as it may, dryads were respected and even feared and according to the hag in a couple of months they were beginning a project of an unseen caliber – they intended to connect the two sides of the world – east and west. When Leo asked what was at the sides of the world, the old lady dreamily said there was the end, but after more pestering it turned out that the end were ‘endless water masses’.

Clearly the leaders intended to build a road connecting the two sides of the continent and it was fine, it had nothing to do with him, but the old woman thought differently.