Chapter 23
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We had crossed in-between mountains, stony mounds, and mountain ridges. The mountain pass was rarely trodden on, with stones dislodged from gradual shifts of the earth, from avalanche to rockslides.
Oona had told us that there was a main road that the humans usually travel, south of here, which was not halted by whims of the forest nor the mountains. She had been contracted by Amelia and her party to guide them through the fae forest, over the mountain trek, and into the nearest settlement.
The grass network in the Knight Mecha was worn from the recent battle and the aftermath, so the going was slow, staggeringly so. But this bio-mechanized Knight did not have the functional capacity to signal me for rest. Which was a flaw in the design. I had cringed every time a limb was moving slower than usual, like a joint moving into an invisible slog of a swamp.
But, we continued to tarry forth, eager to get away from the scene of our conflict. The first valley we had crossed appeared tranquil in its seclusion. The location was riddled with green overgrowth and topiary, that was narrowed by the span of a mile between guarding mountains above.
After another climb over a natural stone path, we entered a unique valley when midday had run its course. There was a wide oval lake, 1 mile in radius. The lake was sequestered at the center, with forest and foliage surrounding it. It’d appeared we had entered another secluded location, but this time it had visual inhabitants roaming across the circumference. There was a herd of deers grazing at the bank, with a few mountain goats near the outline where the thicket met stone.
It was a serene environment abundant with life and growth. With the light of midday going into the shadow of twilight, we decided to set camp near the bank of the lake. There was a reasonably sized forest island in the center. From what I could inspect from a distance away, the island had multiple groves, guarded by willows; with one of them being larger from the rest. Instead of green canopy, these unique topiaries had pinkish-white blossoms; similar to a cherry blossom tree. The blossoms were blooming at this time of spring, with the weakest amongst them, slowly, but gently falling into the blue reservoir of water.
“This place is beautiful.” Sera had marveled, her grass scarf not hiding the awe in her expression. We had transferred the basket with the baby huddled inside, by a small made fire that was surrounded by a stone circle that was placed by Peb. He was preparing to bind the element of heat, that the fire was giving off into the stones around the fireplace. Wink and I had moved Teka on his stretcher to the side of the fire, so he also could consume the heat to alleviate the pain in his chest.
“I’ll heal in no time.” He griped, annoyed at the attentive treatment that was shown to him. Teka did not want to seem weak or infirmed to his fellow grass folks, especially to Sera, from what I could judge by the small glimpse he had given her.
Sera had checked on Teka for a few casual moments, before returning to her charge with the baby. Later she would be instructed by me on the fundamentals of programming, and how the language of music can be deconstructed into sounds which can then manipulate the fauna of grass. It was an open lecture, so all could listen in. They would usually counter some of my instructions with questions, asking me to expand on details. I was happy to answer, familiar with the atmosphere of learning.
In my past life, I would be sometimes called upon to be a professor’s aid, in some of the robotic lectures and programming tutorials. It was refreshing to see that the knowledge that I had accumulated, being shared in my second life. For knowledge was the key to all things.
Teka had appeared glum after Sera had left his side to check on the baby. There was something between them I did not know about, which had piqued my curiosity.
I got up from my spot to threw a small twig to sizzle the fire by habit whilst Teka had sat upon his stretcher, watching Sera always, she was smoothing the wrinkles of the cloth of the baby. I walked to Teka and sat beside him. “So…? Do you like Sera?”
Teka’s mint face turned turnip at my direct query. “What?! How did you-”
“Well, I know now.” I smugly said.
The notion hadn’t occurred to me until Teka had asked about Sera’s well being in the aftermath of the battle. Not caring for his own injuries, he had enquired for Sera’s safety. Maybe that was the reason he had tagged along with our small company. I was familiar with the signs of infatuation, especially unrequited love. ‘I would know...’ I brought back a hazy image from long ago, of a chestnut-haired girl in my high school.
I had another eureka moment. That could also be the reason why he was hostile to me earlier in childhood in the grove we were podded. The realization of my assumption felt right, I never had considered why Teka was always against me all those times, I thought it was just his personality or some obscure reason about my intellect, but now it was clear. It was jealousy.
Luckily for him, I did not share the same opinion for Sera.
Teka's turnip pallor was still blustering from the small secret I now know of him. Setting his worries aside, I gave him a shrug on what I thought.
“Good for you. Sera is a good sprout to pine for.” I approved.
“You’re not?”
“No, no. She is like a little sister to me.”
“Little sister? What is that?”
‘Oh right…’ The fair folk did not know the concept of siblings, for they are born out of sprouts that were then selected by a duo, to become a trio. “-Well let's just say, I think of her as a little pod.”
“That’s nonsense!” He rebuked. Teka suddenly groaned at the pain in his chest that was prompted by his strong reaction. “She’s from our generation. How could you think of her younger?”
“Well, back in my hay day. Sera was the first person to have ever nagged me. Asking me about what I was inventing and so forth. It was at a point, she had followed me around, asking me so many questions, that I realized, I’ll never get rid of her until I tell her what they are and what they do.”
“So she nagged you into becoming her friend?”
“To my consternation, yes.”
Teka, relieved, gave me a wide grin, excited at the knowledge. I smiled down at him, then patted his shoulder, signaling him I was going to leave. Unexpected, Teka grasped my wrist.
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“Hmm?”
“I did not only join you, because of Sera. Elandris, she told me...She’s not as bad as you think.”
“What do you mean?”
Teka widened his eyes, aware of his surroundings he shut his mouth, he then glanced over to Oona who was sitting near the campfire, strumming on a Lute I had made. She was testing the notes of each string. Understanding his hints, I nodded. He let go of me then, to let me go on my way.
Giving Oona a nod, I headed back to the towering form of my Knight Mecha. Contemplating Teka's vague sentence of Elandris, and why he did not want to share the information with everyone else, which had made me wonder.
Remembering the last image I had of Elandris made me frown. I shrugged then, not wanting my mind to wander off to her. Peering up at Amelia, I cringed at the dents and tear of her plates. I need to patch up the breastplate. Maybe I can cover it up with another layer of cloth, But it still is a huge weakness to my Mecha’s frame. The minor protection would still expose the interior to any individual who would see the patchwork. With no other recourse, I decided to replace Amelia’s breastplate, with the Teal knight’s plate, that was dangling underneath the empty backpack.
Which reminds me, I needed to make use of those other steel pieces I had looted. The baby had been harmed during our battle with the dragon. I peered at the furry backpack. I could add another layer of protection beneath the fur, before the wicker basket and the cloth. With a blueprint in my mind, I went to work.
Wink was cultivating the grass within the knight mecha, back to health. It appeared that he was going to spend the rest of the day and night to heal the damage strains in the grass ecosystem. Admiring his commitment to the role of being the Grass Engineer, made me work a lot more diligently.
After I had replaced Amelia’s breastplate with the Teal Knight’s, I stitched the rest of the looted plates beneath the hide of the leviathan with grass strings. With that all done, I headed up to the interior of the helm, took out both keypads beneath both controller tables, and created a script for response functions within the interior of the Mecha.
This was a primary course in robotics, to have the Artificial Intelligence of the network to return feedback when following commands. With that in mind, I set up similar scripts, signaling of touches, and damages with a diagnostic system that would be an occurring command when the Knight Mecha was activated. After I had chained a few scripts and commands into a plethora of functions, I then had to do some grass fiber wiring to link them to colorful pebbles that were bound with light.
The transparent pebbles would now blink as a feedback response to the diagnostic functions I had implemented. I used three primary colors, green, yellow, and red pebbles. If the diagnostic within the mecha responded red, it would mean sections of the mecha were damaged, green for if they are good to go and yellow was to tell me if they were in use. There were three pebbles for each compartment of the knight mecha, which were all arrayed in a grass weaved board. The pebbles were all placed with their counterparts into a symbol of a human being.
This took me an hour to grind through, but the end result was prompt when I tested out the diagnostic. Having done what I could, I slid down the grass rope off the mecha and headed to the shrubs nearby. I had another idea of new scripts and builds I can introduce later on tomorrow. Like adding a physical alteration to the jump script.
I mused, “Pogo-sticks, hehehe...”
But, I am tired now, so I needed some relaxation. Finding the particular stick I was looking for, I used a grass string with my engineering talents to build the most common contraption to man. I dug around the soil to find the essential ingredient for my break. Finding it, I whistled past my fellows who were relaxing around the campfire, eating their greens, as vegans do.
I headed to the lake. Finding the nearest large stone at the bank, I sat down and tossed my fishing pole forward, catapulting the worm that was tied at the end of the string to plop into the water a meter aways.
The time was nigh, to finally eat some meat. It wasn’t pork, but fish meat was good enough. I salivated at the image and the taste. I had proposed the idea of camping near the lake for this reason alone, for to fish or not to fish is a dumb question indeed. Work is for people who don’t know how to fish.
Whilst waiting and salivating at my future meal, I heard a hum of wings flutter beside me. Oona hovered and then sat cross-legged atop a smooth rock nearest to me. “It’s strange to see, a grass folk fish.” She remarked, looking at my rig.
“Strange indeed.” I shrugged, still picturing the salted salmon in my mind.
After a pause, she spoke, “You remind me of my father.”
“You’re father..?”
“Not the singing part, you’re a terrible singer, my father on the other hand was the greatest singer in his grove.”
I deflated at her remarks of my vocal talents.
“Then how do I remind you of your father?”
“ You are both classified as Grass Singer, but there is also something else, that I can’t pinpoint yet, but it’s similar to how you both act in situations.”
Intrigued, but not deterred I continued on picturing the meal ahead whilst Oona stared at me, contemplating. She then swiveled her head to the lake before us. The two moons above the dark sky were cutting their reflection into the mirror of the lake. I never had realized before, that the nights in this world were a lot brighter than my previous world, with a more dark bluish tint in the sky that was contrasted by the pattern of stars in its solar system.
“My father would sing alone in the dark, to a crowd of no one, not even the grass,” Oona said with a wistful tone. She then continued, “That’s when he met my mother, a Fae Soldier. My mother had told me, she had spied on my father, long before they met. It was peculiar to her to witness a male fair man sing so beautifully to no one. They met and began their long courtship with one another.”
“So that’s how you were conceived?” I grinned at her. She threw a small pebble at my face. I avoided the facial impact by swiveling my head back to the bank. Thud. “Ow.”
“Someone heard of their little moonlight escapades, and reported them to the fair folk and the fairies.” She said with disgust. “After I was born. The fae folk gave them an ultimatum, split and leave the child to die by the nature of the world, or be forever exiled to the whims outside of the glade.”
She looked at me then with a pang of deep sadness I dare not counter with a jab. “They chose exile.”
Oona then turned away with her fist clenched in a vice. “When we exited the forest, we were met by human travelers on their way to Sterdia. My father took their help in guiding us to somewhere remote so we could settle, but we were betrayed. I was still a baby then, so I could not have recalled what had transpired. But after it was said and done, my family was sold into the auctions.”
“I’m sorry…” I said, my mind picturing the events she had told.
“Thankfully for us, we were bought by a kind and old man to look after his garden. My family built a house and small grove in that garden, just for us. Those were the best years of my childhood, spending them in peaceful harmony with a gentle old human and my family. Then my little sister was born, and she was special.”
“Special?”
She ignored my inquiry. “The old man died then, and we were sold off again. That is all there was of my childhood.”
I wanted to repeat the question again, but my words died unspoken. She had ended her story abruptly. Oona stood up flicking her raven fringe that was spiraled with green streak to the side. She swiveled her head to glance at me for a moment with her back to me, she eyed with her green eyes, then turned back to depart me in my silences.
she didn’t depart in silence though, she had mutter that was barely audible until I truely listened.
“I had always wondered, what would it feel like to have a classification like my mother and father...”
Another memory had struck me on this quiet night. It was the memory of Elandris spouting names to Oona as she was about to leave. "Unclassed." I had whispered.
She paused to this.
“By the way?” Oona inquired. “Shouldn’t you find a stable footing to counter the fishes you are waiting on?”
“What?” I looked at her dumbfounded.
I then felt a tug from the grass strings below the depths. My comprehending face turned horrified at what was about to occur. After the tug came a great pull, that had hoisted me off the stone perch I was sitting on, into the water. I was still holding onto the fishing rod, as I skidded through the water guided by a fishy mass below.