In the lives of the weekend inhabitants of Molil island, a series of personally significant events had taken place in a short period of time. First Solveis and Girselle’s original confrontation, then the appearance of the horse-hu intruder, and then Solveis’s apology. These consecutive shocks created societal tumult for the youths. It left the whole group unsure of how to treat each other. This tumult was not soothed by the fact that they all, besides little Livia, were entering pubescence. Accordingly, the peers were in a constant state of relearning their relationships and their own place within the environment.
To throw more chaos into an already confusing group dynamic, a new significant event took place very shortly after the apology. It shouldn’t really have been surprising, and yet (probably because the first sighting of the horse-hu intruder had been lost from reality as a myth) a new sighting of intruders was freshly shocking.
On a comfortable Saturday, when the children were all getting along sufficiently well, the group retreated into the trees of the west hill. The parents were strolling around outside the cabins. Their presence in the outdoors caused their offspring to go somewhere with more tree cover.
The boys lead in a game of pirates. Sticks were found and brandished at one another. Those who were good climbers dropped twig bombs down at their enemies. The elements of the adventure, like teams or overarching story, were very unclear. If there were ever teams to start with, then teammates were definitely guilty of friendly fire. As the game went on, the girls tried to apply some story to it: two bands of pirates had a skirmish at sea and landed here to fight it out and steal the treasure of the other. The directions spoken by the female voices were completely ignored by the boys though. The girls coped by trying to make their story evolve to fit the new activities. Perhaps that was entertainment enough for the girls, even if they didn’t get to play any of their stories out to the end.
“No. You are each the captain of your boats. You can’t just randomly attack a tree together – Besides what is the tree? A monster or something? This isn’t a monster story,” Solveis tried to apply logic to Arlendr and En’s actions.
“Yeah. Fight each other. What’s your deal with the tree?” Girselle threw in. Then to conduct them more directly, she brandished her stick, got between the boys and the tree and swatted her brother on his thigh. “Take that thieving scum.”
“Oh look! It’s your The Mother! And my baby Oskar!” Livia shouted in glee. “If only him and baby Jordao could play too. That’d be soooo cute! Two best friends of oggo and faun. So so cute babies.”
All the children shifted deeper into the trees at her warning.
After some time in playing, both Solveis and Girselle grew tired of the physicality and simplicity of the game. They both dropped onto the ground breathing heavily and watched as the other three went on bashing sticks on sticks.
In the absence of a social responsibility, Solveis let her mind and senses wander. Her little yellow bird hopped breezily on the shoulder farthest from Girselle. Her mind joined the swishing and chattering sensations and the noises at the tops of the trees, where the breeze blew. She leaned back against the base of a tree and looked up. Pleasantly physically comfortable, she closed her eyes and just felt everything around her. It was a little hot. She hadn’t realized until that moment, but it was. The earth beneath her was springy and warm. She dug her fingers into it to feel it in more minute detail. The wind was a little higher than usual; little leaves and pieces of debris occasionally brushed her arms or face. A small, far away noise drew her notice. A crunching, like breaking, but much smaller, not like smashing. She closed her eyes tighter and listened more closely. Quitting even her breath, she zoomed her focus way into her surroundings. The breeze was so nice. There was the sound again. It was toward the north west. Little *crush crush* noises. They were cute little noises. – Wait – There was another sound too. Like, *trampling swish, crush, crush, trampling swish*
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“Someone’s over there!” Girselle shouted, drowning out Solveis’s auditory experience. “I hear something over there. Seriously. Like a big person walking this way.”
“It’s just Sulvi’s-the-mother!” Livia announced cheerily.
“No stupid. We just saw them on the other side. There’s no way their old legs walked all the way around the island and then came in this way. – Be quiet.”
It took Arlendr a moment to break his mind off from his very engaging game. His face was flush and he had been breathing heavily. When he caught his breath, he declared, “I’ll go see.” He brandished his stick sword and ran off, surprisingly silently, choosing his steps well, toward the noise.
Before he had gone far, he thought better of charging into battle and decided to do some recon first. He glanced back at his friends and gave them a look that forbade them to follow him or to do any detective work of their own.
En shrugged at his friends, communicating ‘unsure’. He dropped his voice very low, stared off at where Arlendr was hiding in a tree, and whispered, “Are we supposed to do something?”
Solveis returned his shrug back at him.
Girselle found herself unsure of what to do, so she stared silently off into the distance, as if enraptured.
Livia quickly grew tired of being still, so she went off in search of the adults and little Oskar.
Shortly after Livia’s departure, Solveis decided to act. She stealth-ed off in Arlendr’s direction. She found him in a tree and climbed nimbly and silently up a neighbor tree. She glanced at him, only to find out that he was getting down. He nearly sprinted, still silently, deeper into the trees of the west hill. A short distance deeper in, he found a different tree and climbed up. Solveis followed his lead and climbed up a neighboring tree.
She made a bird call at him to get his attention. He didn’t respond, or even seem to notice, which was out of character as he was proud of their bird call noises. Surprised, she followed his gaze. She understood why he had been too focused to hear her call.
There was the horse-hu man again. He was actually, really standing on their hill, pacing angrily in circles. Beside him was another man, one even scarier looking than the horse-hu. For that matter, the horse-hu was quite strange looking when he was up close like this. What was with him? The way he walked and balanced seemed off, unsettling. Like he was leaning forwarder, compensating for some tugging weight. Solveis noticed that his lower back was where the weird posture came from. It was like his hips were sort-of horizontal and horse-ish. His legs and hips were horse like, so that a horizontal torso seemed to come from the hips, only to turn upward into a man’s torso. The way it caused his body to move was unsettling.
But then, the horse-hu’s companion also had unbelievable physicality. He seemed, at first, like a mature looking child, because he was so short. As he moved, he seemed to glide around, two heads shorter than the horse-hu. When he got up to the horse-hu though, his body elevated, hovered into a taller height. Looking down, Solveis saw how he was resting his body on what seemed to be two snake’s tails, showing out of each of the legs of his multi-pocketed travel shorts. Solveis had hear about some eptills who’d had strangely jointed legs, which loosely resembled snake’s tails, but this mans legs greatly resembled them, and even seemed to move in a sort of slither. He definitely was eptill though, because he had the non-brown, non-tan coloration. Only eptills and frople had skin tinted with almost amphibian coloration. His skin was tan, but with a slight yellow tint. Overall, he was hard for Solveis to really take in. He was like a character of some magical, creepy, mythology.
Solveis found herself wide eyed and open mouthed at the spectacle of the two intruders. She glanced over to her brother who was still staring wildly at the two men.
Deciding to get his attention, she tried a few different little animal noises. Finally, he recognized her voice and glanced up. He seemed as surprised to find her a member of the moment as he had been about seeing the intruders in the first place. He wasn’t mad at her for getting his attention though. He sent hand signals. ‘See? – intruders – real – real – past’. He meant that he had always been right, even in the past.
Solveis laughed silently a little at her brother’s pride. He was as much happy to be proven right as he was upset to have intruders on his hill. She sent the return hand signal ‘yes – real’.