„Where are we going, anyway?” Morena asked Inmar, one evening, at dusk when the fox visited her as usual at the lake where Morena was washing her laundry and told her that she must show her something amazing.
Then, Morena deeply breathed in and sighed because the fox's tricks and secrets were something that she liked the least.
Actually, the woman was open-minded, even if solitaire. She loved to frankly speak even if this could hurt someone. Even so, she knew that it was the right thing. That's why she preferred others to turn their back to her for telling the truth than to be chased away for lying. And she also told Inmar about this, many times - that she hated secrets and surprises, but the fox had never listened to her.
At times, Morena even felt that she was ready to argue with Inmar, and for real because the fox did the things only at her will and not as Morena also liked, and, because of this, Morena felt sometimes betrayed.
As it happened that evening when they were advancing through the forest for a long while already, but she still didn't know where they were going. „Inmar, I asked you where are we going!” Morena asked again and stopped.
Inmar stopped too and looked at her friend and saw a kind of anger blinking in her eyes. „If I don’t tell her at least something then she won’t follow me,” the fox thought and grimaced because the last thing she wanted was to use her magic against the woman to force her to follow her.
Eventually, Inmar sweetly smiled and, quickly blinking from her eyelashes, as she always did when she wanted to get something from Morena, she approached the woman and took her hands into hers: „I told you already that I have a nice surprise for you.”
„And I already told you that I hate surprises and not only once, Inmar.”
„I know, I know, but… now, trust me, it was absolutely necessary to do this. This surprise deserves the waiting. Trust me! And… can you trust me? At least this time? Aaa? Please!” The fox started to woo.
And her trick worked and that time, too: Morena deeply breathed in, trying to chase away that slightest offense she felt, and, eventually, she released her hands from Inmar’s hands and moved further, passing by Inmar. „And… where did you say we are heading to?”
The fox cunningly grinned behind her: „I got you!” Inmar thought and she hurried up to catch up with Morena. „You’ll see! You’ll see! Trust me, it deserves the waiting!”
Eventually, the two entered deeper into the forest and only the fox's laughter was heard around.
Seconds later, Island showed up at the edge of that forest, looking with interest behind them. Then, he made a wry face: „something stinks here!” He murmured, sniffing the horizon. „What do the red foxes plan this time? Don’t tell me that… Ah, Ahi, Ahi! You thrust your nose in something stinky again!” Island unhappily murmured and followed the two women.
***
It was a great joy in the village of the red foxes and the noise and the naughty laughers were heard far away from there, until deep in the forest.
„It has already started!” Inmar happily murmured, hearing those sprightly noises of the foxes that were dancing. Then, she looked at Morena, who was just a step behind her, stopped in place, looking around, in amazement, because she didn’t understand where that joyful music was coming from. „I told you that I have something special for you,” Inmar suddenly said, taking Morena by surprise.
„Special? In which way?” Morena asked, curious.
„You’ll see! Follow me!” The fox said and she continued advancing while grinning with pleasure.
When they got to the edge of the glade where the foxes had their small village, Morena looked amazed around: it was something that her small, black eyes had never seen before - a kind of magic splendor and weird at the same time. „And still, it’s so beautiful,” her lips whispered.
Listening to those words, Inmar grinned because even if she never planned everything so perfectly, she got more than she wanted: Morena followed her, she achieved the purpose, and they were both in the village of the red foxes, waiting for something that only a devilish mind could plan, but Morena didn't see anything strange there.
Her eyes were looking in amazement at all that beauty: here and there big tents were chaotically put-up in which the foxes were living, and only one was different - the tent from the center, bigger in size and somehow of a different color.
The cloth of the tents seemed not to be expensive: it was more like a burlap, used by the peasants to make pants - thick and strong material, of a dark brown that, in the sun, could be confused with olive green. Then, there were the pylons that were seen in front of the tents - not that thick, about 7-8 cm across, cut from lasting wood, able to hold the weight of the tents.
At a time, Morena tried to look inside one of the tents, but she found it impossible due to the thin cloth seen from in front of the entrance, put there to impede the entrance of the insects. But, for the woman, it was something that she hated: not seeing more than she wanted to see and it was due to the fact that she hated secrets. Then, she looked around and her glance suddenly fixed on the big pyre seen in the middle of the village, which was burning ablaze, swallowing the thick logs inside its paunchy flames.
And when Morena’s glance fixed on the dancing flames, she suddenly became serious: she felt that there was something that made her nervous there and it was coming out from the flames, but she couldn’t figure out what it was. Then, it was the dance of the foxes, too: so lively, so rhythmically, and so alluringly as if those movements were made to charm her.
Holding the skirt of their long dresses, the foxes were jerking barefoot around the fire. Their red and long hair, up to the heels, was charmingly moved by the movements of the dance, on their back. But even more charming was the color of their dresses: white sleeves, up to the shoulder, red corset with black wires that were squeezing, like in a waistbelt, their big, rounded breasts, and the skirt of the dress was of a red mixed with white.
However, there was something more than this and it also made Morena feel dizzy: the foxes'eyes - of a red like the flames, devilishly burning, and the reflection of the pyre on them while the foxes were dancing around it, and this made Morena feel charmed and incapable of running away of it anymore.
Suddenly, Morena closed her eyes and sighed, barely hearing: she felt her head heavy and dizzy and, because of this, she felt captive in a world she didn’t want to be in at that moment. So, she held the skirt of her dress and tried to run in the same direction where she and Inmar came from.
But the fox spotted the woman’s movement and stretched her hand to grab her hand. Instead of it, Inmar grabbed the edge of the ribbon from Morena’s hair and released it from the „captivity” and the hair completely covered the young woman’s back. Even so, Inmar decided not to follow Morena because she hated to force things to happen.
A few moments later, Morena stopped from her running and her glance had been fixed on the entrance to the big tent: the playful wind just moved the thin cloth of the door and Morena saw a young he-fox, squatted on his hams on the floor of the tent, on a large red velvet pillow, and, in his palms, a small sphere of fire was seen.
This was exactly what caught the woman’s glance and made her stop and watch at the tent, seeing that handsome young fox, with long, red hair as Inmar had, but Morena was more charmed by the flames in his palms than by his beauty.
Amazed by what she was seeing, Morena released the skirts of her dress which immediately covered the nakedness of her legs.
Actually, when Morena rose the skirts to run, she didn’t notice that she had completely undressed her loins in some parts, but it didn't pass unnoticed by the young man.
Then, when she took a step toward the tent, staring toward there as if charmed by that place, Ahi, who was the one who had taken the form of a red fox to cheat on the woman, raised his glance off his sphere of fire and watched the woman. Seeing how beautiful she was, he cunningly smiled because it was what he was looking for: to have her near him.
In fact, he had seen her for the first time one evening at dusk: she was standing in front of her house, with her eyes closed, watching the sky, with wet, unkempt hair on her back and the sun of the dusk-washed her beautiful face in a warm, holy light.
And he had been right away attracted by her beauty, but he didn’t know how to approach her because his mean character wasn’t something to pass unseen and he heard from Inmar that that young woman, that had a kind heart, had a nice nose for smelling the evil and her sixth sense had never failed her. Then, it was the words used by Inmar to describe Morena: so kind, so beautiful, so perfect, as if Inmar chose those words to make him want the woman even more.
Actually, it hadn’t been Inmar’s intention. She was simply charmed by her new friend and while accompanying Ahi in his war against the Siar People, in the short time of rest when she could stay next to her brother, the fox told him about how beautiful her friend was, the human. Thus, she made Ahi curious, who decided that right away they’ll turn in Kiago Forest, he must meet that young woman and it must be immediately.
After that evening when he didn’t dare to approach her, after spending minutes in a row watching her as if charmed by her beauty to finally be left alone when she entered the home, Ahi decided to have her and if possible: immediately. For how long: he also didn’t know.
But what he knew was that he wanted her and that he must have her: the rest were just details. So, for this, he convinced Inmar to bring Morena to the foxes’village and, for this, he agreed to teach Inmar the secret of using the fire and how to fight with the daggers, but it was something minor for a Mago like Ahi that could have offered even more if his sister had asked. So, when she asked only those two things, he accepted them, immediately.
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And at that moment, seeing Morena watching him and to make her even more impressed, Ahi stood up from the pillow, put the small sphere of fire in his pocket, which suddenly became solid, and Ahi left the tent in slow step, but sure, and headed toward the place where Morena and Inmar were stopped, waiting for him.
While approaching, Ahi found Morena looking exactly the same as in the evening he saw her for the first time: the same hair scattered on her back slowly rocked by the wind while her face was washed by the light of the fire, instead of the solar one.
Only one step from her, Ahi stopped and their glances met each other and looked into the soul of the other one for seconds in a row. But none of them said anything. They only kept looking at each other, but while Morena was completely charmed by his beauty and magic used on her, Ahi was just pretending being and this was somehow felt by the young woman, but she was unable to run away, feeling that she was kept in place and that her head told her to run away as her sixth sense told her.
Actually, Morena’s heart and her woman's instincts were desperately asking her to stay and, because of this, she felt her body hardened, hold in a kind of imaginary embracement. And this was so: even if he wasn’t holding her physically into his arms, Ahi sent all his power toward her, all his desire to have her, and it allowed him to make her submissive and also want to stay.
Eventually, Ahi grabbed Morena by hand and this amazed the young woman, who stared at his hand on hers: „Let’s dance!” He told her and pulled her after him, without Morena being able to resist it.
Behind them, Inmar happily smiled because, in her hand, was the price of her betrayal - the sphere of fire that Ahi hid in his pocket: it was now on the fox’s palm and was so brightly shining.
And even if the sphere was at that moment smaller in size it had its unique role: to give power to the one who had it. So, Inmar first approached the sphere of her lips, kissed it, and, after this, she swallowed it. And since that moment, Inmar knew that she had also the power of fire. It was left just to learn to fight with the daggers, but it was just a matter of time: the important, at that moment, for Ahi was to receive his gift too - Morena next to him.
***
Holding hands and dancing one next to the other, Morena had no idea that in fact, that dance of the foxes, in which she was involved too, was a kind of dance of union between two foxes.
Actually, where she should have known this from?! Because, before that night, she had never had relationships with the foxes and more: with magic foxes. At that moment instead, when Ahi was tightly holding her to his chest, Morena felt that she was moving on an illuminated path, but it was surrounded from all over by darkness.
And, even if she felt in some moments that she had to run away from that place, she couldn’t because she was charmed and she felt that her will was kneeling at that moment in front of an unknown being, who made her feel dizzy, who made her feel the warmth of the closeness of two young people in whom boiled the desire so intense and so alluringly.
Suddenly, Ahi held her in his arms and forced her to look into his eyes. Thus, Morena saw a kind of wild blink in them, but, to her amazement, she wasn’t afraid of it. So, she stretched her hand and so gently touched his cheek.
Like watching in a mirror, Ahi did the same. And... after his palm touched Morena’s cheek, his lips approached her lips, and a kind of magic, blue air entered her body.
This made her close her eyes and allow him everything: a hot kiss, a savage one, and an embracement in which she felt strange vibrations of desire.
***
Morena was laying in the same tent in which she saw Ahi when she came to the village: all around her were soft pillows and she was also laying on a big one as if it was royal bedding. She had closed her eyes and she seemed to be asleep while her black hair, scattered on the red pillows, seemed so charming and so alluring.
And the noise of the dance in the village of the foxes was also gone somewhere at that moment because the foxes, frozen by Ahi’s magical power, were looking like alive statues carved in stone, in the same dance position in which the magic fell over them and all these happened when Ahi’s blue air completely entered Morena’s body and left her completely submissive and at his will.
But the fire continued to burn, filling the horizon with an enticing scent and with blinks of light formed from the small sparkles of fire thrown in the air by the flames that were so hungrily eating the logs of the pyre.
And all that splendor wasn’t just something seen only by the sky. It was also seen by Island, who was standing at the edge of the forest and stared with discontent at what his elder brother did, but he also knew that he couldn’t do anything to impede that: Ahi chose to unify his power with a mortal in the same way Island mixed his power with Curse’s, thousands of years ago.
But… not only due to this Island preferred to stay away from this: he wanted to save Morena and not only from Ahi but also from an eventual curse as it happened with his beloved woman after she gave birth to their son.
Yet… Island hadn’t that power in front of Ahi - not on his territory in the depths of Kiago’s forest where nature wasn’t allowing any of them to use magic for hurting the other and more: not while the other one was making love to a woman because nature was blessing any kind of union if it brought new lives on Earth, even if they were evil, even if they could hurt others: it was Nature’s choice and it couldn’t change its will.
Upset that things go how they shouldn’t normally be, Island turned his back to the tent and entered the forest, understanding that it was nothing else that he could do there.
Even so, he left there, to watch the surroundings and tell him more details about that night later, a white, magic bird, which was sitting on an upper branch of a secular tree, and her icy feathers were beautifully shining in the starlight.
And there was something else magical there: the bird’s song - sweet and so powerfully echoing around as if that bird was meant to stay there not only to watch that special moment between Morena and Ahi but also to bless nature around.
Thus, while Island was entering deeper into the depths of the forest, the keen eye of the bird deeply entered Ahi’s tent and she saw how Ahi’s hand touched Morena’s hair, caressing it.
Then, Ahi slowly bent his face on hers, inhaling the sweet scent of her skin: of her dark, olive, and soft skin that was somehow smelling beech log, and the softness of her skin drove Ahi crazy while he was touching it with his lips and with the back of his hand.
Eventually, he approached his lips from her neck, kissed her soft and fragrant skin, and, closing his eyes, he left himself fell prey to his own madness.
Later, the girl's dress was laying next to her on pillows, taken out of her body with wild movements of desire, but hurt had been only the cloth of the garment because no matter how savage Ahi was, he never hurt the woman whom he spent the night with.
Thus, heated by the fragrance of the body he had next to him and also driven crazy by the woman’s moans of pleasure, Ahi stopped to kiss her only for a second, rose on his knees, took off his white shirt, and threw it over the broken dress and the union of the dress with the shirt was somehow weird and also savage: as if those two pieces of cloth unified between them blown by a secret blowing of the two lovers’heated bodies that were moving in the same rhythm - sometimes savage, sometimes gentle and even if Morena seemed asleep, due to the magical power that Ahi charmed her with it, her woman instinct wasn’t asleep and it caught life in Ahi’s arms and it made her feel everything with such an intensity that was also driving her crazy.
Thus, even Morena’s body betrayed her as Inmar did and the same did the woman’s instinct: it fell prey to its own desire, in the end, and made her give herself to Ahi, completely, with body and soul because she felt it with all her body - his caresses on her skin, his sweet kisses, the slow touch of his skin on hers in a kind of secret dance of their bodily union and also of their souls.
***
When she awoke the next morning, Morena saw in amazement that there wasn’t even a small trace that the village of the foxes had been there, only one night ago and she also understood that she'd been left asleep on a bed of soft pillows and covered only with Ahi’s shirt while her broken dress was laying somewhere near her, on the ground.
Understanding this, Morena didn’t even cry or has been scared. She remembered, as by magic, about the events that happened only one evening ago and she understood that part of the guilt for what happened was also hers: she trusted the fox and she’d been deceived and she understood all this while her eyes kept watching the rags of the dress thrown next to her and she understood that she didn’t pass a calm night, but a savage one when her senses had been completely awakened and she felt everything that she dreamt about a whole life.
Actually, Morena dreamt of something similar in the past. Yet, it hadn’t been a kind of wet dream of a young in love lady, but a kind of premonition in which she had never trusted and she even ignored the message of that dream, but she had understood that she’d been so wrong ignoring it.
Eventually, she’d been awakened from her sad dream by the melody of the white bird’s song that was raising in the air, heading toward the sky, colored by the dawn light.
„She’s also flying away like my innocence is gone now,” Morena whispered and held the shirt at her chest, covering the nakedness of her breasts.
Then, after turning back to the village, she never told anybody about what happened to her in the village of the foxes.
Yet, the people that were surrounding her understood her secret when they saw her pregnant and even if they judged her because of this, they never chased her away from the village because Morena grew up between them, being an orphan since a little child and, she had been raised by the villagers, who were kind and even if having a baby with no father was considered shameful, they loved her and loved her baby too, till Mayar transformed into the beast.
***
PRESENT TIME
All that time, as if she’d been a mute witness, Mayar saw everything and she understood, in the end, who „Ahi’s child” was and whom Coallar had talked about in his grotto.
Yet, what made her really angry had been the fact that she saw how Mannar transformed her later into Samaya’s copy, stealing her innocence, and her will, and transforming her into the monster she was at that moment.
But what made her definitely mad had been the fact that she saw the moment when, being only a child, she killed all the chickens in her village and how Morena had been simply trampled under their feet, being punished this way for the girl’s sins and for entering Ahi’s bed, even if none of this was Morena’s fault.
That's why a roar pierced the surroundings when Mayar saw her mother kneeling, hurt and bleeding after the villagers let her breathe, in the end and moved away.
And she also saw Morena laying on the ground, for a long time, trying to assimilate what happened that day and understand her loss.
Then, Mayar saw Morena standing up, gathering her few things and abandoning the village because she knew that there wasn’t a place for her and she did it while sneaking around, with her head bent, forced to wander the world, for a long while, and it made Mayar roar again.
***
Mayar’s roar pierced the horizon and returned her to the real world and, unwillingly, in her hands, a sword appeared, which she tightly grabbed and, turning in place, she split the horizon after throwing it.
While spinning through the air, the blade of the sword touched Ahilar’s neck, and then, it moved further.
At first, he didn’t understand what happened in fact, so he continued to stare at the mad girl that was piercing him with her glance and wondering if she was really mad or just pretending. But he suddenly touched his throat, feeling deep pain, and he grabbed it with both hands: his palms had been quickly smeared with black blood and Ahilar’s body started to burn, when it caught fire.
Morena, only a few steps behind Mayar, was staring at all these, in amazement: she didn’t remember what Mayar saw in her inner world when she poked through her memories, and neither she could understand why that girl was so mad at that moment.
„What for?” Ahilar whispered, in the end, barely heard while fighting with his own destruction.
„For all the hatred you sown into the humans’soul, all this time,” Mayar hissed the words and turned her back to him.
But passing by Morena, she grabbed her hand and forced her to follow her, in silence because Mayar decided something after destroying Ahilar: her decision instead had to be a secret for all till the moment she’d be able to make that plan come true.
Behind them, Ahilar burned again down to the ground. Yet, his story wasn’t finished and it was felt in the lamenting of the trees around, which were crying for their future while wondering about what was coming next.