„Faster! Faster!” Pedro shouted to his wife and Nathaniel while running through the forest in the desperate attempt to get rid of Yātrīkars and be safe: they and the child that they saved.
Suddenly, Nathaniel, who was only one step behind his father, stumbled over a liana, that grew at will above the ground, and fell. While falling, he badly hit his right knee and this made him scream blue murder „Aaa!”
Pedro stopped right away and, seeing his son on the ground, rushed to approach him. But not to comfort his pain, but to hurry him, for… somewhere behind them, the bark of the dogs was heard, a hint that the hunting of the Yātrīkars, after the girl that they saved, started.
„Let’s go, Nathaniel! There’s no time to waste in vain!” Pedro told the boy and stretched his hand to help him to stand up.
With tears in his eyes, for that hit had been really painful, Nathaniel grabbed his father’s hand, who pulled him up from a jerk. But right away the boy was to his feet, he felt a big pain at the base of his knee and this made the blood quickly flow through his veins, which made the image in front of Nathaniel’s eyes suddenly blackened and he felt dizzy, squeezing his father’s arm.
This scared Maria, his mother, who was only a few meters from them, holding the baby girl to her chest. „What’s going on?” She asked her husband, seeing that even after seconds of being with his eyes closed, Nathaniel was still dizzy, squeezing Pedro’s arm. She even tried to take a few steps toward them, but Pedro reproachfully looked at her and she stopped.
„The pursuers!” Nathaniel murmured, barely heard, and this made Pedro stare in amazement at him, even if his previous intention was to demand his wife to run as quickly as possible toward the Siars’camp, for he and Nathaniel will catch up with them very soon. „The pursuers are everywhere, father!” The boy said again and looked this time with terror in his father’s eyes. „They are here! I feel them and I don’t know why! I hear them breathing down my neck! I hear their hissing breathing in my ears.”
Maria swallowed hard, listening to her son talking like that. Pedro instead only carefully looked around, for he felt a strange gust of wind, extremely cold actually, somehow glacial, that made him shiver from top to toe.
Then… that gust of wind has been also felt by nature around, and the leaves on the ground started to be swept by an invisible and angry housewife, who was very upset after a family quarrel, covering thus everything around with dust and leaves.
Later, the trees started to lament, feeling that unexpected burden on their necks and the leaves on their branches shivered in that trap of the wind while the branches were moving up and down as if they were canes stubbed in the ground, moved by an invisible force, something that made them deafeningly hiss around.
„Nobody moves!” Pedro ordered while he kept looking around without seeing anything in fact.
„Yet, father…,” Nathaniel said with a quiver in his voice because of the pain. But he kept silent, hearing his father’s demanding „shh.”
And the boy did well being silent, for… right after that, a few seconds later only, he saw with terror how, from all around them, the pursuers were approaching them.
„Parca!” Gaea murmured, suddenly appearing a few meters only behind Nathaniel and Pedro, being thus as a shield between them and the pursuers, that were slowly, but at a sure step approaching them.
„And you poking your nose again in others’businesses, Mother Earth,” the bigger of the pursuers snarled and, after shaking his head hard, splashing with saliva all around him, Parca took her real form. But her eyes kept throwing fire and hatred all around.
„Pedro!” Maria murmured frightened, unwillingly looking behind her, and seeing other pursuers surrounding them from all over.
But there weren’t only Parca’s pursuers, but also the wolves Vanamar, called there by Yātrīkars, specifically for that hunting. And…because the main victim of the Vanamars had to be Keyṉ, right after she has been killed and her soul hid in the child from Maria’s arms, Vanamar followed her, for it was written in their blood not to let ever a prey to escape.
Hearing his wife’s voice, Pedro looked back and also saw the same thing. But he felt then like between a rock and hard place, for… on one side was his wife and the girl he had to defend while on the other hand was Nathaniel, who kept squeezing his arm with his small hands and feeling thus, in that squeezing of the boy, that Nathaniel wasn’t able to stay to his feet by himself.
„Take the boy on your back!” Pedro heard Dike’s command, but he saw him nowhere, even if he looked everywhere to see him. But yet, he listened to his command and put Nathaniel on his back. Then he approached his wife. Yet, they didn’t leave the place, for being surrounded.
A few moments later, they saw where Dike’s voice has been heard from: the sky, and he descended to the ground, being on the back of his horse.
„Ho, Shinar! Ho!” Dike tried to calm the black-like pitch horse, which was snorting, feeling so many beasts around him.
Then, when the horse calmed a little, Dike jumped off his back and took the sword from the support that was grabbed by Shinar’s harness, and when she saw the Titan doing this, Parca laughed like a mad person, with all her heart.
„I see that’s funny for you, sister Parca!” Gaea teased her, taking the whip from her girdle, which wheezed in the air when the Titanide grabbed it by the haft and hit the ground with its top.
„Should I be sad instead, Mother Earth?” Parca asked, ironically. „Only seeing how many distinguished visits I have now I marvel no other and you don’t even know how glad I am to see you all here, for… I waited for this moment for so long: to have both of you in front of me.”
„Both of us?” Dike asked with feigned surprise in his voice. „Why? Did you miss us?!” And, while he said those words, Dike approached Pedro and his family. „What a shame that we don’t feel the same.”
„Why? I thought that we simply adore each other,” and Parca laughed.
„Of course, we adore each other: when we are all in our right senses. But… you seem to have lost your mind and since long ago.”
„Really? Ah, and I thought that…”
„That’s enough! To speak nonsense!” Gaea hissed through her teeth, and, as an answer, she heard a snarl from Parca, for the Titanide of Fate hated the most to be interrupted while speaking. Yet, she took her glance from Dike and from those found behind him and focused it on Gaea.
This gave Dike the chance to approach Pedro and tell him in a rush, giving Ionas to him: „go as quickly as possible to the grotto and don’t even think to let the sword from your hand. More than that: stay as close to Shinar as possible, for he’s your salvation.”
But the sword has been taken by Nathaniel, even if Dike intended to give it to Pedro. But… they didn’t have time to scold the boy for his daring at that moment.
Pedro only nodded yes and, pushing his wife from behind, they approached Shinar, which kept snorting, trying to send a message to its fanged enemies, that kept snarling at them: that they’ll feel its long teeth stubbed in their stinky furs and the sweet caress of its hooves on their back if they approach them a single step.
Eventually, Shinar hit three times with his hoof on the ground, a hint that he was ready to hit the road. „Now, go!” Dike told him and slowly tapped Shinar’s back, giving him the signal to go, and the horse advanced at a slow step, being followed by Pedro and Maria, who were so close to him while they had their children with them: one in Maria’s arm, the other one on Pedro’s back.
But Dike kept looking behind them till they were far enough from that place. The Titan’s eyes, however, were focused over there not only to make sure that they were safe but also looking into Nathaniel’s eyes, who wasn’t losing sight of him, for… after he had turned his head toward the Titan, he kept looking at him with no fear while squeezing Ionas in his hand and with the other one grabbing his father’s neck, not to fall off his back.
Suddenly, Ionas’s bubble surrounded the four and Shinar when the Vanamars dared to take a few steps toward their prey eventually. Yet, even if they kept advancing from everywhere toward the bubble that was powerfully shining in a blue light around, the Vanamars could only show their fangs… for - they couldn’t do anything else.
But even if this meant that the five were safe, Dike winced anyway, even if he intended to approach Parca and Gaea, who were moving in a circle, preparing for a fight. What made the Titane wince has been to spot, from the corner of his eyes, the moment when Nathaniel and Samaya fell in the water, after the fight with Coallar’s wild bear, which was reflected on the bubble.
„It can’t be!” Dike feverishly murmured and put his hand to his chest. „Samaya and… this child?”
Parca’s grin, which has been heard around like a powerful wolf snarl when it prepares for attack, put Dike on guard and made him look confused at her. „Your job?”
„Of course! But… I’m not the only one guilty of this!”
„What do you mean?” Dike asked, even more surprised than before.
„It’s true that I joined their destinies on this earth, but their fate has been decided by others and not by me.”
„Chaos?”
„Who else?! And… it’s also because of that busy body of Yggdrasil, which thinks that’s the mind of the Universe and plans destinies, even if the Titanides of Fate are me and Moirae!” And Parca madly shouted, outraged to realize once again that others pocked again their noses and ruined her plans, for even if she initially continued her hunting after Karina’s soul and after the magical objects that were hanging at the girl’s neck, seeing Nathaniel and reading his glorious future, she decided that’s the time to take that danger out of the roots before it’s not too late. But… attacking him, she complicated the things more, for she had never expected that Nathaniel will grab Ionas and that he’ll fortify his aura thus, and this made him really Samaya’s soul mate, the one who Parca considered must die.
Parca’s furious roar has been suddenly interrupted by a powerful slap received from Gaea, a slap that turned her head to 45 degrees, making the bones of her neck noisily crack. But this amazed her only for a few seconds and she rewarded Mother Earth also with a painful slap.
Then slap after slap followed, each of them being more painful than the previous one, and each time the Titanides’head was turned to one side, an annoying sound of cracked bones was heard everywhere.
A deafening hiss made the two Titanides suddenly cover their ears and furiously look at Dike, who was the one who whistled by putting two fingers into his mouth and blowing air as hard as he could, for he was sick of watching at that ritual of slaps while he, the pursuers, and the other Vanamars were just staying and watching.
„I say to be more dynamic!” Dike teased them. „You can share slaps later when you’ll be alone!” He added, grinning. But… ups, he mixed things up, for his joke had been the signal given to the pursuers and to the Vanamars, which started to tighten the circle, forcing him and Gaea to touch their backs eventually while being in the middle of that circle.
„Was it absolutely necessary to intervene?” Gaea hissed through her teeth.
„I hate when things are slow!” Dike grinned. Then an „Ups, damn cobra!” was heard from his throat when Gaea looked at Parca again and saw her suddenly turning to a pursuer and attacking them, just as the other beasts actually did.
***
„To the grotto! Everybody should enter the grotto!” A woman shouted, seeing Pedro and his family exiting the forest and heading toward them, followed by the Vanamars, that weren’t losing sight of them.
Hearing her shouting, Solan suddenly stood up and also looked over there, amazed to see the Vanamars at a respectable distance from their prey - about 4-5 meters. „What’s going on? How’s this possible that those monsters didn’t attack yet?”
He recognized instead Shinar in that black horse as being Dike’s horse, and when he saw Ionas in Nathaniel’s hand, who was with his head laid on his father’s shoulder and seemed exhausted, Solan understood what actually happened: they’ve been attacked, and Dike saved them, giving Ionas to the boy.
„You heard the command!” Solan shouted to the others, who even if heard the woman’s voice kept staying in front of the grotto and looking in amazement at that strange view with Pedro and his family, for even if they met Vanamars before too, the wolves never attacked them as it happened now and this was really weird.
„In the grotto! Everybody in the grotto!” Pedro shouted and namely his powerful voice made people react and they quickly withdrew toward the entrance to the grotto, leaving their things behind because they hadn’t time to gather everything.
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Being already inside the grotto, Pedro gave Nathaniel to another young man, who put him on his back and intended to hide in the depths of that grotto. But he stopped when he heard the boy murmuring: „father! Ionas! Stub it in front of the grotto! It’ll protect us!”
Pedro and the rest looked in amazement at the boy. But they didn’t have time to stay and try to discover mysteries, for the stinky breathing of the Vanamar wolves was felt stronger and stronger inside of the grotto too while the beasts were stopped a few meters only from the entrance, but with the intention to advance. So, Pedro took Ionas from his son’s hand and approached the entrance.
Taking the sword out of its scabbard, Pedro seemed frozen with it in his hand when a Vanamar suddenly jumped over him.
But that wolf seemed to not have luck in its life, for… halfway through that jump, it felt Shinar’s rear, right hoof hitting hard his stomach, and the poor animal went head over heels, yelping, for that hoof deeply entered under the ribs and hurt more than a stabbed knife under the skin.
„Hurry up!” Solan told Pedro, approaching him and putting one hand on his shoulder, awakening him thus from that unexpected numbness.
Pedro said nothing: he only nodded yes and, with a single precise movement, he stubbed Ionas in front of the grotto. Then the two men withdrew into the depths of the grotto, following the other ones.
In front of the grotto have been left only Ionas and Shinar, which had an order from the Titan to protect the Siars at any cost. Thus, Shinar wasn’t bothered at all to bite its enemies, those that dared to approach the grotto, just as it was sharing a lot of hooves left and right. But it has been also bitten by the wolves, for it was one and the Vanamars were many.
Suddenly Ionas projected its blue light all over when the sun went to bed, and the blind light of the sunset has been seen all around. This has been the signal for Ionas to project its magical power around, for the Vanamars became stronger during the night.
But Ionas’s light, which was illuminating the surroundings like a beacon, moving from left to right and back, seemed not enough to keep Vanamar away from that grotto.
Yet, the Vanamars stopped their attack, seeing that blue light projected over them. Then, they withdrew a few meters back, rallied, and waited till the night was seen all over. Later, when the darkness of the night was illuminated only by Ionas’s candle, the Vanamar started to run toward the grotto, intending to attack in group and defeat Dike’s fighters.
But they definitely didn’t have any luck that day, for… after jumping, they hit a kind of transparent barrier and all to one have been threw away, and the impact with the ground left some of them unconscious while the other ones were yelping like children, and licking their wounds, for… you see… maybe they were strong, but… anyway, they were made from flesh and blood only while Ionas and its power were magic.
Then, when the silence was disturbed only by the deaf yelp of the wolves, between Ionas and Shinar, which were still on guard, the transparent silhouette of someone has been seen, a silhouette that has been revealed only due to the sword’s power, for… many didn’t know this, but… Ionas’s power was taken from Life’s power.
***
Dizzy because of the pain, felt even stronger in the injured knee, while still being on the back of that young man that took him from his father, Nathaniel kept closing and opening his eyes.
But… each time he was opening them, he saw the image of someone in front of him, but he couldn’t understand at first who that person was. Her caress instead made him eventually smile and feel that the pain in the knee was weakening.
Only when the pain has been felt like a strange pulsation in the knee, did Nathaniel see Karina’s face. Then, he also smiled at that beautiful girl, who was also smiling and caressing his forehead. Thus, he fell asleep: feeling that sweet caress on his head. But his sleep was with an open eye and he heard the people’s whispers thus, who were murmuring while asking others about who’s the baby from Maria’s arms.
„Her name will be Yellen,” Maria suddenly said, uncovering the girl’s face, who looked at everyone with her black eyes, profound, allowing everyone to mirror their face in them. „We found her in the forest, with her parents’bodies covering her. Probably they tried to protect her thus.”
„Were they dead?” „But how is this possible?” „Horror!” „Who had a problem with this poor child?” The people kept murmuring.
„Maybe they had a problem with her parents, huh?” One of the men asked.
„No,” said Pedro. „If they had a problem with her parents only, then Parca and her pursuers would have followed us when we took the girl. But… it seems to me that they wanted something that this child has.”
„Something? Like?” asked Solan.
„I don’t know! I couldn’t figure it out yet,” said Pedro, looking into the old man’s eyes and letting him know that it was a good idea to end with that talk there, for… it could have endangered the girl later and, who knows… maybe she would have been chased away later from next to them.
Being a wise man, Solan understood the message hidden in their leader’s glance right away. More after he had spotted the quick movement of Maria’s hand, who covered the girl’s neck. Yet, he could see the sparkle of something thin hanging at that child’s neck. What he saw instead, he didn’t understand, but he wasn’t also eager to find out. That’s why the man said, changing the subject: „I remember that still being a child, my father told me that the Siars will have a new chance at life when the one named Karina will turn back to them from her path toward death, taking the path of life.”
„The path of life? What do you mean saying this, old Solan?” a few men asked while all of them entered deeper and deeper into the ground, following the sinuous tunnels that were leading into a hidden place, somewhere in that forest, a place that none of them knew how it appeared or who made it.
„To be honest, I also don’t know much about this. Only that Karina is one of the Virgins that has been turned to Yātrīkar. Yet, if our grand-grandparents got to tell us such words and we know them till nowadays, it must be because it’s not only a random legend or something, but a real thing, something that will happen eventually and will bring us joy.”
„Let Titans and Chaos listen to these words,” Maria said, holding the girl to her chest and covering her face, for the light of the torches from the men’s hand made the little girl constantly open and close her eyes as if the light bothered her. „Because they gave us this little girl, who I and Pedro waited for so long.”
„This is true! It’s true! A child is always bliss!” another murmur has been heard around.
Nathaniel, who just like Yellen, opened and closed his eyes repeatedly, heard that murmur, but he didn’t understand a big deal. Yet, he has been amazed to see how Karina, the one he imagined, suddenly turned her back on him and passed through that wall as if it was made from water, and, as she went away from the boy, Nathaniel heard her voice: „remember, Nathaniel - one’s life is only in his hands. Thus… fight for the life you have and take care of that child, for she’s… Life!”
Suddenly, the image seen by Nathaniel vanished and he saw only the wall of that tunnel, so clearly. Eventually, he felt the eyelids so heavy and closed his eyes. Before falling asleep yet, he heard Yellen’s cry, but he murmured: „I understood, Life - I’ll take care of you!”
***
Red blood drops fall off Gaea’s white arm while she’s standing and sadly looking around, at the bodies of all those pursuers that fell prey to Parca’s madness, with whom they fought not long ago.
And not only Gaea’s arm was hurt: she had visible wounds, deep wounds both on her face and neck, but those wounds seem not to bleed anymore as if their bleeding has been stopped by the strange touching of the healing breath.
She winced instead, feeling someone touching her arm and when she looked to her left, she saw Dike, who broke a piece of cloth from his vestment and covered the wound on her arm, caused by the bite of a Vanamar.
„What was that?” Gaea asked almost in a whisper while looking into the lost glance of the Titan.
„To be honest, I have no idea. But… that it has been real, I’m sure,” he said after he had finished bandaging the wound. Then he took a few steps away from her and sat down on the ground. Later, he looked at all those bodies that fell in that battle.
But… not he or Gaea killed them: it has been Parca, who… while fighting with Gaea, clenched with her into hand-to-hand combat, suddenly roared like a mad person and, after she had jumped in the air, she released Mother Earth, and started to attack her pursuers, without giving the poor souls any chance to survive. And she finished that battle with the beasts in seconds, dizzyingly moving from one to another and breaking their bodies with cruelty unseen before at her, making the two Titans wonder if it was really Parca or just one of her copies.
But that crazy being was Parca, who was fighting at that moment with the Good-she, and this awakened the monster of madness inside her, something that made her kill her own army. Then, before vanishing, she split up: into Good Parca and Evil Parca, who right away grabbed the other one by the throat, with one single hand, while, with the other hand, they were squeezing a dagger, made from bone material. Later, staring with hatred into the other’s eyes, they stabbed those daggers into the right shoulder of the other one and this forced them both to vanish.
This was what amazed Dike and Gaea so much, who kept looking around, with wide-open mouths, for a long while after both Parca vanished, leaving everything around there surrounded by darkness.
Yet, the star of the world, called Akkatas, sent its light all over the forest, seconds after the darkness took over the world. Thus, Akkatas blessed the triumph of Good over Evil, one more time in those few thousand years.
And that light of the star made the two Titans look at the sky and they saw it covered by a lot of sparkling stars, something that could be seen only once in a few hundred years, for even if the stars were seen in the sky almost every night, only once in a while it looked as if being encrusted with diamonds, which looked as if being placed one next to the other.
„Life changes!” Gaea suddenly murmured, still looking at the sky.
„Yes, it changes! It seems that Life descended once again on earth!” Dike said, amazed by the beauty of the sky.
„Yet… I can’t understand why!” Gaea thoughtfully said.
„Probably to gather part of the power it gave to the world,” said the Titan and motioned to Gaea to look in front.
This amazed Gaea a lot, for since she has been sent to Earth, she never saw something like that: the souls of the pursuers, those killed by Parca in the fight, finally left the bodies and, lined up, headed toward a path made from light, seen right in the center of that forest. And… when they got to that light projected from the sky, they climbed on that path as if it was stairs till they vanished somewhere. Then, the light of Akkatas also vanished, leaving that place illuminated only by the other stars.
„Let’s go too!” Dike told the Titanide, after Akkatas blinked three times in the sky, to vanish later.
„Where?” Gaea asked in amazement.
„Home!” The Titan gently said and walked on the same road onto which Pedro and his family went, accompanied by Shinar.
Gaea stood for a few seconds more in the same place, looking around. But even if she saw, with her own eyes, that the bodies of the pursuers vanished like burning ash, she hadn’t been amazed, for it was the same way Adamant vanished, and it was the wolves’way to disappear from the world.
Then, when the last pursuer turned to ashes, Gaea turned her back to that place and followed the Titan in a slow step. But while Dike proudly walked, with his head raised up, Gaea was looking to the ground, feeling guilty for she couldn’t save Karina’s soul too, in that battle.
***
A painful sigh… followed by another one has been heard while Parca’s bloody hand was touching the trunk of a tree, then another one, walking through the woods and heading toward nowhere.
The other hand was touching her wounded shoulder instead, the one that she injured by herself, and that pain was unbearable because she did it to herself, using two powers: a dark one and a white one. But… while she could take back the body known by everyone, the one that was representing the two Parca, not the same happened to the wound: it didn’t heal as it happened before, for the two opposite powers kept fighting inside her, and that fight seemed not to reach an end soon, and this was also seen in the blood that kept coloring the cloth around the wound, making it seem both black and red.
Arrived at the edge of the forest, Parca collapsed next to the trunk of a thick tree and, with pale eyes because of the pain and tiredness, she looked toward the Grotto of Siars, where Shinar and Ionas could be still seen.
But… Parca didn’t go there to see if the Vanamars listened to her command and killed the girl. No, she was there to see Life once again, the one she missed so much since she has been sent to Earth, and it seemed that Life forgot about her, even if Parca trustily served her before and she even gave up on her own She to also help Life.
„I’m here, my Lady!” Parca feverishly murmured, seeing so clearly Life’s transparent body behind Shinar and Ionas.
Yet, Parca didn’t have enough power to approach that place: she remained next to the trunk, where she fell, weeping her fate in silence, and, even if she knew well why she has been sent to Earth, Parca still knew that her betrayal, millennia ago, when she had another body and face, kept her far away from Life.
„I’ll pay for what I’ve done then!” Parca murmured, with tears in her eyes, staring toward the place where Life, Shinar, and Ionas were seen. „I’ll pay eventually and I’ll feel sorrow for every single bad thing I’ve done there and here.”
Then, she looked to her right where she saw Dike and Gaea exiting the forest and heading toward Shinar and Ionas.
The two Titans instead didn’t see either Parca or Life’s transparent body, for there were only few of those who had the blessing of seeing Life.
But Vāḻkkai saw the two Titans and, while Dike approached Shinar and Ionas, and then took the sword out of the ground and put it inside of the scabbard, which Pedro left next to Ionas’s blade, Life took a step toward him and whispered: „Inta makkaḷai orupōtum viṭṭuviṭātīrkaḷ, Dike. Avaṉiṭamiruntē uṉ aḻiyāmaiyum uṉ cantatiyum piṟantaṉa.” (Tamil) (Never leave this people behind, Dike. Immortality and your heirs will be born from it.)
And that whisper, so known by the Titan, made Dike wince and look to his left, for namely in his left ear Vāḻkkai whispered those words. Dike instead saw nobody and this amazed him a lot. Yet… he knew very well whose voice he heard, for while he was in Cosmos, he heard Life’s voice talking to him not only once, and not only once he also confused that voice with the one of Aeon.
„Something happens?” Gaea asked, amazed to see him wincing and looking around.
„Vāḻkkai! She has been here!” Dike murmured and looked into Gaea’s eyes. But he didn’t see the amazement in them. „Did you know?”
Gaea only nodded yes and smiled: „even if I don’t see or hear her, I feel her, and this is a pure blessing.”
Later, the Titanide turned her back to Dike and headed toward the forest again, slowly stepping on that soft ground while the slow rocking of the tall and green herbs, of that soft herb that was touching her feet, gave Gaea some comfort, after the fight they had.
But… while they were heading toward the forest, Gaea looked to her right, toward the place where not long ago Parca has been. Yet, she didn’t see her, even if Parca was still in the same place. Even so, even if she didn’t see the Titanide of Fate, Gaea knew that Parca was there, protected by someone’s magic, even if she didn’t know whose magic it was.
Soon after this, Dike grabbed Shinar by the bridle and, spurring him, made the horse follow him while holding Ionas, whose light faded already off, in the other hand.
(Tamil: Maṉa amaitikkāṉa nēram itu.) „It’s time to have at least a little bit of rest too,” Life murmured and holy breathing exited her chest, a breathing that turned into a magic bird, with the same transparent body Life had, which flew later away, raising in the air, up-up above the forest, to vanish soon somewhere at the horizon.