THE Night, like a blanket of embracing darkness, can never be compared. Its stars are beams of warm constancy and a testament to its eternal existence. Anyone who gazes at it will be in awe of its beauty. Its luminaries are like the sweetest of sugar, white, and light as it gives its taster a newfound strength. Its soft shadows coat the world with good rest and sleep. Its moon, silver in color, gazes with benign coolness upon the dwellers of the land and its everlasting music, one that is hidden beyond the cold winds of twilight, is ever-changing in tone. A good contrast between minor and major beneath the constant chordal harmony of comfort. An everlasting polyphone singing with the cuckoos of the night and the wise owls, the great bats, and the great fiery foxes.

And upon this grassy hill, as he gazes upon the endless stretches of those luminaries, the greatest moment always passes. The air is slightly cold even in the middle of summer, but it is still comfortable enough for his alone self. And under this canopy of the divine scene, his friend is only a stack of lit and crackling firewood. The simple sounds of the consuming fire relax his body and the sighs he heard from himself as he gazes upon the gradation of colors on the high heavens complements the good silent harmony in the air. A silent laugh escapes him this very moment, as, despite the solitude of the plains and the absence of a city’s friendly busyness, he is content. He feels no burdens of life and is far from any worldly trouble. At this time, only he and the great night, that enveloped him like a father, are here.

It all feels like a dream sometimes, even though he is wide awake, that passes in a single second. But still, he sits here and lets the blissful connection runs through him every time it arrives and when all is just right. Looking slightly at the crackling fire, he remembered what people say about him a long time ago. He was told that he was born underneath the sky of midnight, when the moon was the brightest and the stars shone like faraway heavenly pillars, shooting good warmth from a time-long past and from a great distance. When he first cried, a shower of little fireballs was seen in the eastern sky suddenly like fireworks of great fanfare. And when he was clothed in white, a great horde of fire wolves passed in front of his parents’ doorsteps in a great hunt, their feet stomping like celebratory drums of a great wedding. It was even said that the great ring of a great planet was easily seen that fateful night. There and then, under the same canopy of stars that he is seeing now, he was given a simple name “Nox,” meaning night in the language of his ancestors. But at that time, his grandfather, as if he was transfixed when he saw the baby’s face under the sudden light of the moon and the ringed beauty of the skies, insisted he was given the name “Elwin” too, saying that he will be of great beauty like the giant elves of old.

He laughed now and then when he remembered those things. They were like legends of his early childhood. And it concerned a time when everything was lighter and simpler. But time changed, just like everything else and even though it was hurtful, he recalled how he simply smiled them away like the soft winds that slowly scattered the clouds. All memories passed away but his smile remained just like what his elders wished he can do when they were still around. One of those old men of his house gave him a small firefox when he was a little. And his parents once mentioned to him how it caused a great argument amongst the members of his family when the notion was passed around. He was told how he was quite famous among the fire foxes that frequented them. They were not shy around him and tried to get close to him whenever they could like he was some sort of a celebrity. The fire wolves also did the same at that time, but they were even shyer than the mischievous foxes, only gazing from a distance and howling to his young self as he can howl with them. He never questioned such things when he was a child, treating them like one treats a dream-like wonder. His family only said that he will be told the reason when he was older. But it was a long time ago and now the answer is buried by time with no sign that it will resurface. He can only shake his head slowly whenever he remembered those hazy memories of the fiery and kind canines. And he can only smile whenever he heard the voice of the past, telling him that the answer will be given any time now, wishing that it will truly arrive, maybe in a dream.

However, the thing he most fond of remembering is the crystal-clear memory of those bright and great wolves and foxes. They are slightly bigger than the normal ones that the hunters and brave men brought out in their missions and quests. They appear unbeatable with their great and upright stature and the warm golden-orange flames that coated their bodies appear like the gentle waves of a star’s tongue. The bright fire always sways like the tall trees on a beach, great and terrifying at a glance. But they are warm to the touch and un-consuming like other normal fires. The fire was like a protective blanket for them and it was only activated as a fiery burner when they were threatened or they perceived others as their enemies. Their eyes are often blue or brown, and just like the rest of the great creatures, they are so smart that a number of them can perfectly understand human languages. All of these traits can be seen in every one of those fiery canines of the plains, just like the one in front of him now.

He first noticed it when he was done gazing at the warmth of the eternal and boundless night. It was crouching and laying low in the green grass not far from him, using the sloping physique of the small hill to slightly hid its body from the interesting human in front of it. But its tall burning ears gave its position away and the light blue eyes that gazes at him from time to time were too bright to be unnoticeable. And thus, chuckling quietly then, he beckoned his hand to that fox in a certain way that he knows they like from early in his childhood. With his thumb slightly pressing to his forefinger and the rest swaying lazily as a gesture for it to approach, he successfully made the shy but curious fox come to him. The moment his hand pats softly at the fire blanket of the fox’s head and the soft blows of sudden warm wind from the heavens above, he sighs again with another content and a slightly helpless smile on his face. The soft rumblings that the fox made seem to intertwine beautifully with the clustered symphony of the night. It feels like a good ornamentation in the midst of a chorale of the evening’s kingdom. A little lullaby that brings him even deeper into the sweet bliss of the lit night sky. Between the warmth on his right hand and the crackling fire on his left, he sits with his small happiness readily burning again inside him. His eyes now gaze at the wide and tall forest clearly visible from the height he is on, their dark green leaves swaying beneath the silver streaks of moonlight, and the air all around them is mostly silent but not at all unfriendly. Thus, all is good under the blessings of the good darkness.

And beneath this same good and glorious sky, he recalled how he left after saying goodbye to his last living relative earlier in the day. A good elder who lived in a city quite far from the town he used to live in. He received a message about one week ago from a caretaker saying that a relative of his recently passed away. He was reportedly alone with no wife of his own. His two children died before him; one a long time ago, and another recently in a foreign country far from home. For the last five years of his life, the elder lived alone, only hiring one caretaker to help him with his daily necessities. Elwin was told that every time the old man was asked whether he has any other living relatives, he always says no. And the answer was always the same until about two weeks before his death. When the caretaker was gone for a short while to buy food and drinks as part of his monthly duties, the old man, who tried to repair something near the stairs, fell down and broke his right leg. For the rest of the week, the elder was in delirium and fever most of the time, sometimes muttering a name under his breath that the caretaker cannot determine at the time.

It went on like this until the second week, Monday Elwin was told, when the elder suddenly became better and even sit upright on his bed and cheerfully ate any food that the caretaker brought to him. It was also the day when the old man wrote two letters fervently on his bed and told the caretaker to only deliver them to their destination when he starts his daily afternoon sleep. The caretaker did as he was told but it came to pass with a strange happenstance: the old man died peacefully in his sleep that same afternoon, not long after he slept. In a hurry, the caretaker hires a courier just to deliver these two letters to Elwin’s home about three days away from the old man’s city. And Elwin himself quickly went out the next day with the courier as his guide to see the old man’s dead body by himself. It was on Saturday that he finally arrived to see the old man’s body draped in white clothes and robes full of intricate black carvings. His whole is placed inside a stone coffin ready to be buried in the best cemetery that the city has to offer. The only thing that stopped the caretaker to proceed with his burial is his waiting for Elwin’s arrival. Once Elwin arrived there and saw the elder’s peaceful and smiling face, he asked the caretaker for another three hours for him to gaze at the face of the man that he once frequently saw in his childhood.

He was one of the closest elders that Elwin ever knew in his early life and the one who supports him in all his childhood’s whimsical desires. After a time came and buried all his family and his memories in the dustbins of history, this elder – whose name was Albus – was the only one left to support him in his continuing life. He was the one that educated him and gave him the light he needed in his small solitude back in those days, befitting the name that this elder was known by throughout his long life. He was the one who sent Elwin to the small town where he lived not so long ago and nurtured him in simplicity until he entered his early adulthood. But for reasons unknown, this good elder disappeared completely from Elwin’s life five years ago. He searched for the kind elder of his youth but cannot find him and he knew not an inkling of his well-being until he received the news of his death so abruptly and suddenly.

When he was on his journey to the old man’s home, Elwin thought of how cruel the elder, Albus, had been to him. He kept him under his wings for so long and nurtured him to such a degree only to leave him in the dust and to reunite not with him but with his body asleep for a long time in a coffin that is almost shut. But when he saw how happy the elder’s face seemed to be and how beautiful his expression was in the midst of the white draping of his funeral robes, he did not bare to be angry before the resting man. He can only sigh and sit by the elder’s side in the old man’s empty living room. That night, not long after his arrival there and under the similar sky that he is seeing right now, the elder was put to rest in a great tomb near the city’s center. The procession itself was small in number: Elwin, the caretaker, and a group of six men hired to carry the coffin along with a priest from a nearby white temple. It was solemn and the air was heavy. The caretaker, a man of no more than twenty-two years old, cried fervently along the way and even more so when the actual burial took place. Elwin himself shed tears of his own, but he also smiled like never before, just like what his elders taught to him in the earliest days of his life.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

It was only on the second day of his stay at the elder’s house that he dares to open one of the letters that were addressed to him. The two of them were almost identical if not for the seal that exists in one of them but not in the other. His inner being directed him to open the one without the seal first and thus, he did so and found quite a bit of information there. There he found the elder’s will that named Elwin the sole heir to all his property. It came with two notes that respectively forced him to accept all that the elder was willing to give to him and commanded him to leave the small town he lived in and ‘see the world.’ The second note also told him to open the second letter when the time ‘is right’ without telling what the right time is supposed to be. At that moment, he can only shake his head and smile, thinly, yet again with a few teardrops already on his cheeks that threatened to wet the letter he read.

To fulfill the duties given to him in that will, Elwin seek the assistance of the caretaker in the will’s execution which took no longer than a day despite the city’s seemingly complex bureaucracy. He gave the house to the caretaker for safekeeping and told him to live there in order to keep the house, the elder’s last testament of life, alive and clean. Elwin tried to pay him some yearly fee so that the young caretaker can maintain the old man’s graveyard but the young man refused him and told him that it will be his honor to guard the ‘superbly kind’ elder’s graveyard while Elwin is away. The rest of the properties and holdings that the elder, who was surprisingly rich, had, and told in his will were previously prepared for his two deceased sons, were sold. Many of them which were immediately bought by the people and generated quite a considerable sum of money for Elwin. Half of the money was given for public interest through the caretaker, who thought it fit to open a small-sized charity organization bearing the elder’s name, and the other half was taken by Elwin as his means to ‘see the world.’

It was another day before Elwin dare to leave the last remnant of his old family life behind. Looking at that pristine but slightly empty house with the young caretaker bidding him goodbye at its doorstep brought another sigh out of him then. The slightly cloudy weather upon the skies that morning when he leaves deepens his grief slightly but he bares through it with another smile on his face then. The three-day journey back to the small town he lived in for the past eleven years alleviates the sadness in him little by little. The solitude he experienced throughout that grieving march was erased gradually by the beauty of the nights which were increasingly more beautiful than ever before. The wonders along the way were plenty and the evening was so full of rare happenings that Elwin was sure that the night and the skies were comforting him. And comforted him they did as by the time he arrived at his small town, another smile, although tinged with a slight shadow of nostalgia, was on his face again.

“Elwin!” A powerful shout was heard from his left, as a tall man guiding a horse with his right hand and a lit torch on his left is seen marching steadily towards where Elwin currently is. The powerful voice abruptly brings Elwin back to reality as his body slightly flinches. The excited shout also shocked the firefox that is patted by him, as it whimpers, looks at Elwin’s golden eyes in nervousness, and scampers away to the tall bushes by the hill’s side to hide. The fox’s actions brought a happy chuckle out of him as Elwin finally stands up from where he is sitting and observed the gradually approaching man. When Elwin finally arrived at his small town again, this man was the first that met him on his way home. He fusses around about him and worries over unnecessary things as he asked Elwin where he has been in the past week when he suddenly disappeared. The man’s excited smile and the worries apparent on his brows were another factors that brought Elwin’s smile out again after he ended his grief along the way. And this was the case as this man was no other than his lifelong friend. The one that the elder introduced to him when he was still a young ten-year-old when he first arrived in that small but beautiful town. The then-young boy with shiny blond hair, bright green eyes, and a smile that was as bright as the sun was too much for his own liking in that distant past. Elwin’s own raven black hair, dull amber-golden eyes, and closed-off expression epitomized his slightly closed-off personality which was the sharp opposite of the boy’s cheery and energetic nature. Even the boy’s name itself, ‘Lucian,’ perfectly reflects the golden-haired boy’s bright and hearty personality. But anything was truly possible as they soon became the best of friends much to the surprise of Elwin himself.

And thus, for the past eleven years, they became like blood-related brothers to each other. Lucian himself was an orphan and he was brought by Albus, the elder, to be a personal guardian for the young Elwin because of his great build and resilient mind. He was also three years older than Elwin himself and he has since acted, according to the old man’s will, as Elwin’s slightly older brother and mentor throughout his early youth. Since the young Elwin and Lucian bonded surprisingly easily, the old man was content to leave them be in this small town and provided them with any important necessities from afar. Since the old man disappeared five years ago, both Elwin and Lucian, despite still receiving help from who-knows-where, fend for themselves by being tutors to the town’s children as both of them were educated by the elder and his extremely skilled teachers early on in their livelihood. It was on one of those occasions when Lucian was away from home to teach the children of a nearby school that Elwin received the courier’s massage and hurriedly leave his companion behind to see the old man’s situation.

After apologizing heartily and quite profusely to alleviate Lucian’s worry then, Elwin finally explained the situation clearly to his friend and expressed his wish to sell all his possessions in this small village and to go out and ‘see the world' as per the elder’s wish. And it came as another token of happiness for Elwin when Lucian said that he wants to follow him wherever he goes. Elwin himself did not understand if that happiness came from him being sincerely joyful in gaining a companion in his long journey to ‘see the world or just his second-long egoistic desire to not be left alone in completing the elder’s strange quest. Whatever that was, in the end, the happiness that he felt when he saw how determined his friend was in following him stemmed from the endless gratefulness that came from his heart to Lucian who he always sees as his companion in joys and griefs.

Thus, they spent the next three days selling all their belongings that can quickly be sold and left the rest to be taken care of by a kind neighbor that watched the two of them grow up together. They were prepared to leave the small town, where they lived for the last eleven years, together if not for Lucian suddenly remembering to finish off one last matter on the other side of the town. So, Elwin volunteered to bring both their belongings, which are small in number, in his horse and to wait for Lucian by the small hill near the road leading out from the small town’s valley where they usually play when they were young. Elwin arrived on that small hill where he is now when afternoon already arrived and wait until early evening when Lucian finally arrives with his own horse in tow.

So when he finally sees Lucian again after a satisfying time of seeing the evening heavens in all of their glory and being entertained by the firefox he was so fond of since he was a child, Elwin felt that his simple happiness, in this night when he is far from the weariness of the world, is finally complete. What simple man can refuse all his dearest things near to him right now: the night sky as his eternal protector, the memories dear to him from his earliest life, and a companion of a lifetime? So, with a sigh and another small smile on his face, he gets up from his grass seat and greets his friend with as much enthusiasm as he can muster. Nodding his head, he answers the man as he sees Lucian placing his horse beside Elwin’s own.

“Lucian,” his voice is slightly hoarse from how sparse he uses it these past few days. Lucian’s slightly booming laugh sounds as he hugs Elwin for a short while before asking him with a wide smile on his face. “So, are you ready, my friend?” Even though his laugh is triumphant in nature not three seconds ago, his tone now is quite soft as he catches the nostalgia that slightly clouds Elwin’s amber-golden eyes. Patting Lucian on his back softly, Elwin gazes upon the beautiful silvery-black skies that comfort his very soul before he sighs and nods his head deeply. “I am ready now.” Lucian softly chuckles at his answer before responding to him with another of his wide and friendly smiles. As they soon finish with their preparation, they decide to just guide their horses as they comfortably trace the road down the small hill. “So, for Heaven’s sake, where are we going now, El?” Lucian articulates his question strangely excitedly and Elwin can only shake his head at his friend’s sometimes overtly excited demeanor. “Where our feet bring us, Luc.” Elwin spreads his eyes at the suddenly twinkling skies around him before he continues with his words, “the skies are with us after all.” Lucian answers with another one of his slightly boisterous laughs that gradually disappears in the midst of the whistling winds of the night. The great comfort of the environment around him and the exalted laugh of his companion brings out another full-blown smile to Elwin’s face yet again. And at this moment as at the beginning of the night, as he is walking in the middle of the great night, he is certain that all is well and all is good. Now and here, he is grateful and content. And he is now as ready as he can be to greet the coming future, whatever it may be.

And in the middle of the harmonies of the night, in that place where Elwin previously sat, a bright white-colored and eight-petalled flower that shines with a golden-silvery glow grows completely in a blink of an eye. And under the ignorance of the traveling companions, a great creature: an eight-eyed fox as large as a bison with ten tails and covered in black-golden fire steps near the unearthly flower as it gazes on the increasingly further two-man party, especially at the raven-haired man. It sighs in peace and glowing white clouds instantly come out of its nostrils. Closing its eight eyes in silence for a moment, it opens them again as an incomprehensible, immeasurable but good-willed smile spread across its gloriously glowing face. The great fox bows its head and softly kisses the glowing flower upon the earth before setting its eyes again on the departing figure of Elwin and then Lucian nods his head towards the two men as a sign of its goodwill before disappearing behind the tall bushes yet again. Even the night skies, witnessing the start of Elwin’s long journey, offer its brightest stars to accompany the men in welcoming the start of a new day with a certain great star setting its eyes upon the two traveling figures, its great waves of white and black light covering the two of them as an invisible blanket of great protection from afar. –