by Ryan Johnson
A few of them paid attention to the hybrid walking on a carved roadway that flows through the valley. They smiled and waved as the stranger they never have met walking on the roadway
Valverno didn’t say anything but smiled and waved back at them. This was a start of how he thought of what could be a pathway of being a Pangaean again, but he found it of little use. He only smiled and waved, and he thought it wasn’t enough.
After he passed through the terrain of what seemed to be farmland, Valverno walked over a large hill changing from one terrain to another. The little field he passed through disappeared behind the hill, and he came across a field of cherry blossom trees.
Instead of green leaves hanging on the branches, many trees covered in pink flowers. An army of trees grazed in many pink flowers that gushed through a small wind. A rain of those flowers flowed blew in the soft wind and around Valverno’s body. He felt a lovingly gush trailing around him, and it felt the sensational faith of love was blowing around him.
He felt if the wind had pieced through his chest like in the same manner of one of Lusìvar’s two spears. Valverno closed his eyes as he felt the same feeling he felt for Marina, and he felt if the spirit of Marina was right beside him, not dead but alive in a ghostly form.
After a short while, the wind stopped blowing, and the flying blossom flowers halted in the air, slowly floating down to the ground.
Valverno opened his eyes as he felt the air he was breathing was a sweet-smelling fragment the flowers left behind. He felt his mind at ease, and he walked through the forest of the blossom cherry trees.
A sound of waving water echoed throughout the forest. Valverno could hear water flowing nearby, and it seemed to be flowing rapidly downhill. He followed the sounds of the river through the forest of pink-flowered trees. His path led him to an edge of a wide river rapidly flowing wildly.
It would be dangerous trying to cross to the other side. Valverno could see the only way to cross was to fly over or to transport by boat. He didn’t have either, and he didn’t have plans on crossing the river. Valverno was only exploring the region the Pangaeans have settled on, and this river seems to mark the border of the Pangaean settlement.
After seeing a river of rapid waters, Valverno could see there was nothing else to see. He had seen what needed to be seen. The demihumans he saw working like gardeners were the food producers, who plowed wheat and rice as food for the Pangaean population. Each of them had a duty they performed, and they did their work with the upmost dedication. He sensed there was something magical of the settlement he had never felt before, but he couldn’t tell what kind of magic it was.
The people themselves had no magic, but he felt there was something magical about them and the land they lived on. It was a feeling of warmth of comfort his mind felt, but not his heart. He felt no warmth or comport in his heart; his mind only felt the warmth and comfort bearing in the land and the Pangaeans.
Valverno decided to leave the river was and walk away. He traveled through the forest of cherry blossom trees. He loved the sight of the trees and the color that blossomed from the branches.
“Huh, Marina, if you were only in your mortal body,” whispered Valverno. “We could have been walking through this forest and onward until we reach our destiny’s end.”
Valverno walked through the forest for a few minutes until he saw a few tall trees circling one small dead plant.
The plant was dead but a single green leaf stood on the branches’ top, draping on the ground. Surrounded by six full-grown trees, the lone plant looked like it was the outsider of the group and left to struggle to survive on its own.
Valverno could feel sympathy for the plant; he felt like an outsider for much of his life. And he saw the dead plant with only one green leave is the same as him. But instead of being left behind by humans or people like the plant seemed left behind, Valverno was never left behind but grew up with people around him.
He walked closer to the dead plant and saw the soil around it was dirt dry, dry as a bone-dry skeleton. Shadows of the surrounding trees blocked the sun’s light from reaching the dead plant, and no water was around.
“So this must be your fate?” Valverno asked the dead plant. “The strongest ones grew while the weakest ones are left behind to die. It’s your fate to get left behind and die alone. But if a little guidance can be the key, and then maybe you wouldn’t need to be the outsider, and you can belong to a crowd that would finally accept you as their own.”
Valverno knelt down and carefully placed his hands around the branch the one green leaf grasped to. He titled the branch to the topmost point like an arrowhead pointing to the sky. When he held the branch to the top, the other branches tilted downward and the one leaf Valverno was stretching to meet the top.
From its poor form, the plant used to be a type of small bush. It was never meant to be a tall tree. The plant really was an outsider as Valverno didn’t see any bush plants in the forest of the cherry blossom trees.
As Valverno had difficulties trying to keep the plant from falling down, he held the plant’s central stem with both hands and searched for something to serve as a supporting structure. The plant needed to have a supporting structure, if it there was more for the plant to grow.
His eyes turned everywhere to see what was nearby, and he saw a single stick close by yet out his reach. Valverno used his tail to grab the stick and draw it closer to him. His tail had difficulty trying to pull the stick, as it was too thin for his tail to wrap around. He used his tail’s pointed end to pull the stick closer.
When the stick came within an arm’s reach, Valverno grabbed the stick with his left hand and used his right hand to hold the dead plant up straight. He began to proceed to place the stick by the plant’s central stem.
When the stick and plant together, he held them both with one hand and used a finger of his right hand to poke a hole in the ground, right next to the plant’s stem would grow. He held the stick with his left hand and placed the stick in the small hole, so it wouldn’t have the risk of falling over, which eventually almost did.
Just one second after Valverno let go of the stick and the plant, both tilted away and fell. But he was only testing how much weight the plant would have over the stick. Apparently, the plant had more weight than the stick and both would fall back down, unless there was something to attach the plant to the stick.
Valverno didn’t have a string or any yarn with him. He needed to tie the plant and stick together, so the plant could potentially grow and live just as any tree would grow from a seed to a magnificent. He only saw the tall trees and fallen sticks and branches; he would have to walk back to the settlement to get a string and come back to tie the plant and the string together.
“This isn’t going to be easy,” he said to himself. “Too bad I don’t have any magic with me. All I have on me are my scales, my claws, and my wing and…” Valverno paused and looked at his wing and its paperlike membrane. The membrane he suddenly thought of could be useful as a substitute to a string.
Then he placed the plant back down and left the stick in its hole as it still stood, despite having a few braches tilting it like a leaning tower. His right hand grabbed his wing’s outer point and stretched it wide enough, so he could a finger with his free hand to cut-and-peel of a small slice of wing membrane. His fingertip was sharp enough to cut through the paperlike substance on his wing and a long, thin membrane fell.
After the membrane fell, it looked like a thin of a line of yarn unrolled from its ball. Then Valverno removed his wing from his view and grabbed the membrane with his right hand. Then he used his left hand to pull the dead plant back up, with its green leave on the topmost point like a tree.
His tail curved toward the plant and its pointed end barely touched the plant’s stem. A few branches broke off due to the large width of his tail size. Valverno grunted when a few branches broke off, but he
remained vigilant of his duty to help the plant.
With the help his tail from preventing the plant to fall again, Valverno released his left hand’s grip and tied the membrane around the plant’s stem to the stick with his two hands. It was difficult for his hand since many branches were in the way of Valverno’s discussion to tie the stick and stem together.
After a few antagonizing minutes of wrapping the membrane around the plant’s branches, Valverno released his tail from the plant and it stood by its own, with the stick acting as the structure support.
Even though the plant was standing upwards like a tree, Valverno knew the plant was going to need more than just a stick to keep it from dying. The plant had the soil, but it still needed sunlight and water for it to flourish. He wasn’t worried about any sunlight, but the plant did need water. The only closest water source was the nearby river.
Valverno rushed back to the river. He looked at the edges, and he knew he was going to carry a lot of water back to the plant and the dried soil. But he had no pot or jar carry a lot of water; he had only his hands, which he could carry a hand filled with a handful of water.
He walked down the river bend to see if there was something that could substitute a jar, and he found a large rock close to the river bend. He knelt down and used his fingers and clawed a deep hole into the rock. His claws were sharp to carve through the like ripping paper in half.
He clawed a hole and ripped apart the rock. And in no time, he turned the rock into a bowl. Its curve was wide enough to carry enough water he could bring to the dying plant with one green leave.
He poured the bowl into the river and carried water within it. There was enough to give him the thirst he needed having some work, but he felt the plant needed it first than he did. He carefully walked back to the plant. When he got back, the plant still stood.
But strangely enough, a ray of light pierced through the trees’ branches; it was getting the sunlight it needed. Valverno didn’t bother into thinking as to why light was suddenly sparkling through the branches of the trees. He only walked close enough to the plant, and he stopped before he could pour water on the soil.
Before he thought of pouring the water beneath the plant, he saw the soil was rock solid, and the water would just pour all across the dirt and slowly evaporate. Then he placed the bowl on the ground.
With his own hands once again, he dug around the dry soil within a small diameter. He circled around plant. Thanks to his hands in the shape of a dragon’s, he easily dug and pulled dirt from the ground and made a large path around the plant. He was making a moat around the plant like a moat surrounding the castle.
It took him a long while to make a perfect five-inch deep moat around the plant and within a close range of the plant. He was sweating from the head to his waist in the hard work he was putting in. Now, he felt done and the last thing to do was to pour water around the plant. But he still saw more work needed to be done around the moat.
The loose dirt Valverno pulled away to make the moat he decided to mold into a small hill to surround the moat, and see it as a hill-wall to border the water. That way, if the moat is overflowing with water, the water will flood within the plant and not spread like a fog drifting through a range of mountains.
Now, he was seeing the hard work was done, and he can now finally give the plant the water it needs. He walked back to the bowl with the water and immediately poured water into the dirt. The water flooded around the plant and poured into the deep moat Valverno made. The water he had filled the moat, but there wasn’t enough to fill the ground the plant’s stem.
Then he would rush back to the river to get more water and slowly walk back that way he won’t spill any water on the ground. If he did, he would have to go back and refill the bowl with more water and start the walking-process over again.
With the second bowl filled with water, he got back to the plant and poured the second filling of water into the plant. With certainty, the water filled the soil and the entire diameter Valverno made was flowing with water. The dirt was indeed dry as a skeleton and would need lots of water to keep the soil muddy and wet so the plant can absorb the water it needed to stay alive.
And Valverno kept moving back-and-forth from the river, his voice began to hum, a low pitch hum. Then after the day after the next day, Valverno chanted in a soft tone:
I always had a deep thought
That I could make a difference
To make a better world to live in
But my choices brought me down
I was felled by an evil I fought
I thought it was my life’s end
But in this moment of breathing
I see my life is turning around
This is the power of fate
It will show me the way
And won’t lead me astray
Because this is the power of fate
I’d always seen my life as a test
And I never could have guessed
That I would live to rejoin the fray
And bring a new dawn of a new day
I see there are many paths to trend
And will lead me to my journey’s end
And I highly know for certain
That my final path will be my fate to ascend
For this is the power of fate
It will show me the way
And won’t lead me astray
Because this is the power of fate
Every time I gaze at the sapphire sky
I saw hands stretching down to me
And if I grab hold of those hands,
I will have the need to fly
And feel the greatest desire to live
This is the power of fate
It will show me the way
It can’t lead me astray
Of whatever comes my way
It will be the power of fate
Valverno stopped his singing for a moment and only began to hum to a soft tune. He looked down on the plant he saved. After a week several seeds of leaves began to sprout. He moved the muddy soil around the plant and made sure enough water would sink into the ground, and the plant’s roots were absorbing the water that would sink into the ground.
“It may have been your fate to die, but you didn’t need to give up as I did. If you only have a strong belief and great faith in yourself, then one day you will come out on top and every one will see you as they saw me going from being an odd outsider to a legendary legend.”
Valverno was taking care of the plant and made sure the right amount of water was getting poured around the diameter of the plant. Too much water could overflow and kill the plant like too much food a human can eat and only to throw up from their mouth.
And as time passed, the plant began to blossom with many green leaves began to grow. And Valverno was helping the plant to blossom and he would continue to do so every single day.
And every single day, Valverno came back to help with the plant. And up to a full month, Valverno manage to turn the plant from a dead, lonely outsider to a tall, young tree soon to grow and join with the other cherry blossoms. It wasn’t a bush as he thought it was, but it was a tree indeed. And he helped out the tree, singlehandedly.
And on the final day of a full month, Valverno ripped the membrane from the stick and the plant. Then he pulled the stick away from the plant’s stem and looked at it blossoming with an array of green leaves and pink flowers; he felt life flourishing within it like how he was feeling a great spark of happiness.
It was up to the tree to grow and flourish without the help of Valverno. His work was done.
A DIVINE PROPHECY
The day after Valverno saw the tree in its magnificent form. It was tall as he was and the greenness sparkled like emerald diamonds. The time Valverno spent in reshaping and nurturing the blossoming was no wasted ti
me, as he turned a dead plant gripping onto a single speck of hope and turned the plant’s gravely fate into a tall standing tree. Now, the tree would grow into a cheery blossom tree with the other tree surrounding it, and he thought it was a bush plant.
It took the hybrid a long month to nurture a small, dead plant with a single, green leaf into a tall, blossoming tree with many green leaves and blooming seeds of cherry blossoms that would soon blossom into flowers.
“So, this is what is must feel like when a parent takes take of its child,” said Valverno. “Watching over the child. Taking care of the child. Helping them grow. Guiding them in the right direction. Being the father protecting the child until the child is old and knowledgeable enough to be on their own. How I greatly desire to be a father of three and show them the wonders of life around them. Sadly, that dream won’t become a reality.”
Behind him, he heard cheerful sounds of children playing. Valverno turned his eyes to see Freyya carrying two buckets in her hands and her two children carrying their own bucket. They smiled big and happily as they walked passed without looking at the hybrid.
They are one happy family, thought Valverno. He imagined he would be walking among them, but with Marina and three kids walking or running alongside him and Marina.
Valverno looked back at the tree and he sighed. He thought of what future he could have had with Marina and three little kids he would have fathered. But his eyes would only see an illusion of a daydream.
And behind Freyya and her two kids, the Elf Alfhild was walking and was also carrying a bucket. She saw the hybrid standing in the middle of the forest and approached him. “It’s been a month since you’ve awoken and you seem attached to this forest. You must have a love for things that grow.”
“People and plants. Balance between two different things. I just see one can’t live without the other like light and dark. Life and death. Two sides of the same coin: one can’t exist without the other. Or so I have learned from a Generation ago. Three different Generations that has or had their own species and the land those species ruled upon.