‘Aigle, I have no idea who he is and I can’t ask my mother anymore!’ she exclaimed, annoyed.
‘But surely she gave you some information?’
‘She did: he was a nice attractive young man who was very eager to sleep with her! She chose him on those two grounds alone. He didn’t say much, so she hoped I would inherit her brains.’
Aigle sighed smiling, thinking about Felix, and what he himself would have missed out on if he hadn’t known him.
‘But he fathered you…’
‘And that was all. He could have suspected the outcome of his actions, but it was true that my mother didn’t hang around long enough to give him a chance.’ Sula stared into Aigle’s eyes and grinned. ‘I appreciate what you are trying to do, but I can’t miss what I never had. My mother was all I needed.’
‘What was his name?’
‘Tibor, and he’s probably dead by now, so give it a rest. I thought you were all about letting go of the past and living in the now? Why the sudden interest?’ she asked confused.
He smiled weakly at that and just shrugged his shoulders.
Chapter 22 Family Tree
A dozen brown and white-spotted goats were grazing on the last patches of green grass in the autumn meadow surrounding the village. A young blond girl had a pet goat on her lap as if it was a dog. He even licked her face and she giggled.
‘Almaz, look what I can do!’
Her younger brother, Jolaz, made a leap up in the air and did the funniest jump which she’d only seen goats do. It looked so comical coming from Jolaz that she couldn’t stop giggling when he came down, maaing. A few goats bleated in response, tugged at their clothes and nibbled on the hems of their shirts while the twins sat laughing, rolling over the grass, with licking and nibbling goats all around them.
Suddenly, most of the herd left the twins to hurry over to the other side of the meadow, to curiously greet the approaching stranger. Almaz and Jolaz sat up to see the man greeting the goats in a similar way to how they did; by rubbing his nose softly over theirs. This must be the last comyenti man they were supposed to meet here. Their mother would join them soon, but their sister Valera should have already arrived and the twins felt a little scared.
‘Good day my Brother and Sister,’ Shazar greeted them in a pleasant voice. There was no sign on his face of the fight with their father, no bruises or marks. They had been able to read the fight, and his loathing of this Shazar person, on their father’s mind, despite the fact he had tried to hide it from them.
Almaz and Jolaz glanced questioningly at one another with faces tilted like cats, very similar to their father’s mannerism. Almaz responded, ‘Good day to you, Sir. No disrespect, but we’re not your brother and sister.’
Shazar smiled at her pleasant nature and his eyes twinkled when he knelt down to be at eye-level with them, whilst being followed at the same time by the curious goats.
‘Oh, but you are. You see, even though we don’t share the same mother and father, we are related by who we are, what we are. We are of the same species, you and I.’
‘You look like Aigle. Mum told us you are his real daddy,’ Jolaz said with a pursed mouth. Shazar could tell it was confusing for the blond boy, and he didn’t like all the emotions and unrest it had brought to his parents. Almaz was the same, although Shazar felt she was more open-minded and curious.
‘Not his daddy but his father, which, in this case is not the same thing. I’m Aigle’s father, Felix is his daddy,’ Shazar responded, but he could tell that just confused the twins even more.
‘How can Aigle have a father and a daddy?’ Jolaz asked seemingly distressed, thinking back to the birds and the bees’ education they had received from their parents not so very long ago.
‘He just said so!’ Almaz remarked.
‘Felix raised him like a son,’ Shazar explained. ‘Just as some birds sit on the eggs of other birds which had dropped off their eggs in that birds’ nest. That little baby bird wouldn’t know anyone else but the one who feeds him worms everyday and keeps him warm and safe. Just the same as how I raised my son, Twello. He used to have a father, but sadly he died, so then I became his daddy.’
They were both silent, taking it in. He sensed that they almost got it.
‘I see. And our cat Wave! We brought a squirrel baby in, remember?’ Almaz said to Jolaz.
‘Yeah, Wave had four babies of her own and when we placed the shivering baby squirrel next to her kittens she started licking it! She gave it her milk and raised it as her own!’ Jolaz explained to Shazar. He nodded at that, pleased. The children had sad faces all of a sudden.
‘What’s the matter now?’ Shazar asked them.
‘Wave died a few years ago,’ Almaz answered.
‘Yeah, we miss her lots,’ Jolaz elaborated.
Shazar smiled weakly, sensing their pain.
‘Well, I’m sure she’ll be remembered by her children and by you. The dead live on in our hearts and souls.’
‘We kept Tipple and Trip,’ Almaz said. ‘her other babies went to friends in the village. They chase mice so that they won’t steal the grain.’
‘Trip the squirrel wasn’t much use for that! And we love him too much. He lives in our garden, and his brother Tipple is still his best friend, even though he’s a cat,’ Jolaz filled in.
‘That was a lovely story,’ Shazar replied, his eyes warm. ‘You see, you don’t have to be related to be someone’s mummy or daddy or brother and sister! You don’t even have to be of the same species to care for each other!’ Shazar suddenly realised what he had just said and thought about him and Ashanna, and Sula and Felix, and tried to hide his sorrow. ‘Wave will always be a mummy; she gave her children life. The squirrel’s mother might have died or been preyed upon, but she loved her baby. You don’t have to be dead to always remain a mother or father. My father died many years ago and he will always be my daddy, just the same as Felix will always be yours’ and Aigle’s daddy, even after you leave home. I’m Aigle’s father by nature and nothing can change that. Aigle will never call me dad, because I didn’t raise him, and also because that word is a word of love. He loves your daddy. Because Aigle doesn’t know me, he can’t.’ At least, not yet.
‘See? I got that!’ Almaz said mockingly at her brother, glancing sideways at Jolaz, sticking her tongue out at him.
Shazar smiled, remembering, with love and pain in his heart, his own younger sister.
‘We use brother and sister to greet other comyentis. But of course we are the last ones. Your mother is the last female and I am the last male comyenti.’
‘Like Barbah and Han!’ Almaz said with joy.
‘Who are they?’ Shazar asked amused, thinking they referred to another animal story.
‘The first people on Bhan of course!’ she laughed.
Shazar paled at that.
‘Where did you hear that?’
‘School, and daddy has got a book about them,’ Jolaz answered for her.
‘Folklore,’ he mumbled, more to himself than the children. ‘Well, don’t take those fairy tales too literally. We have our own history and lives. We’re nothing like people. We are the most advanced species this world has. Humans don’t even come close to us so don’t let them tell you stories.’
‘I know. Mummy warned us,’ the girl said, matter of fact: ‘It’s not the book that is dangerous, it’s the reader. Our teacher thinks they were real though; history she calls it.’
‘Hmm, you have a wise mother, I’m not so sure about the teacher, but don’t tell her that or you might get into trouble.’
‘I don’t think Barbah and Han were real,’ Jolaz said, thinking. ‘Why would there have been just two people in the beginning? If that’s true, then there must have been two goats and two horses and two cats!’
‘Two birds, two rats, two mice, two-’
‘We get it, Almaz,’ Shazar smiled, yet frowned, slightly annoyed. He felt a headache coming up.
‘Did they have names too?
’ Almaz asked Shazar with a pensive face.
‘I asked Miss Rhema and she said that all the animals were already there before us,’ Jolaz answered instead, with a thoughtful look on his face. ‘Which is the same what as mummy and daddy told us, but how come people just appeared out of nowhere?’
‘Miss Rhema says people were shaped out of mud and carved into perfection,’ Almaz filled him in.
‘What, into mud people?’ Shazar asked.
‘Yeah, we were all molded, she says.’
‘By whom?’ Shazar asked, intrigued with the story. It was clear Miss Rhema had a vivid imagination, apart from her suggesting that animals were here before people. That much was true, well it had to be since they had much more skills and powers than the more primitive barbarian human, but to suggest that people were unrelated and instead perfected, shaped into, what they were today, by some higher being went a bit too far-fetched for Shazar. He was pretty sure that humans weren’t aliens created by some creator. In fact, he knew that all animals shared a common origin, and humans were mammals; whether they liked it or not. Shazar suspected the latter, that because they didn’t want to be related to dogs, rats and pigs, who were in their eyes lower beings, they chose not to. Instead they had created a convenient story to believe in.
Jolaz shrugged his shoulders.
‘Even Miss Rhema?’ asked Almaz.
Jolaz nodded, ‘Uhuh. She just doesn’t want to be reminded we’re all animals. She thinks she is better than them, and doesn’t know we’re all related, all family. Her face itself looks more like a goat than that of our old Betty!’
‘Yeah, I bet in truth she’s fed up by being reminded of that!’ Almaz added.
‘Now, that’s a bit mean, children,’ Shazar commented but couldn’t help but smirk himself.
The twins laughed so hard that they rolled over the grass, holding their bellies whilst the goats jumped up and down around them feeling the excitement in the air.
Shazar giggled. It was easy to see Sula’s influence on them. He tried to look for outer resemblances of her in them as well. The girl was golden blond with cute freckles, and was very much like her first born, Fay, whom he had met twenty odd years ago when she had been about five years old. Sula had told Shazar that Almaz was thirteen, although she looked closer to eight. Her somewhat wavy hair lay loosely on her skull, and hung across her back and shoulders. Her skin still had a tan from the summer sun. Her glimmering eyes were of a paler green than her mother’s, and did not shift, which indicated she wasn’t mind reading or using her abilities right now. Her round, appealing face was pleasant to the eye, her rosy cheeks resembled Felix’ more than Sula’s. Almaz’ ears were large to the tops and pointed, sticking out a little through her hair. Not big enough to cause any suspicion in people, he hoped. But she and her brother had to be careful what they said and did at school surely.
The boy, on the other hand, was slightly darker than his sister, with almost golden chestnut curly hair, and long eyelashes. He had the bluest eyes Shazar had ever seen. They looked like two sapphires. He had the same pretty feminine looks as his sister Valera, and his mother Sula, combined with a pink mouth and a perfectly symmetrical, gracious face with a straight, distinguished nose. And his ears were larger than the girl’s.
They would both grow up to be very appealing but that was hardly a surprise with their genetic background.
‘Well, my name is Shazar,’ he said when the children had calmed down a bit. ‘I knew your mother before you were born, as you might have heard. I am sort of a brother to her. You can call me uncle if you like?’
‘We know.’
‘Is there anything you don’t know?’ he asked bemused.
‘I guess,’ Almaz said in a serious voice, making a face, wriggling her pert nose.
‘There is indeed much to learn, and only the wise acknowledge that, and I don’t mean facts and skills you learn at school. They only try to train your logical brain there, not your true wit and intelligence. You have plenty of time to pick up all sorts of information, the world is full of it. But life and its experiences will be your true education. You’ll have a great advantage; being able to empathise with other beings, so you don’t always need to experience things for yourself. You were born with this gift. If a horse is getting beaten, both the horse and you will feel the whip. If a calf is taken away from its mother so that people can steal their milk, you will feel the intense pain of both the mother and the calf. If you look into a goat’s eyes waiting to be slaughtered by a butcher in another, not so friendly village, you’ll feel its incredible fear and incomprehension of the reason for its harsh fate. If a wolf howls at night it will break your heart and you’ll know the reason why. This can all be very overwhelming and you might have already experienced it to some degree. At times it can anger you as much as it can make you feel powerless. You can choose to close your ears and eyes to it, but never your heart. Never let it numb you either, and never ever run away from it. No matter how much it hurts it is our duty to help those in need. So how you are going to use this gift of yours when you grow up…? Now that will surely be proof of your true wisdom. And believe me; even I’m still learning after all those years.’
He smiled wryly, thinking about all the mistakes he’s made, but that made him mournful so he bit his lip. The children had listened raptly and their open, innocent faces made his heart grow soft. There was so much goodness in those eyes, so much he had nearly forgotten comyenti children indeed had, and he grew hopeful.
Shazar’s mind wondered off for a moment, deep in thought, Almaz and Jolaz glanced at one another, barely able to refrain from giggling, but knowing that to do so would be rude. He felt this and smiled at them.
‘Ah, there is your sister now.’
They all looked up to see Valera walking from the farmhouse where she resided to the meadow, over to the three of them.
‘Hi,’ she said to her kin who greeted her cheerfully back, and shyly Valera nodded at the man. ‘Sorry, I’m late but something came up.’ She put the basket she’d been carrying down, looking at the goats. ‘Mum thought we could have a picnic, but with the goats around that doesn’t seem like a very good idea.’
‘Why don’t we go to Tree Hill?’ Almaz suggested and Jolaz said, ‘Yay!’ They both stood as in unison and ran over to a green hill. On the top were some old but gracious Lime trees.
~~~
‘We love coming here,’ Valera informed Shazar. ‘It’s where Mum and Dad had their ceremony before we were born. It has such loving, positive vibes. They both want to be buried here someday. They are sooo romantic.’ Valera smiled endearingly. The girl was very pretty and Shazar completely understood why Twello had instantly fallen for her.
How very appropriate! He thought at the information given, though at the same time it made him feel like leaving.
A soft whisper of wind blew through the branches and yellow leaves of the old trees.
Almaz and Jolaz had already started climbing one of the trees and because there weren’t many side branches it would have been hard for human children, but it seemed that they used the squirrel Mindmode to make it easier.
Valera smiled at them.
‘Be careful you two!’
They were still mortal and could get hurt and die as a result of falling from a tree during squirrel-mode. The twins could quickly try the flexible body of a cat if they fell, but it would surely be a high risk and take too long to do so. Ants and other insects could fall countless times their own body size without breaking anything. Sula and her children had not been able to use the natural gifts of insects because the insects’ life spans were so much shorter and a Mindmerge had proven impossible for them so far. Insects lived very short lives compared to comyentis, but at the same time they led a full life in between birth and death. For an ant or a butterfly their life had seemed just as long as it had seemed to an elephant. Presumably comyentis lived the longest of all mammals known on Bhan. To be able to Mindmerge with invertebrates could
open up far greater possibilities. To be able to have their strength, defences and all their abilities was something comyentis could only dream of…
‘These trees are our dear friends,’ the pretty young woman said, her long hair dancing in the wind, whilst she looked overhead. Her headscarf was around her neck and the strands of her hair mostly covered her ears. ‘They know us and welcome us every time we come here. All of us have either climbed their branches or held their steady calm trunk for comfort at one stage or another.’
Shazar nodded conscientiously. ‘They have old wise souls,’ he said, looking at their smooth grey stems and branches. ‘They are much like us. Lime trees are elegant, feminine creatures and grow old very graciously, and they breathe such wisdom and kindness,’ Shazar said dreamily.
‘They give off this amazing scent in early spring when the new leaves are opening,’ Valera said as she unpacked the basket. She handed Shazar a loaf of bread and offered him some goat cheese with chives, which he refused, saying comyentis don’t consume dairy products as it wouldn’t be right to steal from babies. Valera couldn’t argue with that as she herself didn’t like the thought of eating cheese ever since she had found out that milk contained blood and pus. She also knew, however, that their flock’s baby goats got most of the mother’s milk, and Felix nowadays only used a little; just enough to make enough cheese for the children and to sell in the village if he had any left. The goats gave milk in abundance and the babes were well fed, but Felix always asked before he started milking; something Sula insisted he do. Valera smiled at the thought of her mother’s love for animals, and all the knowledge she had passed on to Valera. She also smiled at Shazar’s lack of insight into their family and started making sandwiches for the twins. They were still babies in her eyes!
They seated themselves on the grass which was covered with golden and brown leaves.
‘So you enjoy living here?’ Shazar asked while they ate, watching the children climb one of the five trees. She didn’t mind his company, and Sula had assured her that he would be on his best behaviour. Apparently, he had given her the Comyenti Oath on that. This was a chance for her to have an adult conversation with him.
The Comyenti Series Book Bundle, Volume 1 and 2 (Epic Romantic Supernatural Fantasy) Page 46