C2 Chapter 2

In the beginning, there’s always a question

It was early. Very early. Much too early. Dana, a light blonde and, as of today, ten-year-old, beautiful girl, was wrenched from her slumber. Thanks to the weight that a tiny creature was executing on her chest, and the noise that the cute little thing made, she couldn’t keep sleeping. The noise – loud, disharmonic, and presented in a squeaky voice – turned out to be a birthday song.

“All the best to you on your tenth

birthday, your big day is today – So,

come get up from the hay.

You’re the sweetest thing I know –

That’s why Shari is making a show.

If your hair turns blue or your nose grows long –

Today, Shari’s love for you is extra strong.

Shari won’t reveal today’s bling –

Now get up and do your thing.”

In the meantime, to underline the meaning of the little poem, Shari pinched Dana’s pretty nose softly. Shari was actually called Naya Shari, but she was only called that when she got into trouble. The little winged creature had practically chosen its own name. When she was found along with Dana, she had continuously whispered almost inaudible words that sounded something like Naya Shari. But since everyone liked the short version of the name better, she was only ever called Shari.

After the third repetition of the birthday song, Dana decided to end the well-meaning antics of Shari. She opened her eyes and called out dramatically:

“Ouch!”, only to then beam at Shari and laughingly say:

“Thank you for the birthday song – and Happy Birthday to you, too!” She rubbed her injured nose. “Did you come up with that all by yourself?”

“Sure…”, Shari quavered, and gleamed in a wonderful white color.

One could easily rely on the color and brightness of her glow to tell the mood of the little thing. When she was happy and in a good mood, she glowed brightly in a wonderful white. The worse she felt, the darker her glow got – all the way until it hit the color red. Once it hit dark red, it was best to not address the creature at all, but instead duck one’s head and seek shelter somewhere.

Dana let her gaze travel over the room. She looked over the edge of the bed and into the depth of the living cave, which, as she registered today, seemed sort of large. Everyone in the family had their own sleeping nook, even Shari. Of course, hers was a lot smaller, but at least she had a place of her own. Their home wasn’t anything special: a living room, or cave, with an open fireplace, and a bathroom that walked out into the backyard. And that was it. As was previously said, it wasn’t anything mind-blowing, but she loved this cave.

A large table, which was laden with copious amounts of food at the moment, took up a large portion of the space. A wonderful smell wafted over from the fireplace. Tala, her foster-mother, was cooking something delicious. She was short, had gray hair, twinkling silvery-gray eyes, and was dressed in typical dwarf-clothes: clunky shoes, leather pants, leather vest, and a plaid shirt. Dwarfs weren’t really into fashion. All they asked of clothes was that they were practical. The room ended, opposite of Dana’s sleeping nook, in a heavy wooden door, which lead out into the city of the dwarfs.

Tala had only recently celebrated her 502 birthday, and she still felt young, also taking great care of making sure that others saw her as a young woman as well. Almost ten years ago, when Olo had appeared on the doorstep with a tiny infant, they had decided to raise Dana as their own child because they had never been lucky enough to become parents.

Nobody had the faintest clue where Dana and Shari had come from or which race they belonged to. They were just absolutely sure that they were not dwarfs. Tala was in the process of setting the table for the birthday kids and preparing the breakfast. A large kettle hung over the fire, its contents smelled delicious, and slowly simmered above the heat. She was busy with the pots, plates, cups, and pans, and – like any other morning – she was quietly cursing to herself.

“Such a young thing … not even two-hundred-and-twelve years old, and already doing my job – at least four-hundred years, that’s what one should be, at least!”

Since she had been dismissed from the teaching service, she had seemed dissatisfied, and kept putting down her successor when she thought nobody was listening. But now Tala had eons of free time, which held some positive aspects as well because now this time was attributed to Dana’s educations, which resulted in lots of knowledge for her. That Tala hardly had any time left for herself didn’t matter to her, because like any dwarf-mother would do, she as well would do anything for her children – and her kids were Dana and Shari.

Olo must have left for work already because he was nowhere to be seen. Dana pushed Shari’s chest and swung her legs from the nook and onto the small step that wrapped around the room in front of the nooks. Afterwards, she gracefully balanced across the steps and over to the clothes, because she was just athletic like that. The clothes hung next to her nook like they always did. Then she kept climbing, down towards Tala, and hugged her passionately. That wasn’t all that hard, because the dwarf-woman was about the same size as Dana.

“Good morning, Mom.”

Dana had known for a while that Olo and Tala were not her parents. But that didn’t keep her from calling them mom and dad.

“What’s the specialty today?”, she questioned after her boisterous greeting, and the disappeared into the bathroom without waiting for the answer.

To call it a bathroom was possible stretching it a little. It was more of a simple washing room, with bowls, jugs, a tiny mirror, and an outhouse.

Ten minutes later, Dana was sitting at the kitchen table. Shari, who was too short to sit there, of course, had gotten a chair and table in miniature size, courtesy of Olo. The furniture fit onto the table, so that Shari had a nice view of things from up there. Both were now waiting for what was to come next.

In front of the birthday kids, a reasonably-sized, meticulously wrapped package was on the table. Shari, who was extremely curious, wanted to examine the package right away, but was shooed away by Tala again and again. “It is not a birthday present!”, she said, and Shari had to sit back down at her table.

Angry with the fact that she had been shooed away one too many times, Shari’s mood started changing drastically. Her blazing gleam from before started fading and changed into a light gray. That couldn’t mean anything good. One could practically see, how the chance of color also brought along the worsening of the little pixie’s mood.

Luckily, Tala was a wonderful cook, so that Shari’s anger was redirected. She quickly forgave Tala for shooing her away. And the meal Tala had prepared today was simply fit for kings.

She explained to the girls:

“As a starter, we’re having ranunculus soup.

Then the main course:

Potato cutlets with honey sauce,

Paired with a special beverage:

Iced cocoa with whipped cream and chives-sprinkles

And to top it off:

Carrot cake with pea-sprinkles.

Then the best part, dessert: Mint

coated caramel candy bites.”

The announcement of the dessert resulted in cheers from Dana and Shari, since that kind of treat was a rarity. After finishing breakfast and cleaning away their plates, Dana, like so many times before, asked the many important questions that had been weighing heavily on her heart for so long.

“Mom, who am I? Where do I come from? And why am I not like the others?”

Back in the day, Tala would have been able to avoid the questions, but today she was ready to give her daughter the answers she longed for. She gazed at her daughter for a long moment, silent. Finally, she cleared her throat quickly and started telling the story, all the while busying her hands with unwrapping the package.

“As you know, you were found ten years ago, under the most mysterious circumstances, by Olo and his friend Toben right next to the large monolith. You and Naya Shari, you came here together. Nobody knows how or why.

We searched the dwarf-archives for any kind of clue of where you could come from, but we never found a thing. The locket though, was a different story. Apparently, it belonged to an age-old wizards’ caste that used to live in these caves with us a couple thousand years ago. One day, they disappeared without leaving a trace. You and Shari, you seem to be a unit – but how the two of you belong together? – Nobody knows…yet! Maybe you will find out all about it one day.”

Then, she hesitated for a moment, before she kept talking. “We took you in after the Grand Council of Dwarfs gave us permission and left us in charge of you.

Anyway, the locket, and the broken golden egg with the hieroglyphs, which seems to have hatched Shari, the basket, and you all put together…You’re old enough to hear it now. Old enough to receive the utensils from your past and most likely for your future.”

After she finished speaking, Tala pushed a magnificently decorated basket, which she had previously finished unwrapping, across the table towards Dana. Right away, an almost palpable tension hovered in the air between them. Dana had known for a long time that she was something special. Shortly after her ninth birthday, the first peculiarities started showing – she could communicate with animals. It started with a quiet whisper. After a while, she began to understand better what the animals were saying, and after yet another while she could speak and understand their language as well as her own. Dana and Shari looked quietly at Tala for a while. In the end, the birthday kids started – very carefully – to unpack the contents of the basket.

The first thing Dana noticed was a beautiful piece of jewelry, which she picked up immediately. It felt warm, and consisted of a jet-black, flat stone, bordered in gold.

“It looks a lot like the monolith at the gathering plaza!”, Dana mumbled reverently.

As soon as she touched it, the locket appeared to come to life. Inside, small ‘stars’ started gleaming and blinking, then disappeared for a second, only to start up their light show again right away. Two tiny creatures made of pure gold with ruby red eyes were inwrought in the piece of jewelry. One could see a winged lion’s body with an eagle’s head and a fire-spitting dragon fighting each other. Dana shot a quizzical glance at Tala.

“May I put it on?”, Dana wanted to know, obviously excited.

“Absolutely”, Tala whispered, tears shining in her eyes. It somehow felt like her daughter’s life was about to become a lot more complicated, maybe even more dangerous. Who knew what Dana had to expect from the future. She knew her child well, and she also knew of Dana’s curiosity.

When Dana put on the locket, she felt the change immediately. It wasn’t noticeable on the outside, but she and Shari still felt it. Both could communicate now … without ever saying a word out loud. They were connected in their minds. Dana had wished for a reaction, maybe she’d even expected that she would get a new ability for her tenth birthday, like talking to flowers or something like that. But telepathy…that was much better than anything she could have hoped for.

Eager and excited, they started unpacking more from the basket. But aside from the mentioned hieroglyphs on the golden egg shells, there wasn’t much more to discover; a satiny, pink pillow with a matching blanket, that had a name woven in with golden threat.

Dana

Tala gloomily trudged over into the kitchen and left the birthday kids to themselves. Meanwhile, they excitedly examined the rest of the golden egg, all the while animatedly discussing the things they’d heard today. At some point, Dana started copying the hieroglyphs onto a piece of paper. Afterwards, she stashed the paper in a save place. In the hopes that the rest of the shards wouldn’t break or get lost, Dana deposited them in a box that was cushioned with wool.

There was a large secret surrounding her and her little flying friend, and she, Dana, would someday, somehow solve the mystery.