INE

RUN...

I looked at my right and then left, choosing a direction that seemed more probable to lead me back to my place, I took off.

I didn't dare to take a look over my shoulder until the familiar, delicate scent of Leopard orchids hit my nose. I raised my head to the wide spanning canopy of Marula and Worsbooms. Then, letting out a deep sigh, I slowed my pace. The tumultuous screeching of Inmyeonjo brought me more relief. Making sure that no one was tailing me, I shuffled through the underbrush to my resting space under the big and shady green Marula.

Several pairs of eyes landed on me.

I should have been used to them by now—the curious, at times grim and annoyed gazes of the Inmyeonjos. But they were too intense to ignore.

The Inmyeonjo, birds with a head similar to mine—their eyes, nose, mouth and ears resembled mine, but just much smaller to fit their light eagle bodies. Tuft of black hair on their small head was a coiled, unkempt mess.

And Khar! were they clumsy.

These Inmyeonjo were the only creatures I knew that could see my form, at least until now, and not harm me.

Even though they had a round mouth with small lips, they couldn't speak a word. All they were capable of doing, other than being clumsy was the awful screeching, through dawn to dusk, as if they were about to die.

The lonely old Inmyeonjo, kept her unwavering gaze zeroed on me as I neared my resting tree. Her nest was on the Worsboom sprawling beside my Marula. The Inmyeonjo screeched once. I lifted my head and frowned. I wouldn't know if it was a welcome call, or a cry of disappointment of my return bothering her solitude. Well, it felt better to think it to be the former.

She screeched again in an urgent tempo.

"I got it, now shut up!"

Her mouth closed up, but she kept her blank gaze on me. The viscous matter on my palms was drying up. I scrubbed them over the rough bark of the Marula before settling down on the cold grass. I withdrew the wooden hairpin from my hair and released the knot. Dark curls cascaded down to my shoulders. I ran my fingers over to tame them and detangled the funnel tied to a ringlet. It was the funnel given to me by the Bird Beast. He had told—instructed— me to keep it along all the time. I did not find a better way than plaiting its string along a section of my hair.

Now, bringing the funnel to my mouth, I spoke into it.

"Saynab?"

I ran my fingers over the torn hem of my Shwe-shwe dress as I waited for the voice that would, at other times, hurried to reply back.

But now, she gave no answer.

I called again, and gave up when I heard just the air whistling within the hollow. I was dying to tell her about my new conquest. Although, I was positive she would only scold me for running around the woods, I still wanted to talk. If she intended to tell me off then, I'd complain about my loneliness, at which she'd tell me to hold on for some more time.

Soon, she'd mellow up and talk about random things at her place and educate me about them. Even though I'd find them useless I'd still listen to her studiously. Then, I'd ask her to sing me a song and she'd croon me until sleep would come to save me from my desperation.

Setting aside the funnel, I went on all fours to fish the stone tools piled inside a small hollow of Marula trunk, and gathered them around my feet. The grumpy Inmyeonjo tottered few steps down the Worsboom branch awkwardly as I began to work on the Rompon shell. Her eyes squinted over the tools lined up on the ground.

It took her sometime to grasp. When she did, her lips thinned into a sour tilt. She ruffled her wings and peeled her eyes away from me, quickly disinterested at the realisation of what I was about to start. Not her fault though, she had seen me doing it so many times now that she was visibly bored of it.

Using a stone-burin, I chipped off the horns from the grimy shell. The surface of the horns was smooth. Only the coarsely chopped base needed smoothing. So, I filed the base into a flat and even finish.

When I was done, I held the tiny thing against the dull rays of  the t͟s'ehāyi sneaking in through the splits within the shrouded canopy. It shone with pitch black gloss... like...

"Onyx gem!" I exclaimed, delighted at the epiphany.

The word had been on the tip of my tongue for a long time now. Often, I had nagged Saynab to get the word for me, making all wild references I could possible do. But she couldn't go farther than basalt—whatever that was.

I hurried to fish the blade lying deep down inside the hollow. Blowing over it, I brushed the soil off its surface. The first thought to come to my mind when I saw it was—a spinal column.

A strange word...

Saynab renamed it as blade. So it was... a blade made of compact and parched, a series of abnormally curved grey discs held together by a flexible cord.

I had had it along the time I had crawled out of the glass orb to the forest floor. I had used it to break open the orb long time ago.

A glance at the broken orb lying at a distance on the plain ground, reminded me of that day I had woken to awareness. Beyond that time it was dark. That was how far my memories lasted.

A long time ago, this blade used to be long, straight and pliant. But with passing time, the deepening loneliness had only made way for new ideas to rise in my head. For long, the blade had served me as a play-thing, as a catapult to shoot stones at or prod at the creatures that couldn't see me, so I could enjoy their bewilderment. As more fascinating ideas occurred, I decided to turn it into a musical instrument.

The thought of making a musical instrument had come to me when I had run into a dying magikal Golden Marula in the middle of the forest. It was then shedding its golden life-spine cord, which now served as chords to my instrument.

The life-spine cord ran vertically through the hollows on the blade, to and fro, so that it flexed the blade into a 'u' shaped curve. The life-spine travelled five times through hollows, providing five vertical strings for sound. To the curved end of the blade was a single Rompon horn, forged to the centre of the life-spine string. At each step, I increased the number of horns by one, and each of them produced tones of increasing pitch. The life-spine strings between the horns produced varying musical notes as well, while the horn, when tapped produced rounded timbre.

Now, I picked the first, carved and smoothed onyx horn and placed it over the fifth string and waited.

A sudden numbness pulsed in my arm. The horn was drawing energy from my body to get itself cast into the golden string and become one with the resonance.

Forging four horns, long back, had almost had me fainting. I bit my lips and picked up the second horn. My shoulders slumped by my sides by the time the fourth horn became a part of the blade. Even as I gagged, I picked up the fifth, and the last horn and held it over the string. Readily letting all my vigour to be drained out through my fingertips. I just couldn't wait to make my own notes, to hear my own tunes.

"Iiji..." a quiet voice sounded from the funnel.

With the fifth horn still forging into the string on my lap, I slumped back against the trunk of the Marula, and swallowed to moisten my drying throat.

"Iiji... Ine?" her voiced pitched up in worry.

"Yes," I said, forcing the little strength left in me to sound normal. "I am sleepy, Saynab."

"Really, this soon?"

I half-opened my eyes and glanced at the blade. Pulled it up, hugged it across my chest, and smiled in satisfaction.

"What is it, Ine? Are you in trouble?"

Saynab had always talked me out of my crazy ideas, insisting that it would be hard to accomplish, and had often called them childish and futile. If only she knew how close I was to see the end result of my so called childish thoughts…

I’ll surprise her by playing it to her.

I smiled again, proud of my new creation. Shunned the flutter of burning pain on my chest…the spot where the skin was singed with a scar—a pain that brought up sensations of loss, agony and longing in me. I clenched my teeth and suffered it. My breathing turned shallow and slight tremors ran through my legs.

"Just sing to me..." I murmured to the funnel.

Her voice relaxed. She began with a soft melody but the words were slipping away. The lonely gloom of the forest was soon to retire, immersing me into blackness.