[Veltzeh]: 39.The Heritage of Humankind.Tales from Kyerrion.13

Tegafel woke up first in the morning and did not remember any nightmares. Ey was very happy about that and petted Krezagon's naked body until the ancod woke up. They talked about Tegafel's nightmares and moved on to dreams in general, after which they finally got up, got dressed and walked off to eat breakfast. Having eaten, they walked around a bit and sat in front of Krezagon's tent, moving around Tegafel's hurt leg.

Krezagon's—and evidently Tegafel's to be—sergeant Derekl Turinel walked up to them after having located them. When ey was still some distance away but walking quickly toward the two, Derekl went: "Attention, Shynderfolter!"

Krezagon made a horrifiedly disgusted grimace before standing up to the attention. Tegafel did the same, even though Derekl seemed to have only been addressing Krezagon.

"So what are you doing? Being completely USELESS once again, obviously! Now listen, you stupid prosht. Haul your useless self and your almost as useless tools over to the west side of the camp and start helping with the building of a fortified fence around the camp. Go! Go!"

"Yes, soni." Krezagon went to the back of eir tent and picked out eir tools, specifically a knife, ax and a smallish saw.

Tegafel had not really thought ey could ever hear as much discontent in anyone's voice before ey witnessed that little exchange of hidden and not so hidden messages. Ey was horrified. When Krezagon was gone, ey stared at Derekl with eir mouth open.

"Hurry up and heal already, wacod. Don't be as useless as prosht jian Shynderfolter here is!" Having said that, Derekl laid eir hand on Tegafel's hip, squeezed very slightly, let go and walked away.

Tegafel was speechless. Ey could not believe someone could behave so badly. Ey walked around and eventually got so angry that ey started whacking a tree with eir walking stick and yelling. The walking stick broke and Tegafel took eir anger out on other slightly weaker sticks ey found. Not too long after that, eir body started hurting and ey realized ey should better stop now. Ey looked around for a proper walking stick but found none. Ey then picked a stick that was too long for em and wobbled off into the infirmary tent.

In the infirmary tent, ey let our some steam by cursing Derekl by eir ancestors. Fronel came to the tent and raised an eyebrow at Tegafel, who was obviously angry.

"I saw the ancod hacking some trees for the fence we're building... I suppose you met your sergeant Derekl Turinel." Tegafel just fumed. Ey could not speak. Fronel eyed em a little more and noticed the new walking stick. "Hm, you broke or lost the other walking stick, I see. That needs to be shortened." Fronel took it, measured it and looked for a saw among eir tools. After having found it, ey placed the stick on the table, had Tegafel sit on it and sawed off some of it so that it would be fitting for Tegafel.

In the meantime, Tegafel had calmed down a bit. "I have never... I have never seen anyone behave that bad! Not even my alhem!"

"Has to be really bad, then," said Fronel very sarcastically, but Tegafel missed it completely. However, that did not cause any issues.

"Ey did nothing but call em useless! Insulted! Called em 'jian' of all things! Ey's barely older than I am, not even near as old as Krezagon!"

"Don't complain about it to me. I don't want to hear it and I can't do anything about it... Take your walking stick and go complain to Derekl if it's so gzoozzing intolerable." With that, Fronel left.

Tegafel fumed for a while and walked around a bit, trying to come up with something to say to the sergeant. Ey wanted out of the camp, so ey went to the vague border and asked the guards whether ey could go into the homehan settlement. The guards said that the other soldiers had already walked around there so it should be safe and okay. Therefore, Tegafel went to the settlement.

Tegafel did not get too many stares from the homehans. After seeing the first little shop in the homehan settlement, ey thought that it would be an awesome gesture to buy a gift for Krezagon. Without thinking twice, ey went back to the femehan camp, got eir money and returned to the homehan settlement, looking around for stores. Then ey found out that ey had no clue what Krezagon might have wanted and whether the homehans really had anything that would be suitable as a gift. Since it was just a settlement, many things that were sold were just practical. Then again, Krezagon was a practical person, so Tegafel thought ey could just buy some better clothing.

Ey had encountered three shops this far and seen nothing of use in there. Ey looked a bit lost since ey had not paid attention to where ey was going. There were barely over fifty homehans in the settlement and still the place was confusing enough to get lost. At some point, a homehan iocod walked up to Tegafel.

"Hello there, femehan," ey said in common Gomanian. "Are you lost?"

"Uh... Um, kind of. I'm... I'm looking for a store... I want to buy my friend a gift."

"Hm..." The homehan thought for a while. "I don't think we have much gift items around but..."

"Yeah, I checked three shops already. They were over there..." Tegafel pointed. "I'm not really even looking for anything special. Maybe just some better clothes or something like that."

"Oh. Well... There's one store at the edge over there, I think. But if we walk there, we'll find it. Want me to help find it?"

Tegafel was positively surprised. "Uh, please. If you want to."

"Alright." They started to walk and the homehan tried to make some conversation: "I'm Jiuluu Niihellmi. Say, weren't you that one femehan who survived that battle when we fought?"

"Yeah... Uh, I'm Tegafel Darrelter."

"That's cool. It's sucky that so many people had to die... I hear it was just some misunderstanding, on top of everything."

"...Yeah... that's what I've been told too... all my friends died there... and my waloner..."

Jiuluu was struck silent for a moment. "Really." Ey paid some attention to the surroundings, slowed down and turned around a bit. "Wait a minute... Am I lost too?"

Tegafel suddenly heard a muffled scream. There was no one around and Jiuluu seemed to not have noticed.

"Oh, it must be a bit more to that direction."

"Did you hear that?"

"What?" The screaming came again, a bit louder. "What the?" The two went toward the place where the screaming came from. It was a fairly narrow space between two wooden buildings. There was one door, and the screaming seemed to be coming from behind it.

Tegafel did not waste time, but held eir walking stick like a club and opened the door. It was dark and ey could not see much anything. Ey heard Jiuluu say "What is it?" from behind em when ey heard a much louder, clearer and desperate scream right in front of em. After that, ey saw two figures right in front of em in the narrow hall in the house, and the one behind pushed the other one straight toward Tegafel.

"Heyaaagh!" Tegafel might have not fallen if eir leg had been fine, but it was not, so ey fell down to the ground between the houses, with the pushed homehan on top of em. Ey heard something land beside eir arm on the right and felt something wet on eir stomach. "Help! Please help!" ey shouted.

"By the gods!" came a homehan voice other than Jiuluu. "You killed em! MURDERER!"

"What?" went Jiuluu. Ey looked at Tegafel and the homehan who was on top of em. The homehan was dead and bleeding. "I can't believe this! You killed em! By the gods! Murderer!"

Tegafel was in panic. By the time ey got the homehan body off of emself, the homehan who had first accused em of murder stepped down on eir arm. The two homehans were calling around for guards who came fairly quickly. Tegafel could not believe what was happening. The guards asked what had happened and the two homehans gave a heated explanation of what they saw. The only thing Tegafel could say was that ey had not done it. Eir spirit was chaotic and ey could not make sense of anything. The guards dragged em away, took off eir equipment and items but left eir clothes on and threw em in the same cell where ey had been before. Tegafel was horrified. Ey cried.



An hour after Tegafel had stopped crying, two guards and one leader-like figure came in. They seemed unfamiliar to Tegafel. The two guards held Tegafel up and the leader figure said: "What happened?"

"...I... I was... someone named Jiuluu asked me what I was looking for... I was looking for a shop so I could buy um... cl-clothes... ey... ey offered to show me to a shop and, and ey was unsure where it was... we stopped in front of those two houses. I heard screaming and Jiuluu too. W-we went toward the door of the house and — and I opened the door because the screaming was louder... I opened the door and someone pushed that d-dead homehan on top of me... I fell down because my leg is hurt... e-ey bled on me..."

"Oh yeah. Does this look familiar?" The leader figure showed a knife of unknown design to Tegafel. It looked like the one that the homehan scout had used to slash Tegafel's face.

"I uh... I think I was slashed with one... on the face."

"I think you went into that house and killed Deruu Saannen with that knife."

"I didn't kill em!"

"I think you did."

"I didn't even have a weapon!"

"You stole it!"

"I didn't!"

"Here's what happened. Deruu and eir friend were having fun in the house and laughed loudly. You thought that was screaming. You opened the door and saw Deruu. And you killed em because of what ey had done in the battle. Maybe it's a coincidence that you ran into em, maybe it wasn't. I'll find out."

"I didn't kill em! I didn't kill em! I didn't kill em! I didn't k—"

The leader figure smacked Tegafel across the face and Tegafel screamed. "You're a gzoozzing liar, freak!" The leader left and the guards pushed Tegafel down again.

Tegafel cried some more. Ey had no clue what was going on.



Toward the night, the guard who had been friendly toward Tegafel came into the cell. Ey did not say anything, but gave Tegafel a mugful of water to drink. After Tegafel had drank, two more guards came in and they tied Tegafel to a chair once again. Not a long time after, the leader figure who had raped Tegafel before came in. Two more guards stood outside, and Tegafel was surprised to see that Derekl also came in with a soldier from their camp. Tegafel looked at Derekl with eyes that pleaded for help and explanation.

Derekl was still cold. Ey spoke in common Gomanian: "They say you killed one of their soldiers. Is that true?"

"No! I didn't do it!"

Derekl was inconvenienced. The homehan leader sighed and went: "Here is how we imagine it went. Ey either knew where Deruu lived or it was just pure chance. Ey heard Deruu and eir friend laughing in their house and thought it was screaming... or just didn't care, so ey went and opened the door of the house. When ey saw Deruu, ey stabbed em. We're not sure where the murder weapon came from. Ey might have stolen it or even taken it from Deruu, who didn't have eir knife on after we examined em. Tegafel stabbed em right into the heart from below. It's not a clean strike, but that's quite exactly what you would expect from someone as impaired as ey is. Ey obviously caught Deruu completely by surprise. But Deruu fell on top of em."

Tegafel was desperately shaking eir head and silently saying: "No. No. No. No. No..." Eir eyes were full of tears.

Derekl took a few steps toward Tegafel and caught em by the chin. "Don't weep, you coward. You wacods aren't up for the army. The minute you get away from order after a traumatic experience you go off and kill the people who 'wronged' you. And if you think what ey just said happened is not what happened, what DID happen? Explain!"

Tegafel was about to cry because of the situation and the insults. Ey started telling the story again. "I was looking for a store. Jiuluu asked me if I needed help. Ey led me somewhere and seemed lost in front of that Deruu's house... I heard screaming, and I was sure it was screaming, not laughing! Jiuluu would know!"

The homehan leader figure went: "Jiuluu said it was laughter. He admitted it had sounded a bit like screaming because it was muffled but that it had been laughter." Tegafel was struck silent. "Oh, your story fell apart so soon? What a shame."

"I didn't do it! It was screaming! It was louder and I opened the door because I thought it was an emergency... and I saw that other homehan push Deruu on me! And I didn't even have a weapon. I've never held a knife like that in my hand! Deruu had already been stabbed when I came in! It was probably that 'friend' of eirs!"

"Blasphemy! Deruu and Heelio are fellow soldiers, iocoddins by heart! Heelio would have never killed em!"

Tegafel was silent again. "I did not do it."

"You even have a motive! Deruu was the one who stabbed your partner in the battlefield."

"What?!"

"Your story fell apart like an eicod's spirit! This is outright pathetic!" Tegafel hung eir head and tears fell down. Ey could not believe this was happening. "You should be executed right away! Hanged or burned at a pyre."

Tegafel let out a desperate cry and then focused all eir willpower to keep emself from bawling. Derekl was fairly quiet, but eventually said: "I am so ashamed of you. You're nothing but a disappointment to your entire gzoozzing race! If you really did it, you're worse than that useless ancod prosht you call a friend!" Derekl was quiet for a moment and then spoke to the homehan leader: "Is it possible for me to speak about this with our captain and the others before an execution is put to action? This is very grave. I am as shocked about this as you are and I fully apologize on behalf of this loser who couldn't control emself."

Tegafel did not listen anymore. The people left Tegafel in the cell and did not even untie em.



In the night, Tegafel was awoken from a very uncomfortable sleep and a terrible nightmare by a faint sound. It sounded like someone was opening the lock on the door of the cell, but it was a very small and fragile sound. It did not last very long and the door was then opened. Tegafel saw the silhouette of a small figure. The figure stood there for a moment, and Tegafel felt a flash of curiosity and the sense of adventure in eir mind. The figure came closer and, much to Tegafel's surprise, began to glow an eerie shade of light blue and lavender. Tegafel's jaw figuratively dropped on the ground and ey stared at the creature that stood before em.

A galanfetzcan. An infinitely beautiful being with clean, straight and fuzzy blue hair, a fair young-looking face with large eyes, slender little body, lavender skin and outlandishly astonishing clothes. The galanfetzcan was right before Tegafel, looking straight at em and all ey could do was stare in awe and admiration.

The blue glow faded around the galanfetzcan and Tegafel could no longer see anything more but a dark, small figure. The galanfetzcan displayed a knife and started cutting the ropes with which Tegafel had been tied to the chair. Ey also started speaking in Femen, with a clean, dulcet voice: "My name is Availon Gandeheilei. I learned of your situation and could not stand by and let someone innocent be executed, so I have come to rescue you. I am afraid that there is no choice but to leave this place as fast as we can. I will not be able to hold the guards and other people for very long."

Tegafel was speechless. Ey still had no clue what was going on and the whole thing was becoming very confusing indeed. Availon had cut off all the ropes except for the ones at Tegafel's feet, and ey seemed to notice Tegafel's confusion. Ey laid eir hand gently on Tegafel's head and in a moment, Tegafel's mind was filled with a memory containing the information ey lacked.

The galanfetzcan was a traveler who had stayed in the homehan settlement for only three days. Ey had mostly stayed hidden and out of the way. When ey had noticed the commotion about Tegafel, ey had decided to make sense of it. Being a far-walker, it was not a problem. Ey had read the minds of Heelio and Jiuluu, finding out that the incident had been a set-up. They were very angry about their friends who had been killed in the battle and had set a goal of disgracing Tegafel, the only femehan survivor, and making sure ey would be executed. They improvised most of it, as their chance came very suddenly when Tegafel came to the homehan settlement. Jiuluu led Tegafel close to the house where the incident was supposed to take place, and everything had went according to plan: Heelio had killed Deruu and shoved em on Tegafel, thrown the knife after them and then screamed murder. The others had believed Jiuluu and Heelio's version of the story, even most of the femehans. Homehans were not familiar with far-walkers and would not accept Availon's testimony, even if the femehans would.

By the time Tegafel had had time to absorb and sufficiently process the information, Availon had cut em free. The galanfetzcan handed Tegafel a new walking stick. "Hurry. We have to get out of here and into the forest." Tegafel was worried about making it, since ey was hurt. "Do not worry. We will only need to get out of the settlement and into the forest paths. Once there, we can relax, but we need to keep moving nevertheless. You will make it. There is no doubt of it." Tegafel thought about Krezagon. Ey wanted Krezagon to know or come along. Availon was quiet for a little while. "I cannot find your friend. Ey is asleep. I am sorry, but we cannot tell em." Tegafel wanted to somehow wait, maybe next night they could... "We cannot wait. They have planned to execute you tomorrow by noon. We have to move now. It is possible that we find your friend later." Tegafel thought about eir gear. "I cannot get your equipment. I have placed sufficient equipment just outside the settlement. We will survive with it."

Now Tegafel was quite thoughtless, so to say. Ey would have to make a choice. Ey could stay and die, or ey could leave everything behind, go with this beautiful and intelligent creature and live. It did not take too long for em to choose the latter.

Availon used eir far-walker abilities to give Tegafel will to continue and make em have trust and ignore the pain. It may not have been very honest or good-minded, but it minimized the risk of them getting noticed or fumbling along the way. The pair exited the cell and the building it was in. The guards were as if frozen solid. After that, they moved as quickly through the streets as Tegafel could and reached the edge of the settlement. There, Availon picked up the quite large load ey had gathered.

Tegafel was quite astonished that ey felt so able to go on, that ey was not tired or hurting very much. Ey felt good and wanted to go on, though ey was torn at the thought of leaving Krezagon behind again. Ey did not want to think too much. The two disappeared into the forest.



It was still a few hours until morning, but Availon was getting extremely tired and Tegafel was by now in very bad condition—the only thing that kept em moving and feeling good was Availon's control over eir spirit. Availon set up the tent, which was a two-person galanfetzcan tent. Tegafel would barely fit in. Availon gave Tegafel a piece of food and something to drink. Tegafel thought they tasted heavenly and was completely content with the small pieces ey got.

"I am afraid that my tent is a bit too small. You will fit in there alone well enough, however. I can sleep outside."

Tegafel spoke for the first time. "No... I couldn't possibly do that. You can sleep there and I will sleep outside. Please. You've already helped me so much..."

"It is too cold for you outside. My tent is very well protected and you are still hurt. You need a good rest. I will be quite fine outside. The climate here is warm for me."

"Won't we fit in it together?"

"...It would be tight. We would have to sleep right next to each other." Tegafel was fine with that. Availon instructed Tegafel to take off eir shoes, after which ey went into the tent. It indeed was very small, and when Availon came in, they basically had to sleep hugging each other. They did not speak anymore, instead they merely settled into a comfortable position: both of them lying on one side and facing the same direction, with Availon on the front. Availon made sure Tegafel fell asleep without pain, and then gradually let go of eir spirit, allowing it to be on its own. Having done that, also Availon fell asleep.



Tegafel woke up first, to terrible pains and a heart-stopping nightmare. Ey covered eir face with eir hands and cried. However, that did not last for long since Availon woke up as well, and seeing Tegafel's distress, ey just petted Tegafel's hair and took away the pain and fear in a moment. Tegafel took a moment to catch eir breath and felt uneasy. It was so easy for the galanfetzcan to influence eir mind. Tegafel was a bit creeped out but thankful as well. Ey could not really say anything.

"I'm sorry about last night," said Availon, not sounding that formal anymore. "I blocked your pain and tiredness in order to make you be able to move... that's why you're hurting now."

Tegafel was a little confused, but did not express it verbally. Availon knew it well either way. "Is it bad?"

"I'm not entirely sure... I mean, it certainly means you're hurting a lot now. But I'm not sure whether it was good with respect to your wounds. I suppose you can figure it out if you can feel what part of the pain is because of the strain and what part is coming directly from the wounds. Do you want to try that?"

Tegafel wanted to try, so Availon gradually unblocked eir pain. Ey grimaced and eir eyes got watery as ey sensed the pain again. Eir wounds were throbbing, but most of the pain seemed to be due to the strain. Availon petted eir hair again and made the pain fade away. Tegafel was relieved.

"We need to keep moving. I'm not sure whether they have started looking for us, but I'm pretty sure some search parties will be coming eventually. And it's the better the further we are from here."

"How about... how about my friend? Krezagon?"

Availon was quiet for a short while. "We're too far from the settlement... I can't find em anymore. We have to keep on moving."

Tegafel felt desperate. Eir life was in pieces. So much had happened in such a short time. Ey started crying again, and this time Availon did not do anything to stop Tegafel—or if ey did, Tegafel knew nothing of it. Tegafel cried against Availon's shoulder, the galanfetzcan keeping on stroking Tegafel's head and upper body in a comforting and relaxing manner.

The two eventually started moving again and advanced slowly—neither Tegafel nor Availon wanted to risk Tegafel's wounds getting worse. They walked for several days, sleeping at night. They spoke very little to each other—Tegafel had not had any other choice than to go with Availon, so ey thought their relationship was forced. Ey did not want to speak, at least yet. Therefore, for the time being, they just traveled together, though Availon started influencing Tegafel's memories in a way that made the nightmares and desperation go away fairly quickly—in days instead of weeks.