600. Exploring, 4
Our resourceful Blume managed to craft a pair of bows and a dozen arrows, for me and Nokarlık. Good flower with golden fingers.
This area of the world still has far fewer beings-like-her roaming around. But fishes swim in the ocean and seas.
So I began teaching my daughter what I can about archery. Alright, my archery skills focus on fishing for some reason, but it kills two birds with one stone, furthermore when there are no birds around.
You know what I mean.
Blume even puts some weights on the bow for balance like for modern ones. Where did she learn of these? She wasn’t around.
We go fishing with Nok.
We also venture carefully into the forests, but can’t find any game. Only bugs and worms or giant mushrooms I barely manage to prevent Nok from tasting.
They looked so bright and colourful like fruits, I can see why they got her curious.
It’s meanwhile the first time really that Nok’s hands hold a dangerous tool really counting as a weapon.
She learns conscientiously enough. She shows she has a good hand using a small knife to gut fishes we get.
Maybe it’s part of her heritage, but the smells nor the actions phase her in any shape or form.
And when it all ends up in nice meals we cook, from earth and the sea, she enjoys them cheerfully.
We returned to our current home. The stadium changed slowly as Blume crops grew.
Over the days, Nok and I went further into the jungle to gather some materials. Saps, fibres, metallic needles that grow like plants or parasites on some trees, and so on.
Blume meanwhile took a liking at craftsmanship. I taught her the basics of sewing and she grew beyond. From what we grow and find, we will have good equipment and stocks to continue travelling on foot before the year’s end.
Building a boat around here would be challenging. But as long as we follow the shore on our way north, we might have some luck sooner or later.
I enjoy Blume’s skin sometimes.
And time flies.
~
A storm reached us.
We covered the crops with cloths and hid ourselves in the upper levels of the stadium wall.
We don’t make a fire to avoid burning the entire building, since the roots are literally covering every surface of it.
I tell another old story to Nok as she tries to sleep next to me.
Once upon a time, there was a ghost of ice on the shores of France...
Nokarlık gradually falls asleep as I ramble on.
Blume has a melancholic smile quite unlike her as she listens by my other side.
B - I was happy you accepted me.
R - When?
B - At the very beginning.
R - Oh... That takes us back.
There is a thought that came through my mind, a wonder that briskly vanished before I could voice it out.
R - Well... I just forgot what I was about to say... But I was happy to meet you too.
Her unfamiliar smile is bittersweet and altogether familiar as well. In this damp and awful night, this is soothing.
~
What was I going to ask? My mind ruminated over it during the night. It was a simple question I could recall, but forgot its essence.
Something about identity or humanity.
Something that affected us, but not solely. Was it about how she felt she changed back then? No. It felt different.
I can’t quite put my finger on it again.
But now that I care for Nokaranlık, I feel like something about my past years in this world is queer.
As if I misunderstood something all these years. That I made a mistake in my understanding of something, and that only now do I begin to realise it.
Nothing clear again. Just an unease.
A blurry thing in contrast to the brightness Nok is giving me.
We’ll see.
~
A few days later, crops harvested, bags and clothes ready, our new shoes led the way.
As much as we can carry we brought as well.
Nok carries a good share too.
We went to the shore and began travelling north east along the ocean.
We made our first camp still in sight from the shore reefs where we had our experiments before.
If she turned giant and began to run or swim, I wonder how far and how fast she could go. But I’m not eager to try.
If Blume taught me one thing, it’s to avoid unnecessary exposure to predators.
We both do our best to teach it to Nokaranlık now. But she’s still a child, eager to play until limits hurt.
Being a child is so ancient to me now. What I remember is so alien to us, it’s barely relevant. And Blume is even worse... We’re like strangers.
But I can pinch both of their cheeks at the same time, so it’s not that bad.
~
As the shore becomes impossible to follow because it’s too impractical cliffs and boulders, we head a little deeper inside the woods for a time.
We spot spiders the size of cats or bigger, running and jumping away as we approach.
I hold Nok back from running after them, goodness knows where. Also because I spotted empty eggs that were barely the same size as them. If these were the new born spiders, I’d rather avoid meeting their mother as much as possible.
I explain it to Nok, but she gives me an empty nod.
Blume kept a hand on the hilt of her short sword she crafted for herself, as cautious as me in such woods.
If she’s as terrifying with it as she used to be in a previous body, I don’t have to worry about much. Let’s avoid unnecessary risks and exposure though.
We didn’t meet the bigger spiders, but we did find a gigantic web a little further, inciting us to head a little faster back toward the shore.
We finally reached a new clearing out of the woods, before nightfall.
A new shoreline easy to follow by foot comes out, and some shipwrecks along the way.
All these boats were a century old by the look of it. Decrepitude and blooming flowers of rust all over.
I showed Nok where the rust crystals grew in the shape of petals, instead of usual porous anarchic rust.
It’s one of these spores of life that adapted to this unusual environment.
Chemistry of alloys oxidations was tweaked its way. It gave some of the wrecks, when you were close enough to notice, the beautiful sight of carved flowery patterns all over them.
I love these encounters.
~
