When I was young, I was like the average xweetok. No markings, no different colors on any other part of the body that weren't arranged to be there, just the look you see when you create one of us... I didn't do many different things, I spent most of my days reading or getting into trouble with the older people. One day in the library I found a dusty old book behind some other ones and stuck inbetween the shelf and the back wall. I had some trouble getting it out, but I managed. It was bound in brown kau hide with a golden plate fastened onto the front shaped like what I look like now, only the figure was more primative, less smooth around the edges. I checked the spine for a title, I couldn't read it. They were symbols from another time.
Of course, I was curious and thought the book would be easier to read if I just opened it up. More strange symbols, but that didn't make a difference anymore. They suddenly made sense in one area, it read, life is as easy to destroy as death is to heal. I pondered for hours on the meaning of that one phrase, and little did I know that behind my childish eyes, I was the meaning. I did find some text in my language, it sounded like directions.
Behind the grave, under the stone, take the key, go alone.
Beside the cave, a hidden notch, take the key, sit back and watch.
The door will open, heed my warning, the spell will be broken.
Once again my curiosity took control of me. The grave was a place behind the library where the past librarian had been buried. There was only one tombstone, ant true to the riddle, it was rested on a stone. I rolled it over and found a golden trivet with the same symbols etched into wood that was placed in a broken circle at the center of the trivet.
I noticed the luster of the golden plate went directly under the wood and the wood seemed flat, but the trivet was bumpy. I peered at it from the side and noticed the wood was floating. Floating. It was the strangest thing I had ever seen. I worried less about that and focused on the riddle. It said go alone, and the librarian had told me books had mids of their own. I always thought her to be strange, but that was possibly a hint. I sat down and memorized the riddle, repaeted it several time to make sure, put the book down, and took the trivet with me to the cave. The cave wasn't a big discovery, I had known about it a fortnight after my birth. I was forbidden to enter, note a stone that was somehow connected to the entrance, but now I was so determined to see what was forbidden in the first place.
The notch was a slat in the wall that I had placed my paw in once. I felt smooth bumps that now made sense. The trivet fit perfectly, I just had to find the right angle. I tried several times until I heard a sudden thud! It sounded like a boulder being dropped onto gravel and then being rolled around on a thin piece of iron that was unevenly balanced on stakes. I looked up and backed away, eventually tripping over my own tail and falling flat on my back. The guard rock that blocked the cave was disappearing quickly.
I almost fainted but gathered up my strength to go inside. I saw crystals emerging from the sides, gilnting is their own reflective light. I also saw some blue flowers growing on the stone walls. They were glowing, too. I had recognized them immediately as Luna's Lake flowers from a book. They were said to carry the light of the moon in their watery petals. I picked one up and chewed it because the book had said they were edible. They tasted like vanilla with a suprising shock like that of carbonated water. I knew I was wasting time, I had to continue my mission.
As I got deeper into the cave, the crystals grew shorter and smoother, and the Luna's Lakes began to get larger until they looked like blue, glowing, five sided shurikens. I reached up to see if they were as sharp as a shuriken, and sure enough, pricked my finger. I snapped my wrist back and forth to shake off the blood and continued forward walking on the heel of that paw so it didn't get infected. At last I came to a large dome shaped room of the cave, and a dead end. I was probably a mile underground by now. It was covered by the small flowers on the walls and the ceiling, and the floor was covered in rounded sapphires, emeralds, rubies, diamonds, opals, topaz, and many other precious gems.
There was also a crystal clear, to put it, spring in a corner that was caved in a bit. It too, had the gems on the bottom. In the center I saw a large, slim, black—but not pitch black— xweetok with a smooth build laying in the middle of the gems. It had a long, wild green mane with faded purple streaks on either side along with a blackish streak near where the mane met the nape. It's eyes were surrounded by a sharp black oval—this time it was pitch black— and they were slitted purple. I had known these as the eyes of a demon. It's wild mane ran all the way down it's back and formed an even wilder, large, green and purple tail. The mane stuck out all over the place, due to the length, but it's body was still visible. Near the head the mane lengthened and hung down over the xweetok's nose.
Also, it's ears were strange. Instead of the mouse-like ears I had, they were like that of a kougra, only with more shape—meaning they were like a wave, they had a lump where it met the head, and sunk in by the tip, and then on the bottom it curved to meet the cheek— instead of the basic shape. Black fur bordered them on the outside, leaving only a small patch of green from the inside of the ear to show.
It looked at me with its demonic eyes and whispered One day, one would come. To balance these things that hold the world together. As two opposing forces held together by balance; life and death, and what lies in between. Immortality. It's voice was smooth and calm, with a hypnotic low feminine tone. I cowered and fell back as the thing rushed at me head on. I don't know what happened between that time and then, but I had a good idea of what did when I woke.
I awoke to see a snout longer than I had noticed in front of me, as well as green fur hanging in my face. I rushed over to the spring and looked down. "No... My eyes are green... I have brown fur.. No!" I yelled.
My voice was still the same, like any other fifteen year old xweetok, but a tad bit like the demon's had been. She now lived inside of me. Or, she was me. Her words were ringing in my head as a painful memory, and I had memories that I didn't even know happened; if they were even mine.
Immortality..
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