Still, I need help on it.
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Beh Shiba. An island of little landmass, but it was home. Over the years, there has been a recorded amount of separate tribes with their own beliefs and ways. But the tribe I thought to be the worst was the Chana tribe. Ironically, I have admiration for the women of this tribe.
The Chana tribe was completely comprised of women. Not a single male. Men that entered their forest territory were never seen nor heard from again, so one can see how wicked those women were. The tribe, of course, had many warnings about. But men from anywhere never paid them any heed. Why should men be afraid of a group of women? Ah. But that tis where they were mistaken.
My name is Tajar Melru. I was born in a mountain village and helped my widowed mother raise the goats. I left that village when I was almost twenty. I became a wanderer, finding money where I could. I had heard numerous stories of the Chana tribe. I could have cared less about those women. If they wanted to live like that, I wasn’t about to judge them.
But, as it was, I wandered a little to far to the right and landed in Charna territory. I was only attempting to cross the forest so I could see the ocean. So I wasn’t surprised when I found myself surrounded by thinly clad women with spears and bows in their hands. I froze and stared back at them, a look of surprise on my face that I couldn’t contain.
“Bind him!” ordered a tall woman. I blinked my eyes a couple times and realized then that I was about to find out what happened to those men who wandered into the Chana tribes’ hands.
I didn’t struggle as they yanked my arms behind my back. The ropes were thin and rough and my skin already felt irritated, though it probably didn’t help they tied them quite tightly.
“Bring him to the fortress.” As much as I would have liked to see what their fortress looked like and made of, they tied a cloth over my eyes and led me off.
When I was younger, my mother had an old milk goat by the name of Oracle and she was blind. I used to take her by the horns and lead her up the mountain side after the other nannies and kids. She never fought me once, as if she knew where she was going. I know I could never feel what she felt, being led up the mountains, but I assume how I felt was pretty close.
I stumbled, feeling their slender fingers on my arms. The woman on the right gave a savage yank to pull me back up. They were all whispering to one another.
“This…handsomer…last…caught,” I heard one in the back say. I tried to ignore them all and tried to think how I could possibly get out of this situation. After being pulled, not nice I must say, to the left my foot got caught on something, which I assumed to a stump, and fell. Yes, I’ll put it like that and won’t go into any type of description. But I’ll say this, it knocked the breath out of me. I turned my head to the side and gave out a few coughs.
“Bugger…hell,” I muttered. I sat myself up and cleared my throat. “Reminder to self. Pay…attention when walking.”
I heard some snickers from the woman as I was pulled to my feet. “He may be handsome girls, but he’s sure klutzy,” the woman to the right of me remarked. “Now, no more looking at him.”
I frowned at her words but kept my lips sealed. I didn’t need to get on my captors bad side. It wouldn’t be smart of me. They led me for what seemed forever. I heard, what sounded like, my old village up ahead. The laughter and gossiping . At that moment, I had myself convinced these past few years were just a dream and I had never left. But as suddenly as I heard it, it fell silent. I felt many eyes watching me as I was led like the blind goat.
I was almost relived when I heard a door open. I was pulled inside and then up a set of stairs. We walked for a little more before I stumbled up more stairs, walked a few paces and I heard another door open. Two hands were on my shoulders as I was shoved forcefully ahead. I stumbled but managed to stay on my feet.
“If he was as clumsy as you claim Shimmer, why did he not fall?” another woman asked.
“Oh shut it Doe…” The door closed and I was alone. I took a few steps forwards and walked straight into a wall. I scrunched up my face and sat down. I leaned my head against the wall and sighed.
“I say, their hospitality is not the greatest,” I muttered to myself. I twisted my hands and felt the rope slide over my hands roughly. “They could have at least taken those off.”
So I sat there, alone and quite bored. I yawned lots but yet could not sleep. Finally I heard the door unlock and the women speaking low. The door creaked open and the soft footsteps sounded in the room as someone walked across the floor.
“Lean forwards.” It was the woman who mocked the other when I didn‘t fall. I obeyed her and she cut the ropes. “Now shut your eyes tight, for if you so much as peak, I’ll have to stab them out.”
“Lovely.” It slipped out before I could stop it. I don’t know if it was a grimace or a wince that twisted my face, perhaps it was both. I shut my eyes and the blindfold slid off.
“Maybe if you men had more respect,” she said before leaving my side.
“Oh, I have plenty of respect,” I muttered under my breath as she strolled off. She shut the door with a bit of slam and I was alone again, except this time I could see. I opened my eyes and peered around my prison. It was quite a small room. A window was placed higher than my head and it had bars on it. There was a ragged blanket on the floor. I noticed the place where I was to heed to nature’s call. I grim smile crept onto my face. “Very lovely.” A gap was underneath the heavy wooded door. It didn’t even have a window on it. I was utterly alone.
“Enjoy it while you can,” snapped a voice from outside the door.
I yawned and stretched. “Oh no, I wasn’t complaining. I was merely complementing.”
I got no reply. At least I wasn’t alone, alone. I sat on the floor beside the blanket and picked it up. I began to whistle a jaunty tune my mother used to always sing as I tied the blanket into one large knot. I could almost see her dancing in the kitchen with my older brother as I played the fiddle. The large smile lighting up her face, my younger sister tapping the tambourine as my brother twirled mother in a circle.
I closed my eyes and whisked myself back into the past. My father died just after my sister was born, so she and I really never knew him. Mother grieved for him always, and it was on happy nights like that, that she forgot her grief. I always loved my mother’s voice and could hear her urging me to sing with her.
“You know…for a man, your voice isn’t too bad.”
I jumped as her voice broke through my thoughts. “What?” I asked, blinking my eyes.
“I said for a man, your voice isn’t too bad. Even the way you speak doesn’t affect the outcome.”
“What’s wrong with the way I speak?”
I heard a exasperated sigh. “Ugh! Can’t you take a complement?”
“Sorry, sorry. I take your complement with a…gracious thank-you.” I swallowed. “Thank-you.”
A soft laugh sounded on the other side. “I’m Berry.”
I raised my eyebrows in surprise. “Are you sure I won’t like lose my voice box for talking to you?” I inquired as I moved closer to the door.
“No, why?” She sighed. “Did Doe say she’d stab your eyes out if you looked at one of us?”
“Along those lines.”
“Oh, just ignore her. Well, actually I’m not supposed to speak with the prisoner but I’ll be guarding you all day and night so,” she responded.
“My name is Tajar.”
“Tajar? What an unusual name. It’s unusual like your dialect. Where do you hail from?”
“I was born and raised in a village in the mountains,” I told her with only a hint of pride in my voice.
“The mountains! You don’t say!” I heard the surprise and excitement in her voice. “Oh describe them please!”
“You have never seen them?” I inquired, astonished.
“Oh no! I’ve naught left the forest since I was ten,” she answered.
“Hmm. The mountains are exceptionally large. Solid rock with snowy peaks. They’re the one of the beautiful lest things I’ve ever seen. So majestic. They scrape the blue skies, reaching up with their great stony fingers. In the early morning and in winter, the fog rolls off them. Fog so thick you couldn’t see your hands if they was in front of your face,” I explain to her. “Going up them to the meadow was no easy feat as it was quite dangerous and one would have to be quite nimble like a goat. But their beauty disguises the danger. Avalanches, freezing temperatures…”
“Oh don’t stop! Please go on! They sound magnificent!”
“Yes they are,” I said softly. “It’s difficult to put their beauty into words.” And it was. Never before has anyone asked me to describe what mountains looked like.
“Then I shall have to see them for myself one day!” she declared boldly. “Our forest is very beautiful.”
“All forests are miss. The bushy spruce, towering pines, ancient redwoods, the beautiful birch.”
Berry said nothing and I feared that I said something offensive. But then she spoke. “What do you look like?”
I blinked my eyes in surprise. “Me?”
“Yes.”
“Um…”
She giggled. “What colour is you hair? What does it look like?” she probed.
“A burnt birds nest,” I answered dully. And it was. My hair was quite annoying for it would always spring back into its original place, a mess.
“Oh! And your eyes?”
“Blue.”
“Height?”
“Tall I suppose.”
“Are you…um…skinny?”
“I’m certainly not fat! Lanky I suppose.”
“Is that usual in men?”
“Usual in…men?” I asked slowly. “Not all. We can be fat, skinny, normal, etc.”
“Anything else distinguishing?” She questioned politely.
“My nose was broken three years ago so it looks…odd,” I offered. “But, enough about me. What do you look like?”
“I have long, straight hair the colour of hazelnuts and green eyes. I’m average height and skinny,” she hurriedly explained. “And my nose is small and a bit pointed.”
I furrowed my brow. “What are hazelnuts may I ask?”
She began to laugh. “O-oh! They’re a nut! You have never eaten one?”
I shook my head, forgetting that she couldn’t see me. “No. What do they…”
“Just wait.”
I heard her retreating footsteps as she hurried away and I was alone. I leaned against the wall and yawned. My stomach growled and my throat felt dry. I had just closed my eyes when Berry returned.
“Here.” She slid her hand underneath the door, some small, brown looking thing in her palm.
I took it from her and peered curiously at it. “So this is the colour of your hair?” I bit it but it was quite hard like a rock and I told her so.
“No, no silly! You must crack it open! The nut is inside the shell,” she explained to me, laughing.
“Now I feel dumb.” I rolled it back underneath the gap. “How do you crack it open?”
“With a nutcracker,” she responded simply. Oh, of course. A nutcracker to crack open a nut. How could I have not known?
“I see.”
“Here.” Her hand appeared again, this time with broken pieces of what I assumed to be the nut. “Eat this and tell me what you think.”
I took the pieces and popped them into my mouth and crunched on them. “Not bad. I actually enjoy these. I’ll have to take some home to my mother,” I told her, knowing well I may never see my mother again. “She should enjoy these. She loves to try new foods.”
“Your mother! You have a mother?”
“Why wouldn’t I?” I demanded, surprised by the question. “Everyone has a mother!”
“Oh sorry. I meant no offence. Is she nice?”
“Oh yes. She is the nicest woman I know and I love her dearly,” I tell her quietly. “I feel guilty for leaving her, but she has my older brother to help her care for the goats.”
“You have an older brother? Do you have any sisters?”
“I had one. But she passed away five years ago due to a sickness.” I looked at the wooden floor, feeling quite sad. “I had loved her too. We were always quite a close family.”
“What of a…father?”
“My father died when I was two, just after my sister was born. I don’t really remember him.”
“So much death. I am terribly sorry to hear of your losses. My mother is also gone but she is always with me. In my heart.” She offered me some more hazelnuts. I could hear her cracking them while we spoke.
“Thank-you.”
“You’re welcome. What do you do for a living?”
“I used to help with the goats at home but now I just wonder the countryside. Exploring new things, trying different things,” I replied. “What of you? Are you some sort of guard here?”
“Yes. I just got promoted to guard duty and am quite proud of it,” she replied. I could hear the pride in her voice.
“And why have you not left the forest?”
“Well, this is my home. Besides, we aren’t allowed to leave. Well we are…sometimes,” she stammered. “But I heard many of the women who leave return.”
“Ah.”
The days passed like this. The two of us trading tales and me telling her of the places I’ve been. She’d slide my meals underneath the door. I only got one meal every three days and she told me to ration it so I wouldn’t go hungry. But she always offered me some new type of food that I had never tasted before.
