The Prophecy of Water | ✔️ 🎖 [2018 Wattys Shortlister]

CHAPTER 38-The Beast in The Cage

Every problem has a solution which is trailed behind it. We just find it distasteful to grab it. We are afraid of dirtying our hands.

LoG, 129

Nalina's lips were as dry as dust as she reached through the bars and greedily welcomed her daily water ration. She grabbed a minuscule wooden cup, eyed it for the moment and then made a face.

Instead of crystalline transparency, what awaited her was muck. In all honesty, it looked more like a muddy porridge than like water to her. Disgusting though it was, Nalina knew it was all she would get until the following Light. She began to sip her share, her unshaven legs hanging out between the bars as she stared at the dust beneath her feet.

The caravan was moving along a winding road at a tortoise-like pace. It had been like that for seven Lights now.

Or, at least I think it was seven. I don't know if I engraved the number of the Lights properly with this old pencil. Also, my cagemates ... Hey, hold on a second. Cagemate? Is that even a word? Well ... Whatever they might be called, they are not very nice. They might have added or removed some days from my calculation, just out of spite.

She sighed, reconciling with her destiny. Her longing almond eyes were transfixed in a stare. The forest of Lug was just there, next to the path the old rickety wagon was following. Yet she couldn't leave. She was a prisoner.

What does it look like? Nalina wondered.

Pansies, violas, nemesias waved her from the forest floor. She yearned for being able to walk freely among those tall yellow-leaved trees. Their trunks and branches kept stretching out in a silent prayer, several dozen metres upwards, as far as the human eye could see.

Are they looking for more light? Nalina pondered. Her whole life, she had been collecting, drawing and studying plants. Nature amazed her to no end. Now, she could only catch sight of it from afar.

The present was not the only thing that kept her mind busy those days.

There was the past as well, nagging at her like a curmudgeonly old grandmother. Nalina thought about The Mushroom and how homey it seemed in comparison to the cage where she lived now. She thought about her dead father, the remnants of her family and all the deaths that surrounded her overall.

Oh, how I wish I had a Viewstone! I just want to be able to use it, just to see mother, sister and Sobik once. Simply ... to make sure that they are all right.

She thought about The Second Water War and The Geyser that caused it. She would think about her brother, Borna and she would grit her teeth in fury. She thought about The Prince and the kindness with which he had treated her. She mused about where he could be at that moment.

Wondered whether their paths would ever cross again.

If they do, that will be great!

Nalina reprimanded herself for such enthusiasm.

If not ... That is okay as well.

Now that I think of it, then I would get to keep this fantastic knee-length dark grey trench coat! She hugged the garment tighter with a smile but then her nose wrinkled in disapprobation. "Ewww. It definitely smells no longer of pine trees. No wonder, I haven't had a decent bath in seven Lights and seven Darks. My legs are all hairy!"

"Crazy Nia is talking to herself again," the three of her cagemates snickered in hushed voices.

The youngest one of them, a ten-year-old boy, spat in her direction. "Hey, Nia! What are you up to now?" he sniggered.