Folktails✔️

4•

F O L K T A I L S
•Seasons Change•
The words of advice the seer gave to Ikenna seemed to had dissolved into nothingness as time rolled by. While the seasons came and went, issues that occupied Ikenna's mind also seemed to fall in the same order. They made him restless for quite a while and then they were gone within the twinkle of an eye without leaving any traces of their presence behind.

It was puzzling how the seasons seemed to erode themselves completely. It went from starkly dry to completely wet, hardly giving one much time to prepare for the change. Ikenna could testify to this as whenever the heavens were opened and pouring out their tears in the latter months, they made him wonder if the dry season had ever existed.

Like the colours of dying leaves never seemed to excite Ikenna, so did the charms he had received from 'the wise one' fail woefully to keep his attention.

They were spherical balls carved out of the precious dark Alfalfa wood. It had cost quite a lot but now Ikenna could not remember why he had gotten them. Or maybe he knew why but just couldn't understand why he had agreed to the whole deal.

By reading his fortunes, the frail, old woman–who had companions as spirits and masters as gods–had let him know the reason for the hallucinations that had been troubling him. She then performed a ritual on him to end the troubles. This however wasn't the reason for the charms. It was a sidetrack as he called it or a revelation as she viewed it.

"Your life is in danger." She had said in a grave voice that shook the room like the sound of three people speaking in unison. She did not tell him the reason why his life was in peril as was expected of a woman who more than often spoke in riddles. Instead a charm claimed to be important and special was placed in his hand with the warning to never be taken off no matter what the situation was.

Up until months ago, Ikenna had gone through the troubles of heeding her warning by walking through the duties of keeping the charmed beads on his wrist. But then it had got caught on a branch partly torn from its parent and the strings which he had thought to be impenetrably strong broke ungracefully.

Ikenna's refusal to take their remains back to the seer was only a manifestation of his laziness and reluctance to believe his life was being threatened in any way.

Since the rituals had been performed on him his first visit to the shrine, Ikenna found that her spirit had left him in peace. Although he couldn't say the same for their memories.

Immediately after her shameful death, Ikenna had seen her everywhere. His eyes could not sail over an empty space without catching sight of her weeping face. He could had blamed it on hallucinations and not fussed much over it, but it was different when all she did over and over again was plead with him.

It almost drove insane as it made him think of the fact that he was the reason for her death. If only he had listened to her. If only he had eloped with her. If only they had left the village. If only... If only... The possibilities were endless and so was the guilt.

Two years later and he still had feelings for the one who was once the woman of his life, but the guilt had gradually washed away and given room for perseverance and a greater will to succeed in life. He wanted to be able to grow in status so he could change the customs that only chained the powerless down to unseen prisons.

It was a seemingly impossible dream, taking into consideration his poor background. But it was worth dreaming of. After all, dreaming was as cheap and free as the word itself.

The Sun had already begun to loll into the clouds of the sky–spreading golden fluff everywhere the pupils could turn to–by the time Ikenna began to make his way home.

The former grainy red sand was now swirly, thick mud that wrapped around his feet as he trudged through the bushes. Ikenna would had harboured grudges against the situation, but it was actually an advantage for him as he knew how well his expanded farm would benefit from it. It was much to his delight that the first rain had graced the earth in all her richness and splendour.

Starved as the deep below was, it opened up to drink up the water it had received through holes and cracks. Before the crops could crop their share, the thirsty ground had already taken up more than what it was supposed to. But it wasn't necessarily a bad thing as the newly planted would have their own thrilling.

"The gods be praised." Ikenna grinned a he grubbed through the branches that had built a network blocking his way forward to his traps. When he had overcome the struggle of swinging a cutlass back and forth, in front of him lay an antelope in his deep pit.

The antelope was fairly large, but with very short horns. Ikenna concluded it was of the weaker gender. This was good news as he knew that it wouldn't be much of a struggle to finish it off and neither would it be any trouble to heave it home. The female antelopes were generally more smaller, weighed slightly lesser and put up less of a fight than the males.

Reaching out towards the helpless animal, he noticed that it was sleeping or rather its eyes were closed. Ikenna felt a bit of sympathy for it as from its slicked down fur, it must had been in the pit before the downpour the past night. He noted that it had been almost a day since it had fallen in.

Yet, no matter how sympathetic Ikenna thought he felt, he knew survival was more important. He had to do what he had to do even if it sometimes wrenched his guts in the worst way one could imagine.

Luckily, Ikenna's cutlass was still quite sharp and well prepared for a situation as such. Even though he had no hunting knife with him, experience had taught him the skill to be able to make do with whatever he had.

"There there..." he tutted quietly as he positioned himself at the rear neck of the antelope.

It was supposed to be a quick swish and his blade would come down on her neck, but it came as a surprise when the animal held on to his wrapper in desperation. The protection the tied cloth on his waist had been providing was gradually being taken away. Ikenna staggered back in response and without thinking pulled the animal with him and out of its dungeon.

The female antelope had already bounded away by the time Ikenna realised what had happened.

Between fits of laughter, he went through the event over and over again in his head until he was tearing up. "I guess I was wrong." He said out loud after he had regained himself. "She is the strongest one I've ever seen and the smartest too. The male ones couldn't beat that even if they tried."

"Ah life is something else." He commented as he wiped his cutlass–that had fallen in the mud–on the bushes and headed towards the river on his path home.

He hadn't moved much further when he heard the most beautiful singing his ears had ever been graced with.
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A/N: Okay so this was a kind of weird way to end this chapter but I thought it was long enough lol. Don't forget to vote and comment loves💛💛