Wanderlust 4.4

"It speaks??" He said in his thoughts.

He asked himself if he was hallucinating. He pinched himself and even looked at Eigh on his back to see if she could hear the spirit beast too. But seeing Eigh not being scared and just looking at the spirit beast with familiarity, he figured out that he's not the only person who's experiencing this.

"Croo. I do speak; I can speak; what's so shocking about it?"

"You can read my mind?!"

Ford was beyond shocked. He hadn't thought of a reason why that happened. There was one in his mind, but he doesn't remember doing some specifics to satisfy it's condition to work.

"But... we haven't made a contract yet. Wait, did we?"

The hielo shook its head. "Crooo. We haven't."

"Then, how??"

The Hielo looked at him before he heard her laugh in his head.

"Hahahahahahaha. This is very fun to see. It's like history repeats itself before my eyes."

Ford didn't know what she meant. He thought that maybe the spirit beast had encountered the same event in the past, which she found amusing.

"Nevermind. Don't mind me. Anyways, Eigh. It's been a week. Welcome!"

"Yes. Now I remember what happened a week ago," Eigh replied. She picked up the feather from her pocket and showed it to the two. "It was you who saved us in the lake, right?"

"Yes, and no?" It's head-titled. "That feather is a protective charm I made from one of my oldest feathers. It works on it's own; it has my will, so I don't need to control it remotely from here."

"Umm.. still, thank you so much, Nieves." She bowed using their native gesture, showing her sincerity. The sign of touching one's chest is below one's beating heart.

When Nieves saw this, its body lightened up. This light was the same as when Umbra the hystio merged with its partner, their teacher, Taw't Umbra. The duo thought Nieves had an owner somewhere, or they're just about to unmerge.

The light suddenly formed into the shape of an adult human until the light disappeared; what remained was a young woman around the same age as their teacher.

The person that emerged from the light also bowed the same as Eigh. Ford was kind of shocked by this. Usually, as a reply, you only nod or ask the person to stand up. But that gesture of hers was an old way of replying. As a reply to a person, if you see the person in the same degree, in their generation, this was only done in some cases of high standards, like the tribe leader showing appreciation to another state leader or the person who thanked them for saving him from his demise.

Ford thought that maybe she was just imitating Eigh or that she practiced an old custom.

He also bowed to her after processing the details; Eigh said that it was the charm that saved them, not the lake guardian.

When both of them finally stood up straight, they looked around, trying to find the spirit beast.

Nieves laughed slightly. "Are you both looking for my spirit beast? I don't have one."

"Huhh? Then why? What happened earlier?"

"Oh, that? Hmm..." She was about to answer Ford when she felt Eigh's worries. "Before I answer that, can the both of you follow me to our house?"

"House?" Ford asked.

"Yeah! House! The one where you sleeps in? You both don't have one?" Her expression changed to a worry. She pities the kid in front of her; he doesn't know what a house is. But as far as she remembered, she never saw homeless people in the tribe—no kids or old ones living in the streets. The only ones I saw sleeping in the streets were those drunkards. Is he one of them?

"I know what a house is. And I have one. A very big one." Ford felt attacked by what she just said, and so he became slightly arrogant in the process. "What I meant was, you live here? In the mountains? How?" Eigh also had the same question in her head. There was a reason why they could only stay on the island for a month every year.

"What do you mean, how?" She looked at the both of them and heard their thoughts.Oh, that!! Don't worry about it. I'm immune to it."

"Immune? What, you control it or something? Hahaha." Ford was the one who tried to attack this time. Eigh thought Ford's words were too much, but she was also curious about what she meant by that.

Nieves only smirked.

She lifted her right hand at the same level as her shoulders. His smirk stayed as she said the words, "appear."

Right after the words escaped her mouth, a cold wind breezed through them. The breeze made them cover their eyes with their arm sleeves.

After the wind passed, they were shocked by what they were seeing. Hail had already started; only the spot where the three of them were standing was not affected by the hail.

Both of them had seen the hail up close when they first came in the mountain, but their distance to this hail was within their reach.

Ford had the impulse to want to walk towards the hail to see if it was real, yet he didn't continue his idea of taking his life because of his stupidity.

"Disappear." The hail stopped as she commanded. The blocks of ice also started to disappear. It was like melting without any water appearing. As if it evaporated into the air instead of melting to a liquid state.

Shock was in Eigh's and Ford's faces. They couldn't believe what they found out.

"Youuu," Ford said as he pointed to Nieves.

""You're the Mountain Deity? "," they asked in unison.

Her smirk turned into a smug. Seeing their reaction boosts her self-esteem. She knew how powerful she was, but being praised was still the best way to raise one's self-esteem.

"Hahahahaha. Mountain deity? I wish. But no, I'm not the deity you both think I am, and I don't think there really is a mountain deity."

"There is no mountain deity. So to whom are we praying and offering?"

"If you really want to know, then come with me; I'll lead you to her, your mountain deity." She clasped her hands and smiled sweetly. "It's actually near here; it just needs a little hiking. If only the both of you could fly as well, it would be much easier."

She turned her back to them and started to walk. "Follow me if you want. The mountain deity is probably looking for me now. I told her I wouldn't take that much time to pick the two of you up."

Ford thought that this might be just a trap; the beautiful face of Nieves was just a show to get their trust fast. And when he looked behind him to tell Eigh the danger, he saw her already taking a step towards Nieves. He grabbed her wrist immediately and said, "Are you serious? What if she's bad news?"

"You told me you're going to protect me. My shining armor." She replied with a questioning gaze.

"Yes, but are you freaking serious?"

Eigh smiled at him and nodded. "You're not being reassuring."

"I never thought you're that scared," Eigh gave him a nudge. She knew that he didn't want to be told as such.

"Who said I'm scared? Wait for me!" Eigh's taunt really worked.

They followed Nieves and talked about things like questions regarding her being.

"You said you're not a spirit beast, right? Then what are you?" Eigh asked.

"I am not anymore, but in the past I was. This mountain in the past had no protective veil. But due to the climate, the life here was very scarce. It was a cold dessert in here. It doesn't rain for some fauna to grow. It was hard to survive. It was very harsh. And another big problem is that the humans were poaching and hunting the animals in her. Which was why I was so lucky to evolve into a spirit beast. I was the third spirit beast that came from this place."

Eigh remembered the story she was told when she was young. It was the same, but more details were given by Nieves.

"Then one day, your mountain goddess woke up from her slumber and saw all the problems the mountain had. First, she freed us from the spirit beast that acted like a tyrant. She kicked him out of the mountain and sealed him at the bottom of the frozen lake."

Eigh finally heard a new thing she hadn't read or heard anywhere. It increased her curiosity about the mountain. "Is that the reason why people got frozen immediately after touching the water?"

"Yes. The spirit beast freezes all of the ones that touch his domain. It started when he realized that the mountain was helping your tribe."

"I see. So beneath the waters, a spirit beast lays there."

"Yes. The next thing the deity did was to call a rain to make life here much more liveable. Fauna started to grow, and animals had new things to eat aside from their prey.

And lastly, when I was on the brink of death, she cured me and made me into something much higher, just below her rank. A demigod, if you will. She gave me the task of putting a veil around the mountain so that no more humans would kill any of the mountain-born creatures. And so here I am."

Eigh finally pieced the puzzle together. For her, all her questions in regards to the origins of the veil make sense. She always thought that the Veil wouldn't be there just because it wanted to. There has to be a reason, and she was given what she wanted.

"Oh, we're near." She pointed towards a crevice on the wall.

They followed Nieves, and as they were about to reach the entrance, a woman came out of the crevice. A woman that looked the same age as Nieves. But something caught their attention; every time the person walked, it made the sound of walking in a puddle.

"Ohh. Good timing. She's your mountain goddess."