4

Nadjela opens her eyes, then immediately closes them again in pain. Her whole body burns and throbs like it's just come off a beating. Where is she? How long has it been? She needs a minute to remember her adventure with Majani in the underground. The glow of the necklace, the giant rising into the sky....

She tries to sit up, but "something" prevents him from separating her arms from her trunk. A thick, warm material is wrapped around her shoulders like a cocoon. It's warm and comfortable... Until she remembers the legends of huge, hairy, red-eyed spiders that use their front legs to wrap their prey in webs. Nadjela grits her teeth to keep from screaming. She swirls in the dust and inadvertently comes too close to a newly discovered campfire. The lick of the fire startles her. She rolls in the opposite direction until her back hits a hard surface. She manages to sit up. She looks to the right, sees no spiders. She looks left, sees a foot of impossible size. She looks up and is startled by the sight of the giant.

"I-I beg your pardon! I swear I didn't mean to hit you!" says the princess. From her position, it was impossible to see the idol's face, which, unlike before, remained indifferent to her touch.

Nadjela takes a deep breath and regains a little self-control. She realizes that the material that envelops her does not suffocate, it only embraces. It is easy to push the mouth of the cocoon to get out. After emerging from the strange matter, she hears the thunder of a voice from the sky. The giant? Not quite.

"Look out below!"

Four pieces of something hit the ground. Nadjela rolls her eyes. Ten paces away is the head of a lizard with large, gleaming teeth and blank, pity-free eyes. Nadjela screams and reaches for the necklace, longing for safety. Another figure, larger, crouches near the torn lizard, kicking up a cloud of dust that disturbs the fire.

Tall like Zell, but instead of bronze, his skin tone is pink and creamy, like the pulp mothers pull El-nido-de-todas-las-plantas to feed their children. Strong arms and thick legs bulge his clothes with defined muscles, and his broad back seems capable of supporting the weight of the world. His pants have three straps on each leg that fit snugly and keep blood from pooling in his lower body when he flies. His boots are all-terrain campaign boots. On top of an elastic shirt he wears a jacket with a leather exterior and synthetic fur interior that shows through the sleeves. On the collar of the jacket is embroidered an insignia with a silver star, on the right shoulder a rectangle with an X, and on the chest over the heart the emblem of a blue lion in a golden rectangle. Two linked bows of opaque glass cover his gaze, the visor has at the ends handles with curved tips that rest on the ears.

Nadjela thinks that the firelight is deceiving her, for the subject's disheveled mane appears to be blue. The stranger has a white-toothed smile, a friendly and charming face that contrasts with the sword sheathed on the left side of his waist. A long, slender weapon with a slight curve. Although La Cuna had warriors more muscular than him (see Bironte), none had such a look.

(A demon!) Nadjela concludes.

Demon, like the ones that parents and nannies say disguise themselves in human skin to murder or kidnap misbehaving children. Did that happen? Was she abducted?

Something rolls down the middle of her legs. Komodo's head, larger than hers, lies between her thighs. Nadjela screams and jumps up. She kicks the head, sending it into the darkness beyond the campfire. A swarm of crawling creatures of indistinguishable shapes growl and run after the prey. The man crouching by the fire speaks casually.

"I had a hard time separating that head. Don't waste it like that, woman," he grumbles as he gathers up the large predator's hind legs and tail. "It had strong bones. But nothing cuts more than my sword, not even machetes"

Nadjela moves slowly, silently and with her hands in front of her to steal the weapon from his waist now that he is distracted. If all the stories of demons were true, it wouldn't be long before this man tried to take her purity, and she wouldn't let him. With every inch less between her fingers and the hilt, her heartbeats per second increased.

(This is my chance. Either I stab him now, or...)

"Hey"

The sudden exclamation made Nadjela jump and fall on her ass. 

"A warrior's sword is his soul! Don't take it lightly" The man tilts his face toward her, his mouth twisted into a grimace. "What is it? Did you stumble? First you kick the food and now this. You really are clumsy"

The princess blushed. She wants to open her mouth and tell him that it was not unintentional, that she would not eat that garbage and that she is not clumsy. But she remembers that she is not dealing with a person, but with something foreign to the upbringing of the good people of the tribe. Nadjela stops thinking about such trifles when she sees how the guy uses the sword, his proclaimed warrior soul, to skewer a piece of stinking Komodo and put it on the fire to roast. 

"Would you like to try?" The demon holds out the thick lizard thigh, scales still burning. Nadjela covers her mouth with one hand and turns her face away. The man smiles. "Don't let her looks fool you. I heard a guy on the street say the uglier the better"

Nadjela crawls back on all fours to get as far away from the meat as possible. The dragon is a scavenger and a poisonous creature with a bite that can rot wood. Eating this meat is dangerous, and Nadjela assumes that the demon knows this, and that this is all a sadistic game to destroy her body and mind.

"But why was the guy telling that to a couple of schoolgirls?" The swordsman continues. "It's wisdom they'll never absorb. Girls prefer fluffy candy with colored cream. We men are satisfied with the simple cake. A cake doesn't need anything more than the cake itself to be tasty"

Nadjela covers her ears to protect herself from the unintelligible words the demon uses to plunge her into a labyrinth of unknowns.

"That you are alive is a relief," the man continues. "But why don't you speak? The mouth is there to speak, to shout everything you feel and let the world know. Come on, speak!"

The princess remained silent. She is equally speechless as she watches him sink his teeth into the Komodo's body, pull back with his neck, and rip off a nice, greasy chunk that disappears in her mouth after a few bites. It must like the taste, or perhaps it lacks a sense of taste, because it continues to devour.

No human would accomplish such a feat without dying! Nadjela has made up her mind. She turns to the giant and prays that he will take her away. But the giant is silent, and the man chatters.

"When I woke up and saw the sky and then you clinging to the leg of my armor as if your life depended on it, I really didn't know what to think. I thought you were trying to rob me"

"Never!" Nadjela raises her voice, refusing to be labeled a common thief. She notices the man's smile growing. The girl blushes as she realizes that this is exactly the reaction he was expecting.

"Good call! Sounds like metal!" He uses the sword to thrust the piece of meat back into the fire. "I maneuvered with style to catch you in mid-fall and bring you to the ground before my buddy fell asleep. It was exciting"

Nadjela doesn't remember any of it, and judging by how bruised her body feels, she suspects it was more haste than style. 

The demon continues to munch as long as Nadjela can see him. The girl waits sitting, hugging her legs, as far away from him as possible, but without venturing out of the circle of light. The demon amuses himself by nibbling the flesh from the bones and sucking the marrow, while with his free hand he picks more twigs from the nearby bushes to feed the fire. Nadjela, tired of these sticky noises and uncertainties, gathers enough courage to ask.

"What are you?"

"What am I?"The stranger looks at her and raises his visor with his hand. From the proximity of the fire, the crimson of his eyes becomes a soft yellow, reflecting warmth, openness, and initiative. He points at himself with his thumb. "My name is Chester Lancaster! The one who wins! The one who commands! Second Lieutenant of... Bah! You're welcome. I am what you see"

The strange words go in one ear and out the other. She remains lost in the gaze of that face that always seemed to have a secret smile on it, as if nothing could spoil its good humor or serenity. Is a man with such a face really bad? Is he not connected to the source that quenched the thirst of his people? He is a strange and unique man who fell from the sky, just as the legends of La Cuna say the prophet would come.

"Chester Lancaster, the savior?"

"Me? A savior?" The adjective makes him laugh. He shakes his head before lying on his side on the dusty ground, his cheek in the palm of his hand. "That would be too much. I'm just a man who wants to live by his own rules. I have my sword, my armor, and my freedom. I don't need anything else"

At the word "armor," Chester looks sideways to the sky. Nadjela follows his gaze to the giant. 

"Did you come from him?" she asks.

Chester nods.

"Then he's your father"

"What...? My old man wasn't cool. This is North Star. Like my sword, it represents another part of my mind. But since he was damaged in my last battle, he no longer responds. He scratches his mane. "I really shouldn't have underestimated those two..."

He briefly explains how, above the clouds, two pilots flanked him and hit him from both sides, piercing the cockpit of his North Star and causing him to initiate an emergency landing protocol. He crashed out of control and lost consciousness. The idea of turning his back on the enemy was dishonorable to him, but at the time his fighting spirit was dampened after he understood who he was fighting.

"I don't kill women and children! Let them stay at home, and let the men speak quietly and peacefully with our fists"

"I don't understand. Female warriors? Where the mother of all birds flies, are there still fights for survival?"

Nadjela hugs her knees even tighter and sinks her face, troubled by the absurd possibility. Heaven is supposed to be a place full of harmony where earthly sufferings and ambitions have little value. The same mother of birds raises strong winds with her fluttering wings that carry away the sorrows, and punishes the cries of ambition of the heart with lightning claps and divine songs that to mortal ears sound like thunder. Another detail that displeases her is the existence of a warrior woman, when in La Cuna women were always instructed in cooking, weaving, washing, fetching water, gathering the harvest when it is ripe, and finding a good man to marry and have children. War, fighting, hunting, was always a man's business. Nadjela finds it hard to imagine herself standing in battle and shaking a spear. 

"Shouldn't there be? "Chester takes Nadjela's disbelief as an endorsement of his beliefs. "I don't know of any mother birds. But the world is burning up and down. How can you not feel it? If you can feel the heat from up here..."

Chester closes his eyes, his mind drifting to another environment, one where the earth opens up, the seas boil, the sky weeps, and men perish by the thousands. Nadjela does not understand, in fact, she freezes to death.

"We are burning. Someone should teach a couple of painful little things to those idiots who started it all. Divine warfare? My balls!" He opens his eyes and looks at Nadjela. "Didn't you hear about the mess? Do you live in a cave?"

"La Cuna. Not a cave. I'm from the people of La Cuna"

"First time I've heard of it"

"I need to go back. We are in a forbidden zone. My father, my friend Majani, the venerable Zakary, they must all be worried"

"Forbidden zone? There's no such thing as a forbidden zone! "He turns his back and raises a hand to the stars and satellites. "This is the world! And the world belongs to everyone, and is meant to be enjoyed, explored, and lived in. To go out and take what it has to offer regardless of the odds"

Nadjela is silent in the face of these ideas that contradict the teachings given for generations to the people of her tribe: Obey the blood of the founder, and shun foreign evils. Of course, sometimes they negotiated with other tribes, merchants who came offering honey, or cotton, or wombat logs, and in exchange La Cuna delivered the goodness of El-nido-de-todas-las-plantas (except for the seeds), or the fishing, when the river runs. But they never came out as such, and there was always a tacit distrust of the foreign.

"Can you use your giant and take me home? "Nadjela asks.

"I need a mechanic to get it running. I don't even know how the hell he came to after the crash," she runs a hand through her hair. "I just know that everything was black, and then I saw a light and heard a voice"

"What's a mechanic? What voice?"

"How do you not know what a mechanic is? And the voice sounded like you, more or less. How old are you?"

Chester looks around at her. The princess catches that growing attention, and curls up as if to dwarf and take away the man's place to cast her gaze to walk.

"I did fifteen laps last fire season"

"Fifteen laps! I'll guess that's years. And did they give your bunny carrots?"

Nadjela, all flushed, gives him a look of contempt. The question was so transparent that she didn't even need to be familiar with the examples to understand.

"Don't look at me like that!" Chester shows his hands. "There's no delicate way to ask it! Anyway, so it wasn't you"

"You have the power to identify a virgin just by listening to her?"-Surprise seeps out of him. An ability like that, coupled with hearing voices, gave clues of being a holy entity. Like Neddin when he hears the voice of the mother bird in times of dispute, and divine intervention is required to clarify the one and only correct path.

"No way!" Chester hastens to remove the celestial like someone who wants to get rid of a stinking and freshly flayed skin. "It's simple. The voice I heard asked me for a favor. She asked me to protect her daughter. I take it you're someone's daughter, right?"