Case Closed Fan Fiction ❯ The First Woman In The World ❯ 3 ( Chapter 3 )

Seven and a half thousand years ago

“This land is so hot,” Eta sighed, wiping more sweat from her forehead. She preferred walking the dry land at night. She and Ushi were not killed by the heat or lack of food and water like normal people would be, but that didn't mean that walking across the desert in the heat wasn't uncomfortable.

They had been travelling for so long, searching every town and village that they passed for Han and the star. After some decades, they realized that he had probably passed on at some point, and the star passed on to others. All they could do was keep searching, wandering wherever their feet could take them in search of their lost star.

“Surely there must be water somewhere?” Ushi said, shielding his eyes as they climbed another dry hill. “It has been so long since we saw the sea. How large can one land be?”

Eta had to wonder. How large could a land be? While they had not found the star in their travels, they had found questions. She had mulled over them many nights. In their wanderings, they had met different peoples, and some did not speak the same language as she and Ushi did. Luckily, she picked up languages fast, but she had to wonder: how many different languages could there be? What made one person label a bowl a “bowl” and another, so far away, call it something different? How many different animals could there be? They had seen many that they had never seen before. Why was there so much water in some places, like the sea, and so little here? And how large could one land be?

“Eta,” Ushi gasped, “Eta, look!” Eta scurried up to his side at the top of the dune and gasped happily. A river! A huge, shining river in the middle of the desert!

And... people.

Eta stared as they descended the dune. There was s small collection of odd little houses near the river. They were flat on top, and Eta wondered for a moment why they did not have pools of rainwater on top, until she remembered that it did not rain in this dry land. They half-ran, half-slid down the dune to the little village.

“Hello?” Eta said to the first person they met. He stared at them in incomprehension. She tried a few other tongues until she found one that he recognized.

“You walked across the desert?” He said incredulously. “But no-one can survive that! We only reached so far by travelling by the river!”

“So you have not lived here long?” Eta said, looking over at the curious people who were congregating.

“Five years,” the man said proudly. “We wandered for a long time before that- nomads. But we feel that this land may be blessed. If god-people have come through the desert, then perhaps it is true! One day, we shall be great!”

“I do not doubt that you will,” Ushi said, picking up a handful of sand and letting it pour through his fingers into a little triangular pile at his feet. “You have grown plants from sand!” He looked over at the river. “Or was there forest here once? There are logs in the river.”

“Logs with teeth!” another man laughed. “Those logs will eat you- tear you into little pieces and devour you! The only thing they won't eat are the huge water monsters! Those are the size of a house and eat our crops!”

“Such a strange land,” Eta whispered. “To be able to live here must be magic.”

“The god-people have blessed us!” the man who had greeted them cried. “Please, stay and eat with us!”

“Of course,” Ushi said. The man walked off to discuss food with the others.

“We're not really gods, though,” Eta whispered to him.

“No, but I doubt they would believe us if we said that,” Ushi replied, “and if they did, there'll be no free food and water. Besides, we are so much more than them. And if they believe we are gods, they may tell us about the star if they have seen it.”

That night, they ate around a bonfire with the villagers. The desert was indeed strange, Eta mused. During the day, it was so hot as to fry people alive, which was perhaps why these people were so very dark-skinned, but at night it was freezing.

“We are searching for a treasure of ours,” Ushi explained. “It is a stone, clear like ice but warm and hard. And in the light of the moon, it glows red, like blood. Have you seen such a thing?”

“I have, I have!” a girl cried. “Nomads came by, a moon or so ago. They had such a treasure. It was so beautiful, I will never forget it. Ah, forgive me! Had I known that it belonged to gods, I would have taken it from them!”

“Foolish girl!” the village's headman cried. “Why did you not share this secret, so that we might have seen this wonder and kept it for the Gods?!”

“Do not be harsh on her,” Eta said soothingly, feeling sorry for the girl-child who was now cowering away from the headman. “It's only natural for a girl to keep secrets. It is what makes her a woman, after all.”

“Does that mean,” Ushi murmured, a mere breath in her ear, “That you have secrets?”

“Not from you, Ushi,” she sighed. “Never from you.” She no longer felt any guilt in this lie- after all, it was not really a lie, as she had not denied the dream-children's existence. She had simply never mentioned them.

Just as she had never mentioned that her dream-children hated the star.

“If I ever get to be real, Momma,” her little boy said, “I want to get rid of it. It keeps us apart. It will make him evil.”

“Ushi isn't evil, darlings,” Eta said. Her little girl shook her head.

“He will be,” she promised. “It's just what happens. You too, unless you remember not to. So we're gonna remind you, alright?”

And every night, they did. And every day, she watched Ushi silently, always worrying for the signs of evil, remembering them from the dance of blood so many centuries ago.

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This chapter was released simultaneously with chapter 48: Reunion Awaited.

The next one will be released alongside chapter 53: Silence.

Glad you like, Mel72000! ^_-

Eta and Ushi are... Eta and Ushi XD (yeah, real helpful XD) You're close, though, Pretztailfan95...