Chapter 0001

"Wow!" Creatures awes with a murmur of wows. A shrew even flinched at the sight of the fire though he is far far away from her.

"And the fire burns through the thorns field like paper! If I wasn't in a hurry I would have stopped there and explored more about it, but there were angels on my tail so I just ran and jumped off."

"By the time I realized I was falling too fast and Uncle S was not gonna be there to catch me I paniced, and the fire lit up again. Took me a few minutes to learn how to control them so I could lift my body with it." With a huge smile, Nonoth extinguished the fire in her palm.

"Those few minutes were really scary though!" She added. Luckily the soft-hearted deer hasn't woke up yet, otherwise she would have fainted again.

"What happened then?" A little lion asks, wagging his tail, obviously enjoying Nonoth's story.

"I landed on a wide, flat, quiet altar. It's in a color of deep dark scarlet as if it was soaked in blood long long ago. If you listen closely, you can even make out the murmur of all the lost souls wondering there..."

The round mushroom sprite and his fellow friends, the fairy with the huge leaf wings and all the other creatures are now in silence and awe. Their eyes all on Nonoth, even those with more than two eyes.

"Why is that place soaked in blood?" A small bird with horns on her head asks the question that obviously has been on lots' mind but no one has the courage to really ask.

"Well later on I found out that the altar is the dining table of my uncle S. He's NOT a person of table manner." Nonoth shakes her head in disapproval, a posture what grown-ups would do when they say that about her.

"Who is this Uncle S and how large would he be if a huge altar is just his dining table?"

"He visits us from time to time on the cloud, always in the form of a snake when he visits. He says it's easier for him to travel. He's good to me, I'm sure he didn't show up for some reason. It was from him that I got the best route to the edge after I take the apple, that and a memory of my mom. Look."

With those words Nonoth opens her palm again, and there emerges a fire, jumping in the wind. Soon the jumping slows down and the fire starts to show a woman's figure, leaning against a tree obviously, laughing with someone who apparently is the owner of this short memory.

"Her hair is also blue." Nonoth says, eyes fixed on the image of her. "She laughs a lot. Days with her on the cloud were so much more fun. These are all Uncle S's words, I have never met her in my life..."

"But how are you gonna find her? It was like years ago...well, how old are you?"

"I don't know. Time tends to stop up there on the cloud. We could never grow up, we kids, because they don't never want to grow old."

Lingering she where no light would shine

Cast her a shasow but a full moon's line

Thunder be the lullaby, follows her every night

And by days but the cold water falls from the sky

Be to her dust bread she consumes

water but only burning fire flows

the lover's touch thorns of roses

for the sin of pleasure be her crimes

Never would brought to her the sweet sleep of death

with eternal be the remaining duration of her sentence