chapter 1

"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 panicked, 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..."

"That was like... how many years ago? Well, how old are you?" Rises the low voice of the Wolpertinger. He's so huge that his voice makes the creek shakes.

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

"But if your mom is alive, where has she been all these... many years?" The cat asks.

"I don't know. No one knows..."

"How then are you even sure that she's still alive? I mean, is she is, surely she should have found you by now?" The little lion comments, obviously confident with his own mother's love towards him.

"That I know. She's alive, I'm sure of it."Nonoth answers without any hesitation.

"Hmmm, but how are you gonna find her?" The cat gives a frown, not too positive with Nonoth's chance of finding her mom.

"That's where I would be needing your help." Nonoth's deep blue eyes shine with a bright light, just like the fire she summons. "I'm looking for places that are always shrouded in darkness and possibly rains, with mysterious, horrifying myth going around about them."

"We have only lived in this forest our entire life. Few of us ever goes out. We don't know much places like that." The mouse says with a sad face, as if about to cry.

"It's okay. It's supposed to be a less-known place, and probably actively avoided by most due to the horrifying legends. Even the kids up on the cloud know a few of them, like babies missing, or human flesh lying around and stuff. What I need, is for you to spread the word out there for me, so maybe someone would have known it would hear the word and points a direction for me."

"We will help." A weak but soft voice emerges from the side of the creek. The gentle deer woke up just now. Still resting, she voices her support out low but firmly.

...

The mouse running on his short feet, towards his maze underground; the cat, leaving in an opposite direction, probably on purpose to inform her friends; the deer is walking by the side of the Wolpertinger, towards the deep, dark corner of the forest; and the little lion, roaring on his way home, already the song Nonoth taught them just now for spreading:

Lingering she where no light would shine

Cast not her a shadow even a crescent line

Thunder be her lullaby follows every night

And by day but the cold rain falling from 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 them the sweet sleep of death

with eternal be the remaining duration of their sentence

Fall from grace left the garden an outcast

But under a full moon often with a mask

Consumes only the dead but not the decay

Always the vicious serpents appears thee

Keep may he his visage and soul

But horns on head the mark of rebel

Broken wings forever on fire

Show of exile ever deigned no lair

Never would brought to them the sweet sleep of death

Until illuminated the flow of month

Never would brought to them the sweet sleep of death

Two break the curse, but only one leaves

...