Epistle from Abigail Weaver to Zacharias Albrecht 3 : Lizards, rodents and pterodactyls, oh my!
Encounters of the First Kind on prehistoric Earth…
Dear Zach,
I hope you’re doing all right. I hope you are not still angry at me since Christopher’s wedding ? I was in earnest when I was rejoicing for Christopher and his bride, he is my brother and a good man, you must understand that ?
Aside from that argument, we have not talked much lately.
Of course, I was busy with helping out the ceremony and doing some preparatory sketches, it is going to be my first official painting. And you seemed rather distant and sad…
I wish I could tell you all about these… magical escapades. I have learned so much in such a short time (it would appear my mind is not totally closed after all), I met aliens strange lizard people that lived on Earth and…
No, that will not do, I am mixing times again. These journeys are so confusing… and scary and enchanting ! But I will do things in orders, stick to the established plan as I teach my pupils.
The wedding. I understand your sadness, naturally. I was happy for Christopher and Eleanor, they seem well-suited for each other and quite in love. They are star-crossed. I wish .
It was all there was, I really did not want to provoke you.
I know your parents have been pressuring for some time, mine have started to do so as well, especially with my “night out” when I returned from our first journey. My mother is still going on about it, “can you imagine your reputation in tatters”, the “family shame”, you cannot be “so childish any more”… I know she means well deep down and wants to protect me and our family. She just cannot understand what has happened, poor soul.
You know my father is more understanding in general, but with that, even he is worried. I just wished J the Call had left me a few minutes to dress myself before going out…
Anyway, I could not put off the dreaded conversation any more… but as I told you in the last letter, I had an idea. I may even be able to tell you part of it in person a bit later…
I was thinking, the Gifted travel from towns to town for celebrations, the Elders, of course, and the merchants from time to time, but our communities are rather isolated most of the time. It would be a good idea for older children to travel and learn about other communities, form bonds between all of us, we are stronger together. And as I said to my parents, it would be an opportunity for the teachers accompanying them to meet a lot of new young people as well…
Father appears to be interested in the idea, but Mother is rather reluctant. I think she is afraid I will do something… unmentionable, or perhaps she believes I am insincere in my purposes. I am not ! I wish she would trust me a little more… I do believe it would be a good thing for all involved, this journey. Meeting new people, seeing new landscapes… it is inspiring and enriching on several levels.
As a shepherd and Malachi’s voice, you could also be part of such a journey ? With the way ours stars are aligned, it would sadly likely be a different one, but believe me, travelling is good to get you new perspectives… and I do not wish to see my oldest closest friend sad. Plus you could tell your stories to new people, I know they would love them.
About journeys, I have now travelled a second time. Lady Fortune came calling just as I was starting to paint the portrait. Luckily it was still day and I could absent myself (with a coat this time) to go to the hill…
And this time, we went to the Holy Land, the planet of our origins : Earth ! But Earth 65 millions years ago; Apparently, at that time, there was another species on Earth, but a Flood would submerged them later. It would seem the Bible omitted that, or perhaps it was somehow lost in translation ? I know you had some… liminal stories about Nephilims, perhaps they were not descendant of fallen angels and humans, but rather the Sons of Anak ? It was you who explained that Anak meant “giant or long neck” in Hebrew…
As we landed, we saw some spectacular things, and the saying “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these” was proven right once more : Tardisse uses some kind of technomagical miracle to make us invisible, but a little Sailurian child saw us (and was much surprised) !
Lady Fortune(the Magic Box Ghost living in the “Machine”, along with Gobyen and Tardiss) told us she needed “supplies” there and gave us a strange groceries list. She also wanted Mrs Jo6 to gamble ! I told her it was a sin, but she did not really answer and Mrs Jo6 assured me it was important for “the mission”. I believe she thinks me a simpleton because I do not know about about technomagy. She literally said I “should need to have a more open mind” ! As if as a teacher, I did not know that questions and curiosity were not important ! I am sorry, she probably meant no harm, and it is true I am often more lost than Mrs Jo6 or Mrs Tellenne who understand technomagy, but I am not unwilling to learn !
Anyway, we were soon technomagically disguised. Mrs Tellene needed some strange gas for that, I wonder if it was because she is an alien ?
And we were off the see the Lizards. That city was enormous, but we started in a hotel. There, Mrs J6 decided to take charge, as she knew more about technomagic than us and she said that we should “not trust everyone”. She sounded so serious and worried, I really wonder how awful her world must be, do demons abound on that weird planet with no grass or rain ?
As it were, she led us to the welcoming area and found some kind of chief merchant to do business with.
She was clearly quite good at it. And this society is quite stratified, as was Old Egypt or Babylon : Mrs Tellene was seen as a noble with her disguise and offered some appetising-looking frozen thing. As a commoner I was offered rats (!) as a delicacy. These non-alien lizards have some “interesting” tastes…
On the other hand, I met an old poet called Ichtar ! That Sailurian had a machine thing that apparently allowed him to perceive something of our souls… his air pictures showed us a more of a mixture of lizard people and humans…
He seemed thoughtful and rather wise, a bit sad perhaps. Apparently, he had been cut from his “clan”, his family perhaps ?
He was clearly a sweetheart, and as this place had no concept of hospitality (that is a shame !) and we had been given more money than we needed for the groceries, I offered some of it so he could stay for “artistic” representations, theatres, poetry… Mrs Tellene helped me with the technomagic machine they used as money. She is interested in “art” : pictures, painting, poetry… it seems other culture see these as important and create a lot and in various forms…
Ichtar promised to perform his own poetry for us the same evening.
Mrs Jo6 had finished her bargaining and we told her of that invitation : she was angry we gave money to help Ichtar stayed in the city and create poetry, she believed he was… some kind of thief ? We explained the situation, but she was still mistrustful.
But then, I saw something incredible. The walls’ appearance changed under our eyes and painting, engraving… appeared everywhere ! It was beautifully crafted, all of it, but… it was wrong ! They did not represent God’s creation as it were : people had so many expressions, the perspectives were not always right, some elements were… I am not sure they were miracles…
Perhaps it is part of the reason they were destroyed in the giant Flood that would come ? And yet, Lay Fortune told us it would come much later, and Mrs Tellene seemed to say “art” was common in various cultures…
It is a sin, of course, God’s creation is perfect (and so amazingly rich !) as it is… but still, all these emotions, they do not lie exactly, they appear to express… some inner truth maybe ?
To express things that do not exist must be a sin, but I wonder, why are we supposed to paint marriage portraits with plain faces ? Marriage are for better or for worse circumstances, but at its heart should it not be about the feeling at the heart of the coming partnership that will transcend all coming obstacles ?
You know Chris, he is joyful, a bit happy go lucky perhaps, but always good-hearted and teasing. To represent him so serious seems… untruthful to him. And I must confess, I will miss his warm presence at home. Another reason for the journey in the coming year… and I may try something as a Malachi’s hand, a gift for Mrs Tellene…
Speaking of journey, I lost my thread again, I am really bad at telling a coherent and ordered story, my apologies ! We were done with the shopping list, so Mrs Jo6 suggested we should complete our mission and do the gambling on “pterawdactails” (giant lizard birds) for Lady Fortune. The gambling den was indeed a place of sin : the inn-keeper talked about people smuggling a drug called “sugar” there ! How awful… this society has enticing things, but also poverty and afflictions…
Anyway, we arrived there and the Sailurian told Mrs Jo6 that she needed to provide drivers as well as money for the race ! As it was for an important mission for Lady Fortune to whom we all owned a debt of gratitude, and given I was the only one who apparently had experience with animals, I freluctantly resolved to offer my services…
Le chaudron créatif 