Nascentorium

The Water Creatures

"HOW DARE YOU!!!" screamed the two scary girls. I was so scared and stepped back a bit. Nas, however, calmly stepped forward while saying, "Yes, I am sorry it took quite a long time to get back." He opened his shirt and showed his previous wound, almost gone now. "I ran into a problem, and this human here helped me." The two girls immediately calmed down and changed form into cute small girls, with reddish brown and green dresses. They seemed concerned and asked Nas flusteredly, "Oh! Oh! Sorry we were mad, we didn't know!!! Are you okay now??" while running all around Nas. He smiled and patted the head of both girls. "Don't worry, I am okay now. And I still brought you girls something." He reached into the inner pocket of his coat and took out pieces of candies and give it to both girls. They happily danced around Nas while holding the candies. Nas turned to to and said, "The girl with the red dress is Ta-Khian, a spirit who lives in the Hopea odorata tree. The girl with the green dress is Tani, a spirit who lives in Banana tree. Girls come here, meet my friend Ray." Both of them came, bowed and smiled to me. I smiled back to them. They went back to Nas while saying, "We want to show this to Meliae! She'll get jealous!" Nas scratched his head while saying, "Well, I think better not disturb her though, it's her sleeping time...." but the girls already running to Meliae's place. "Whoops..." I said. Nas laughed. "Nobody can control them in here...well, only Meliae can. Come on, I'll take you to meet the others. We still have a lot of minor forest spirits here, but in the meantime I will show you the layout of this place."

We kept walking until we reached glass doors of the greenhouse and walked out into the outside garden. It was beautiful, a wide, sparkling lake. Nas walked into the lake while turning his head to me, saying "Wait here, I'll call them. Kel, Zo, come out!" He gently touched the water. Suddenly, a blinding light shows and two figures emerged from inside the lake. I covered my eyes with my hand. When the light dimmed, I can see them: one is a pretty and tall turqoise horse, walking out of the water elegantly. The other one is a scary-looking shiny black dog, with water branched out of its back, with a monkey hand in the end of its tail. It said, "Heya, buddy. Where were you?" The hand of its tail patted Nas on the shoulder. The water horse also came near him while saying, "We're a bit worried since we haven't seen you in a while. But you know, we can't go out so we can only give protection to this place." Nas smiled a little and said, "Thanks, Kel. Meet my human friend, Ray. He helped me while I was in trouble with my errand." The horse came to me and nodded slightly, "I am Kelpie, perhaps you have heard of me. I am sharing this lake with my friend Ahuizotl here. It might sounds unusual since we came from different regions, but as you know this place is like a shelter to keep us safe, so we're quite happy with this arrangement. Zo preferred the deep end, the bottom of this lake while I enjoy sun sometimes in the surface. We're a good housemate." Ahuizotl grinned and said, "We both used to eat humans in the past, you know. That's just how we were made. But Nas gave us a substitute that is okay. Don't worry, we won't eat you." I laughed nervously. They both went back inside the water, and Nas said, "Let's go there now." He was pointing at a smaller lake, with dark and murky water. Suddenly I felt bad. Nas looked at me and said, "Easy, the one inside that is a good spirit. Well, sometimes he can be annoying, but overall he's good." Nas took a cucumber from inside his pocket and put it near the pond's edge. "Taro, here, I brought you good thing." Something came out from the water almost immediately. It was a terrifying creature that looked like a turtle but with bird beak, scaly body and webbed fingers. "Finally..." He said, while looking at me with his gleaming red eyes and smacked his lips. "You brought me real food."