His face was too close to her.
Suddenly she felt a tingling feeling in her stomach and also started feeling hot in her cheeks. This feeling was new to her.
But for now, she wanted his face to be out of her. She saw a tong lying around at a distance from the corner of her eye.She drew it towards her. The tong flew across the room and grabbed Danachi's ear.
"Ouch- it hurts!!", Danachi cried.
"This is the least you can get from messing around me.", Kanibora said, putting a sly smile around her face.
"I won't do it again, I promise. Let me go now! It really hurts!" Danachi looked like a puppy while apologizing.
"Very well ", she decided to forgive him.
The tong fell. But it fell on his toe.
"AAH- HOLY-
He was about to curse. But he stopped halfway.
"I said I won't do it again. Why did you do this to me?" He said while sulking.
" I didn't mean it this time. I let go of it and it just fell.", Kani seemed unbothered.
"Great. Now there are two cripples under the roof.", He said.
"Neither am I a cripple nor you. Here, let me see."
Danachi sat beside her and she lifted up his foot for a closer look. It wasn't really a bump. The area had only become a little red.She placed her hand on that place and started the healing process.
"Hmm, now it might be- what!", She exclaimed in surprise.
The area hadn't healed. It was just as before. She thought that although manipulation didn't work on him, healing might work since it was universal. But nothing, absolutely nothing of her magic worked on him.
"Who is this guy really?," She thought.
"Did you say something?," Danachi asked.
"I said it might take till tomorrow to heal your toe."
"And what about yours?
"Mine will also heal eventually."
He was now getting ready to know her. For him it was fascinating to meet someone like her.
"Do you live in the Tirana?",he asked her.
"For now,yes. I take care of the mountain. It's similar to a mountain spirit. But not all mountain have mountain spirits. Take Tirana for example. But they all need a guardian."
It was the first time he ever heard such thing. Growing up, he always saw the villagers talking about how the god's were only there to protect them.
"Where are you from?",he asked again.
"Far away.",Kani replied.
"You live for an eternity, right?"
She thought it might be better to just tell him everything for he might start asking later.
"The powerful gods and goddesses who created this universe, can live for an eternity. As for me, I'm not a full-goddess. Just a demi one.I have similarities with human.You could say I don't age but I 'can' die. But the demi-gods and goddesses of our peers are working on developing their magic. My own power was growing too, although really slowly.But now I'm having difficulties performing my magic. You saw it too, didn't you? I couldn't manipulate or heal you and on top of that, I almost drowned in Aya.",she replied.
"But you can change your form,you could manipulate the villagers ,you are capable of much more,I believe. As for your powers not working, I'm sure there's a reason. When I was a kid, my mother told me that I fell severely ill after I was born. No remedies worked on me. But after a few days I was suddenly cured. Not only that, I never even had a cold after that.This could be the reason why you couldn't manipulate me.", he tried to emphasize with her.
"Probably," she said. She hoped there wasn't anything wrong with her and just wanted to be done with this realm and go back to nirvana.
It was past midnight. Kanibora came out of the house when Danachi had fallen asleep. She was in her usual form when she came out. "There won't be any people outside anyway,"she though.
The moon was unusually brighter that night. A cool breeze was blowing. It didn't seem like anything had happened there. It was so peaceful. The pain her ankle was almost gone ,though it still felt like burning but it was tolerable. She tarted walking towards Aya.
The length of Aya was curvy. Thought it indeed was born from Tirana but unlike any other rivers, it didn't fall in the sea. Instead, just after where the Tahaku village had ended, this large river severely narrowed down and ended after just a few hundred steps.
In the night, a lots of fireflies had come out and were wandering around. In the Tirana, there were only a few fireflies each night that came out for eating or mating. Kanibora always wondered where they went. Turned out they all came here.
"You guys need a little punishment for rejecting me," she said.
She lifted her hands up and started moving round and round over her head. The fireflies that were wandering around started to come to her and flew in the circle she had formed above her Head. Soon, hundreds of fireflies were flying around her. After playing for a while, she parted her hands away.
"Go now.", She said.
The circle was broken. But the fireflies didn't leave. Instead they formed a line and started flying toward Aya. It was like they wanted her to go there.She followed them and reached to the riverside. The waterflow was neither calm nor restless. The cool breeze was blowing above the river water. The moon, reflected on the river, was shining brightly. It was like the river was glowing. Reaching the riverside, the fireflies now broke the line and went away wondering again.
Kanibora sat by the riverside and took a deep breath. She leaned over and could see her reflection in the clear water.
"Maybe," she told herself. " Maybe I can figure it out this time."
She put her hand in the water again. The water was cold just as before. The hotness that she had felt that evening was completely gone. She just sat there for a couple of moments , keeping her hand inside the water, doing nothing just to see if the temperature went up again. But even after a while, nothing happened.
"It'll work this time.", She murmured. She started the muttering her enchantment." I summon the lives of water,answer my call. Tell me your worries, tell me all."
There was still nothing but she was sensing something. So she waited patiently and muttered again.
"I summon the lives of the water,answer my call."
At this moment there was a small stirring inside the water, It was a little fish that had come to her. Without wasting any time, she touched the fish and started seeing what had happened. Dealing with fishes were hard as their memory weren't intact and dealing with this baby fish was specially hard. But kanibora tried to see what she could. She could see the fragments.
The fishes and others were there until a few days ago. But suddenly many of them started to die. Some were found dead, parted in half. Thats why the fishes had gone to the waterfall of Tirana instead. It's unlikely for them to go to the opposite direction of the current but something in the river was eating them up but Kani couldn't clearly see what. It looked like a snake? But she wasn't sure if it was something similar.
At that moment the water started to get hot again.Kani created a protective spell around the baby fish so that it could go back to his family safely.
The water kept getting hotter and the river started to swirl up again. There was something glowing in the middle of the river.Kanibora tried to trap it using her powers but it stopped working again.
"No no no, this can't be happening!", She became tensed.
In addition to her being defenseless, her ankle started to hurt again. The pain was growing rapidly every moment.She had clenched her ankle while growling in pain. If she just could make this stop. Her leg was burning. It was like something was cutting her leg away with a fired knife. She couldn't take the pain anymore and wanted to scream. But nothing was coming out of her mouth. Her mind became blurry and she lost the strength in her body. She fell to the ground.
"Help- help me, she whispered.
At that moment, she felt someone calling her name, they tapped on her face but not getting any response, lifted her up. She could sense everything but she just didn't have enough strength to talk. She opened her eyes to see who was carrying her. It was Danachi.
Danachi took her to his house and made her lie down on the bed. He then touched her leg and she felt that he was checking for the wound.
After a while, she could feel something cold in the burning spot.Danachi had brought a piece of cloth and a bowl of cold water. He was soaking the cloth in the water and covering the wound for a few moments before soaking it back again. He continued cooling the wound before she could finally feel the burning pain go down.
Kani regained her energy at dawn. During this time,she was half dead. She was conscious of what was happening but couldn't open her eyes. She couldn't even use her vision because of her condition.
During that time,she felt Danachi taking care of her. After he had cooled down the wound in her ankle, he placed her feet a bit higher so that the wind could touch her leg.He then started walking around the house to stay up. He waited to see if she had opened her eyes but fell asleep a while ago.
Kani realized she owed it to him this time.Otherwise she would have been visiting nirvana as a soul and not a goddess.