Aryan came near a water spring, and he hesitated enough to go into the water to cross. The beautifully feathered bird perched on the cliffs opposite the water spring.
The boy looked at the bird, then turned to the surface of the water, looking for something he could use for his footrest. But he found nothing. The flow of water from under the rock cliff was indeed very clear and looked shallow, but the boy was doubtful enough to be able to cross it.
Again, he looked up, at the beautiful bird that seemed to be watching him.
"I can't go there!"
The area where Aryan is now a little dimly lit because the sun's light is not fully able to penetrate the forest canopy. The blades of light look like small pillars falling to the ground at some point.
Aryan could witness all that, only a smile of admiration was always present on the boy's lips as well as a twinkling gaze. It all looked amazing in the boy's eyes.
Then his gaze fixed on a form of a spider web. It's just that the size of the spider web is very large. And when the boy's eyes hit the figure that was in the middle of the spider web, Aryan was immediately wide-eyed.
The boy was thrown onto the forest floor with a look on his face that described such great fear.
"Dad...!" Aryan screamed as he inched backward quickly.
The grass-seeker gasped in shock at the sound of that long scream. He stood up, but couldn't find the child around.
"Aryan...!" he called.
Instantly the man was struck by overwhelming anxiety. Not waiting any longer, he immediately ran into the forest with a scythe in his hand.
"No, no...! Gods in Swargaloka, save my son."
The man continued to run down the forest floor while continuing to shout the name of the child.
"Where are you, Aryan?!"
Meanwhile, Aryan was so stuck and unable to move any further, not even speaking. Only a pair of his eyes were looking unblinking at the figure above.
The figure that was initially silent in the middle of the huge spider web slowly moved.
The old man's like figure floated down slowly as if he was able to control his weight to go against the law of gravity.
The old man looked so thin with his wrinkled body skin, it was just that the skin color of his body looked very pale. He wore a long, intact cloth wrapped around his body, from his left shoulder across to the right, and wrapped around the entire waist to the slightly below-the-knee section. The cloth may have been clean white before, but it now looks dull yellowish.
And even more, amazing as well as the thing that makes little Aryan stunned at the figure, is a pair of old man's eyes that are almost as white as cotton. Also on his long hair has changed color to white.
The old man's hair floated and moved very slowly as if his hair was made of smoke. Likewise with his long eyebrows, mustache, and beard which is also very long and the same color as his hair.
The grass seeker's steps stopped when his gaze was focused on a figure that had smoke-like hair that was drifting down and then floated about a meter above ground level. As he looked at Aryan's figure in front of him, he immediately ran over.
Realizing the situation, the grass-seeker simply released the scythe in his hand, and then threw himself to the ground, kneeling beside the child.
"Great Rsi," said the grass-seeker with his forehead touching the ground and ten fingers fused above the head, "forgive me if my son has disturbed the hermitage of the Great Rsi."
Rsi, read Resi, a nickname for a great ascespecter.
Aryan couldn't do much, nor did he speak. The boy could only watch his adoptive father prostrate himself before the floating old man.
"Aryan," the man glanced at the child in his prostrate position. "Quickly apologize to the Great Rsi."
Aware of the mistake he had made, Aryan immediately prostrated himself before the floating old man.
"For—forgive me, Great Rsi," said the boy.
"Is he your blood, O Sudra?"
Rsi's voice sounded heavy and resounded. However, the floating old man did not open his mouth at all.
The grass-seeker felt for himself how trembling his body was, yet he did not dare to move from his prostration to the old hermit.
"He's not, Great Rsi. This boy I found washed up in the stream when he was still red."
"Raise your head, O Sudra, and tell me what your name is!"
With fear, the grass-seeker lifted his body. He sits on the folds of his feet with his head fixed down and ten fingers arranged on his forehead.
"My name is Munra, Great Rsi."
"Are you sure that this child you didn't take from one higher family?"
Munra knocked herself again to the ground with an increasingly shivering body. "Forgive me, Great Rsi. For the sake of the Gods in Swargaloka, I wouldn't dare to do that."
"Raise your head, O Sudra!"
Munra was shivering, even more, the voice of the command resounding, echoing. It was as if the sound itself came from a very deep well. With increasingly become-so fear, Mundra finally re-lifted her body as before.
"For—forgive me, Great Rsi."
The Rsi found no lies in the grass seeker's words, nor his body gestures. He moved in front of little Aryan who was still prostrating with his forehead touching the ground.
"Raise your head, O son of the Sudra!"
Aryan did what the old hermit ordered. Unlike the adoptive father, Aryan was brave enough to look at the white eyes of the floating figure. The boy gulped.
The Rsi suddenly moved his body quickly, like the movement of a snake, the Rsi's body curved until his face was only one inch adrift of Aryan's face.
Aryan had sputtered but tried to restrain himself even though he felt a great fear within himself. Up close, the old hermit's face got Aryan stuck. Thin dry like a skull wrapped in wrinkled skin that is left on the face.
TO BE CONTINUED ...