“Why don’t we leave this to Cheem Sudra and go see Granny Jiba?” I finally suggested.
And so, Ai Fa and I left things at that and stepped away. When we did, though, Ai Fa whispered to me in a tone filled with pent up frustration, “Jou Ran keeps going against the customs of the forest’s edge again and again. What good can come of speaking of such matters with people who weren’t even involved?”
“Well, is it really that big of a deal if it helps make things a little easier on Jou Ran? I’ve always thought that he’s kind of similar to the townsfolk.”
If Jou Ran opened up about his feelings here at the forest’s edge, he’d probably just get scolded. But Yumi and Ben sympathized with him, which might help to soothe his pain. At least, that was what I figured.
As we left that minor fiasco behind, the main house was now straight ahead of us, and Granny Jiba remained seated atop the cloth nearby. The people around her were different, other than Donda Ruu and Dari Sauti who were both still there too. Now Baadu Fou and the eldest Deen and Liddo sons had joined them.
“Granny Jiba, would you like to go around the plaza with us for a bit?” Ai Fa called out, causing the elderly woman to turn toward her with a look of confusion.
“Me, walk around the plaza? But I walk very slowly and I’m so small that I’m hard to see, so I would just get in everyone’s way.”
“If you would like, I can carry you on my back. I’m sure everyone would be happy to see you.”
Granny Jiba went silent for a bit, but then she said, “That’s true... In that case, I shall take you up on that offer. I’ll be stepping away for a bit, Donda.”
Donda Ruu gave a silent nod of approval, and Ai Fa lifted Granny Jiba up onto her own back. As the old woman placed her hands on my clan head’s shoulders, she gave a little laugh. “I feel as if I’m a small child again. Back when my body was weaker, Darmu and Ludo would carry me on their backs, but I wasn’t able to enjoy it much at the time.”
“Yes, I’m enjoying this as well,” Ai Fa said with a smile as she walked away from the cloth.
People throughout the plaza started cheerfully calling out to us when they noticed Granny Jiba, and she looked happy too as she looked back at them.
“Thank you, Ai Fa. I was feeling a bit absent-minded earlier. Did I worry you?”
“Well, perhaps a little. You seemed so lively when you were talking to Tia in your bedroom in the main house.”
“Yes, I enjoyed speaking with her very much. I believe my thoughts were still rather occupied with our chat when the banquet started,” Granny Jiba said. Her voice was very quiet, but since I was walking right next to Ai Fa, I was able to hear what she was saying without any trouble.
“So you were acting distant because you were thinking about the red people during the banquet? That seems rather unlike you.”
“You may be right. I was a bit out of sorts.”
As she walked along, Ai Fa tilted her head in confusion. “You were out of sorts, Granny Jiba? I listened to your entire conversation with Tia, but I don’t recall hearing anything that might make you feel that way.”
“That’s true. I’m sure I am the only one left at the forest’s edge who would have felt so deeply moved.”
Ai Fa’s brow furrowed ever so slightly. “What do you mean by that, exactly? If something is bothering you, please tell us.”
“Nothing is bothering me. After all, no good would come of worrying about it at this point.”
“What exactly are you speaking of?”
After falling silent for a while longer, Granny Jiba smiled gently. “Well, I suppose I was planning on discussing it with Donda tomorrow anyway, so there should be no harm in me telling you now.”
“I agree. And if it involves Tia, then it involves us as well. Did she say something to upset you?”
“No, that isn’t it. This is something I’ve been thinking about since long before today’s conversation. Ever since the first day that girl was brought to the Ruu settlement, in fact.” It had been five days now since Tia had first been placed in the care of the Ruu. In all that time, I had never noticed anything off about her. “She has an incredibly beautiful gaze, does she not? The moment I saw her mysterious red eyes, I remembered...”
“You remembered? Remembered what?”
“My family, and the clans close to us, and my comrades,” Granny Jiba replied, her clear eyes staring off into empty space. “Her eyes are just like those that my people had. The way their eyes looked back when they hunted apes in the black forest of Jagar.”
“What do you mean?” Ai Fa asked, her voice trembling a bit, and I felt my heart start to beat faster too. It was honestly a little scary to imagine where this might be leading.
“That girl, that red person of Morga... Her people have lived on the mountain without contact with the outside world for hundreds of years now, have they not? When we lived in the black forest, that was the sort of existence we had as well. We wove thread from leaves and bark, and sharpened stone blades, never leaving the forest that our souls would eventually return to.”
“I see. So that’s why she has a similar gaze? There doesn’t seem to be anything surprising about that.”
“Yes, but that’s not all. That girl’s way of thinking, her emotions, and the way she lives on Mount Morga. She really is just like how we used to be.”
I felt a chill creep up my spine.
But then, Granny Jiba smiled kindly at me. “Asuta, we had an amusing group of guests at the last banquet that townsfolk were invited to—those traveling performers. Do you remember the song they played for us then?”
“Y-Yeah, the song of the Black King and the White Queen. It was a legend about a tribe from Sym called the Gaaze—the same name as the original leading clan of the forest’s edge.”
“Yes. So, who exactly were the tribe of the white queen that the Gaaze encountered in the black forest?”
“People from Jagar...? Southerners have pale skin, after all. And the legends say that the people of the forest’s edge have mixed blood from Sym and Jagar, right?”
“Indeed. I thought so as well. But in that case, why did we never see ourselves as children of the Southern God Jagar, even after living there for hundreds of years? The Gaaze tribe cast aside their homeland, so they must have done the same with the Eastern God Sym as well. But if they formed blood ties with the people of Jagar, wouldn’t they live as children of Jagar instead?”
I wasn’t able to come up with anything to say in response, and Ai Fa remained silent too.
Granny Jiba quietly continued, “I came to think that perhaps the tribe of the white queen split off from the red people of Morga. That girl’s skin is dyed red, but it might be pale underneath. Or it’s possible that the tribe of the white queen dyed their skin white instead.”
“B-But that’s way too much of a coincidence to be true, isn’t it? I mean, the tribe of the white queen and the red people being the same...” I started to say before trailing off.
“The red people are led by women, are they not? And judging from how they’re described, the tribe of the white queen would seem to have been the same. Furthermore, according to the story, the members of the tribe of the white queen were very short in stature.”
“W-Well, southerners tend to be shorter than westerners too, so to the members of the Gaaze tribe that came from Sym, they probably would have seemed to be pretty small.”
“Yes, that would be a reasonable conclusion to reach. Yet the tribe of the white queen were said to not have had a named god, which sounds just like the red people as well.”