บท 148: Chapter – 148 - Nostalgia

Some-days I feel so small.

I feel so fragile and so broken.

I look around for a hug,

And find myself all alone.

Where are those arms

Which used to hold me

As I pieced myself back together.

Where is that hand

Which stayed on my head,

And I basked in its warmth.

The laughter, the smiles,

Those words of yours and mine.

Are those my memory,

Or are they simply an illusion.

I look around for that embrace

Which I call - Home,

And the memory fades away.

So I am sitting here,

Hugging myself,

Trying to hold my broken pieces together.

Hoping you can embrace me

Before my pieces fall apart.

_____________________

Rihanna was sitting in one of the many man-made circles found all around the Core City. These were big circular areas, built into the ground, with around half-a-dozen circular wide stairs going down, till it ended at the flat circular area at the center. They were wholly made from various types of stones, and even the central flat area was stone-paved.

These were seating areas specifically built for people to come and sit and connect with the world around them. Cultivators often came alone or in their small groups to spend hours, sometimes even days, just sitting here amidst the silence and the noise of their surroundings.

Cultivators believed that the entire world was made up of a Great Consciousness, which could feel and was alive, and existed in everything - from stones, water, mountains, seas to plants, insects, beasts and humans. And only when they were able to connect with the consciousness existing all around them, could they truly achieve great control over their own elemental powers.

Currently Rihanna was the only one sprawled on the wide stone stair of this circle. She half leaned, half sat, humming lightly, watching the Sphere of Ice and Water changing continuously in shape and momentum, over and over, in the middle of the circle's center.

Every 'Seating Circle', as these places were called, had a core element at its center - water, ice, fire, lightning, wood, earth, light, shadow, etc. These Seating Circles were supposed to provide the cultivators coming here with inspiration and enlightenment. Because very often a cultivator, stuck in between two levels, or stuck in their specific research, would just sit here for days, just watching these different elements changing, expanding, creating, evolving. And very often they found their inspiration or enlightenment which helped them to break through to the next stage or help in their research.

Currently Rihanna felt this was just what she needed. Amidst the vast expanse of man-made forest sprawling throughout the Core City, this little bit of open space allowed her to just sit and forget herself. The past ten days had been full of excitement, with all the things she had seen and learned at the First Stage of the Glockial Conquest. And she was at a state of information overload. There was so much she had learned and seen, and her brain was turning fuzzy trying to process all of it.

So today she didn't want to think about any of it. Today she just wanted to sit and forget about the world around her. From dawn she had been wandering around all over the city, just watching people going about their business. She felt like time.....and eternal person just standing and observing as the world moved on and on around her...without her.

Perhaps it was the mood she was in. While returning back after the end of the First Stage of Glockial Conquest, she had come across a whole row of trees giving off a very familiar scent. The bunches of flowers hanging from the nodes of the branches looked different, but the scent was exactly the same. Scent of a special flower which always grew at a specific time around her neighborhood on earth.

And since then she had felt herself drowning in an uncontrollable feeling of nostalgia. There was a hint of sadness in her heart which refused to go. So early this morning, after a long sleepless night, she had ditched both Artreya and Ye Luo and come out to just walk aimlessly.

"And here's your Morang Bamboo Spirit Drink."

Rihanna turned her head lazily and squinted against the sunlight. Of course, how could she truly escape these two ghosts! Even before she had made it through quarter of the city, they had already caught up to her. Walking around had made them all hungry and thirsty, so they both had gone to fetch something for themselves as she refused to budge from her temporary bed-couch.

Rihanna took the drink and sipped it slowly, then leaned back again and continued humming. This song was in her original mother-tongue, a language from earth. Singing these songs made her feel that her original self still existed within this body. Otherwise she often felt her original self was slowly being washed away under the diligent scrubbing of time.

Morals, ethics, perspectives, values, beliefs were all changing continuously under the continuous onslaught of this world. It was a rare day like today, when she could let go of the shackles of this world, and simply live in the memories, trying to find the connections between her new self and her past self.

"Such a strange language. I have never heard such a strange language in these lands. Even the way you are singing sounds so different. Where did you learn this song?"

The words of Artreya caught Ye Luo by surprise, who found himself completely immersed in this song Rihanna was humming. The way she sang, her voice sounded clear yet deep and nostalgic at the same time. He could sense the traces of sadness and yearning in her voice, slowly pulling him into its own world. But Artreya's words made him pause in his thoughts. Truly.....he had never heard such a language before!

Rihanna too paused in her singing, smiling softly as she looked into the distance. How could she explain why they had not heard this language? Would they be able to believe her? She chuckled at herself, at this sudden, intense and insane desire to share with someone...so someone would know about her true identity...even if she forgot it one day.

'Truly insane. Don't trust everyone so easily. At least, you don't need to tell everything about yourself to everyone. Not till you can protect yourself and the others around you.'

Rihanna sighed inwardly. She knew Little Purple was too cautious, and she couldn't blame him. In a good way, she could say it was transmigration. But in another way, it also meant her soul had possessed another's body. And even in this world, that was still not something which happened often. Well.....it did...but that was mostly done by Devil Cultivators, or very powerful cultivators. And she was neither, making her case even more suspicious.

"Somewhere. I don't remember where I learned these songs. Told you.....I don't remember a lot of things which happened before I fell off the cliff. But I do seem to know a lot of songs in such strange languages not known in these lands. Want to hear some more?"

Both Artreya and Ye Luo could sense that she was hiding some things from them, but it was not their place to keep asking. Ye Luo nodded heavily. He wanted to hear her voice. Her voice was clear and bright, but at the same time it held a shade of darkness. He found it mesmerizing.

The water and ice element ball in the center was continuously changing. From light blue of water to silver-white of ice, flowing gently to rapid torrents to heavy showering drops to flakes of soft and tiny ice, to frozen sharp icicles - the water and ice kept changing, merging into each other, changing shape, speeding up and slowing down, falling hard, shattering into pieces, melting into puddles, then rising up again.

Rihanna stared into this ever changing momentum, her mind travelling far away, across the ocean of space, as her soft voice moved from song to song. She did not have a very large repertoire, but today, she was in the mood to sing all day.

They had all lost track of how long they had been sitting and listening to her singing. It was the shuffling sound of approaching footsteps accompanied by light murmurs which broke through their group trance state. All three of them blinked, exhaling deeply as they came out of their daze and turned to each other before turning to glance at the people coming closer.

While Artreya and Ye Luo looked on in dazed wariness, Rihanna slowly felt her lips spreading wider and wider till a huge grin bloomed on her face. Talk about meeting old friends suddenly in a new place.....it sure sparkled her day!