Liliana – Iridescence (excerpt of "Origin", book 1 of the Hunter series)

I had been utterly absorbed in the quiet wonders of watching a lizard, when it happened.

[ Today is my birthday - so here’s some butterflies ;) ]

The first time I ever laid eyes on him left me unsettled by an onslaught of bewildering impressions. In some ways, they came all of a sudden, like the light abruptly vanishing behind our mountains at night and just as suddenly gracing us again by early morning when it had climbed the peaks again. And yet, in others, they were more like the soft fall of autumn leaves or the way the first blades of grass raise their heads in spring. Nothing like the sharpness of fear — but just as inexorable, inevitable, nonetheless.

I had been utterly absorbed in the quiet wonders of watching a lizard, when it happened.

Amidst the familiar hues of warm, earthen tones and a rarer touch of gleaming gold, a handful of scales scattered in between shimmered in luminous greens whenever they caught the brighter, direct shafts of early sunlight piercing through the diffuse veils of morning mist that always shrouded our village. Fascinated, I watched the shifting flows of color play along its supple little body as it nimbly scurried across the rough stone one moment, then paused in wary stillness the next, picking up its pace only slowly again in vigilant watchfulness under my eyes. At times, it would stretch out lazily in a beam of bright sunlight, as if it finally understood I wouldn’t attack it, advancing its tiny claws so slowly it seemed as if time itself had slowed, while its small forked tongue flickered to taste the air — only to suddenly burst into motion the next moment, darting along several handspans at once.

In the midst of my spellbound observation, something suddenly drew my gaze upward.

Perhaps it was a flicker of motion I sensed, without yet registering any details. Perhaps it was the shadow falling across my right eye, changing the colors.

In any case, I blinked and looked up.

The first thing I saw was a tall, relatively narrow silhouette—a shadow one might have called sinewy, though that word was not yet mine. A shadow… maybe because he was dressed so darkly. But the shadow was more than mere clothing. It was something about his presence, his mood, gathering around him like an aura clinging to his lean form, a pressure in the air, heavy like a gathering storm.

But within that somber outline, for the briefest instant, flashed something bright, something green. Something that reminded me of the lizard’s mesmerizing scales. A hue and tint much like plants underwater, swaying and drifting past my vision, shimmering in the golden dance of sunlight filtering through ripples in the water.

With another, single blink, it was already gone again, as if a shadow passing overhead, a silvery-gray fish gliding by—or perhaps a cloud in passing, veiling the sunlight with its presence and silencing the colors.

That shimmering, glittering depth of darkness, too, vanished abruptly, leaving only the impression of cloudy sky behind.

For the eyes I found myself staring into were neither of that deep darkness –not the velvety black I had thought I’d seen just a moment earlier– nor of those dark, iridescent wood colors gleaming with brighter spots of sunlight I had believed I’d perceived.

They reminded me far more of clouds, or maybe pale stone.

The brightest gray, standing out all the more strikingly against his sun-dark skin and all the gloom surrounding him –the deep, black hair, his dark garb– lending his gaze an unsettling intensity that caught and held me.

The darkness I’d thought I’d seen might have come from the way his bright irises deepened into an uneven ring of slightly darker gray along their edges. Or maybe it was just the flutter of his dark, dark hair under the bright glint of a stray ray of sunlight, reminding me rather strangely of the smoothness of honey. Perhaps there’d been some green to his eyes after all, since I had thought I’d seen its luminous glint? They might have been gray-green in truth. Who knew?

I couldn’t be sure. It was gone all too quickly, and I didn’t get the chance for another, closer look since a sudden, agitated commotion at the edge of my perception tore my attention away.

Laurie’s chestnut ringlets, which I had always envied, bounced up and down as she frantically waved at me over the tall grass — at the same time trying, and hilariously failing, to hide behind a boulder. Her two intentions clashed so ridiculously that I nearly burst out laughing. But when I turned my head, I also saw Bern, already a lot bigger than me—continually trying to blow some stray strand of his unruly dark hair out of his eyes—running towards me with an outstretched hand, already seeming breathless. He promptly grabbed me by my arm, and jerked me along with him.

I was lucky I’d already half-risen, seeing Laurie’s antics, or he might well have just dragged me across the ground. I did not yet understand what was going on, but their urgency was its own command. I followed Bern to the next corner, hurrying along without further questions for once, until he let go of my arm. His stride was longer than mine back then, but I had always been fast, if only I wanted to. I usually escaped when we played tag — and if I didn’t, I was likely to squirm out of a grasp and dart away, zigzagging like a hare.

I quickly let go of that useless thought. It was obvious the others weren’t after a game right now. But then what? Had someone fallen, been hurt, maybe gotten stuck, and they needed help? Though, if so… why was Laurie trying to hide, no matter how clumsily she went at it? And why, then, did Bern stop just behind the corner of the next house?

He halted me with a gesture, immediately turning to peer back toward the square we’d just left, then shushed my questions with a hiss before I could even finish my first word.

Curious now, I squeezed in beside him, straining to see, and was just about to step forward again, too, since there was plenty of room — and I still couldn’t make out what all the commotion had been about. By now, the stranger had come in further from the fields, advancing on the village square. Someone I had never seen before, I realized belatedly, as awareness set in. Until then, I had been too absorbed—perhaps lost to daydreams, too wrapped up in my observations—to notice how he was not one of the familiar grown-ups.

It had been mere seconds since Bern had yanked me away, so the enticing stranger had not yet reached the other side of the square. I hurriedly scanned the square for anything else, but still could not find any reason for all of this, when Bern jerked me back once more, holding me close now, one arm wrapped protectively around me.

I squinted my eyes at him as he bent close, voice low and urgent.

“You really dunno who that is?”

I shook my head, as one does when honest. “No. Why?”

Why all the fuss? was my only remaining feeling as my body calmed down from the sudden exertion – nothing seemed particularly remarkable, at least not in a threatening way. Though I would’ve really liked to not get ripped out of my observation. I wanted to get close again.

I’ll spare you most of the dialect that tinted our conversation back then – otherwise, you might not understand a word. Let’s just say: in Mist’s Ford, it was pretty broad.

“What!? Ya seriously dunno!?” Bern’s words were a sharp intake of breath. “That’s the hunter!”

I only stared at him, waiting for some kind of explanation.

“The hunter. Can’t ya see?”

I still gave him the eye, puzzled.

I mean, I knew what ‘hunting’ meant, in a very broad sense – chasing voles and badgers, or someone running after a butterfly… And sure, I also knew the stew our inn occasionally offered wasn’t made of fish, for once. That the meat came from some bigger, forest animals, something I’d picked up from the adults around, but…

“Oh, c’mon! Haven’t ya parents taught ya anything? Or older sib–” He cut himself off, realizing I didn’t have any older brothers, like he did. No sisters, either. “Um… well… I mean… did no one ever warn ya that the hunter would come and get ya, if you dinna stop right there?”

Again, I shook my head in silence. In my family, no one ever spoke of such things. We already had Feréll’s constant sickness looming over us – we didn’t need more shadows to chase.

A big huff and puff escaped from Bern’s lips. “Fine. Then just… just look. See how everyone clears the way for him? Didn’t ya see how he looked at us?”

I twisted a bit in his arm then, just enough to lean forward again — to get a chance at doing what he wanted me to do. There he strode, cutting a dark figure against the morning mist, crossing the square at a measured, unhurried pace. Slow, and certain. Unlike anyone else around, especially right now. The empty eyes of a dead deer slung over his shoulder stared back at me, making me flinch.

The death that clung to him – that was the first fear I ever associated with him. But it wasn’t him who made me flinch. It was that stupid deer.

Bern seemed pleased by my reaction, anyway.

“They say he chops off heads of those sentenced ta death…” he confided, voice deliberately pitched low and as ominously grave as he could achieve.

I nearly flinched again –if only because I hadn’t expected Bern to talk that way– but then this voice cracked in a cough, ruining the entire effect. Instead, I narrowed one eye at him, head tilted like a bird.

“Nonsense. What’s that even supposed to mean, ‘sentenced ta death’? Nobody aroun’ here’s ever punished with anythin’ worse than chores we don’ like!” I wriggled until I finally succeeded in slipping out from under Bernd’s arm altogether.

“Ya’re stupid.” I quickly took a few steps away from him.

Judging by the look on his face, Bern seemed stung a lot worse by my offhand remark than I had intended.

Before I knew quite how to react—since I hadn’t meant for that to happen—I quickly peered around the corner again, trying to catch another look of the stranger before he disappeared. “He wasn’t all that bad…” I murmured.

But my voice now rang with uncertainty, even to my own ears. The deer swayed gently on his receding back, its lifeless stare still fixed on me, and a faint shiver trickled through my veins.

I looked back at Bern, still looking bedraggled, and laid a hand on his arm.

“Hey… don’ look like tha. Didna mean it that way…” I mumbled.

“Ya sure?” His voice lifted a bit, just like his gaze, but it still wavered. “Cause stupid Nam”—meaning his older brother, Burnam, sometimes called by a misnomer that basically translated to ‘clod’—“he says the same.” Bern stared at his feet, nudging his toes together. “Even heard my Da’ say, how I’m nah the sharpest knife in the shed…”

“Oh, Bern.” I nudged his side. “Dun be silly. You were the one who thought up the badger trap.”

He lifted his head, searching my face. “Ya think so?”

He knew as well as I that it had been a real clever idea, too. Sure, it had only partially worked – ‘cause the materials we’d used hadn’t been able to withstand a badger’s strength, but that didn’t make it a bad trap. And least of all Bern’s fault. It had worked brilliantly on the vole.

“Sure. Now c’mon! I wanna see where he’s goin.”

“What!? No! Lili, we can’t–”

“Oh, c’mon. Since when are ya some scaredy-cat?”

“I’m nah–”

“Exactly. So come on.”

“Oh, fine…” He rolled his eyes but relented.

After all, the hunter had put some daylight between himself and us by now. And since I was now playing the good kid, stopping at every corner, trailing behind at a safe distance, even Bern was quiet.

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Well. So that was the first stranger I’d ever seen in the village.

Truth be told, he wasn’t much of a stranger. He still belonged to our village – even if we didn’t see him very often, what with how long he seemed gone in the woods, and how his hut was quite a way removed from the outskirts. But still. He was our hunter, not someone else’s.

And despite how everyone seemed to warn me away from him -or maybe even because of it- I soon developed a strange fascination with him. He became my first long-term observation project, much like my beloved salamanders.

I didn’t yet believe Bern’s words about him being the executioner. Why the hells did our village have need of an executioner? Ox dung and cat’s piss.

People seemed strangely afraid of him, I’d give him that. But I didn’t yet understand why.

That weight of death clinging to him? A few blank deer stares?

By the Mist and all leaping Mist’s Tears, I hated the dull, wrong eyes of the dead fish looking up at me, too, but I still gutted and cleaned them every day. Death was just a normal part of life. The life that fed us just meant that we could live. Where was the bad in that? That was just nature. Once we died, something else would make our parts into something new, too. And all was well and good that way. So why was he deemed different?

No one could tell. Or maybe they just didn’t want to.

Meanwhile, I got hung up on the fact that there was no reason for their fear. No cause. It was all one big mystery.

He was a mystery.

And I loved a good mystery. I might never find the solution to this specific one, but I’d be damned if I didn’t at least find out what kind he was.

The fact that his hair shimmered in the light like raven’s feathers, reminding me once more of the iridescence of my lizards, or how his bright, bright eyes seemed to have pierced right down into my soul, finding the one thing no one else could see, surely had nothing much to do with it. After all, I was only a child.

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