@Girl:

Well, maybe the two little sisters will get a more important role, but it's probably not enough for the main role ... I'm sorry. Thanks for your compliment. I just hope "easy to read" doesn't mean "childish" .... ^^

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Dream dancer:

* slowly regaining the pleasure of writing *

* humming on *

Simon:

* stand behind him *

* mitles *

* correct his spelling *



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By the time Simon reached the end of the path, he was utterly exhausted. After standing by the strange pile of clothes for about ten minutes, his habit in his hand and his eyes fixed on the utensils so familiar to him, he suddenly dropped the material, turned on his heel, and ran off. He had pike up the mountain path through the pouring rain, past the bungalow and higher and higher. Suddenly he had forgotten all tiredness and exhaustion. His heart was pounding, his breath was racing and his sides were stinging, but he ran on, driven by the fantastic thought pulsing in his brain: "You are real!It's all real! ".

He no longer knew whether he had run like this for ten minutes or half an hour, at some point the rain had stopped and it had become oppressively warm again. Now that the path came to an end, Simon stood half upright, leaning with one hand against a rock wall on the right side of the path, panting and sweating, and stared at the sight of the with staring eyes in which the hot sweat burned like liquid fire offered himself to him.

It was as strange as it was familiar, as familiar as it was new. The earthy path ended in front of him and turned into lush, lush green grass. This grass was the edge of a meadow that stretched to the foot of the further ascending, wooded mountain range at the other end. It was about 200 meters away, and the plateau stretched at least twice as far on either side.

Well, such a mountain meadow was nothing special, certainly not in the Chinese mountains, but this meadow ... was different.

As far as the eye could see the area of ​​grass was riddled with holes like after a bombing raid.Everywhere there were holes that were filled with water. In the water there were high bamboo sticks a few centimeters in diameter. Jusenkyo - it was like a color version of the manga drawing. A light steam rose from the still damp grass in the warm sun and gave the area an even more magical and unreal character than it already had.

Simon stood and looked around. He knew, or rather - he FEELED that this was not a backdrop, no holes dug by the excavator and no film objects, but real life and real magic. He didn't know where this knowledge came from or why, but one thing was clear - it was there ... and it was real!

Time seemed stopped while the boy stood there on the edge of the famous training area and let his confused gaze wander from side to side over and over again. At some point, after a few seconds or after an eternity, he put one foot forward, then the other, and then began to walk slowly between the magical waters.Now that he was here and could see it all with his own eyes, he was seeing incredible details that weren't seen in either the manga or the anime series, be it that they were unimportant, be it that they were unknown - yourself for the author.

He saw, for example, that the stakes, which had to be stuck in these springs for ages, did not show any traces of algae adhesions or wear, not even under water. It was easy for him to see, because the water was so clear that you could see the sandy bottom. And anyway, this water was very strange. It was as if a kind of oil layer was floating on the surface, only so thin and transparent that the patterns shimmering in rainbow colors were nevertheless completely transparent, similar to pieces of colored foil or wafer-thin glass. On top of that, the sun, which was already slightly drying Simon's wet clothes, was reflected a thousand times on the springs. There were no living things in the water, no fish, water beetles, not even a dead fly floating on it.Something particularly a lot Simon up. Although the floor was smooth, as were the walls, the water flowed. It wasn't that it went over the pit or that there were pipes. No, it seemed as if it would rise in the middle of the ponds and be sucked back down at the edge. Or was it the other way around. Simon didn't know because if he tried to look closely, the water was suddenly smooth again. They were springs, but without any origin or mouth. They flowed out and into themselves, keeping their magical secret well.

But was it magic? A small, mean doubt still nagged Simon. What if it was all just coincidence what? Or intention? But why should one go to such a great expense for ONE boy?

While he was walking between the springs, it was as if he heard a light wind blowing through dry branches or dry ears of corn. But he didn't feel anything. The whisper was there, but it didn't come from the air ... it came ... from the water!Simon dropped to his knees in a flash and leaned over to a spring. The shimmering, glittering water did not move, no wave or vibration, no matter how small, clouded his reflection that he could see in the water. The magical magical current - if it was magic at all, Simon told himself - was gone.

And yet it was as if his image was falling apart. As if the invisible, microscopic atoms in his face were trembling and shaking. Slowly, as his face leaned closer and closer to the surface of the water, it changed. Light brown hair appeared on the cheeks, the chin grew forward, the ears and eyes became huge, and the hair shrank to a strip on the head, between the ears. And suddenly the whisper of the invisible wind became clearer. He heard the wind blowing through dry grass, heard faint tremors, like blows against the earth, far away.

Suddenly he perceived everything differently.The smell of the summer day changed. The warm, moist monsoon scent disappeared and became drier in a way that was difficult to describe, like the smell of the steppe, where the hot, red-brown earth was exposed to the scorching sun all day long. A slightly sweet-sour smell, like cow dung mixed with it, and then a spicy scent, slightly fermented, that he knew. It smelled something like that in the circus or in a riding stable. RIDING STABLE. The tremors, which gradually grew louder, were hoofbeats. The hoofbeats of a horse on hot, dry ground and the smells were those of the wild horses' original home, the wide prairie that had to be there somewhere in the eyes of the horse's head that stared at him from the water.

"Aijaaa! Honored guest! What you doing? Not good, falling in spring!"

Simon started and looked into a wide face with narrow eyes and a wide mouth. A beige peaked cap sat on his bald head. The jusenkyo leader."What ... what was that?" Stuttered Simon, still caught in the strange vision. Although the Jusenkyo leader probably did not understand a word of German, he understood the point of the question and babbled away eagerly.

"This is Nanibonijuan - Spring of drowned horse. There is tragic legend - oh, very tragic, of poor horse drowning in this spring. It is ..."

"... very cursed.", Simon interrupted the flow of talk of the eager Chinese. It was all clear now. The explanation for everything. This wasn't an attraction, this was real. Everything was real ... it was real. The last doubt was gone. He had seen the curse of the spring - not just seen it, he had noticed it, felt it, experienced it for a short time. Could this have been the memory of the being that drowned here - in the spring of the drowned horse.

"Oh yes Sir, it's not good, falling in this spring ..."

The jusenkyo leader had taken him by the arm and pulled him up. Now, while he was busily reciting his text, he zigzagged him between all the sources and their sad - really very sad stories - back to the group where his father and sisters were already waiting for him.+++++

When Simon reached the high plateau for the second time that day, night had long since fallen. His watch read eleven o'clock and the plain was in darkness. Still, there was a strange light emanating from the magical sources, a light that was a little eerie - well, what had he expected.

When the group had reached Neko Hanten again around eight o'clock in the evening and after dinner everyone had fallen into bed completely exhausted, Simon had already snuck out of the house. Under cover of night he had scurried through the Amazon village and undertook the ascent of Mount Quajing again. Although the ascent was even more difficult and tiring at night than during the day, Simon was not in the least tired. On the contrary, he burned with excitement. In front of him lay the Jusenkyo plateau again and its secret stories awaited him. Up here on the high plateau, the moon and stars threw their light over the plain and bathed the magical springs in a ghostly, silvery-blue shimmer.An owl screamed softly in the mountain forest. A small animal rustled through the grass. Noises of the night.

Simon walked cautiously over to the first water hole and leaned over. The shimmering water threw back its reflection. He waited. The image blurred, the head deformed, feathers grew on it.

Half an hour later, Simon had visited about ten springs. And everyone had shown him their curse. The source of the drowned duck, which was at the beginning of the training area, the source of the drowned moose, the drowned bull and so on. He was now sitting at a spring and looked down in amazement at the delicate face that looked at him from the water. The black hair, which fell almost to his shoulders in a page cut, had turned a red color and the eyes had turned an incredible deep blue. The features were softer, more delicate and Simon knew that this was the source of the drowned girl. Here he would bathe.

He hadn't known just now, but suddenly he was sure, as sure as if he had planned it from the first moment.He would rise into that source. And then his boring life would be over. He