[Matriar]

Chapter 1 - A stranger awakes

Everything was still black.
Where...am I?, she thought confused, ...why am I here?
Everything around her was so dark. She still didn't come to.
I must... awake... I have... I have to know where I am!
She heard some voices around her. She wasn't alone. If she only would come so...
"Who is she?", somebody asked.
"Where does she come from?", an other one asked.
"What is she at all?", yet another asked in bewilderment, "Such a person I never saw before!"
C'mon!, the stranger thought, wake up already!
She struggles through her unconsciousness untill she could open her eyes.

She jumped up immediately.
"Who are you?", the scared stranger asked hastily.
Instinctively, her claws shoot out of her finger tips. She felt an enigmatical pain in her head. But the stranger took no notice of it. She was too terrified of these strange guys in front of her. These fish-like creatures shied away from her very scared of her quick reaction. They was as afraid as she.
"Who... who are you actually?", one of them wanted to know and stepped forward to her, "We're grubbs."
The claws pulled back slowly.
"I... I am...", the stranger answered unsurely but she got in a pondering silence.
She didn't have an idea. There wasn't some memories. Nothing. She only was here.
"I... uhm...", she tried to answer again but it still happened nothing.
She could not remember anymore.
"It seems that she really has fallen on her head...!", a grubb whispered to an other.
The stranger turned around to him: "What did you say?"
"You have drank off the cliff and landed here a little while ago."
"Really?"
"You don't know this?"
"No."
"Not at all?"
"No!"
The grubb marveled: "You really don't remember?"
"It is like I said!"
The fish-like creature and the other ones did show puzzled faces.
"You can not bring something to mind?", the grubb in front of her asked again.
The stranger shaked her head: "There's nothing I remember."
But yes! Right now!
A little memory almost like a forget dream hovered through her thoughts:

Jennadelle... Jennadelle...

"My name is...Jennadelle.", the stranger said lowly,"And I guess that's all I still know."
"Well, you still know who you are anyway. It could get worse!", the grubb said.
He eased up a bit. Now he turned around and looked after a cliff which was sizeable. He looked very long. Then he turned to Jennadelle and looked in her eyes with an astonished face.
"Actually, it really could get worse. That's for sure. I think your lucky to survive your fall!"
"Hmm...", Jennadelle said thoughtfully and scratched the back of her head. There she still felt a stabbing pain. Maybe these fish-like people were right. Maybe she was effectively felt.
Well, that doesn't help her with it...!
"Where am I?", Jennadelle asked the grubbs.
"You landed in our little village,... Je-Jennadelle.", a grubb of the group asked her.
"And where is that about?"
"It's right next to the Mongo River. Well... or what is left."
An other grubb seemed to get angry: "Oh, yeah! And how! If only that Sekto never did come! How good could we all live!"
"Wait a moment!", Jennadelle cutted in on him with a gesture, "Who is Sekto?"
First there was a dead silence. But then the fish-like creatures whispered to themself immediately:
"She doesn't know him?"
"She seems to mean business..."
"Yes she does."
"Like I said: she has fallen on her head."
The whole thing was a source of some embarrassment to Jennadelle. She just felt like a dork. But there was an other thing to worry about.
While the grubbs were talking to each other, Jennadelle had a look at the cliff which she was drank. It was really high indeed. There were even some birds which flew around the tip. The grubb was right.
She could be dead.
"Sekto is the bastard which stole our water and killed our guards for some paper!", a grubb announced finally, "And above all, he gives his wolvarks some moolah for this reason they kill anybody of us which tries to free the river from his damn."
Jennadelle looked at the grubb and didn't know what she should say now.
A little moment there was an embarrassing silence.
"It seems that you also don't know what a wolvark is, do you?"
Jennadelle shaked her head. She wanted eagerly to be somewhere else. Anything was still too strange. Too ominous.
"The poor girl...", a female grubb sighed, "She doesn't remind of anything indeed."
And the female grubb came closer to her.
"How can we help you?", she asked and wanted to rest her hand on Jennadelle's shoulder. But Jennadelle waved aside. She didn't like to be touched by strangers.
Even she didn't know why.
"Where can I find the next town?", Jennadelle asked.
The female grubb showed with her scaly fore-finger in an eastward direction right to the orange sunrise.
"You have to go through the woods there. After that, you come to a town full of clakkerz."
The female grubb winked at Jennadelle: "You'll recognize the clakkerz if you see them. But be warned. They don't like strangers very much. You should not approach them if you don't want to get troubles."
"...okay.", Jennadelle said, "I'll take care."
But then there was a worrying thought: What if she had a bad reputation? What if she was an... outlaw? Maybe she was wanted!
She had to take care indeed. She wasn't very well versed in this world... and in herself.
"Well, we hope for you that you can remind of anything soon.", a grubb wished friendly.
But Jennadelle left already.
The group of grubbs looked at her till she was outside the range of vision. Then they held down their jobs. But some of them still did stay.
"A poor girl indeed...!"
"Who is she? Maybe she's an endangered species like we are."
"Don't be that pessimistic. Someday there will be justice! We all will survive! Down with Sekto! Down with Sekto!"
"C'mon, we better do our jobs...! I think something's getting in my net over there."
"A fish? Could it be with all this low water here?"
"I guess so. But it's only a little, thin one."
"But I'm so hungry!"
"We're all hungry. But that's life. We only can wait and see. Hoping for a wonder..."