2. Curse of Slumberland

Sotho couldn’t escape it any longer: he had to visit his best friend Lothan. Together they’d tempt Mindy to visit the Curse Circle and ensure this problem was solved swiftly.

Lothan groaned about this exhausting mission, but Sotho was glad he could do something. He couldn’t stay awake; he couldn’t sleep; it slowly turned him insane.

“Keep your distance,” said Sotho. “Those humans are cruel and kill you with one blow! Brrr.”

Lothan hung upside-down from a branch. “So … we must make her follow us, without ever getting close?”

“Nobody said this would be easy.”

“Nobody said anything at all.”

Mindy had decided to study all the wonderful things she found. Once in a while, she looked upwards anxiously, but most sloths had already returned to their bed. Even Grandmother, repeating some excuse about “old bones”.

Sotho and Lothan had to deal with the human alone.

He let himself fall down and landed right before Mindy. She yelped and looked … worried?

“Did you hurt yourself? You fell from a really high …”

Sotho looked pained. Lothan waved his claws, a gesture to indicate he also didn’t know what to do. What was she saying right now?

He decided to just shake his head.

“Oh. Oh, that’s good. Wait, you can understand me?”

Sotho grew nervous. From her tone and face, he thought she might be asking a question. But what question?

He shook his head again. That seemed the safe option.

“Oh. That’s less good.”

Mindy pressed her lips and looked around forlorn. She held two of their rainbow lights in her hands. After placing them on her cart, she remembered the meaning of theft.

With a deep sigh, she settled on the floor.

What was that woman doing? Was this a trick of the human monsters? Grandmother always told him they were highly intelligent. Received all sorts of gifts for their brown from the gods, when they were still around of course.

“You have no idea, sloth, how often I wished that all animals could communicate again. There is so much we don’t know. So much … pain because you can’t explain yourselves.”

Lothan landed next to him.

“Thanks for testing if that human would eat you,” he whispered. “But this is taking a bit long. Come, we walk to the Curse, she’ll follow surely.”

“Should … should we do that?” said Sotho. “She doesn’t hurt us. She is more afraid of us than we—”

Lothan frowned and grabbed his friend’s shoulders tightly. “Listen to yourself, lazy sluggard! Have you fallen in love with a human?”

“Not love. Brrr. But—”

“Well then.”

Lothan strung his friend along.

The main path of Slumberland was a neat snaking route, made from flattened sand and some wooden bridges. Nice and wide, barely used of course. But now they took a thin side path, made from bumps and painfully sharp stones. It ended in an area of perpetual night, thanks to the trees that almost grew into each other.

An area with only a single, clear source of light.

Mindy stayed put, confused.

Sotho tried to imitate her gestures from before. His trembling arms, exhausted from the simple movement, pointed at random trees and stones—and still it worked. The female smiled, stood, and followed them.

When they reached the Curse Circle, night had fallen. The sloths froze immediately when their feet touched the circle border. The Curse was dangerously tempting, like the sight of a bed when you were sleepy, or an oasis after being thirsty for days. But they stayed put.

Mindy followed their lead.

“Is that thing … bad? Good? Why do you show this to me?”

She stepped closer, but stopped again.

“It’s beautiful. It looks almost magical, like, like in those fantasy movies. Should I …”

She looked at the many tubes, pots and tools on her cart. A few of those stuck out the pockets of her white lab coat, which was discolored and torn at the bottom.

“Maybe you understand I am a researcher,” she mumbled. “Must I research this thing? No, sorry, silly question. You don’t understand me.”

She stepped even closer. Her fingers reached out to touch the Curse.

Sotho didn’t know what was inside, but its shield was a web of bent twigs and leaves, like a wicker basket. The object inside emitted a blinding light that could only escape through tiny holes. And it was strong enough that touching the twigs was enough to spell your doom.

Mindy giggled. She stopped and looked around again, as if her eyes wanted to take pictures of every corner of the beautiful Slumberland. She placed her hand on the ancient trees and crouched to caress the fine sand inside the Curse Circle.

“Sometimes I doubt my decision to do this work,” she mumbled. “And sometimes the beauty of nature convinces me with ease.”

She looked over her shoulder. Lothan waved his arms forwards, as an encouragement to take that final step. Sotho smiled at her, the magical light reflected in his curious eyes.

She stepped towards the object.

Sotho’s breath caught.

As her fingertip touched the object, Mindy mumbled again. “Who knows. Maybe this magical object will finally fulfill my wish of communciation between animals.”

Sotho understood. He understood what she said, but only when her fingertips touched it. She spoke of a wish. Her biggest wish was to understand the sloths, not kill or conquer them.

He screamed. He leaped forward and, with all his strength, kicked Mindy away from the Curse.

The object twisted, fell from its pillar with a bang, and dug a deep hole in the sand.

Mindy and Sotho rolled away from the circle, until a tree obstructed them. Human hair fell on his face; his claws were digging into her wrists.

He immediately jumped away from her, out of breath.

Mindy pushed herself to her feet. Her face was colorless and her mouth wide open. A silence hung between them, only punctured by Lothan who grabbed his friend and asked what in Slumberland’s name he was doing.

“Wish?” said Sotho to Mindy. They were human noises he could hardly replicate. “Wish?”

Mindy nodded. “Wish, yes, but—”

He pointed at the magical object. Then he shook his head, fell down, and pretended to play dead.

Mindy stopped blinking. “You tried to kill me—”

“Wish Fulfiller,” said Sotho, as he combined the two words he’d heard her say. “Is real! Like Grandmother’s stories!”

He told Lothan the same, but in their own language.

“It’s a fairy tale, lazy lollard,” he said. “Why else would half the sloths swear that the Wish Fulfiller never existed in the first place?”

Mindy studied the object from afar. She didn’t remove the many twigs from her lab coat, or look at her wounds. She gazed at the light, rubbing her chin for ages.

Sotho danced back and forth on his toes. That feeling of restlessness was about to burst out of him, as he anxiously awaited any friendly signal from the human.

“I’m going to tell the others what you did!” said Lothan. “This is stupid. This will be our demise!”

Mindy finally turned to him. Her eyes shone again and she immediately grabbed all the pots from her carts. As she spoke, she made all the gestures she knew.

“Is bad for you, right? Right? I will help you find Wish Fulfiller. I free you from Curse, okay?”

She gave him a thumbs up. Sotho tried to copy it, but his claws had no thumb. Those humans had way too many unfair advantages.

But the effort was recognized. Mindy giggled and hummed as she prepared her tools.

For a second, Sotho really thought he was falling in love with this human. He carefully approached her. Close enough now that she could kill him with one swing.

And he tried to aid her research.