This one's originally written in German. It was homework. I translated it in English from memory after a French exam, and it got a bit more length because of the change into an "easier" language. It doesn't yet exist in Finnish. Maybe I should change that when I was supposed to do Swedish homework, eh? The story's just one of the kind which may eventually end up as a part of a greater whole. It's got the general structure of "Vuosirenkaita" - which I am still translating. I hope you enjoy it, even if it's bound to be the rough translation of a person who speaks neither of the languages.
I dedicate the original story and the translation to the best father I ever had: Fir's adopted Dad (it works both ways, you know). Dracul, this one's for you. Take care of yourself.
You know, I've fallen in love. I can't help it -- every night I just stare at the sky and long for him. He's become my life. I wouldn't eat or sleep if my folks wouldn't keep telling me to. Once a month, once a month only do we get to see each other, I mean really see each other! The rest of the time we can just pass glances as I try to cope with us being apart. He keeps telling me that even if I can't see him all the time, he's always out there, somewhere, thinking of me. It helps. When it's daytime I don't really do much. I'm more of a night person. And sometimes the nights are lonely and cloudy and dark and I feel like crying.
My family understands me perfectly. My mother knows exactly what I see in that pale-faced beloved of mine. She knows, because she's just about as much in love as I am. Just like my younger sister. She's feeling stronger every day, I think. But I think father feels the deepest. At least his singing is loudest. Yes, singing. We all sing for our beloved paleface. We sing of lonely nights, about the wild and hunting there. We sing and try to persuade him into coming with us: "Step down, the night's young and life's good, let us hunt together!"
And he smiles. He can't come down with us, he tells us. He has to sit up there, in the sky, to watch out for all of us. But he bids us a good hunt. "Get one for me, too." And who knows, maybe next month...
"Mother, why are the wolves howling like that?"
"They must be starving. Don't you go out in the woods alone, dear, you might get eaten."