After the great hurricanes, when the wind had calmed down a bit, a little snake with an "emerald eye" was born in the valley, that's what they called her. She grew no bigger than an old shoemaker's boot, under whose porch she had her home. Her parents were gone almost immediately, taken away by one of the last hurricanes. The morning after that terrible tragedy, the snake crawled out onto the lawn, not finding her parents at home. Next to the porch, she decided to find something to eat and in that moment felt a warm touch and flight: What is this? - thought the little snake, not understanding that the kind carpenter had picked her up gently. After such an introduction, every morning he poured milk into a saucer, and so began the story of the Snake with the Emerald Eye, and she was called that because one eye was truly as green as an emerald, while the other was black as night. She herself was silver-brown in color and shimmered like a rainbow. The lonely old carpenter crafted many wooden utensils for the inhabitants of the Valley, his powerful hands effortlessly carving patterns as if the chisels themselves were creating different studies on the wood, like an artist's brush. His deep, large, blue eyes were always looking forward. His gray, almost transparent hair fluttered in the soft wind. The carpenter dressed modestly, in a gray frock coat and dark worn-out pants tucked into centuries-old, dark beige leather boots.
At that time, Nom Folly presided over the valley, who as a boy saved the staff of power from the cunning hunter Jared, preventing the assembly from giving him the map leading to it. With his perseverance and unwavering spirit, he gained the trust of the inhabitants of the Valley and tamed a wonderful nightingale, which became his good friend. Much water has flowed since then, but the silver moles still enter the council of the valley and guard the map deep underground, which leads to the staff of Power of the Great Vozborn Uglich.
On one sunny day, the Snake decided to crawl to the Stream of Hope, as it was murmuring so beautifully and shimmering in the distance. She had a long way to go through countless grasses and shrubs. On her way, she encountered a hedgehog carrying a mushroom, so big that it seemed to her that he was about to tip over with it. The sun's rays tickled her back playfully as they broke through the grass. The snake crawled and hummed a little song that came to her mind:
"Once a blade of grass, twice a sprout, a pebble and a spider. I crawl to drink water, I will have fun to my heart's content, once an ant, twice a leaf, a hedgehog, a butterfly, a flower. Look, the Stream of Hope is close by, I will have fun..."
Time flew by quickly, and the snake didn't notice that it was already getting dark, and she still couldn't reach the stream. From the porch, it seemed so close, just within reach. Gloomy gray clouds lazily covered the sky. The sun was warming less and its rays reluctantly broke through the grass and branches that had become indistinguishable from the forest. Stopping, the snake looked around and quickly turned around, crawling back, realizing that she wouldn't make it home before it got completely dark.
It was getting dark, and the old carpenter, taking off his boots on the porch, hurried into the house. Taking out a pot of simmered grains from the cellar, he put it in the oven. "Time to eat." He sighed, sitting down in the rocking chair that had been passed down to him from his grandfather. The dark, oily wood with caramel-colored veins looked as if it had been molded from clay in a fairy workshop. The smell of simmered grains filled the room.
The snake crawled and crawled, and it was getting dark. Starting to feel a bit scared of the darkness, she looked for a stone to crawl under. The rustling and hooting of an owl frightened her even more in this already gloomy forest, or so it seemed to her. The snake froze for a second in front of a huge tree, whose roots rose above the ground like the tentacles of an octopus: "Scary, scary, and beautiful," she thought, turning around at an unusual crunch.
Not far away, a few meters away, a huge dark figure confidently headed towards her. The snake shuddered with confusion and hurried away from this tree that scared her so much. And she didn't even notice how she found herself in a crevice between the rocks that went deep underground. Catching her breath, she decided to go down further so as not to hear the scary, unsettling sounds: "It's quieter there."