“Who’s in there?” Vinasaka instantly glowed up the cave with a ball of flames in his hand, “Why did you-...” As they walked ahead, they discovered a faint light slowly becoming brighter until they both were left gaping at the sight in front of them.

In front of them was an enormous red stag sitting with its legs folded. It was this magical being that was exuding the white light all along but strangely, it looked as if the light was fading little by little.

“Forest spirit!” Vinasaka whispered. Hearing the words, the magical creature, lifted his head slowly to discover the two in front of him. It wasn’t moving its mouth but the entire cave was echoing with the sound, “No wonder the vitalities felt familiar. It’s been a long time.” The voice sounded quite pained as if it was suffering. There was no doubt that it was the forest spirit speaking to them but something about it was not right.
“Do you know us?” Sansara was quite taken aback after hearing the last line.

“Better than anybody else,” it said slowly. As much as Sansara wanted to ask the reason, he still held himself back and asked, “Is there something wrong with you? You don’t sound very good.”

“Well, I am afraid you cannot help,” the light was beginning to waver with one moment glowing at its brightest while the other moment getting faint and vague. The sound echoed again clearly more strained than before, “A while ago, some people came to Kahuna because they had lost their way at sea. Since I don’t see many people often, I went to visit them...” Both Vinasaka and Sansara had huge question marks on their faces. Seeing that, it paused and reframed his speech, “...Umm in disguise as a deer.” The rest was very clearly understood, so Vinasaka asked, “How did you escape?”

“I do have a lot of friends here. They helped me but the major damage was done,” it pointed towards one of its hind legs. It looked like the wound was quite severe but it has been attended to. Just as they were engrossed with the wound, a blue bird flew into the cave with several leaves in its beak and sat beside that particular leg.

Almost like something instigated within Sansara, he went to have a closer look at the wound when the bird leapt away at the sudden intrusion.

“What are you doing?” the forest spirit tried to sit up but couldn’t and Vinasaka rushed to offer his support.

“Please allow me,” Sansara focused his energy at the wound and brightened up as if he had discovered something amazing. He extended the forefinger of his left hand towards the bird, “Hello blue bird,” to which the li’l bird almost instantly hoped onto his finger, “Will you do me a favour and get me some herbs please?”

Vinasaka smiled under his breath proudly. The little blue bird soon returned with several herbs in its beak and rested on his finger. Sansara let it climb on his shoulder after having taken the herbs and carefully laying them down. His expressions were confident but serious and he casted a spell on each and applied them on the wound one after the other very carefully and delicately.

“There, it should help,” Sansara looked proud and satisfied at the same time.

“Wonderful, it works wonders,” the forest spirit was able to smile again, “But...why do I feel so sleepy?’

“Ahh, it’s okay. You need a good rest to recover completely,” Sansara assured.

“Thank you so much. I am indebted to you both.”

“Can we ask you for a favour forest spirit?” Sansara asked.

“Yakshi, my name....I’ll be happy to help in any way,” the forest spirit replied trying not to lose focus.

“Then do you happen to know how to reach the diamond kingdom. I am afraid, we are in need of the red diamond which is under the jurisdiction of the diamond kingdom now.” Vinasaka quickly enquired since he could fall asleep any moment.

“Then you have come to the right place my lord... this cave itself will lead you to the diamond kingdom.”

Both their eyes lit up and they looked at each other. Sansara was about to ask quickly, “Will you be kind enough to...” but he stopped mid-sentence as all they could see in front of them was a peacefully sleeping Yakshi.

.....

.....

......

“I guess we wait here till he wakes up?