After his encounter in the forest, he wandered around for a little while, still looking for the bus, but he did not find it. He walked back to the village which was bustling with activities.
Rocky walked to the house where he stayed with River and her mother– River's mother had offered him accommodation with the approval of the community's leader. It was a two-bedroom house and Rocky slept in the living room on a couch, which was quite uncomfortable, but he endured with the hope of learning a lot in Gaea'na before he finds his father. He walked in and his stomach rumbled with hunger as it was late noon and he had last eaten in the morning. There were voices in one of the rooms which got louder by the minute. Rocky went over to the door of the room, wondering what was happening. He stood by the door trying to listen to what the voices were saying inside, but they talked in Grale which he knew little about as he had picked up some phrases. He realized that one of the voices was River's and she sounded pained, desperate, and sad while the other voice belonged to a male Rocky did not recognize.
He listened and when it seemed the conversation was about to end, he left the door and went to the kitchen and pondered on what little he had been able to understand, and it would seem that she was getting her heart broken. He heard the door slamming and River crying inside.
He was confused about what to do– should he go and console her or leave her to cry out her pain? He was clueless about such a thing as his mother never cried and showed out her pain to anyone, not even to him and he had no friends at Arisgore, not to talk of a female friend. At the last minute, he decided to let her be. "Don't worry, she would get over it. We all do."
Gaea'na was a small shifter community, Rocky realized this after some time in the village. There were more shifters communities, towns even, in the whole world and the general capital was Larsfar which was in the north, a cold and harsh environment where the dragons' shifters ruled. It was a bubbling city, with ordinary humans oblivious to the magic that thrived in that city. The city was hidden with magic, making it impenetrable by humans and can only be entered by shifters.
Learning about this made him worry, if there are more villages and cities, how would he begin to look for his father? Where would he possibly be?
Rocky tried to talk to River, to learn from her as she was the only person he knew who spoke a language he understands, but she was unhappy and did not want to talk to him. What would he do? Grale was quite a difficult language to learn and he needed to learn as much as he could about the world of shifters.
One day, he was walking along the road when he spotted Ash. She was in the company of two other girls but when she saw him, she walked over to him.
"If it isn't the pure blood, Rocky," she said.
"Hi," he said, looking at her with awe as she was so beautiful. A large lump was stuck in his throat and he swallowed several times to get rid of the annoying lump. He looked at her from head to toe– she wore a long skirt and crop top which showed her flat, well-toned tummy which had a bellybutton ring, which he hadn't noticed on that day. Her hair was piled atop her head in a messy bun, but it only made her look prettier.
"Won't you introduce your handsome friend, Ash?" A girl asked. She was one of the girls whom Ash was walking with. The girls had come over to where they stood and the girl who spoke now was tall, with a heavily built body. Her face was handsome and her dark chocolate skin shone but her eyes were green, bright green like the sea. Her hair was made into corn rows with glittering beads woven into them.
"This is Rocky," Ash said. "Rocky, this is Storm and this is Fire." She gestured towards the other girl whose skin was so pale and her hair a ginger colour.
"You must be the boy that was saved in the forest, some weeks ago," Storm said.
"Uhm, yes," he answered.
"How do you see Gaea'na," Fire asked.
"It's okay."
"You must have come from the big city," Storm said looking at him. "I am sure Gaea'na is so different from the big shifter city you come from."
"Whoa, guys. Enough of the interrogation," Ash said, but Storm said something in Grale that Rocky could not understand. She replied while smiling at him.
"There's a party for young people in Gaea'na to bond. I think you should come," Ash said to him.
"I don't know..." Rocky began.
"No, you must come," Ash persuaded. "It is going to hold in the forest tomorrow night."
Rocky agreed to go. He watched the girls walk away, their skirts swaying as they walked.
"Well, this would be an opportunity to make friends," he thought and with this thought, his heart fluttered with excitement as he couldn't wait to make friends.
At Arisgore, he had been alone as all the other children had stayed away from him at the command of their parents. Nobody wanted to have anything to do with him and his mother, and it was only the new settlers who had come years later that had tolerated him. His boss whom he had worked for at the bar was one of those people. Because of this, Rocky had remained lonely and alone, using things at his disposal to entertain himself but as he got older, the urge to have friends increased, and so, with this opportunity, he promised himself to make good use of it.
At home, he talked to River about the party.
"Do you think I can get some new clothes," he asked.
"What for?"
"I was invited to the party tomorrow."
"You want to go to that party?" River asked, with disbelief written on her face.
"Why? Can't I go?" He asked.
"Well, I could get you some clothes, but who told you about the party?"
"A girl called Ash."
"Ash! I want to warn you, Rocky," River said in a serious tone. "That girl is bad news and I would advise you to stay away from her."
Rocky was tired of all the warnings he had gotten. For once in his life, he was trying to be free and make friends and someone wanted to ruin it with their advice. "Keep your advice to yourself," he said in his mind. "Besides, you refused to talk to me for the past week and now you're advising me."