Chapter 27 - Rangi 01

With the hidden village of Malbury Point. There were many families that existed here living with each other here for centuries now. The village was large enough to have maintained itself during this time but also small enough that nearly everyone knew each other as well. How close and well knitted they were varied depending on the family as everyone in the village was at least casual acquaintances with each other. However, there was one person that was the last of their family bloodline as all other members of their family had died off for various reasons over time. These are natural causes like old age for example things like accidents or even just the result of nature taking its course. Whittling down this family tree until there were only three members left alive at one moment. Then that family of merely three members shrank down to just a single member as the last surviving member of this family was a young boy named Rangi.

Left orphaned at a young age, he still lived within the family home that his family had owned for generations. Though he lived alone for the most part he was not without a parental figure after his own had passed away. Rangi was being looked after by another family that had close personal ties to Rangi's, especially the husband and wife who knew his parents personally and could be considered their best friends. They took to looking after their deceased friend's child like he was their own and he grew up with either them visiting him at his home or him staying with them for short periods of time and playing with their daughter, Tafu. 

Rangi for the most part could not recall his own parents because he was still rather young when they died. He was old enough to know who they were at least but not old enough to have vivid memories of his time together with them. It was many considered this was why he chose to remain living in his old family home rather than just fully move in with Tafu and her parents like many thought he should do. As to them that would make the most sense after all. Not wanting to be a burden on Tafu's parents even though like himself she was their only child and they would continuously tell him that it would be no problem for them to accept him fully.

However, he would reject these offers as he preferred living in the house that his parents once had. He might not have that many clear memories of them. Thus as a result thought that remaining to live in his family home would at least allow him to feel like he was more connected to them. That in a sense made up for the lack of clear memories plus all the stuff his parents collected was in their home and he could ask Tafu's parents about the story each item had if there was not something written down about or meaning itself was easy to figure out just through looking at it long enough.

Time passed and Rangi grew older he realized that he was slightly different from the others of Malbury Point. Everyone in the village was considered pretty tough and resilient but Rangi was seemingly more so than most. Things that would harm other villagers would barely phase him at all and/or there would be a delayed reaction in between it happening and Rangi becoming aware of it himself. He would not feel the pain until he was consciously aware that it had happened to him in the first place. Then there was Rangi's interest in things that almost no one else in Malbury Point was interested in themselves. Everyone there spent most of their lives within the village and did not really care to venture outside of it as there was no reason to do so. It was not just because the village was located at the back of a dangerous forest with various wild creatures that could be considered dangerous if one were to let their guard down. The villagers were adept at dealing with these creatures and often hunted certain ones of them for sports and to add to their overall food supply. Others had been turned from wild creatures into basically domesticated animals over the centuries thus their families were farmers and/or those that took care of their animals.

Rangi explored the forest to the point where he knew it like the back of his hand as it was basically his village's front yard after all. With the backyard actually being a cliff that no one knew how deep it was nor what was down there. If anything was done there it was just their trash as that was where they did all their dumping and after centuries of doing so nothing came about them doing this so it was assumed there was nothing at the bottom of the area down there was so vast that it did not matter in the first place. 

Though a normally self substaining village that did not need anything anywhere that could not be obtained from the forest itself. There came a time when they did need something that could be obtained on their own or from the forest. This was when Rangi suggested leaving the forest and going to another village to see if he could get from there. Though there was some pushback he did it anyway and after a few days managed to return with what they needed along with a number of other things that he had acquired along the way. Though once he had ventured outside the forest into the world beyond his curiosity had been peaked thus Rangi continued to do so from that point onward. There was so much to see in the world beyond his village and the forest that caught his attention and thus he just wanted to explore it rather than just remain confined to one area like everyone else had been in Malbury Point for as long as they could recall without realize why they were even there in such an isolated and secluded place to start with. The reason their village was hidden had been lost time after all.