A family had passed by near Aernas.
"A person? Dear, look" The wife said.
"He looks like a mess..." The husband sighed and rolled him over to see his face.
"A little patching up might help him. Kids move over." The father carried him to the horse cart with the two young sisters and the mother.
With a soft gasp for air, Kaori woke up to a bed in a small cottage.
There were birds chirping outside and the sun reached his bed. He was scratched but cleaned, from head to toe. He couldn't feel anything nor could he remember anything. He does remember rolling down a road but not passing out.
He flinched at the sound of the door opening. Hurriedly, he pretended to be still asleep.
"Shh! She's asleep..." said a little girl
"But I saw her sit up through the window!" said the other girl.
"She"? "her"?! Kaori was annoyed, so he took a deep breath and sat down to look at the two girls. To his surprise, they were twins.
"Its 'he' not 'she' or 'her'. I'm no female." He said giving the two a stern look.
The girls stared at him and one had the courage to speak up.
"Of course you're a female! You have long hair and you don't have anything in your pants!"
Shocked, Kaori covered himself with a pillow.
"How would you know that?!" he said, clearly disgusted. He looked at himself to see that his clothes were changed. He stood up hurriedly, looking at his clothes and saw his reflection on a mirror.
"What did you do to me?!" He said as he carefully touched his freshly washed hair, looking more white than it was before. He was clean and fresh, but he didn't like the fact that someone did it for him.
"Father and mother washed you yesterday!"
Kaori slowly turned to the twins and chuckled worriedly but at the same time, he looked like he was out of his mind.
"There's more of you?"
The twins chuckled and one spoke.
"We have to help with the laundry now!"
Then off they ran, leaving Kaori frozen in place. He was nervous because after all, he swore that he hated humans.
Slowly, he opened the door. The sight of trees and mountains greets him, the sounds of the birds and wind blowing welcomes him. He was in a different part of the land and it was noticeable. There were pine trees and high mountains, these perfectly describe either The Altus or Priradonia.
To the left, he saw the two children hanging the laundry and slightly struggling to hang the bigger cloths. Kaori had no choice but to help these little creatures. He hand one piece of large cloth with the twins and sat down. Of course he wouldn't help all the way.
He watched his clothes as they danced with the wind... and later get taken by the mother. Kaori was surprised and confused. Why the hell would she take it? To find out, he followed her.
Through a little window, he saw her mending his clothes. Slowly and carefully, she cut out the ugly sleeves and made it into a better pair. As the sun sets, the mother finished and opened the door, and was shocked to see Kaori sitting down by the door. She smiled and sat down with him, showing him his new clothes. Kaori attempted to wear it, but she stopped him and told him to bathe first.
The bath was warm and soothing, the twins were playful. Kaori sat still, trying to wrap his mind around the fact that humans were being nice to him. One of the little girls sat on his lap and started to trace the seal on his chest. The other started to examine his ball joints.
"Like a puppet!" the girl smiled and played with his fingers.
The other little girl was quiet, she enjoyed the details on his chest. Kaori was fascinated about their differences. One was observant and the other was too, but one was quiet and one was noisy.
After the bath, Kaori wore his new clothes with the help of the father.
"You're quite a creature. Not human, nor animal. What are you?" Kaori had been thrown back to the same question. For now, he replied:
"A puppet."
The night was quiet, the torch was warm. The air was fresh, Kaori was left in his thoughts. The girl was right, the father was right. He wasn't an animal but he is not human either. He is a puppet and nothing more, a puppet and will be nothing at all.
It was a long night and he sat outside. Many animals passed by and looked at him. Some were deer, some were birds, some were squirrels. None of them were like him.
The feeling of having human thoughts blinded him from the fact that he wasn't one. It was something he needed to accept. The fact that even if the humans die over and over again, he will remain the same and live through history.
An immortal, lost puppet with no one to run to. Wandering with the purpose to redo history. A puppet who pressured himself to do something he was never told to do. That was all he was,
Nothing more.
He woke up with a blanket on his back and the twins drinking warm milk beside him. It was peaceful... so peaceful. As he sat with the children and looked afar, he felt as if he was being called.
"That's Priradonia!" The girl says.
"Our mother said that we shouldn't go to that place, ever." The other said.
"Why so?" Kaori asked as he still couldn't get his eyes off the high mountains. At its feet was a bevy, roaming around.
The twins looked at each other. They shook their heads and replied,
"We don't know!" They laughed and continued to chat as they drank their milk.
As for Kaori, he was still intrigued by this land of mountains and trees. He stayed silent and wondered about the feeling it was giving him. It was different from Aernas, it wasn't haunting him but rather it was comforting him.