Whelp. I guess that explains the lack of men. Honestly, the clues were adding up I was just going off of a bias that men didn't have breasts. But the fact that just about half of the people are taller, the fact that the skill 'nutritional milk' is a race thing and the multiple couples of short and tall women around really should have clued me in to this.

In fact, now that I am looking more closely there are subtle differences between males and females other than the large height difference. Slightly larger arms for example. Narrower hips, though still in the range of female humans. Smaller than "average" breasts, and a few other things that I can point out.

This also means that the white-haired "woman" is actually my dad. That explains a lot.

Just then two couples arrived. They certainly looked older but not wrinkly like they've aged very gracefully. Two pairs of short and tall people. One of the women looks similar to mom so I'm guessing these are my grandparents. I'm guessing the one with blue hair and eyes is my grandmother on my mom's side, my grandfather has red hair and green eyes. On my dad's side, both my grandparents have white hair, my grandmother has yellow eyes and my grandfather has red eyes. They wore the same type of dresses as everyone else just in different colors.

"Laeso" they greeted in turn.

We went into the large house that I thought was my aunt's but turns out to be my grandparents ' on my mother's side, if the near-lifelike paintings of my mom and aunt as children, is any indicator. Still, how'd they get blue paint? I thought blue dye was really hard to come by?

We all gathered in what seemed to be the lounge. Walls are a thing now! It's like an actual house! It wasn't long before the rest of the extended family arrived. More aunts, uncles, and cousins. The family is larger than I thought and... yup that is Nyam, although now that I know what to look for she is a he.

Upon seeing me in mom's arms Nyam got a sour look on his face. Great, the trouble starts now.

Nyam surprisingly didn't cause too much trouble, but I guess he was still getting attention with how many adults are around although I am still getting much more. Once everyone had arrived we all sat down in chairs that were arranged in a half-circle, well, I was being held, this time by my dad.

Soon dad and mom, when prompted, stood up and walked to the center to show off to the newest member of the family, me. Mom and dad talk for a few minutes, probably about me and some other stuff. Some things made people laugh, I hope that wasn't from something I did. And then we sat back down. Dad passed me off to mom again. I watched as more people went to the center to talk, show off a talent, or something they made. One girl, maybe about fourteen, showed a very beautiful one-piece dress with embroidery tastefully decorating the whole thing, kinda like spiderwebs mixed with tribal art. The dress is only connected at the back with a Y and wrapped around the breasts. An amethyst shell held the wraps together. The "webs" started at the left shoulder and spread from there.

A "man", it is still kind of hard to think of them as men, showing off a masterfully made and decorated drum, instead of leather it seems to be some sort of treated cloth for the part that you strike. There is a small hole that one could cover with a hand to change the sound. The man skillfully played the drum, not a full song as his purpose was to show off the drum, my guess is that is his profession, an instrument maker.

Once show and tell was over we all began the main socializing event. The few children ran off to play, Thankfully I wasn't harassed by Nyam. A few people went into the kitchen to cook up food for everybody. Music is played by a surprising amount of people and occasionally more would join as others left to take a break from playing. There is some dancing and I was passed off to my aunt as my parents danced together, they are, like many, very graceful. It dawned on me that these people are artists. Taking pride in learning music and painting, in dancing and crafting. Probably everybody had been forced to learn more than one art to pursue.

They are probably, on average, moderately religious to Myrou so they must be taking her domains seriously, creativity and beauty. Hmm, if I had to choose... Well, I had always wanted to be an artist, at least I get that feeling about my past life. Maybe I was one? I dunno.

Usually, I'd be put in my crib to rest by now and admittedly I had fallen asleep while meditating more so than not. But today is the family gathering so I am being passed around from person to person and I am wiped out. After nursing, I passed out only to be rudely woken up sometime later having my ears pulled.

Fuck you Nyam!

I heard the scampering of not one but two little bodies as I wailed. It took mom a long time and a lot of soothing for me to stop crying. Well, I fell back asleep. I'd have kept crying because if Nyam wanted to be my problem then I'd make him everyone else's problem too.

I woke back up around the time for after-work bath. The whole extended family crowded a bathing area and took longer than usual to get out. With how many bathing areas there are I doubt anyone was really inconvenienced.

Three days later we woke up early, well, I was woken up by being picked up. Instead of visiting some new place mom took me and with dad went to the pier, and we got on a large boat, well, large for these people anyway. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of boats on the waters, all heading to one location, Temple Island.

Temple Island is very close to ours, and now that I see from afar our's is one of the larger ones, not as large as Temple Island though. The dragon is off somewhere flying around. Probably fishing up krakens or whatever dragons eat.

Today is a special day as we aren't partying around our own village bonfire, no instead we will be partying with all other villages.

The temple itself serves as the bonfire. Liquid fire runs down from the top. Grooves have been carved at the corners to direct the flames down into pools of the stuff. Canals serve to encircle the temple with four archways that serve as gates on each side of the pyramid. At the top is a great flame that sat beneath a large, large, sphere. The sphere pulsed with power and I can see a faint twirling storm of the mana aurora falling into the sphere. The sheer amount of power radiating off the artifact made me realize that without it no life could live in this volcano. I don't know how I came to realize that but I knew that the mana in the air would very quickly kill anyone, except for the dragon probably. As if to confirm my suspicions I got a notification.

Ting! You've gained Mana Toxicity Tolerance

Mana Toxicity Tolerance: Being exposed to high amounts of mana density can lead to a build-up of mana, poisoning you. This skill will help you tolerate mana poisoning.

I wonder how long that has sat there, collecting energy.

The Runalymo people sure love their social gatherings. As I was marveling at the stone pyramid temple. People kept showing up to our place and talking. It seemed like dad had moved to our island some time ago and left some friends behind.

I saw a lot of children too. A few babies as well. At least I wasn't the only one born this year. The children all gathered to play some games, not interested in the adult mingling. There is even a playground nearby on the beach with a few balls.

A group of early teenagers is playing some volleyball-type game with four "nets". The nets are long pieces of cloth. There are four wooden poles in the ground holding the "nets'' between them a net is set to divide from the ground up to near the middle. Then there's a gap and another "net" is tied to block the top. Between the poles, to which the other nets are tied, Is a gap to form a verticle gap and a horizontal gap between the four nets.

It seems like passing the ball through the gaps earns you points or something. The ball is passed by bumping to other players and to try and score a point on the other team. Only the server is allowed to hold the ball when the ball is being served. It seems that the horizontal gap is worth more points than the vertical one as most kids try to go for the horizontal ones.

Other than children playing I also saw some exchange of goods and coins here and there, businessmen will always do their thing no matter the occasion it seems.

I am stuck with mom and dad, currently in dad's arms while mom talks with a few long-distance friends. Dad has gotten a small break from his friends and is currently playing with me. He (she?) can they even count as men? They are essentially women with dicks... know what? I'll just refer to them as she, less confusion on my part. A she with a downstairs package. I believe there was a word for that I think it was... a Hermaphrodite? Something like that.

Anyway, dad is trying... her? Fis? Fer? Fuckit they look like women I'll use female pronouns. Trying her hand at peekaboo, I am not amused. I just look away, to more interesting things. Dad looked dejected. The next thing Dad tried is to swing me around.

"Whaa!" I let out a small cry of surprise.

Please don't swing me around like that. I never liked roller coasters before and I won't like them now!

Dad sighed in resignation as I squirmed around and cried. She muttered something to herself. After some time, I don't know how long, everybody started moving around the temple. As we rounded the corner a huge inset coliseum came into view. Instead of building up, it is dug in the ground, it is very large with hundreds, no thousands, of people already seated. I had not realized there were so many people. Around half, probably more was already filled. My family chose a row and sat together.

Once the vast majority of people had a seat two people walked down a flight of stairs that divided the audience in two half circles. They wore magnificent capes and very little clothing, pretty much a bikini. At least it made it easy to see who was a hermaphrodite or female. In this case, both are hermaphrodites. Once at the sands of the pit. They entered a battle stance.

A tournament of battle prowess was fought between all the islands. Some people cheered more for their island fighters but they never booed the other side, accepting defeat with grace when it happened, there can only be one grand winner after all.

My very first witness of magic was during the second battle. Our fighter, at least the people that my parents and many others around me cheered for. Is a water mage who was fighting a sand mage. Needless to say, it was a bad match-up.

It wasn't long until the entire pit was turned to mud. Once deprived of her element the sand mage was essentially done for.

I had a sense of wonderment at the fight. Something about my dormant past life, I'm not sure why I was so entranced by the magic. It's just a natural thing, after all, I'm not this entranced by the wind or the water. Magic yes, spirits yes, those fascinated me not "mundane" things. Although I was also fairly impressed by the fighting prowess of the warriors and their supernatural speed and power.

Our fighter lost against an ice mage, a really bad matchup but I guess that's how things shakedown.

Once the battle tournament was done the Olympic-style contests started. Speed races. Throwing competitions, things like that. Since all competitors could compete at the same time it went by a lot faster.

This was also very interesting to watch. Not the competitions themselves but the supernatural abilities of the competitors. The races had people blitz around as blurs, the racers had to wear distinct colors so they could be identified as a colored blur. The strength throw had them hurling boulders. Magic contests had people summon beautifully dancing flames or lights or whatever the contestants specialized in.

By the end of the day, many types of contests were done. From the battle tournament to dancing. I honestly fell asleep halfway through, shortly after the after-work bath.

The evening was another socializing event. Probably so people could talk about the events and congratulate the contestants and their island for their achievement. It was boring so I fell asleep through this too.