Another fruitless day of searching but he was used to it at this point. No other choice but to retire for the day and do the same again the next day. Time to check how Yuga was doing, he wondered why he bothered to teach the young man anything. Well he wasn’t making any progress in his search and he had time on his hands. He wasn’t losing anything important. The man certainly was an interesting case, HQ would like to know about him.

He gets back to the area where the danger zone is and approaches the barren land. The fighting seemed to be over. In the middle of the danger zone sat Yuga. He sat atop a very tall heap, nearly ten meters high, consisting of dead bodies of the insect-like creatures with severed vines in between the corpses. The heap was clogging the place there was once a hole. He looked exhausted.

“Impressive as usual. This one seems to be beneath you already, we’ll be going up one tier for your next battle.” said Kirveas.

“Hungry…..” moaned Yuga.

“Expected, you haven’t eaten anything for a day and you don’t know how to fuel yourself with drive energy yet. Come to the log house, there’s food”

“Fruits?” Yuga asked.

“Yes” replied Kirveas before vanishing from sight.

He was always like that, briefly gave instructions and then left or went about his business. Never going any further than that. But that made things very simple. Yuga jumped down from the heap and landed with a thud. He walked out of the zone wobbling as he went. He was so hungry he could barely stand. Once he’d stepped out of the zone he called out to mimic “Mimic!” From the tree flew down mimic in the form of a small green bird and it landed softly on his shoulder. Together they moved to the log house. It was several miles away, a very long journey when you were on an empty stomach. This was about the third place they’d stayed in since he’d met Kirveas. He trudged in silence, each step causing his stomach to rumble.

After an hour of walking the log house was finally in sight. It was situated in a small unnatural clearing in the forest. The missing trees were probably what went into building it. Suddenly Yuga had a thought. “Mimic, what if….. you turned into food?” Mimic squawked in alarm and flew off his shoulder which made Yuga laugh. But really, what happened when mimic turned into food. Would he be edible? What happened when mimic cut off a piece of himself while in another form? Did he get smaller? Too many questions and not enough food to think, he decided to put away those questions and focus on the goal.

***

“A voyager’s first sail typically occurs from as early as five years old to as late as thirty.” read Yuga out loud before he closed the book and dropped it back on the floor. A research on voyager nature was its name.

“You’re not finishing that either?” said Kirveas who was arranging logs at the chimney.

“I’ll get back to it later.”

“And I’ll assume you’ll also be getting back to the ten plus books you left unfinished.” responded Kirveas looking at the pile of books behind Yuga, all of which were bookmarked somewhere close to the middle.

“Life is too short to be stuck on one thing” said Yuga.

“You’re a voyager, your lifespan is now nearly thrice that of a normal human.”

“The book mentioned something about that. But longer life means more time to do more stuff.”

Kirveas shook his head. “What about your memories, anything new?”

“No, no progress there. I have the same dream everything night, of music with an ominous feel to it. Sometimes I find myself running but I don’t know why…..” said Yuga with a sullen expression.

“I see.”

Weird. It was unusual for for Kirveas to speak on anything beyond “necessary”. Maybe he’d made progress lately. It’d been three weeks since Yuga found himself on this planet and up till now he hadn’t recalled much of anything about himself. Sometimes, he wondered…. What if he never got his memories back? What if he’d live the rest of his days without ever knowing who he was or where he came from? It was a scary thought but sometimes he imagined it wasn’t such a bad thing. Maybe he shouldn’t remember and just live on. There might be things he didn’t want to recall…. But thoughts like this went nowhere, they’d come when or if they did. It was time to play and he stepped out of the log house.

“Mimic!” he called out. Kirveas had said the name was uncreative, which was true but he couldn’t be bothered to think up something better. The creature came flying in the form of a bird. “Let’s do something fun.”

He’d spent the previous day gathering different items which he’d have mimic change into. He’d throw one of them and mimic would transform into it and sometimes he’d just point at something. If mimic was too slow to react and change, before the next thing, it was his loss. He threw a book, then pointed at a tree and mimic transformed accordingly. Then he threw a stick, a ball, a blanket then pointed at snow. As time went on he got faster and faster, upping the tempo but mimic was up to it, never once failing to transform. Yuga had gotten so fast his movements were just a blur and mimic was a kaleidoscope of different objects.

Time to pull out the trump card. He threw up a fruit, with that sported a variety of colours. But mimic didn’t change into but instead transformed into a large rodent twice the size of a person and swallowed it whole. It eyed Yuga warily and then trodded away, it’d lost interest in the game. Mimic was too sharp, deceiving him wouldn’t be easy but he’d get him some day.

“If you’re done with that, it’s time to leave. We’re moving north to the next danger zone.” Kirveas called out.

“Ok.” said Yuga in compliance, dropping all the items he’d gathered.

After about an hour they left the log house and made their way through the snow. Mimic hadn’t returned yet but that wasn’t unusual. It left and came back as it pleased. By the time they left a blizzard had started.

***

“What’s it like on other planets.” asked Yuga. They’d been walking for a while now, through the icy wind and constant pelting from snow and small chunks of ice. They each had one arm up to shield their faces.

“There’s land, water and maybe a sky.” replied Kirveas.

“And not this much snowing hopefully.”

“Lehrone is no stranger to snow but its not this much most of the time. The constant fighting is affecting the planet.” said Kirveas.

As they walked on, several black shapes scattered on the snow came into view. About four of them, not too far from each other. The closer they got the more apparent it became what these figures were. They were people.

Yuga slowed his pace to a halt and crouched down to check on one of the bodies. It was a woman. She was very beautiful. Fair skinned with hair coloured gold like the sun. Eyes closed as if she was sleeping soundly. She was dead. Her skin had turned pale and her lips were blue. Her arms were wrapped around something, holding it close to her body, not letting go even in death. But her arms lacked the strength to keep it safe now. It was a child, no more than three years old. A little girl, it looked just like her. The woman’s hands were clasped together as if in prayer but whatever god she prayed to hadn’t answered her prayers. She had perished along with her daughter and her hopes in the ruthless blizzard.

Kirveas, noticing Yuga had stopped, stopped as well a little ways ahead and walked back to where the bodies where. “They’re dead. They must’ve been running away in hopes of finding shelter. But the cold wasn’t so kind.”

Yuga said nothing, he got up and moved towards the body at the forefront. He crouched down to it and listened. It was faint but he could hear it, the sound of breathing. He had sensed it before he even got there, Kirveas probably had too. “He’s still breathing” Yuga said softly. It was young boy, looking to be about the age of twelve.

“He’s going to die eventually, it’s a mercy to let him die in peace” said Kirveas with little emotion.

“Maybe, but I’d only do that if he wanted to. But look, among all these people, even the adults. Among all who got here, he’s the only one still alive, every breath he takes proof that he desperately clings on to life. He’s not ready to go yet.” said Yuga with a bit of conviction in his voice.

“When he wakes up, he’ll realize he has no family left. He’s lost everything, there’s nothing left for him live for.”

“Nothing left to live for…. Human beings can be a lot stronger than that. If his will is strong enough, he’ll keep striving till he finds something precious, something that will once again bring meaning to his life. But he’d only be able to do that if he’s alive”

He stretches out his hand towards the boy and tries to heal him with aias energy. Some colour starts to return to his skin but he was still breathing hard with much difficulty.

“You can use aias transmutation?” asked Kirveas, surprised.

“I’ve been practicing on my own for a while. But so far it’s about as useful as yours.” said Yuga facing the boy. He gently picked him up from the ground and held him in his arms. “I’m heading back.”

“Well that’s on you, I’m moving on. If you keep moving north from here you should be able to find me.”

Yuga nods then runs off, heading in the direction of the log house, careful not to move too roughly.

He gets to the log house and drops the boy on a bed. He takes off his clothes and dropped them on the floor somewhere, they were wet from the snow. He wrapped him and several blankets and went out to gather wood. He set up a fire in the chimney and when he was done he sat down, legs crossed and waited for him to wake up.