CH 4

Four months latter

-Martoel POV-

“AHHHHHHH”

“Oh Martoel, I know you want to stand up like the rest of us but you should learn how to crawl first.”

Mother said as she shook her head at me. I had just sat up and was trying to pull myself up when I ran out of strength and fell on my back. For a while now I have tried to stand up like everyone else around me does. But I haven’t been able to do it. I thought I was big enough to support myself, but apparently not.

Jager keeps showing me how to do this crawl thing. He even made it fun for me by holding out a shiny thing in his hand and siting a little ways off. I like shiny things so I want it. The rule is if I reach him then I get to play with it but if I don’t then it disappears. Either way it’s fun, I like playing with the shiny thing but when he makes it disappear I get really exited because I have such a talented older brother.

Jager goes with dad to work somewhere most days so it can get pretty quiet at home. But I use that quite time to learn about my body. I can now move my body like everyone else but I don’t have the muscles to actually do anything with this knowledge so I’m trying to figure out how to gain muscles.

I know most of the words our race uses. Although I don’t know all there meanings, I can distinguish them and get a feeling about the topic that is being discussed. This is all thanks to mother being lonely and talking about whatever she wants in front of me. Although I can’t talk myself I do make noise when I think it is an appropriate time to give input to her ranting. I ’m sure with mothers help it won’t be too much longer before I can talk.

Mother has gotten back to what I assume was how she originally looked before giving birth to me. She has a friendly glow around her at all times and has been leaving the house every once in a while to go see the neighbors as a way for her to stay fit. I am usually asleep when she goes out, but sometimes I wake up to find that she’s not home and explore the house.

One of the most important things I have found out is the layout of the house. There are two floors and a small cellar for storing food. On the first floor there is the kitchen, the living room, and a room for mother, father and I to sleep in. On the second floor there are three small rooms and a storage room full of emergency supplies. The only one who goes up stairs at night is Jager, his room is up there. I’m not allowed to go up there yet unless I’m on mothers back.

A few days ago I was exploring the living room and I found the weapons rack and cut my hand a little bit on one of the weapons. When mother got home she screamed then patched me right up. I didn’t cry at all, at least when she was home. But after that incident father put the weapons high on the wall or in the locked create. But on the plus side I know what end not to touch next time, that’s a good thing right.

Oh it looks like mother is getting ready to go for a walk. It’s time to pretend to be asleep.

“Oh no you don’t. you are coming with me this time. I’m not taking any more chances with your grabby little hands and curios mind.”

Hehe it looks like I’m not fooling anyone anymore. But this should be fun I get to go outside again. When was the last trip outside again?

I wonder.

“Mother why are you picking me up” I try to say but all that comes out is “Aww ah-ha”

Curse my tine body.

“Oh are you happy to be on mommies back again after so long. Well don’t get to comfortable the walk isn’t going to be that long today.”

Mother says as we head out the door. When we are outside I notice that the white shell on the ground is gone in some spots. And there are green spikes coming out of the ground now, some have small round ends. It’s pretty clear up there compared to the first time we went out. But there are still a few puffs up there.

After a little while I see another house in the distance. I wonder if that is where we are going today. I wonder if they will let me explore their house.

Once we get to their door mother knocks on it three times then waits a moment. Almost as soon as mother finishes her third knock the door bursts open. Standing in the doorway is a young mother with red hair holding her baby in one arm as she answers the door with the other. She was quite short compared to others but very firmly built with ample curves. She had bags under her eyes and her hair was a mess.

“Oh, Marte thank goodness you came when you did. I can’t quite keep up with sowing all the holes in my husband’s clothes. Could you please watch Shiri as I work?”

The lady asks.

“Shure Naeva Rodek. But I brought my son today. He has been causing problems when I wasn’t home.”

My mother replies. And I just giggle in an attempt to be cute.

“Oh well… I guess he will just have to play with Shiri for a while. Hopefully they won’t cause problems if they have each other. But please do come in. I always enjoy your company.”

Naeva sighed as she quickly motioned us into her home with a smile. On the inside it looked a lot like our home but with slight differences. They had five chairs out and about the room while we only had two and a coach. And while we had a floor covered in old fur pelts there floor only had two or three with wood underneath them. And were there kitchen and living room were open to each other ours had a doorway without a door in it, I don’t know why there isn’t a door but there’s not. Then the last major difference was that they had three other rooms on the first floor and a ladder to their second floor. While in our hose there was only one other room on the first floor, that room was for the mother and father, and a stair case to the second floor.

Once inside my mother sat me down on the floor with the other child named Shiri in the middle of the room. Then mother and Naeva, that’s what mother said right, sat down in the living room on the two chairs sitting next to each other in the corner. In between them was a basket of clothing that they would take one at a time and fix them with their needles.

As I watched them work the child named Shiri had reached me and started to pat me. As soon as Shiri did this I did a little roll over on my back to get away. After that Shiri just sat there and stared at me with a puzzled look on its face. And I stared back refusing to look away since it had peaked my interest. Why did Shiri touch me? How should I handle this? What does Shiri plan to do? After a while we moved towards each other. This time I will start the interaction. Once we could reach each other I touched Shiris hand without looking away from its gaze. As soon as we touched Shiri’s hand pulled back and their eyes broke contact from my own.

Haha I win, I rule Shiri now. But then Shiri did something I never expected. Shiri moved forward and pushed on my back with all there might. Aww but I won’t fall… puff. Ok maybe I will fall but you haven’t won yet. I started to squirm around until I got out from under Shiri. As soon as I was out from under Shiri I climbed onto their back and laid there quite conformably. But Shiri wouldn’t give up and flipped me off of their back.

We stared at each other again but this time Shiris eyes where full of excitement instead of the original curiosity that they had held earlier. And I could tell that this wasn’t going to end any time soon it was too interesting to let it.

We charged each other the best we could and hit our heads against each other. This made us both fall back in for a moment. But that didn’t matter as I got reoriented quickly and jumped on Shiri before they could get reoriented. As soon as I was on Shiri, Shiri rolled over so that they were back on top of me. But Shiri only stayed there a second as I pushed with all my might off the ground pushing Shiri up onto their feet just to fall back onto their butt.

We continued to jump back onto each other’s back until we couldn’t move very well. We just sat there looking at each other. And I could see in Shiris eyes that the only reason they stopped was because they couldn’t move ether. And so I decided to test something since we had to take a break.

“Hello I’m Martoel. What is your name?”

I said to Shiri in baby talk, not because I wanted to but because I couldn’t say it any other way.

“Ge ga ghehe Gu.” (Shiri nice to meetcha)

Shiri replied but for some reason it made some sense. It seemed to me that Shiri had just said that they called Shiri, Shiri and that Shiri had fun playing with me.

“Came you collect mana?”

I asked in an attempt to see how far Shiri had developed.

“Geee ga” (What’s that?)

Shiri said in baby language.

“It is energy all around us that can make us strong.”

“Ga ge geeee gu” (Can you teach me)

Shiri asked this time with excitement in their eyes.

“It’s simple just feel it around you and tell it to go into you in your head.”

“Gega” (really?)

“Yeah that’s all you could for now anyway.”

“eeh ge goo gi” (that’s rude. I’ll show you that I can do mare by the next time you come over.”

“ok ok, next time. But this time watch me and learn from what I do.”

“uh ug” (ok go ahead.)

So I started to gather mana inside the new house. In here the mana wasn’t like the mana I was used to gathering it was less solid and easier to move around. It flowed into me incredibly fast and whirled around me shooting out a couple sparkles of blue. Aww I wonder what type of mana this is. It is blue so it could be from above and that would explain why there was so much of it. I guess I’ll find out latter.

After I watched Shiri try to absorb mana for a while giving her hints every once in a while like “Breath it in.” and “Relax it can’t get to you if your tense.” Our mothers got up and walked over to us.

“Ok Martoel it’s time to go. And thank you Naeve for letting us stay for so long.”

Mother said as she bowed slightly.

“No need to worry. And you two can come anytime Marte.”

Naeve said as we headed towards the door.

“Don’t forget to practice Shiri.”

I yelled as we were leaving.

“gee ga ga goo” (I won’t. and you better come back soon Martoel.)

Shiri yelled after us.

As we walked home I noticed that the glow in the sky was going down. And then I heard mother ask.

“Do you want to back there Martoel. It looked like you had lots of fun with Shiri.”

“Yes Please.”

I responded knowing full well that mother didn’t know what I had said.

“Ok, then you are going to have to behave better from now on. And if you really want to beat Shiri you’re going to have to push yourself harder.”

“Ok mother I will be good and become strong.”

I said then laughed a little knowing that I wasn’t understood. I am going to become something more and become the strongest I can be.