A Day in the Village

The Chief sat there for a moment, too stunned to speak.

Cari released his control over the energy, the knot he felt in the center of his body loosened, and all the energy returned to its original places.

He got a little intense there.

It was partly due to his relationship with En, but it was mostly the feeling of someone doubting him and saying that he was wrong.

He didn't like the feeling, and it sort of took ventilation with him explaining it.

Cari bowed down in apology.

~Alulu~

The Chief was even more confused at what 'she' was doing now, before he thought for a moment, one of the only reasons he's been able to effective read Cari was that she was cooperating with him, making it sort of easy, the rest of the effort only needed to come from him.

"Sorry for the extreme talk? There is no need, not only do you seem like a nice...uh, mushroom, you were just born a few days ago, to ask you to be of complete emotional maturity is a completely other thing."

He placed his hands on his knees as he rose up from the sofa.

"That wraps up all my questions, it seems you have enough of a grasp of things that you don't need any help in general knowledge, however, I'll keep looking for something, I don't like leaving those who did something for me unrewarded."

"Breakfast is ready!"

The door to the kitchen opened and the Chief's Wife yelled out to the duo.

"You probably don't know what that is, that is just the first meal of the day for people, I know you don't eat, but regardless, want to join us?"

The Chief answered him before Cari could ask what it was, he nodded.

Grasping the pillow holding 'her', he carried Cari to the kitchen.

Past the door, the light of the sun greeted his eyes as it shone through the window ahead him on the curved wall, under it was two small sinks, each with its own faucet, with multiple cabinets under and to the side of them, various cooking utilities covered the counter, a wooden oven off to the corner to the left.

Instead of shying away from the sun's rays, Cari faced it, he was feeling none of the confliction when it met his eyes, all he felt was its comfort.

The Chief noticed this, and so he set him near the center of the long table to the right of the room, where the sun left a warm spot, while his wife passed out all the plates filled with pancakes, toast, and eggs.

The table was a 1x3, he sat himself on the chair near the door, his wife on the chair to his right, Olivia, Ag, and Qier on the complete side to the left, while the rest of the young girls sat at the last few seats.

"Everyone ready to eat?"

"Why doesn't Cari have a plate?", Lusi asked innocently.

Lisa answered before the others could, "He doesn't eat, I saw him answer Olivia that during the celebration."

"Celebration?"

"You missed a few things yesterday, like how we had a party to celebrate that I was healed.", Olivia answered."

"Awwww, I would have wanted to join in."

"I didn't want to wake you Lusi, you looked so comfortable that I just couldn't.", the Chief's Wife spoke up, before taking a bite of the toast.

With that, everyone started to dig into their food, while Cari just listened, and enjoyed the sun on his face, in a sense, it served as his food.

Between bites, they chatted about the happenings of yesterday to Lusi, to cheer her up since she was a little bummed out from not being there, from the fun the trio had, the funny prank Oliva pulled between the boys and Cari when they had waked 'her'

She listened aptly as she ate her food, laughed, and coughed a little after she laughed a bit too much, with Amara patting her back to help her out.

Cari enjoyed this atmosphere a lot, their joy was so...peaceful, there was nothing else to it, it was just so extremely peaceful and serene to be in the middle of it all, even if he wasn't that much involved.

Besides the occasional 'her' they use to address him that is.

'I really need to get that clarified.'

Speaking of which, some of the conversation did involve him of course.

"Cari, where do you come from?"

But questions like that usually ended with-

"Lisa, remember, she can't speak."

As Cari listened, he thought of something and turned his head to the Chief, he was a bit focused on his food, but after a moment, he felt his gaze and looked up.

"Hm?"

Cari motioned his head to Lisa, this was one of the questions he answered, so he was also able to answer for him.

It took a moment for it to click, but the Chief understood.

"Cari came from the inner part of the forest."

Lisa looked at Cari in wonder, while the others were also interested as they listened, but before she could ask another question, her mother interjected.

"Please use questions that can be answered in yes or no Lisa, I know your father can answer your questions, but let's finish eating before you let your curiosity get the better of you, so small ones for now."

The Chief nodded in appreciation as he knew by that look on her face that she was about to ask millions of questions that would leave no time to eat, the food may even be cold by the time she's done asking.

Lisa frowned before asking her question.

"Do you have any friends like you?"

Cari shook his head.

"Well, can I be your friend?"

Cari nodded.

"Yaay!"

After that, she asked a bunch of minute questions about his likes and such, although a large portion of them he didn't know how to answer as he hadn't existed long enough to have decided on them, like a favorite color, while others she had forgot to word into yes or no's.

She had almost started to list every color as he couldn't make it clear he didn't have one yet, rather than him being unable to answer.

Another was his favorite place, that one he knew as the place he woke up in, but he had no way to describe it to her, so he just sat there, she really kept forgetting to ask yes and no questions.

"Do you know my name?"

Cari nodded.

"Can you say it?", her eyes wide in anticipation.

"He can't speak Lisa.", Olivia spoke up.

"Why?", she turned to Cari for an answer.

He did his best to shrug, which basically took form in him doing a little squat.

The two other girls started to giggle at that little gesture.

When she asked that question about knowing her name, the meal was about finished, however, upon hearing that question, the Chief realized something.

"We haven't properly introduced ourselves, have we?"

He turned over to Cari and spoke up.

Cari looked at him and thought for a moment.

'Yeah, I mostly grasped their names through their conversations with each other, I still don't know neither the Chief's, or his wife's name.'

He shook his head.

"I believe that should be corrected then."

He started to list off his family, starting from the left and going around the table, as he named them, they got up from their chair.

"Olivia, Ag, and Qier, then there's Amara, Lisa, and Lusi."

His wife stood up to introduce herself.

"My name is Lula, nice to greet you."

The Chief, who was already standing since the start, finally introduced himself.

"Arron, the Chief of this village, great to meet you."

~Raloo~

Cari did his best to bow down in thanks to the Chief, but then found himself in an awkward position.

'Do I only bow to him, or everyone?'

He lingered on this for only a moment before the feeling got to him and he decided to bow to everyone as a show of thanks.

This peculiar scene of the mushroom bowing to each person in quick succession made things a bit weird...

~Ehem!~

Arron coughed, before speaking.

"Thanks for your appreciation."

With that, the meal was done, Lula collected the dishes and putted them in the sink, she asked Oliva to clean them during the day, and she agreed.

Amara spoke up, her voice a bit lower than Lisa's, with the two little sisters beside her.

"Dad! Can we take Cari to the living room? We still want to ask more questions."

He looked for Cari for confirmation if he's okay with it, and with no objections, Cari nodded, it seemed like the peep system would no longer be used, much to Olivia's dismay.

"Sure sweetie, don't forget to be gentle with Cari, she is much smaller than any of you."

She picked up Cari's pillow energetically, almost causing him to fall face first.

Amara and Lusi never got to ask their own questions, mostly cause of how many Lisa had, although she had actually asked a few on their mind, along with the restriction their dad had put with only yes and no ones, although they knew it was because he was busy and couldn't answer them for Cari.

He walked out the house and walked towards the right of the settlement.

As they set Cari down where he was before, he heard something off to the distance.

It sounded like a small bell being rung.

He also heard the Chief yelling faintly.

"Good morning, everyone! Time to get up."

He couldn't see anything past the window thanks to his size, but he could guess how everyone was getting up for the day, walking out of their homes.

Before he could focus any more on that, the girls started to ask their own questions, Lisa already got all of hers out during breakfast, but those two had more to ask, such as-

"Did you see any weird things in the center of the forest?"

And...

"Did you like the celebration yesterday?"

They had a large range of questions, most of it stemmed from how different he was to them, especially so since he was mushroom of all things, they had seen a few when they went herb-picking with their mother, they had actually overheard some of the things being spoken in the living room.

Unfortunately, their mother caught them before they could see him controlling the life energy into images of nature.

"Do you know what makes you different from a normal mushroom?"

All these questions he answered, but he could not elaborate anything past 'yes' or 'no', so each answer always left them wanting to know more but with no method on how.

They eventually finished asking all that they were curious about, well, as much as they could before they ran out of things to ask, with the limitation of Cari's communicational abilities.

Arron had come in a few minutes into their questions, he was a bit caught off with how direct some of the questions were, but Cari didn't mind by the way he responded, so he let them be as he joined Lula in their room to get fully ready for the day.

The three, once their curiosity was sated, were now ready to start the day, which mostly was filled with playing.

"Do you want to play with us?", Lusi asked in excitement.

Cari looked at his own size, and shifted his head to the side, 'How would I even do that?'

Amara seemed to recognize this problem, thought for a moment, and thought of something.

"I know! How about this..."

• • • • • •

Olivia was cleaning the dishes, and the boys offered to help, Qier helped her with scrubbing while Ag grabbed the dry ones and put them away.

Before, as they were helping with the cooking, they all actually had heard some of the things talked about between Cari and Arron, mostly cause the girls had opened the door, allowing them to listen in along with them.

"What do you think Oliv?, Qier asked.

"About what?", she responded.

"How Cari seemed to have adequate knowledge about pretty much everything, despite only being a few days old?"

They didn't know any further beyond the point the girls were caught, and the door was closed.

Ag joined the conversation as he walked over to grab a few of the dishes from the rack, "There's not really much to think about, I know it gives a lot to think about, but look at it this way, he came from the same place that monster came from."

He walked away to start putting the plates in the cabinets.

"We don't really know much of anything of that area, after all, father doesn't allow anyone to venture in due to how dangerous it can be, we know nothing, so really anything could go there, she was created there."

Qier spoke louder so Ag can still hear as he walked away, while he continued to scrub a plate stained with syrup, "Of course, but, that doesn't answer the question of just how, like where did she learn about it, she shouldn't even have the knowledge to understand language, much less history, the only reason we know about it is cause dad has us learn a bit of history every once in a while."

Olivia spoke up at that, smiling, "Between us and her, who do you think knows more in that case then?"

Qier thought for a moment, before replying, "I honestly don't have a single clue, realistically, we should know more cause no matter what, there's only so much she could learn between traveling from the innermost area of Ginnimos Forest and here, while learning, yet she answered she knew a solid amount.

But dad has yet to teach us anything about life energy, he has mentioned it can do impossible things to what we know, I especially understand that now, seeing how Cari healed you, I guess those orbs were life energy."

Upon hearing that, Ag wondered something.

"Do you think it has more uses than just that?"

Qier answered confidently, "Of course, don't you remember what dad mentioned when we asked what it can do once we first heard about it?"

Olivia recited it from memory, "From granting immense strength to controlling the very elements that surround us, it's the magic that fills our world, and the sky is the limit for it, perhaps even beyond it, the closest place you can probably witness such a thing, is-"

Ag finished, "-the center of the forest."

They also remember the stern talk they got after Arron as he stopped talking about it wishfully, to never go in there, as the threat of that place poses for anyone, even those trained in using this mystic energy, is immense.

The only reason they were able to handle the previous beast in the first place was that it originally was a plant, a parasitical one at that, they grow from leeching on others, if it had actually fed on any living thing before meeting them, it would have been a much more of a threat a beast is known for.

However, due to the fact the number of beasts in the center of the forest is small, and were particularly old, they were an extreme danger to it.

They guessed that the moment it was created, it had escaped the inner sanctum to survive, after all...

It was still survival of the fittest, and especially so considering how concentrated the area actually is, being only of beasts, they were strong and commanding, from their immense experience over the large time of existence that they have spent living in that part of the forest.

They all stood there, paused for a moment, thinking about it, but before they could dive into such thoughts, they heard a burst of laughter from the living room.

"Sounds like the girls are playing.", Qier smiled as he got back to scrubbing, with the other two following along.

"I thought father told them no playing inside?", Ag questioned.

"I don't hear them running around, so they're probably playing some small game where they don't need to run around and be active.", Olivia proposed.

"Hm.", Ag responded.

"I'm done on my end, how about you Olivia?", Qier said as he placed his final dish on the rack and looked over to Olivia's separated section of the sink.

"Finishing my last one."

"I put away the last dry one.", Ag responded.

"Alright...just give me onnnnnnne mooooore -done!", Olivia stretched her words till she finished, handing the fork to Qier as he settled the cleaned silverware amongst the other dishes, waiting to be dried.

"Let's go check up on the girls.", Ag spoke up as he started walking to the door with the other two followed.

As he opened the door, he heard Lusi yell.

"Hey! Cari cheated, I know he moved behind my hand."

They found the three girls sitting on the floor with Cari in front of them on the table, off the pillow.

"What are you girls doing?", Qier asked, as they walked behind the table where they were.

"We are playing a game! Amara figured one out where Cari can play with us, watch!"

They set their palms side by side, facing forward on the counter, like little walls, while Cari stayed behind them.

A large green glow released, surrounding all of them.

Amara sounded off, "Ready..."

Lisa, "Set..."

"Go!", Lusi finished.

They separated their hands from each other, each one of the girls had their palms out, separated from the other ones, three smaller walls.

"I'mma guess my hand.", Amara spoke with certainty.

"No, she's definitely behind my hands.", Lusi spoke.

Lisa deliberated before speaking, "I think its Amara's."

The three spoke in unison.

"Three...

Two...

One...

NOW!"

The glow shrunk back down in an instant as they flung their hands in the air while laughing, each staring at their selected hand.

As Cari was revealed, he made a loud-

~Ahhhri!~

As he jumped from his spot.

He was revealed to be behind Lisa's hand.

"Dang it. No one won that round.", Lusi vented loudly.

"Should've trusted my hands...", Lisa dejectedly said as she looked at her own hands.

Amara explained, "She hides behind one of our hands, and because her glowing & warmth makes it easy to tell, she spreads it, so it is impossible to tell which hand she's behind, we guess, and whoever gets it right wins, currently, Lusi is winning with 2 points while it is tied between me and Lisa at 1."

"Sounds like a fun game.", Ag spoke out loud.

"And it would get even more challenging with the more people who'd play, gotta say, smart idea Amara.", Qier complimented.

"Thanks."