Chapter 1: A baby again

I wake up with darkness wrapped me like a warm, inviting blanket. It’s a little too tight, so I try to push back, but my strength quickly fails, and I fall asleep again, exhausted. This happens a few more times before I’m jolted awake by a tight, constricting sensation around me, forcing me through a small tunnel. Again and again, the darkness pushes down on me until I have gone entirely through the tunnel. With the sudden release of pressure, I gasp and feel something wrap around me, and my face is wiped like someone is trying to clean me.

I open my eyes to see the face of a giant. She’s beautiful, with long royal blue hair and large fox-like ears on her head. The ears resemble those of a serval or fennec fox, in size proportional to their head. I’m not entirely sure what servals or fennec foxes are, but thinking about them brings up images of furry creatures. I should know what they are, but for some reason, all I know are the images of them.

Before I can examine the giant woman further, I’m passed to another woman. Her features seem to match that of the first woman, with the same royal blue hair. I notice how soft-looking and well-cared-for the hair is, now that I’m not being jostled around. She also has those ears, with fluffy tufts at the top; they look so soft that I try to reach out to them, but her large ears are too far away.

This woman smiles, her watery blue eyes looking down at me with what I think is motherly love. The two women look similar – sisters, maybe? Same hair and eye color, similar faces, no doubt they are related.

Squeals of delight echo around me, and more faces appear in my vision. It seems they are gushing over me, talking in high-pitched voices and cooing at me. I refocus on my mother, or at least I assume that’s what she is… but doesn’t this mean I’ve been reborn? Shouldn’t it just be born, not reborn? No, reborn sounds right.

Mother appears a little strained, like she has over-exerted herself, but she hugs me to her… holy cow! Her bosom is prestigious, to put it politely. She opens her dress and pops one of them out, bringing my face close. Instinct takes over, and soon a rich, creamy ambrosia fills my mouth.

After having my fill, sleep quickly takes me, even as I try to resist it.

When I next awake, the first thing I notice is the wooden ceiling. I examine the wood, trying to identify it. It honestly looks more like a cream-colored meaty bamboo than wood, although at the same time, it isn’t quite like bamboo either. I’m not sure how I know what bamboo is… well, I don’t really know it, but it just feels right. Abandoning that mystery for now, I continue looking around. Everything seems to be made of the same bamboo-wood whatchamacallit. Bamwood? Sounds like an infomercial product. Wooboo? No, just… no. Amood? I’m really bad at this.

Anyway, I seem to be in some sort of cage… crib… thing… for my peace of mind, I’m going to hope it’s a crib. At least I have a soft cream-colored blanket. I sigh. Welp, guess I’m going to get intimate with boredom. Hang on, why is my vision filled with floating, colorful orbs? And why am I covered in them? They look pretty, but is there something wrong with my vision?

Uh-oh, there’s definitely something wrong, but it seems related to how much I drank earlier. My bowels are moving, getting ever closer to a really bad time. I wail as loudly as I can with that breath I can muster.

“WAAAAHHH!”

O, mine Mother or Father, perhaps caretaker, I summon thee to aid me in my time of great need. Heed my call, let mine beckoning guide your way to mine domain!

Like welcoming thunder, I hear loud footsteps coming closer. My wail seems to have scared off the glowing orbs as they slowly float away like drifting jellyfish.

The blue-haired woman, probably my mother, comes into the room and picks me up, holding me close to her, shushing me… and bouncing me. Oh god, please don’t bounce me – it’s going to make it worse… Too late. The smell of a freshly made mess is as good a signal as ever to change my blanket... and my mom’s shirt.

After that, Mom carries me around for some time, giving me enough opportunity to use her height to see better. I manage to get a good look at our house... hut. The hut isn’t that big. Instead of rooms, there are curtains to section off the hut. It’s round, with a mostly flat roof, as far as I can tell, anyway.

The curtains are made of the same soft stuff as my blanket, with decorative embroidery. There’s a bed next to my crib that I didn’t see before, which looks like it’s for my parents. It, too, has that cream-colored cloth, but this seems to have also been embroidered with decorative patterns and dyed for different coloring.

Mom is wearing a skimpy dress, again, made from the same cloth material as everything else and embroidered fashionably. The dress comes in several electric blue parts; a revealing bra with frills and ribbons, armlets on both her upper arms and forearms with ribbons attached, and a skirt that doesn’t quite reach her knees. Her flat navel is bare and showing a light tan and healthy skin. Lastly, Mom has an emerald amulet around her neck and several earrings on her large ears.

Mom carries me out of the hut and into the open world. The scene almost takes my breath away! Thousands of floating, glowing orbs of all colors, dancing rainbow auroras all congregating at a point in the sky and falling down like a beautiful waterfall onto a gargantuan Mayan-style stepped pyramid with flames licking the stepped sections next to the stairs. A massive European sapphire-blue dragon is flying in the cloud-spotted sky.

Three massive moons hang in the sky. One, which is largest and seemingly closest, is red with ashen clouds, its dark side glowing with fires and lava. The second is a watery blue moon dotted with white and grey clouds. The last is a green moon halfway hiding behind the red moon, sparsely covered with clouds.

Looking around, I see that we’re next to an island with tall shoots of the ‘bamboo trees’. They don’t have branches, but have long growths sprouting from their tops that droop down, weighted by large watermelon-sized fruits.

The street is covered with planks, expertly milled and tightly jointed to each other, leaving no gap. Decorative etchings are engraved into the street, and many people walk around barefoot. The place is kept clean and in good condition. Our hut is built next to the edge of the village, letting me see the distant mountains encircling us, separated by a sea with steam rising from its surface. I can easily see the seafloor under the shallow steaming waters, where colorful corals and crab-like clams walk around with long legs, fighting other crab-clams with large claws.

We’re currently on a jetty with many huts around, but further into the city, there appear to be actual houses and some two- and even three-story houses. It appears this is a jetty village, a village built on the water using piers.

Mom walks to a destination unknown to me, passing by many people who greet her in a friendly manner. They wear dresses similar to her, but in different colors, and their hair is vibrant and colorful with green, red, orange, violet, pink, blue, and more. Also, does everyone seem to have long, amazing hair, or is it just me?

Some of them walk up to me and spout baby-talk, all women. Some are really tall; actually, roughly half of the women are easily a head taller than Mom; while the other half are around her height… odd.

Where are all the men? There’s not a single one in sight. Just colorful-haired, fluffy-eared, and long—, really long-fluffy-tailed women. Seriously, those tails are big. Almost as long as they are tall, maybe a head shorter. They have to curl up their tails, so as not to drag on the ground.

Do I also have a long tail and ears like those? I reach up to feel my ears, and a heavenly soft sensation greets my hands. Yup, they’re pretty large and heavenly soft. The watching women “daww” as I grab my ears, just like one would “daww” at a cute kitten.

All the women here seem gorgeous; tall and short, large-chested, and…larger-chested. Hmm, all the women seem to have been blessed by the boob goddess or something. Some even beat Mom’s size, and I’d have thought that as an achievement, but here she seems average.

We walk past many baths— why are there so many baths? The baths are open-air, built right next to the streets with baskets for clothes and clay jugs on the side. The baths are built so they are partially under the steaming seawater, with gaps to let water in. It’s pretty impressive that an entire sea is hot enough to be nearly boiling; there must be a ton of geothermal heating right underneath… Oh…shit… Are we in the caldera of a massive volcano?! I don’t seem bothered by the humidity or warmth, but whatever a caldera is, I have a bad feeling about it.

Again, strange concepts flitter into my mind, concepts I can understand yet not know what they are. I don’t know what geothermal heating is, but I know it has something to do with the nearly boiling sea.

Welp, volcano or not, good or bad, I’m here, and I can’t change it yet. I just hope we survive long enough— Magic, of course. The volcano won’t do bad things because magic exists, right? I mean, who would be dumb enough to live inside the caldera of a volcano if they can’t prevent an eruption?

God, this is weird. I don’t know what a volcano is, but somehow I know it? My memories are dormant but not forgotten? There, but not accessible? I’m not gonna bother wasting my brainpower on it, just gonna roll with it.

Mom stops in front of a large hut. There are many of those gem-pearls around, decorating the hut. We enter, greeted with the sight of dozens of women working on shaping gem-pearls. Some grind them down, some cut the gems into multiple workable pieces, and others polish the gems. A tall, impressively fit-looking woman is inspecting their work, along with an even more important-looking woman standing next to the former.

Mom walks up to the tall inspector and says something that I don’t understand. She hands me to her, entrusting me to the fit woman. Getting a closer look, the tall woman has long braided white hair with red gem dust sprinkled over her face and hair, making it look like she has glitter on her. Her beautiful red eyes gaze at me as she holds me close to her generous but smaller-than-average bosom – and by average, I meant average for this place.

She coos over me, pats my head and says something in a babying voice. Really helping me learn the language there; like, seriously, if I didn’t know better I’d have thought baby talk was normal!

We soon leave the place, letting the white-haired woman return to her work, and travel to one of the bathing areas. It’s off the main road, down a side road, and on the right. There are no walls, no changing rooms, just an open area for all to see, and anyone walking by can get an eyeful. Is it like this because there are no men around? In the baths, I see some women combing and oiling their long hair. Oil is also being rubbed on their skin. Is that why these women are so beautiful and have such lustrous hair? Is magic involved?

Mom begins stripping off her dress – yup, right in front of everyone – and is somehow juggling me while not jostling me around too much. She puts her dress in a basket next to the bathing area, then unwraps me from my blanket and puts that in her basket as well. Crime must not really be a thing here, if you can trust your possessions to any passersby.

Mom walks into the water and other women gather around, babying me and questioning Mom. I’m really starting to get tired of this… and this is just day one! A few minutes pass, all but two of the women disperse, and Mom sits further down in the water. She gingerly dips me into the hot waters and sloshes water over me while her hair is being combed by another woman. As the baths lower into the seawater, I expect the water to taste salty, but it’s actually fresh. A sea of fresh water?

The two women talk as we wash. Another woman brings a clay jug and sits beside Mom. Mom thanks her – or I assume that’s what she meant, it’s just one sound – and pours a small amount of oil into her hand. She rubs some on me, the oil smelling fruity and citrusy, like apples and lemons and…something else? Hard to tell. The other woman also oils herself and Mom, combing it into her hair and rubbing it on her legs.

I never liked the oily feeling. Oh! A past experience makes itself known – it’s always been technical stuff before now, and I still don’t know anything, but it’s there somewhere within my headspace – or soulspace? Anyway, with this many bathing areas in the town and access to volcano water, bathing must be a daily thing.

After washing up and oiling down, we soak in the waters, Mom splashing more water over me as the other woman takes an empty jug, fills it with water and pours it over Mom and herself. Oddly, I feel less and less oily – are the oils emulsifying in the water? No, it isn’t bubbling, but my body definitely feels less slippery.

After rinsing off the oils, Mom begins nursing me. These people are very open, so I don’t know why I’m surprised by this. Once we finish taking our sweet time in the baths, we get dressed, me being wrapped up in my blanket. We walk over to the docks, where many canoe-like boats are docked. None of them have sails, but instead have oars attached to the sides.

The boats are made from the creamy-colored bamboo wood and well decorated. Many have nets on the sides, probably to hold fish or those crab-clams or whatever. More boats are out on the waters, and some even have people diving beneath the water with baskets and coming out with stuff. I’m too far away to see them clearly, though I can see pretty far now that I think about it; I have pretty good eyesight, for whatever reason.

The other islands also have jetty villages attached to the sides. I suppose with the limited land, they simply do all the farming on land and build off to the side. Speaking of which, all the islands are covered in unusually straight trees, like really thick bamboo stalks, except the Temple Island, if I remember correctly, but I can’t see that one from here. But why trees? No crops? Surely there are crops, where else do you get your greens?

Hmm?

Mom seems to be saying something to me and pointing at what I’m looking at. I’m not sure what she’s saying, but at least she isn’t baby-talking to me. More people come and go, doing the usual greeting and wanting to see me. I still haven’t seen any men around. Maybe there’s a men’s village? Wait, am I female? Or just too young to be at the men’s island?

After some time, we go back to our hut, and now I’m back to staring at the ceiling. The ceiling is flat, but the roofs are tapered. That means we have an attic, right? Welp – boredom time again. Boredom sucks. What to do? Bug mom for attention? Oh god, now I know why babies cry so much— no, I don’t want to be like that. I’ll make do with my imagination and review what I’ve learned today.

One. We’re probably in a giant volcano.

Two. Dragons are nice? I saw one flying around, and no one panicked, so I’m guessing they’re good guys.

Three. We’re island people. That means a lot of seafood.

Four. These people like to bathe and seem to have skin- and hair-care products.

Five. No men around. Could we be this world’s version of amazons? Kidnap men from other places and all that? Hmm, dunno.

Six. There are auroras. Hmm. Magic leylines? Oh! That could be it! Either that or we’re near one of the poles and live in a volcano because it’s warm. But I don’t think auroras intersect like that, nor do they spill downward like a waterfall. I’m betting on Ley Lines, which means we’re near a place of power.

If there’s a place of power nearby, that means there’s magic, so maybe if I open myself up to the energies, I can learn how to do magic? That’s sometimes how it’s done in stories... How do I know but not know these things? It’s seriously bugging me.

Anyway, I close my eyes, trying to feel…something. Something I’ve never felt before… Nothing. Well, there’s a tingle in my fingers, but that’s probably because my arm fell asleep. Welp, worth a try. But maybe I’m not doing it, right? Let’s see… Magic often involves thought or imagination. Perhaps I need to clear my mind?

I clear my thoughts, banishing all emotions and distractions, washing them away in an imaginary river – there’s nothing except me and the energies of this world. Well, my head’s starting to hurt… is that a good sign? Other than a mild headache, I’m not getting anything. I don’t know how long I’ve been doing this, but it feels like some time has passed. Hmm. If not body and mind, then perhaps soul? I really have no clue how all these things work; I’m just hoping it’ll be painless. Here goes nothing!

For the next I-don’t-know-how-long, I lay there, motionless. I may have fallen asleep once or twice during my meditation. I guess being carried around for a few hours is tiring work. I wake up with my tail in my arms, and I guess I’m using it as a hug pillow. I try moving it away, but something stops me from removing such a soft and whole thing out of my embrace. Why does my tail have to be so heavenly? Also, is it me, or is my tail proportionally longer to me than the womens’ are to them?

I refocus on the most inner part of myself: my core, my existence. This! This might just be it. I can feel something, a pressure— no, a wall. I need to get past this wall. Just as I make a breakthrough, I feel myself being picked up. I try to squirm in protest, but what can a baby do? I open my eyes to see Mom looking down at me with a smile and warm blue eyes, her face framed by her royal blue hair.

She opens her dress to nurse me. Just then, I feel the empty pit in my stomach. I’m not exactly hungry, but I’m peckish. Mom says something to me, but it’s not like I can understand her anyway, so I just drink my dinner in silent frustration. The white-haired lady from the gem cutters is also here, talking with Mom, and after I have my dinner, Mom passes me off to her.

Along with the white-haired woman, we return to the town…village…or whatever. It’s dusk now, and I’m pretty sure it was morning when we were last out – was I really meditating/sleeping that long? After being stopped many times by people asking to see me, Mom enters a house with a long counter. Mom sets a large clay jug on the counter and says something. The clerk lady says something in response and moves behind a door. She comes out with a fairly sizable block of cheese and round coin-shaped rubies. Are gems so common that they’re used as coins?!

Anyway, we leave the cheese store and visit other stores. Mom gets a clam with crab-like pincers and legs, meat for dinner, i suppose – no fish, though – and some dried fruit chips. We return to our hut to drop off the groceries, then leave again. All the while, we’re hounded by people… okay, it isn’t that bad, but all the baby talk may just make me vomit.

We enter a large stony area carved out from an offshore rock, where a large bonfire has been lit. People deftly dance around the fire to the beat of drums and other stringed instruments. Mom sways with the music, humming and occasionally patting my head with a smile.

After the dancing comes what I think is story time: everyone gathers around one person while she speaks, sometimes dramatically or humorously. Then the next person comes up and tells their story. This one speaks in such a way as to tell an epic, but it must have something to do with the gods as I hear Myrou’s name many times. Next, someone comes up and sings. Her voice is well-practiced and beautiful.

After a few singers, a pink-haired young woman comes up with a giant, featureless wooden statue, smiling nervously. She wears the same type of dress as everyone else. The figure is humanoid and female, with a simple representative dress, but what surprises me the most is that the goddess Myrou is projected onto it… at least I think that until the projection winks at me – no one else seems to have noticed that, though. Everyone cheers and congratulates the sculptor, who looks bashful and titters.

Then comes the time when Mom steps in front of everyone to show me off, the newest addition to the village. People compliment Mom or me, I’m not sure, and soon enough, Mom leaves the stage with me.

By the time the traditions are done, the moons are high in the sky, and everyone trails to a large communal bathing area, where everyone bathes in the waters, oils down, and soaks. People talk, complain, and congratulate one another. This bathing area has another statue of the goddess: a naked, featureless statue of a woman holding a clay jug with water pouring out of it. Myrou’s projection on it smiles warmly at me without shifting from her pose. It seems like no one else has noticed the slight twitch of her lips.

After the bonfire party, we return to our hut, but someone else joins us. It’s the tall white-haired woman – why is she here? Welp, I don’t know the circumstances, so I’m just gonna konk out now.