Author's Note: Here it is, the official re-edit from yours truly! Know all those little nits you tend to find when flipping through my tales. Well, time to say good-bye to them because they are being cleaned out. Good riddance to them if you ask me. So, once again, here's to clearer dialogue, no more typos, and the end of those weird spacing problems. What are up with those anyway?

Raising Takoda

After a particularly odd and harsh winter, spring had finally come to all of the worlds, Real and Holiday. It was a season of new life and of rebirth. The only realm that saw this as work was the Easter Realm, which was working towards spreading joy throughout all the lands. However, this story begins in a different land. It starts with a black-clothed man walking his way towards a not quite foreign village.

"I cannot believe this! There is never a moment of peace for me," he complained to no one but himself. "First a rampaging skeleton and now this."

"It does no good to talk to yourself." said a distinctly female voice.

"Show yourself!" the man said as he made a feeble attempt to act frightening.

Out of the woods stepped someone the man knew, for he sighed in relief. She was a tall woman in her twenties with a slightly darker complexion than the man. She had waist length black hair tied and decorated with beads and shells. Her clothing and boots were made from tanned animal skins, along with her light cloak. Her brown gaze was welcoming, yet had a hint of fear in it.

"I'm glad you could come on such short notice, Jacob Miller."

"Please, no formalities with me. I'm no village elder, Kimi."

"You should be. You are much nicer than those men."

"I doubt you informed my settlement to send me to your village just to compliment me. I am betrothed, you know."

"Jacob, something happened to my sister and her husband."

"They had a child recently, did they not?"

"They did. That is the problem."

"Kimi! That is no way to speak of a child."

"Not in that manner, Jacob. The child is missing."

"Missing? What do you mean by missing?"

"As in gone, vanished without a trace. The poor dear is only a month old."

"Why are you telling me of this?"

"Jacob, you know that I am the only woman in my village who knows your language. I am also the only one who has been informed of Takoda's disappearance, so far. If the men knew, they would try to hold a meeting with your elders, and we both know how that would go."

"I see your point," Jacob said before trying to cheer Kimi up."Takoda is a nice name."

"It means 'a friend to all' in our language. He is such a good baby, I have no idea who would do something to him. That is why I want you to find out anything you can."

"Well, I have a meeting with the Council of Celebrations coming up. I'll bring this up to them. They know more about these kinds of things than either of us do."

"Thank you, Jacob. Please do all you can. My sister is very worried and her husband will not wait too long before taking matters into his own hands."

With that said, Kimi hugged Jacob goodbye and went back into the woods.With a heavy sigh, Jacob Miller turned around and went back towards his own home. How strange it felt to be called by his name instead of just a Pilgrim. The Council was still working on personal touches like that, but it would take a while for each to fully know everything about the other members. Jack Skellington was one of those enigmas Jacob had trouble figuring out.

It wasn't that Jacob disliked Jack. In fact, he found the skeleton the most interesting dead person he had ever met. Still, Jack could go off on his own plans every once in a while, plans that spelled 'trouble' in capital letters. As Jacob thought more and more of this dilemma, he could picture the Pumpkin King storming into his world and looking for the child himself. This caused a shiver to run down the pilgrim's spine.

"Perhaps I should rethink telling the Council about this." Jacob said to himself as he finally saw the smoke coming from his settlement.

As the pilgrim continued his return journey, another was taking place in a different set of woods. What appeared to be a bone snapped from a rib cage hurtled through air and hit a tree before falling to the ground. What followed was a small, transparent dog with a glowing orange nose hovering and barking after it. It sniffed around the ground before lighting the area where the bone landed and grabbing it in its mouth proudly. It was about to go back to its master before sniffing something strange in the air.

"Zero?" the dog's owner called out. "Did you find it, boy?"

Zero dropped the rib bone in curiosity of the new smell. The dog sniffed around once more until it found something peculiar. There was a blanket lying on the ground. Zero was about to hover even closer when he heard footsteps, which drew his attention away from the blanket.

"Here you are," Jack said. "I was wondering what happened to you. Is something the matter?"

Zero responded by hovering back to the blanket.

"Well, this is certainly unusual," Jack said as he knelt down before seeing some movement in the blanket. "Very unusual," he added before taking the blanket in his right hand and lifting some of it.

Jack couldn't believe his eye sockets. This was so strange for him that he got up and evenbacked away a step. Never before had this happened. Jack had found a child the woods. Not only a child, but one that was alive. This was a strange event indeed. Jack had no idea what to do. Heck, he was almost speechless. However, being that he was the loquacious Pumpkin King, that didn't last long.

"A baby? A live baby in the woods? How did you get here?" Jack asked as he picked the sleeping child up. "This isn't a place for you. Zero, we're taking it home."

Zero hovered in front of Jack as the two walked back to Halloween Town. Only this time, there were three returning instead of two this time. Neither of them realized how much trouble that infant could bring. Then again, neither of them really cared about anything at that point other than going home, even with an unexpected guest.

Oh my, so that's where that baby went. But how did Takoda get in the woods? Was he abandoned by his own parents? Can it be that something sinister is going on and poor Jack just stepped in the middle of it? That's for the following chapters to reveal. Have fun, everyone.