Act 1- Chapter 2: Caretaker

Previously:

"Well Zastin, I guess… welcome to the orphanage. Let's get you settled in first, you're more than welcome to some dinner leftover, m'kay?" Gid said as he lead little Zastin back into the orphanage. "You can sleep in for the night, then tomorrow you can meet the other-" But Gid pulled to a halt, hearing only his voice and footsteps. He paused and turned around, seeing the grey haired boy rooted in his place, looking downwards.

"Will…Will this be my new home now?" Zastin asked.

"Only if you want it to be." Gid smiled warmly. "Com'on!"

*The Next morning…*

(Within the Embrace – Horizon Zero Dawn OST)

Two blue eyes blinked into life as young Zastin slowly woke from his sleep. He ran his fingers over the straw bed that he laid on, feeling the comfort that he hasn't felt in a while. He was greeted with the wooden bottom of the bunk bed above. He began to panicked at the unfamiliar sight.

'Where…- That's right… I'm at the orphanage.' The boy calmed as the realisation slowly began to set in. 'This… is my new home now…' He thought, not entirely sure what to make of it. Should he feel safe? Should he run away and back to the streets? No. There's nowhere for him to call home but here now.

His contemplation was interrupted when a hot aroma filled his room like the warm summer's breeze, seemingly enchanting him to sit up and follow. The boy got off the bed and timidly walked out of the room, and turned down the hallway. From there, chatter and fidgets of wood and metal only got all the more apparent. And so little Zastin arrived at the dining room.

The Devilukean children gathered around the large wooden table glanced at the newcomer, then began to quietly hush to one another, seemingly surprised and confused by the visitor. They all stopped eating and looked at Zastin.

"…A…" But the pressure was too much for out little Zastin, too many prying eyes, too much attention for a child. His blue eyes soon met a pair of red ones, as sitting right across the table staring at him was one smiling Gid.

"Children, this here is Zastin," The twelve-year-old boy announced. "He had just arrived last night, and will be joining us in the orphanage from now on. Let's all be nice to Zastin here, okay?" Gid then turned his attention to the boy. "Come eat breakfast with us, you must be starving after last night!" Gid offered cheerfully.

"U-Uh... thank you-" Zastin thanked, but was surprised when the loudest gurgle erupted from his stomach, much to everyone's laughter.

"Come! Try the carcass stew that Gid-nii taught me to make!" A boy got out of his chair and took Zastin by the hand, leading him to his own wooden stool next to him.

"I'll pour you a cup of water, just sit there!" A girl from across the table offered, before grabbing a cup and the rusty metal pitcher.

"U-Um…" Little Zastin was speechless. Where was all this hospitality coming from? The children were so nice to him, and he knew not why.

And as the group of children settled down to eat, Zastin stared at the bowl of stew and the cup of water before him, dumbfounded by the hearty meal at the table. He then turned his attention to everyone else around the table. There he saw the children, talking and laughing with one another. And while one was distracted, the other would take a spoonful of the others stew. Gid was smiling and joking with the others beside him.

"Everyone better eat up quickly, because we have things to do today!" Gid announced.

"What are we doing today?" Another child asked, one who could barely contain the excitement in her voice.

"We've ran out of wood for the fireplace, dirty clothes that needs to be washed, and I don't know if you've noticed, but this place still hasn't had a proper mopping ever since the last storm." Gid said.

"Aww maan!" The children groaned in response. Chores again?

"I might be your caretaker, but this orphanage isn't going to run itself!" Gid said with an authoritative voice. "Finish your stew, and if we can get everything done by nightfall, then I might just make my special mud-crab pie for dinner tonight."

"Yaaay!" The children cheered in response, their mood flipping like a switch in response to the prospect of food.

*Half an hour later…*

"We'll be back soon!" The group of children exclaimed, walking out of the orphanage in a single file, then splitting up into smaller groups, before venturing forth into the woods. Some however stayed behind and went to the water well next to the orphanage, buckets and wet towels in their hands.

They were blessed with a sunny day, the land was lush with pink and green trees, as far as the eyes could see. The land was a mixture of calm grass and rugged rocky soils. The singing of birds and the breath of the wild welcoming everyone into its pasture.

"Just you wait! I'm gunna collect more than you!"

"It's on!" Another child replied.

"Stay safe, and DON'T RUN! And remember what I said! Do NOT follow the river downstream, the slopes are as far as you're allowed to go!" Gid reminded, watching the children scuttle away playfully, their black tails wagging. And with that, the boy turned around, and approached the rather shy Zastin.

"Come on Zastin, I'll show you around the place." Gid said, walking towards the woods as Zastin followed after.

He had never seen anything like it. Lush greenery as far as the eyes could see, fauna and flora flourishing. Zastin took the time to breath it in, listening to the steady sounds of water from a stream not far from them, his eyes studying the strange blocky rock pillar formations. He felt calm, one with the plants, one with the wild. The seemingly mystic whispers of wind taking him along with every step. He could feel the warm embrace of the sunlight through the sparse canopies, warming him up gradually.

"So Zastin," Gid said, breaking the rather comfortable silence between them. "Mr. Furfur told me that he found you at his doorstep, you were unconscious, alone."

"Mr. Furfur?" Zastin wondered.

"The old man who carried you here," The boy replied. "He's old and grumpy sure, but he delivers crates of food every week so who are we to complain. And all for free mind you~" Gid added. "Why don't you tell me a little bit about yourself? Only if you're comfortable of course."

'I…I feel like I can trust him... for some reason.' Zastin contemplated on his response. He viewed Gid as a kindred spirit, one that he could connect with."M-My parents and I lived on Moon Obedience… my papa volunteered for the Devilukean army, he said he needed to "fight for our homeworld against outsiders" in the Great War… After that mama and I never saw him again. Then a year after that, she passed away from a terminal illness." Zastin explained as best he could, surprised that even he opened up so much.

"That's… I'm sorry, I'm sure that's hard to talk about." Gid said remorsefully.

"No it's okay now. It's been a long time since. I've been living on the streets." The boy replied rather nonchalantly, stepping over some branches while ducking over some vegetation from above.

"…If it's any consolation, ever child in living in this orphanage is just like you. Orphaned, as a result of the Great War happening right now. Everyone here can relate to you."

"Well then how about you?" Zastin asked innocently, trailing after Gid up a small hill. "Did your parents went and joined the army?"

Gid paused in his footsteps as Zastin walked into the boy. "Ooft!"

"I…I don't know really... I've never met mine." Gid answered, hopping over a small river. "I've lived in this orphanage as far as I can remember… the caretaker of the orphanage was the closest I ever got to a parent." Gid replied.

"And where is the caretaker?" Zastin asked, following Gid as they climbed onto a collapsed log, and up to some rugged rocks. "Now that I think about it, Gid is taking care of everyone else… and he's only twelve…' He wondered.

"The caretaker…" Gid said," The caretaker…she isn't here anymore, disappeared two years ago." The boy turned around and looked at Zastin.

"B-But did she abandoned you? Where could she have gone?" Zastin had so many questions needed answering. But before Gid could reply, they both heard a voice called out to them.

"Gid-nii!" One of the children from the orphanage shouted, running over the two on the log.

"What's wrong?" Gid asked worriedly, seeing the child's face.

"It's Gibi, he's twisted his ankle, and scraped his knee…" the child huffed out, breathless after the run.

"And how did he manage that?" Gid asked knowingly, furrowing his eyebrows coyly.

"We… We were chasing each other…" The girl admitted.

"Sigh… Kids never listen do they…" Gid whispered to Zastin, before hopping down the large log. "Okay, take me to him. Zastin, do you mind staying here for just a moment, I've still got the caves and the sulfur pools to show you."

"A-Ah... ok."

(Music for Mood: Motherless – Horizon Zero Dawn OST)

Zastin watched on as Gid left with the child, slowly disappearing into another part of the woods.

"Hmmmm…" Zastin hummed nonchalantly as he took a seat on the large fallen piece of log, his feet swinging in the air and his tail relaxing by his side. He looked around curiously as he waited.

A while has passed, and still no Gid. Zastin eventually became quite bored with his surroundings. 'I'm going to go look for Gid.' The boy told himself. And as he got off the log, a breeze sailed over his head. The boy looked up, his eyes widened at the sight. A swarm of insects that glow of gold seemingly lit up the sky above him, mystically flowing with the breeze in a stream.

"Woahhh…" he sighed in awe, mesmerised by the stream of light. The breeze carried a breath of warm whisper, as if encouraging him to follow.

And so he did. With his curiosity getting the better of him, he hopped off the log and followed the light through the forest, guided by the soft whispers of the wind. Step by step he took, not even realising the vine before his foot.

"Gaah-!" He tripped, falling and tumbling down a short decline.

"Ahhh…" Zastin stood back up at the bottom of the slopes, rubbing his sore parts. But now out of his hypnotic trance, a foul smelling caught him off guard as he became alerted, his senses returning. It was the when he realised.

He was lost.

"Oh no…" Zastin sweatdropped. "Oh no no no no no…" he repeated to himself, looking around for any signs of the orphanage.

But at the same time, that foul smell lingered in the air before him.

'the river… this is downstream…' Zastin realised, seeing the moderate river flowing across his path. Curiosity once again got the better of him as he looked down the river, noticing flies gathering further down, as evident by the buzzing in the distance. 'I wonder what's down there…'

And so he ventured forth, downstream. To where the river eventually pooled into a large dark cavern.

"Where am I…" he wondered in awe and begun his approach to the cavern, when suddenly, he froze.

Right at the mouth of the cavern, flies buzzed around a specific area of the water by the edge of the cave entrance. And lying face down on the rocks.

Was a corpse.

"...when… what…?-" Zastin froze at the sight, his scorpion ended tail cowering between his legs. It was his first time seeing a corpse, and he had so many questions, some needed answering, and a some did not.

The body was grey and dark, parts missing, innards protruding. A foul stench emanating off it, attracting insects. It's foulness stinking the water around it.

"I told you not to go downstream…" A voice said, surprising Zastin to the core. Horridly, Zastin began to turn around, chills down his spine.

"Gid-nii…" The grey haired boy breathed, shocked to see the orphanage caretaker before him. His expression indecipherable. "T-t-t-there's… there's a...a…-"

"There's a corpse behind you, I can see that." the red eyes Devilukean replied calmly.

"You know…" Zastin uttered, his breath quickening. "What...who… who is that!"

"That, my dear Zastin, is the caretaker of the orphanage. Or was at least." God answered the child, stepping beside the boy, looking at that heap of bones and rotten flesh with his hands on his hips.

"B-But… you said she was gone...she disappeared...!" Zastin was shocked. For all intents and purposes, he had truly believed what Gid said was true, that he was trustworthy.

"I did not lie to you if that's what you're thinking about." Gid said. "Did she disappear two years ago, yes. But was it an accident, no."

Zastin didn't know what to think anymore, between the dead body and Gid's calmness, he mind raced with ideas that made him sick to the core, not that he wasn't already sick to the stomach already. "T-Then… don't tell me…. you…"

"I'm going to read you a story, Zastin." Gid said. "One that you cannot find in any storybook. Once upon a time, there was a wicked woman, who reluctantly took in a two-year-old boy into her home ten years ago. For years, she had underfed him, and beat him, scorned him, and treated him like a slave more than a child…" The trident tailed Devilukean said, his red eyes vengeful looking at the corpse. "Under normal circumstances, any child under that condition would be broken, or would simply have ran away. And that would've been totally fine with the woman. But the boy didn't run away. Instead, he survived eight more years of the torture."

"You're talking about you…" Zastin realised. 'Is that why he's a little shorter for his age… the underfeeding?' He wondered.

"The boy had no hope, no ambition, no hope, no dreams. Those that he had were belittled and crushed under the woman's care. Until one day…"

"One day… another child was delivered to her doorstep, and then another… till months later, there were seven children living under her roof. And now suddenly, the boy found himself six more friends. Six more to play, and break bread with."

"But the wicked woman, she was not content by how happy were. And begun to treat them like how she treated the first boy."

"When the boy saw this… something inside him changed. To see the cruel treatment he got not on his friends was perhaps more difficult that what he had been through. The woman even crippled one of the children, permanent damage. And so one day, when the wicked woman took him outside to beat him. The boy gave her a push. And she knocked her head on a boulder on the ground."

"You… you ki-killed… the caretaker…?"

"The little boy then carried the body down the river, to never before explored woods, and left her there to rot for all of eternity, to rot for the things she did to those poor, poor children. And from that day onward, he vowed to always take care of those around him, to act, and rise up in the face of tyranny. For the good of others." Gid finished. "The end."

To say that Zastin was shocked was an understatement. Everything coming at him so suddenly and so quickly. The corpse, the murder, the children. A part of him didn't think it were real, that it was just some cruel prank that the children of the orphanage devised. To believe the story would imply that Gid first took a life at the age of ten, and the caretaker's no less. "…" Zastin was stunned.

"So what do you think about the story? Was the boy right in taking the life of that wicked woman, to spare the other children from a life of misery?" Gid asked, now focusing on Zastin. "Was the boy right, or was he actually the wicked one?"

And as Zastin looked at Gid, he saw something new within him, something hidden. The caretaker of the orphanage, the trident tipped Devilukean, the killer, a boy he only met a night ago. He didn't quite know what to make of him anymore. Was he a danger? Were the others safe? Will he kill again?

"I have shared with you my darkest secret. But in return…"

"In return…" Zastin wondered, now slightly afraid.

"In return, you need to keep this between the two of us. The children must certainly never find out about the fate of the caretaker. Promise me… promise that you tell anyone what you've seen, or heard." The twelve-year-old boy pleaded, a somewhat desperate look in his red eyes.

"I…" Zastin began nervously.

"…I promise…"

*Nightfall…*

That night, Zastin twisted and turned in his slumber, unable to get a good night's rest. He felt uneasy, like the woollen blanket and the warm straw bed did nothing to protect him from the cold. Every he closes his eyes, he would see the woman downstream. That horrible horrible image, burned inside his mind forever. Alas he couldn't take it anymore, he got out of his bed and put on his small boots, a fur coat wrapped around his figure, quietly walking out of his room and down the corridor.

"Gid-nii?" He asked, looking for the caretaker in his room. But the empty howls of the wind were the only reply he got. And so he checked the living room, where the fireplace was burning warmly. But Gid was not there either. 'Could he have gone outside?' He wondered. And so the boy ventured out of the orphanage cottage, his breath visibly steaming to the cold air. He exited the short wooden fences and looked all around him. To the woods in the front, the hills on the left; the ponds on the right. The nine-year-old boy circled around the back of the cottage, and squinted towards the distance.

To the distance, at the edge of the tall cliff, there sat a small figure. He could just make out the distinct figure under the bright celestial lights from the heavens above. "Gid-nii…?"

A small Devilukean boy laid at the edge of the cliff, his head relaxing into his arms behind his head. His red eyes reflective of the large planet and moons above. Vibrant colours that grew all the more apparent on everything in the night. His tail swished above him relaxingly, his trident tip swishing around rather playfully.

"Gid-nii…?" A voice called out shyly from his right.

"Zastin?" The boy was surprised to see the grey head next to him. "What's wrong?" He asked.

"I...I can't sleep." The blue eyed boy admitted. "The caretaker… her face… she won't leave me alone…"

Gid nodded slightly, letting a sigh escape his mouth. "She never left me alone either." Gid added. Zastin's eyes widened in surprise. "…You'd think that I could convinced myself that it was for the good of the other children. That I can justify for what I have done. But…"

"…" Zastin went up to Gid and sat down next to him silently.

"But… it's hard…" Gid finished, letting his tail droop back to the ground.

"How do you cope with all this?" Zastin asked, hugging his knees whilst looking up at the skies.

"By having hope." Gid replied, his hands now together on his chest.

"Hope?" Zastin asked curiously.

"Look up at the sky Zastin," Gid said, pointing to the largest celestial being, dominating almost a quarter of the sky. "That biggest and brightest one there is Planet Deviluke, orbiting it are the seven moons of Deviluke. Moon Obedience, Ascendance, Observance, Allegiance, Abundance, and Moon Endurance, which is where we are."

"…" Zastin remained silent as he studied the celestial beings, so large in the sky, yet impossibly far away, surrounded by an ocean of stars. He became mesmerised, the beauty of is, the silence. It's hauntingly beautiful in their eyes.

"It's funny… from here it looks like the world is peaceful, that there's no war going on right now; when in fact, Deviluke's moons are the least defended territories." Gid pointed. "The hope - is that one day, I can take the children up to mother Deviluke, to safer territories." Gid professed. "But I've still got a long way to go~"

"I hope… that one day, we can see Planet Deviluke too, just a little bit closer." Zastin agreed, reaching out a hand towards the planet.

And as the two boys mesmerised themselves into the majesty of space, they couldn't help but notice the haze of smoky smell in the air.

Gid gave a few loud sniffs as his face contorted into confusion. "Sniff… you smell that?"

"It smells like… smoke…fire…" Zastin realised. "…!"

The two briefly looked at each other and turned around, eyes widened in realisation. To the distance, a column of smoke climbed up the night, menacingly covering more and more of the woods' canopy. Bright orange hue of light emanating from that area of the woods. A haze of heat brushed over both their shocked faces.

Fire.

At the orphanage.

AUTHOR'S NOTES: ENDING IT WITH A CLIFF HANGER.

OH AND ANOTHER THING, FOR ALL THOSE CONFUSED WITH THE ROMANCE WITHOUT THE SEPHIE TAG, THIS IS A GID X SEPHIE STORY, AS PER THE CANNON. FOR SOME REASON FANFICTION DOESN'T HAVE SEPHIE AS A CHARACTER TAG.

SO WHAT ARE YOUR THOUGHTS ON THIS CHAPTER? ANYTHING GOOD, BAD, TO BE IMPROVED? ANYTHING EXPECTED/ING? LEAVES YOUR THOUGHTS IN THE REVIEWS SECTION OR P.M. ME :)

AND AS ALWAYS, MORE CHAPTERS STILL TO COME!

REVIEWS ARE HIGHLY APPRECIATED, ENCOURAGED AND LOVED! (THOSE CAN REALLY MOTIVATE A WRITER TO KEEP GOING! :P)

CRITICISMS ARE ALSO ACCEPTED.