CHAPTER 2-1
Heinrich

Just as he always did when on Lea's farm, Heinrich awoke with the sunrise. The beach they had all camped on for the night faced west, towards the Europan mainland, but as Heinrich sat up, he saw now that the uppermost branches of the very tallest trees on the other side of the channel were gilded by the sun's first light melting over the tops of the island's hills. He watched the wind coming in from the water stirring those branches for a moment, then stood and pulled on his jacket, taking care not to wake his brother, who was sound asleep only a few feet away. It was quite brisk this morning.

Heinrich made his way down to the shoreline and stood there for awhile, letting the waves, which were a good deal warmer than he had anticipated, caress his bare feet. The scattered boulders of the channel jutted out of the water much higher than yesterday - it was easy to see, now, why a legend that they were the fallen teeth of an Ultrasaurus had come into being - and the land bridge, which had been visible yesterday as only a stripe of sandy bottom somewhat lighter than the rest of the sandy bottom, was now much closer to the surface. It was perhaps low tide, or close to it, right now, and if he wished, Heinrich could have probably taken a leisurely stroll across the bridge to the mainland in water up to his hips, at most.

But he didn't; even though he missed Fuzzy and the farm and the comfort of being rooted in that familiar place, he had to admit that Sidereal Isle was growing on him, too. He had been here less than a day, but was already beginning to see glimmers of what Áthas had been talking about, about this island's stories.

He retreated up the beach a short distance to the dry sand and sat down, listening to the waves and feeling the breezes washing through his hair. One of the things he loved most about the farm was the sense of nature that was always present; yes, Lea's trees were very carefully spaced and cultivated, but every day he found himself working outdoors, where he was surrounded by greenery and insects and birds, fresh air and open skies. It was such a contrast to life at the orphanage, where all was indoors, lifeless and gray. Surely there had been sunny days during his seven years there, and yet, he couldn't remember any. They may as well have not existed.

The waves murmured their quiet tales to him as they breathed in and out over the sand, and Heinrich didn't notice her approach until he was mildly startled by the appearance of a pair of small, tan feet beside him.

"Hi, Heinrich," Olwen said, smiling shyly at him when he looked up.

"H-hey," he stammered.

"Can I sit with you?"

She wanted to sit with him? On purpose? Why? "Um, sure."

Olwen settled into the sand a couple of feet away and pulled her knees up to her chest, looking out over the channel. "It's pretty here, isn't it?"

"Yeah." Heinrich was doing his best not to panic, but he hadn't the faintest notion what was going on. No one besides Phoenix had ever voluntarily sought out his company before that he could recall, yet here was this little girl, awake before the others as he was, enjoying his presence. What did this mean? Phoenix would know what to do.

"What's it like where you're from?" Olwen asked. "Is it pretty? Are there legends there, too?"

Heinrich thought of what little he remembered of Schönberg, his hometown in the Empire; it was a place he had not seen in nine years. As time had passed and his recollections had faded, it had become increasingly difficult to differentiate between his own true memories versus the "memories" his brain had invented based on what Phoenix had told him about their childhoods before the cataclysm. It was strange, the degree to which those invented memories could feel just as true to life as the real ones. If they weren't real, did they still matter? He ignored the electric buzzing sensations in his fingertips and ventured, "My family's farm backed up against a big forest. We had stories about the trolls and the tree people who served as guardians of the forest."

"Wow, that's so cool!" Olwen gushed. "Did you ever see any? What did they look like?"

Before Heinrich could answer, however, there came the sound of swishing sand indicating advancing footsteps, and he turned to find Osian and Owain approaching.

"We were too excited to sleep," one of them - Heinrich couldn't tell which - said by way of greeting.

"What're you guys talking about?" the other asked.

"Trolls," Olwen informed her brother. Heinrich tried to not too overtly stare at the two boys, wondering how on Zi anyone could tell them apart. Even Olwen could be hard to discern at a distance, as her dark brown locks were shorn nearly as short as her brothers'.

"That's cool," one of them said.

The other looked at Heinrich and then immediately away, as if too shy to speak, but his brother elbowed him, and at length he asked, very sheepishly, "Can we see your pin?"

Heinrich couldn't help but laugh. They suddenly seemed so much more harmless now, now that their obvious hero worship of a "cool," older kid had become clear. The fact that it was he who was the apparent object of their awe felt simultaneously ridiculous and wonderful. "Sure," he said with a smile, and removed it from his jacket, placing it into one of the boys' palms. Olwen stood to get a better look and all three gazed down at it in awe.

"I hope I can earn one," she said softly, her dark eyes shining.

"Me too," her brothers chorused simultaneously.

The beach camp was stirring to life behind them; the sounds of voices and things being moved about reached their ears.

"Do you think we'll have breakfast soon?" one of the boys asked.

"Hungry already?" asked the other, giving the first one a shove.

"Like you're not!" retorted the first, shoving back.

"I bet I'm hungrier than both of you!" Olwen crowed, shoving both of them hard enough to knock them to the sand and then taking off like a shot for the camp.

"Hey!" One of them ran off after her, and then the other too, although not before delicately handing Heinrich back his pin.

Heinrich chuckled to himself, and as he stood and sauntered off after the triplets, pinning the little metal star back to his jacket, he made a mental note to ask Emyr how to tell the boys apart.

He arrived at the campfire just in time to hear Áthas talking to the three. "Of course you can swim! We're going to eat first, though."

"Ohhh," they sighed in disappointed unison, as if they hadn't been enthusiastically anticipating breakfast mere seconds prior.

Phoenix shuffled over. "Swimming?" he inquired by way of greeting. Heinrich noticed that he looked a good deal more pulled-together than he usually did first thing in the morning.

Hmm.

Áthas gave him a radiant smile. "Yes, a refreshing morning dip is a lovely way to start a day off, don't you think? In my experience, you can't help but have a good day after a swim." Her glance took in both brothers. "You both know how, I hope?"

"Definitely," Phoenix stated in a tone brimming with confidence, simultaneous to Heinrich's "Kind of."