Author's notes: This story takes place between chapters 14 and 15. I just forgot to publish it.
IIIII
There is light, finally.
Weak legs, weak breathing, weak everything. Still no memories, but there is finally consciousness. The eyes look around, wondering where they are. There are trees and a blue sky never seen before. There is a body. She is confused and mesmerised by her surroundings. She doesn't know where to go. The girl looks at the left side of her waist, there is a tattoo that reads "M.A.K.E.N.A." with a small unreadable text beneath it. She dismisses it, she doesn't know what it means.
The girl begins to walk. She remembers pain and darkness, her brain is still not at its best performance. She takes some time to realise that her body is sinking in the mud.
There is a whole lake of mud ahead of Her. There is a structure made of wood and stone all the way across the lake. The girl was ready to leave the mud, but now is determined to cross the whole thing and reach the place that she wants to go to.
Zuri just finished building his library. He has some books to put in the shelves already, most of them are ones he has written himself. There is a special one that he stole back in the far lands and still hasn't read and won't take it to the library yet. Now that Zuri's project is done, he has a comfortable place to read this book.
The book is big and probably has a thousand pages. There isn't a title, the only thing that distinguishes this book from the others is a golden stamp and Zuri doesn't know what it means, and that's what makes the book exciting.
The books need to be organised first. Zuri takes them from his house to the library, it takes a couple of minutes and a bit of effort.
On his last trip, Zuri notices something yellow in the swamp and decides to go check it out on his way back. He leaves his books at the library and goes to see what was in the mud. It's not a frog, they aren't yellow. As it gets dark, the lanterns around the village turn into the only source of light. No one put one in the middle of the mud, so it's going to be hard to make out what is in there.
Zuri walks over to the path where he first saw the yellow thing. He looks over and it's still there, moving slowly. As the sun sets, it gets harder to see the figure. A voice comes from it.
?: Hey! Are you… Someone?
Z: Hey! What are you doing over there in the mud?
?: I don't really know, can you help me in any way?
Z: Y-yeah, I'll see what I can do I guess.
Zuri stops and thinks for a while. He then comes up with the most obvious solution to the problem. Zuri goes over to one of the animal pens and gets a lead, he goes over to the mud lake.
Z: Okay, are you still there?
?: Yes! Can you hurry up? I can't see my own hands in front of my face.
Zuri throws the lead towards the girl, but he doesn't really know where it landed. She also can't see where it is.
Z: Hold on a minute, let me see something.
Zuri pulls the lead back to him, he walks over and removes one of the lanterns from a post. He ties it to the tip of the lead. He goes back and throws it again, but not as strong as before as he didn't want to hit the girl. Now that the area is lit up, Zuri can determine where the girl is located, he pulls the lead again. Zuri throws the lantern one more time, aiming to get it to fly over her. She grabs the rope and Zuri pulls her towards himself one last time.
Z: Okay, try to lay down and distribute your body's weight.
The girl complies and they manage to get her out of the mud after a bit of struggle.
?: Alright, nice. I'm so dirty now. Thank you for helping me.
Z: No problem. Again, why were you in the mud?
?: I don't know, really. I think I stopped paying attention to where I was and when I came back I was in the mud. I saw this house right here and tried to reach it.
Z: You… Could have gone back and walked around the mud.
Ma: Eh, it just didn't occur to me.
Z: Let's just… Get you cleaned and take you back home.
?: Okay, that sounds nice.
Z: Come, I'll take you to the library.
?: Library?
Z: Yeah, I work there and intend on spending a lot of time there, so I made a bathroom.
Zuri cleans the lantern and puts it back into place. He goes to the library and Makena follows him.
Z: So… I'm Zuri. Do you have a name?
Ma: Oh, name, yeah, I do have one of those. My name is Makena
Z: Makena. Where do you live exactly? I saw you came from the east, is there a village there? How many humans are there?
Ma: There IS a village, there are a lot of people there. It's near a mountain.
Z: I'll have to go there! I came from the farlands, I thought humans were extinct.
Ma: Yeah, we're very… Not extinct. Are there no humans here?
Z: Nope, just villagers and me.
Ma: And… Wait, are villagers not human?
Z: No, they're a completely different species. Not even primates.
They get to the library, Makena cleans off the excess mud again before going into the bathroom.
Z: Is there a towel in there?
Ma: No, there isn't.
Z: Okay, I'll be back with one and some clothes for you.
Zuri leaves the library, leaving a pile of unorganised books behind. He goes to his house and gets a towel and tries to find some clothes that he thinks would fit on Makena.
Z: Okay, I'll leave the clothes and the towel out here for you. I'll be outside when you're ready.
Makena finishes cleaning herself. She hesitantly opens the bathroom's door and looks around, she finds the towel and the clothes. After drying herself she puts the clothes on. Makena looks around the library before going outside.
Ma: I'm done. Are you sure that…
Zuri's clothes are huge compared to Makena. He tries a bit too hard not to laugh when he looks at her.
Ma: Do you not have something smaller– don't laugh!
Z: Sorry, the only thing that would fit you would come from a villager. They only wear robes and I'm pretty sure they wouldn't want to lend you any of their underwear.
Ma: Hmm. Makes a bit of sense.
Z: Also I don't speak their language
Ma: Ah
Z: We can get you back to your village now.
Ma: Hmmm… Okay, listen, I don't really know where I live.
Z: Oh.
Ma: I don't even know if I'm supposed to live somewhere.
Z: What do you– you know what? It's getting late. I need to sleep.
Ma: I'm sorry. I don't remember anything from before today. I got nervous when y–
Z: It's fine. It's fine, it's okay, you can sleep in the library and we can figure everything out tomorrow.
Ma: There's a bedroom in the library!?
Z: Yeah, we built one after a certain incident.
Ma: Oh, I thought it was about you spending too much time here again.
Z: Hah! Nah, I have a house.
Makena follows Zuri inside and he shows her the bedroom.
Z: I'm thinking of building a shelter in the library, since we had a problem recently and everyone took shelter here so… Yeah.
Ma: Nice.
Z: Anyways. I'm going home. Have a good night, don't burn anything, don't kill anyone please. There's some books if you get bored or something.
Ma: Good night.
Zuri goes back to his house, hoping to finally rest after a long night.
He looks at his clock and realises it's still relatively early, so he gets the untitled stolen book and goes to read it. He was planning on going to the library to read it, but that's out of the question now.
Zuri goes straight to the part that caught his eyes when he first got the book. For some reason he isn't able to contain himself and spends hours reading the book before realising it's too late and finally going to sleep.
