Cato sat halfway up the steps of the Elka tower, watching the Fukas go about their business. His throbbing ankle did not relish the prospect of getting back down.

The village looked archaic. Like a medieval village out of the middle ages.

From three storeys up, it looked picturesque. It could pass for a tourist resort, with its unpainted wooden houses and simple clothing. If any of them went so far to be authentic as to eschew proper roads and crammed all the buildings inside a palisade with spikes of wood pointing outwards.

Down on the ground, the lack of running water and electricity made life uncomfortable for Cato. He was already feeling the heat and Irld did not have enough water for him to waste it by showering, without hot water. The communal toilet pits at one edge of the village stank badly and weren't even segregated by sex.

Oh, to miss the conveniences of modern life. These people who lived like this all the time had no idea and would call him pampered beyond belief. But it still didn't change the fact that he was feeling hot, sweaty and unclean.

Surprisingly, he didn't miss his parents or his sister so much as the fact that he didn't have his computer. Or Internet. Cato wondered what kind of person that made him.

"Oh, you're that strange guy Danine brought in the other day," a voice made him look up, "I recognize that clothing. "

The little girl looked down at him, peering over the edge of the steps from the platform above.

"Are you one of the Elkas? What's your name?" Cato asked. He couldn't see her wings from here.

"I'm Ri, the youngest of Ka. "

She clambered over the edge and swung herself inwards around the edge. Her half-extended wings flapped once and she landed heavily on the steps above him.

Cato's hand was already halfway to her. To jump down like that? What if she fell off? No, they could fly, of course, she wouldn't be afraid of heights.

Ri stood up completely unruffled and performed a strange wriggle that folded her wings into a neat but extremely large stack. It reminded him of an elementary school student carrying an overloaded schoolbag. If schoolbags were made of fluffy white feathers and were larger than the kid herself. Indeed, from the way she leaned forward to walk towards him, she was clearly top-loaded.

"Are you all right? You didn't break a leg or something?" Cato asked worriedly. That landing was hard! He heard her feet slap into the stone with a sharp crack.

"Why would I?" Ri cocked a head curiously.

"Um... Normally people don't jump from their first floor to the ground. You could break bones that way. " Cato had the sinking feeling that he was just going to get told off for lacking basic knowledge.

Ri just shrugged, "Here, put your hands out. "

She got him to try lifting her from her feet, and Cato's eyes almost popped out when he saw her standing on his hands. She weighed only a few kilograms?! She was definitely heavier than that! Even her wings alone should be tens of kilograms!

"I can make myself lighter. It helps me fly," Ri said. She gradually got heavier and Cato let her step off.

"That's amazing! How do you do it?"

Ri shrugged again, "I don't know. I just... do it?"

Cato sighed. Oh well.

"Can you make yourself so light you just float into the air?" Cato asked after a moment. In retrospect, those wings didn't look big enough to fly with, so some sort of ability to help seemed obvious.

Ri frowned, "Maybe? But I wouldn't try it. Just flying already makes me too tired. "

They sat in silence for a moment then Ri piped up.

"Have you seen my wings?" she asked brightly.

"May I?"

She grinned broadly and unfurled her right side past him and out into the air.

And it kept on going. The wingtip was almost four meters away and the wing itself was almost a meter in breadth before she stopped. The trailing edge of the feathers nearest her body were all the way down to her knees.

"It's not as big as Ka's," Ri complained and tried to stretch it out a bit, "I guess I'm still just a kid. "

Despite her apparent complaints, the pride in her face was obvious. She watched him closely as he stared wide-eyed.

"It's beautiful," Cato said. The white-grey feathers were tiny and soft. Almost like a coat of downy fur.

"They must be really powerful, to be able to lift you," he wondered aloud, "they might even be able to knock me down!"

Ri shook her head, "Ka always said that we must take care of our wings.  If I hit something, they could break and I'll never fly again.  "

Cato nodded, that made sense too.  He reached out...

"Eee?" Ri flushed and jerked away as he brushed a hand over the feathers. Wait what? What did he do now?

She made that strange wriggle again and tucked away her wing before staring at him wide eyed.

"Sorry, was I not supposed to touch you?"

"Ah, ah," she backed away, face going completely red, "Grooming is for couples only!"

And with that, she half-ran, half-tumbled off the stairs to the street below. A few moments later, a white pair of wings soared into the sky.

Oh, whew. At least he hadn't done their equivalent of groping her. Maybe it was more like trying to brush her hair. "Sorry, I didn't know!" he shouted uselessly.

Cato remembered that feeling of pure softness under his fingers, like a pillow of feathers.

Cato was about to make his way down the stairs when he saw a shadow covering the valley from one side. At first it looked like an unusually fast storm cloud but no cloud moved that fast. The world got darker and darker until the sun went out completely a few minutes later.

He looked up at the sky when it was dim enough to look and got yet another shock. The sun was being completely eclipsed by the giant red moon, plunging the land into a midday night! In fact, apart from the central cooking fire and Toal's forge, there was almost no other light source. The minutes of darkness seemed to quiet even the village as people spoke softer and moved more carefully in the darkness.

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The stars were clearly visible and their radiance shone brightly, in defiance of the sun's corona around the giant red moon. In fact, there were a few large and bright ones visibly moving across the sky. One of the brightest crossed a weaker one while Cato stood on the stone stairs watching the clear night sky.

"Ah, there you are. Finally. "

He was jerked out his reverie at Danine's voice. She sounded slightly out of breath.

"I... just wanted some time alone," Cato muttered.

"It's all right. What were you doing?"

Oh. "I never got a chance to ask about the moon," Cato pointed at the massive red orb the size of a fist, still hiding the sun, "do you have any idea what that is?"

Danine raised an eyebrow, "you don't know about Selna? The god of the moons lives there. "

"And the eclipse? What do you call the sun?"

"OH! You came from the Farside!" Danine eyes were glittering again, "No wonder you don't seem to know anything. "

What did she mean by Farside? And while it was true that he didn't know anything about this world, it also stung a bit.

"Mama always told me that the sun was the source of life. The elder also said that Selna is there to tell us where we are," she puffed up her chest proudly, "you see, Selna always stays in the same place. It has a different place in the sky depending on where you go. For example, in Inath, Selna is lower in the sky than here. And, every day, the Little Night happens as the sun crosses behind Selna. The time of the Little Night, tells you how close to the Farside you are. Very early and late Little Nights means you are closer to the Farside. Since our Little Night happens in late afternoon, we're quite far away. "

Ha... that was the darndest thing Cato had ever heard. That was nothing at all like the little he knew of astronomy, but it had an internal consistency that made him feel like he was the one being ridiculous.

"The Inath scholars might be able to tell you more about the lesser moons," Danine continued, pointing at the two bright dots Cato was watching earlier, "I can't ever remember how to identify which ones they are. And they say some people can use them to navigate on the Farside where you can't see Selna. "

Cato looked back at the night sky, wondering how many moons there were. Apparently Danine thought the scholars didn't know either.

They watched the other tiny moons chase each other around the sky, some of them even seemed to go backwards at times.

The celestial dance came to an end a while later as the sun began to peek out from behind Selna again, chasing away the darkness for another few hours before nightfall.

"Come on, since you don't know anything, let me show you the piyos. They're really cute!" Danine bounded down the stairs two at a time.

Enough with that, he knew this was an unfamiliar world. Cato sighed and picked his way down more carefully. His twisted ankle protested every time he took a step.

He looked up one more time at the points of light chasing each other in the brightening sky. It was fascinating, in a detached way. When there were monsters to worry about, the stars somehow seemed less important.

He stepped carefully over the furry balls, trying to find a spot that wasn't about to be occupied by the fluffy animals.

This was just one of the handful of piyo pens in the village. Built on the second floor, with solid walls and doors to keep the furballs inside. According to Danine, the piyos didn't like high places and would stay away from the windows.

She picked one up and stroked it for a while until it began to purr gently.

"Here, it should be fine," she passed it to him with a grin.

Cato nodded and held the piyo with both hands. It squirmed and mewed until he worked out how to avoid crushing it. The long brown fur was amazingly cool, despite how hot he felt, it was even taking the heat away from his fingers. Was this how the piyos cooled off?

The coat also seemed to conceal four stubby but powerful legs, they were almost invisible under that fur. The long tail, as long as the piyo's body, had much shorter fur except a tennis ball sized bob of white fur at the end.

"The tail bob here tells you whether they're male or female," Danine explained, "white ones, like the one you're holding, are male. Browns are female. They eat almost anything, including grass and anything we eat, so feeding them is easy. "

The ball twisted out of his grasp and scampered up his arm before Cato could react. Then it nestled down on his head, the white bob on the tail hanging just above his eyes. Come to think of it, most of the piyos were sleeping on the floor curled up with their tails, the smaller ones curled up against the brown-tailed mothers. Only the nearest few were investigating them curiously, sniffling at feet and rubbing against his leg.

"Aw, it likes you. That's so cute!" Danine grinned.

Cato shook his head slowly. The piyo chirped in annoyance and jumped off his head to curl around his shoulders then ran down to the floor. "Sorry, did I disturb it?"

"Nah, it's all right. They're dumb. It won't remember that for more than a few minutes. "

"Hm. Do you keep them as pets perhaps?" Cato asked. Their fur looked like it might be useful. In fact, the bed he woke up in was probably piyo fur.

Danine blinked at him for a while, "no? We eat them. They're delicious and the fur coat makes for good clothing. You had some in the soup this morning. "

Hah. They were indeed delicious. But still... "Don't you find it a bit disturbing? That you're eating these exceedingly cute critters?"

Danine just stared at him, "Huh?"

"I mean, you called them cute, yes?"

She nodded and gathered up the disturbed piyo that was circling on the floor morosely. "Mhm, look at it!" she stroked it for a while to calm it down, "how can you not call it cute?"

"And you don't find anything wrong with eating them?" Cato asked again.

Danine cocked her head, "Uh? No?"

Ha... he could only sigh at that.