It was a fine day that day for the townspeople of Kokko Yolat and its surrounding villages. The weather was good which was perfect for business. The rainy season just ended and that morning the sun was shining brightly enough for people to visit the town in preparation for the market day.

It was the same at the north entrance of Kokko Yolat. Children with toys made of feathers in their hands were running around the busy road, together with the big carriages and transport vehicles being pulled by various animals going in and out of the huge entrance gate.

Most of the adults beside the road sported big packages behind their backs. Some were made of cloth, while some had big woven baskets and leather bags.

They dressed in a cacophony of colors but most of them were in drabber colors of gray, black and dirty white. Regardless of who they were, they walked on that road with happy faces and jovial gait as they went their way, either to take part of the busy market day or for the preparation of the coming celebration in the afternoon.

The Baven of Gili’s son had just woken up from his three months long comatose state and the Baven had deemed all the yolats of their bavendom to celebrate it with free foods and drinks.

But amidst the positive atmosphere, under one of the groves of the lush flamma trees beside the street, laid a mound of something. Some people would have ignored it thinking it was some heap of garbage if not for the fact that some people could see that it was shaped like a person and presumed it was a corpse.

No identifying features could be seen from it, as the part that was supposed to be the head looked more like a piece of a plot of soil. It was muddied and a heap of garbage had covered it. If the passersby had not known what a face should look like, they would not have guessed where the presumed corpse's mouth started or where its eyes were supposed to be.

The only telling part that it was a human once, was through the rags it wore and the mopped of unmistakable hair in its head.

Most of the passerby just passed it and some blatantly ignored it. Bodies lying in random places was not a new thing for anyone in the town. It would probably not be the last corpse they would see today.

But there were still those townsfolk who had a sense of decorum to know that a lying corpse by the roadside was not a good thing for the health of the townspeople. At the same time, it would also spoil the fun activities they would have in the afternoon.

A group of middle aged women stopped beside the corpse. They were dressed in gray Amino dresses which were composed of long drapes of gray floor length skirts, a long sleeve top with various different colors of ribbons wrapping their upper body, and a head covering. They were on their way back to their homes when one of the women stopped the whole group to inspect the presumed corpse.

A fat lady who had wide round cheeks and huge red lips, took the lead of the group and inspected the body herself. The bells in her brown tolsene, a neck accessory with a square fixture in the middle, jiggled as she prodded the body with a random stick she found on the roadside. The street was loud but she was sure she did not hear any response from the body. It did not even move.

She turned to the other women standing a few meters away from her, looking at her with curiosity and questions in their eyes, “It’s a dead body,” she shouted at them.

They all nodded in understanding. It was not hard to figure out. For one, the body was almost bone like, dirtied and as still as the dead when the fat woman prodded it. It looked like just any of the dead bodies they had seen before. In fact, they were thankful it did not move. It was always bad news when dead bodies moved.

What made them more convinced was because it was obviously a woman. The body had long hair and in the kingdom of Flynosa, only women could have long hair.

“Checked its neck, Mostang,” a woman with a basket in her head suggested to the fat lady.

Mostang nodded and poke the stick to the body’s neck pushing aside the neckline of rags the body wore. She shook her head when she saw nothing in its neck except for dirt and mud.

The other women also saw the absence of anything in its neck. They simultaneously looked at the body with pity and dismay.

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“She must be a divorced woman,” Mostang said, pointing at the fact that a tolsene was missing from its neck.

The women all nodded in grim agreement. It was always women who were divorced that were often found as a corpse everywhere. It was a common thing and they had seen similar cases before but they still felt pity and sympathy welling in their hearts despite how this was also a reminder to them.

“She looked familiar though,” a scrawny woman said, cocking her head thinking at where she could have seen the body.

“Could be some homeless person,” the basket woman suggested. “Someone should call the lotarics.” She suggested and looked at the other women around.

No one offered to go but they all synchronously looked at the group of young men a few paces from them, talking and laughing with each other.

Feeling the gazes of their mothers at them, some of the young men looked back confused.

A young man who had been listening to his mother and the other women all this time, explained to the others, “They wanted us to call the lotarics. Findo," he gestured to the twelve year old boy who was currently talking in the group, "you go."

The boy who was animatedly telling his story stopped, scratched his head and nodded unwillingly to the order. He wanted to continue telling his story but he was the youngest so he had no choice but to immediately run towards the yolat center where the lotarics building was located.

The women then sheltered themselves below a Flamma tree to protect themselves from the direct sunlight and continued their conversation. They intentionally chose to change a new topic that has no relation to the divorce woman’s corpse as they were in public and they had to be extra mindful of what they were saying.

They also have to treasure the time they have to talk with other women. They might be concerned about a corpse lying beside the road, but they were more inclined to use the excuse of waiting for the lotaric to lengthen their time talking with each other.

The young men on the other side continued what they were doing without care for the corpse. They had now circled a lanky teenager with their faces curious and spirited.

“Did master Flinton really see the Flying Kingdom?” one of the young men asked to the lanky teenager. He was asking about the son of the yolat’s toutan, the chief of the yolat, who had just come back from Paneto, the capital city of Flynosa.

In fact, all of the youth had so much to ask about the capital but they were more curious about the discussion of Flying Kingdom that the lanky youth just shared.

“Truly!” the lanky youth replied.

One of the youth looked at him disbelievingly, “How could he do that? He was only a namtan. They said only the sanor could be permitted to see it.”

“It’s true," the lanky youth insisted. "Master Flinton’s uncle knew someone who is a sanor,”

One of the youth with a huge scar in his face nodded in agreement. “That’s true. Father had seen his uncle, he’s rich!”

“Then — then what happened?” a jittery boy cut in.

“He said it sat up above the sky. It was so huge that it covered the whole sky. He said it has wide wings with many golden feathers. And — and it was flying in the sky, moving from place to place,” he gestured his hands like he was flying, “and he even had a golden feather with him, directly from the wings of the Flying Kingdom. He said it passed above him and a single feather fell down. He had to fight with others to take it. I even saw the feather! It was so cool!”

Some of the teens have yearning and amazement in their eyes believing what the lanky youth was saying, while some of the older ones were skeptical of the story. Rumors and legends about the Flying Kingdom differ from person to person so they did not know which was true and made up, but it could not change the fact that it existed and it should be majestic.

They still have yearning in their hearts to see the flying kingdom once in their life and if they were lucky, to be the first one to set foot in it.

They conversed there for more than ten minutes until the boy who was asked to call the lotarics came back with a man dressed in all black clothes, with the badge of the lotarics fastened in his chest.

The oldest of the young men approached the lotaric and explained to him about the body.

The lotaric moved near towards the body and inspected it with only his eyes. He then turned towards the young man and nodded, then ordered them to disperse.

The women and the youths followed the lotaric’s order and started walking towards their respected home.

One of the women who had been silent all throughout the event looked back one last time at the corpse. She was about to turn her head back when she saw in her periphery that one of the fingers of the corpse moved. She looked back again and made sure if she saw it really. After a few seconds of making sure the finger moved, she shook her head when it did not and continued walking.

She must have been seeing things, and it could be because she did not have breakfast yet. She followed behind the group of women hungry and pissed, and secretly glared at one of the women, the one who was responsible for her lack of meal. She cursed secretly inside her that it was not her fault their grono favored her yesterday. She wanted to yell that she chose food more than the affection of their grono. But that would easily make her a divorce woman and she did not want her fate to be like the corpse just now.

After the women and the young men went away and were out of sight, the lotaric sighed, and a scowl appeared in his face. “Hitty day, body disposal it is.”

He sighed again, shook his head and went back to the lotaric quarters to get a wheelbarrow.

For a time, no one had checked back at the corpse so no one saw that the corpse's eyelids spasmed a little for a moment. In fact they didn't know that a young woman from a different world, who will make waves in their world in the future, had just woken up in the body just a while ago.