1975th Year, 1st Day

The tomb was mostly empty but here and there, especially in the halls for the more recent dead could be seen other mourners. Most of them were adults who didn’t so much as glance at Aniani, though a few were accompanied by children, all at least a few years older than Aniani.

Strangely these other children’s reflections in the mirrors were fuzzy and distorted so much so that some of their reflections looked like ghosts and for the majority of the teenagers it was barely visible. As for the adults it was like they didn’t have any reflections at all.

Mysterious and shocking as these sights were, Aniani was quite familiar with them and wasn’t bothered by them at all but even took them for granted. To them it was all quite ordinary.

They didn’t even take a second glance at the sight and instead steady and surely made their way into the hall of dead were the deceased from around five years ago lay.

Every hall of the dead was organized in the same manner, on the columns would be marks that indicated years and on the walls behind the commons were shelves that indicated months ordered in the first month lower and the latter months higher.

Conveniently for the child sized height of Aniani who was actually a bit short for their age, the urn they sought was on a ground level shelf. Aniani knelt in front of it, and silently prayed as well as held a silent conversation with them.

Surprisingly to some the conversation the child had with their mother was not at all childlike, although it was mainly a report on what they were doing, it was done in a robotic and emotionless seeming way and rather than describe things based on how ‘interesting’ it was or how much fun they were having, interspersed with complaints like a normal child would.

Aniani instead stated calmly each and every action they had taken yesterday, along with their thoughts and opinions described with words like “efficiently” or “capability”. They did not seem sad, angry or even happy and comforted their face was like always a blank slate. It was especially still because their mouths didn’t move, for they had held this ‘conversation’ entirely through sign language.

Once they had finished their summary report to their mother, or perhaps their ritual organization of themselves, they just stiffly stayed in the same upright position and stared at the urn for a while.

On the urn was written the concise summery of their mother’s life from birth till death. Aniani had luckily learned how to read by the time they had started to get curious about their mother around 2 years ago, and thus since starting these occasional grave site visits it hadn’t been long before they had the whole biography memorized, including the parts you had to turn the urn to see.

While they had the whole thing memorized, being a child, even if an abnormal one, there were some things written that they didn’t completely understand. However they loved those parts the most, because the parts that they already understood probably would never change, but in regards to the parts which were currently mysteries, they were openings that could possibly allow Aniani to learn more about the mother they had never really known.

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She had died not that long after Aniani’s birth.

Around the time Aniani was finally satisfied with the time they spent at their mother’s grave and had stood up to leave, most of the other children of the clan of Aniani’s age were being woken up by their parents or older siblings and quickly assisted with getting ready, before they were escorted by whoever was free to the place the clan had set aside to educate their children.

And it was to that place that Aniani was also now heading to.

The way to get to the education center location, was a bit complex as it was one of the most protected places in the clan hide out and thus was like a maze, but Aniani was well used to the trek, as they had been traveling it by themself ever since their aunt had escorted them the once and never again.

Though admittedly the first few times they had occasionally needed to look for fellow students and their guardians and then follow them part of the way, because they had forgotten some of it.

Aniani wasn’t well liked by the general people of the clan for various reasons and most of them felt uneasy around them partly because of that, but luckily most of the people they had followed hadn’t noticed them, or if they did they either weren't those sorts of people and if they were they ignored them. One time though there was one who did notice, and also did not ignore them and they had quickly gathered their charge into their arms and took off at speeds so fast that Aniani had no hope to keep up.

However luckily in that case, they had remembered most of the route by that time, and though they had been late they had managed to get there before class had really started, though, it was a close enough call that it had still put them into the bad books of the instructor who had been lecturing at the time.

Probably as a punishment, the instructor had called on them for questions quite frequently, and sadly though they had already taught themselves to read with the help of their uncle, they had been still an ignorant child quite lacking in knowledge and thus unable to answer, at least to the instructors satisfaction.

Half the questions had been about the lecture itself, and although they had remembered quite a lot of what the instructors had said and despite the fact that the questions had been asked right after the lecture they had been quite far from remembering it all, and when they had forgotten a major part that that instructor had immediately pointed out.

Many of students had laughed at their mistake, and the after looking like they would have laughed if they hadn’t been a fully trained adult, the teacher had chided also them. But although their face was like a mask, Aniani had the feeling that they were also smirking or possibly laughing on the inside.

This time however Aniani was if not exactly on time then definitely a little early, which was proven when they got to the stone room where the lecture portion of their education took place and found only a few other students, their guardians casually still there and talking with the instructors.

After a brief glance to take the sight in, they were speaking too low for Aniani to hear them. Aniani went to sit in the spot they usually sat in which was near to the center of the space set aside for the students to sit in. They were careful to insure that their positioning would be likely to line up with the other children when they came in.

The instructors liked to see even rows of students. There was a time that Aniani had seen one rambunctious boy thwart this seating arrangement and the teacher had forced them to sit in front of the front row directly in sight of the instructor, and had picked on them for most of the questions, as well as for the slightest ‘posture’ violation.