Smirnie POV

I entered the house I had lived in for my entire life.

“Tanami! Kids! Greet our guest!”

I said loudly so everyone in the house could hear. It was starting to get dark outside, so Tanami, my dear wife, would likely be in the kitchen. Dora, my youngest daughter was right in front on the table, hacking away at her slate till we announced our presence. Perripi was beside her, looking towards us with mixed emotions. Roda, my son, was likely in the kitchen with his mother. He had always been more of a mama’s boy.

“Father. You brought Satoshi.”

I couldn’t exactly discern the sentiment behind that statement. It was accusatory but it didn’t give off a bad feeling. She had applied ointment to her lip where I had hit her.

“He agreed to come when I invited him.”

I clarified even though there wasn’t a need to.

“Hey again Perripi.”

“You remember my name Feriana.”

“Call me miss Feriana! I’m older than you, girl!”

“Ain’t no way in hell am doing that, Feriana. And you stop calling me a girl! Didn’t you agree that I was a warrior!”

(What in the world..?)

I was having a bit of a hard time understanding what was happening. They had only met today but they had already achieved some kind of perfect synchronisation that only friends could, after spending years together. Though it was hard to call them friends…

“You are a girl. Hmph.”

Feriana crossed her arms under her chest emphasising it. They were normal sized, but bigger than my daughter who was on the smaller side of the spectrum. I stopped my subtle examination of our guest’s chest as my wife made her way inside the room with Roda. Now the whole family was here.

"You! How dare you! This has nothing to do with boob size!"

Tanami covered Roda's eyes with her tail and his ears with her hand. Even she seemed dumbfounded at what was going on.

"Oh, but it does. Boobs are a mark of a woman's growth and her love for her man."

Feriana said smugly.

"The hell? The second one is obviously made up!"

"So you at least agree with the first."

Ah, clever move.

"What?? No! You set me up!"

"Haha! I win this one!"

Feriana laughed while clutching her stomach while Perripi stood fuming.

"Feriana."

Thankfully, Satoshi decided to put a stop to their stupidity. Feriana immediately tried to stop, but she couldn't control it completely. She put her hands on her mouth and tried to calm herself down.

"You better do as he says, you fake wife!"

"Perripi."

Perripi tried to come back with a petty jab but she was shut up by Satoshi as well. Though for some reason, she seemed extremely surprised at that. Even Feriana's laughter had completely died down and she also gawked at Satoshi. Finally, Perripi's expression changed as she slowly sat back down in her chair, having found a nice and interesting spot on the table to stare at. The smile on her face and the slight blush was uncanny but there was to be a unilateral decision to ignore her at the moment.

Satoshi stepped forward, looking towards the same table. I followed his gaze to find him looking at the girl behind the table. Not Perripi; he was looking at my 3 year-old daughter, Dorafi.

I suddenly remembered she was the one who had interacted with him the most over his short stay here.

"Dora, come here. You've met him before, remember?"

I beckoned my cute daughter over to us.

She clumsily slipped down the chair without any help and ran over with small steps and landed in my hands as I bent down.

"Remember him? He's Satoshi. A human."

"Sato."

She did seem to remember him as she left my hands and walked over to Satoshi who made no indication to move at her approach, be it forward or backwards.

She sniffed him first and then tried to look inside his robe.

Even I was curious, so I discreetly shifted in my place to get a better view. Unfortunately, I was standing to his left so I could only see his right leg from the gap that Dora had opened.

But it became clear that his leg was still missing when Dora sneaked into his robe and a small body shape appeared where his left leg should have been.

"Hey, Dora. Come out of there."

I was about to fetch Dora to stop her from annoying Satoshi but he stopped me with a hand. His expression told me he didn't mind her antics one bit.

Suddenly he moved and slid backwards, revealing a sitting Dora. She got up to chase after him, but he kept sliding, always letting her miss by the slightest margin.

I had seen Satoshi walk on our way here but then he was going straight. Moreover, covered by his long robe, some possibility was there that he was indeed walking with two legs but now I was sure. He was indeed flying, like Perripi had told me. It did explain how he made his place here originally and how he had escaped in the middle of the night that day.

By now, Tanami had moved to my side and whispered into my ear to explain things. Ah, that was right!

"Satoshi, Feriana. Let me introduce you to everyone. Even though Satoshi has met them once already."

Dora finally managed to catch Satoshi as he looked up due to my calling out. Though, getting caught was most likely because he decided to get caught than being distracted by me.

I started the introductions for the two sides and explained how Satoshi had met Perripi's party. Perripi got back to normal at some point and took on the task to give her story by herself. She didn't mention the part where we had a disagreement and I took over from where Satoshi arrived. I also skipped the part where I antagonised him and he had to give us a demonstration of his powers before I got back to my senses. I finished by telling them that the village leader is preparing a house for the two to stay over for the night. Tanami claimed that they could stay over in ours, joined by Perripi's support but I adamantly refused saying that a man and a woman are better off having a separate house to themselves. I stressed at the part where I claimed Feriana was Satoshi's woman so that Perripi wouldn't get any funny ideas.

"At least you two will stay for dinner right? I will boil some meat to increase the serving for two more people."

Tanami insisted they at least have dinner with us, even if they wouldn't stay the night over.

"That would be lovely! Please allow me to help you out."

Feriana exclaimed with a clap and offered to help Tanami out in the kitchen.

"Oh no. I cannot have guests help out. And it is not really a job for two people so don't worry. All of you just sit and enjoy."

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Tanami refused Feriana's help with a smile and a wave of her hand.

"As she says. Don't worry Feriana. My mom is a superwoman when it comes to the kitchen."

Perripi also told Feriana to say, their earlier feud all but seemingly forgotten.

"Fufufufu."

My wife left the room while laughing at her daughter's comments.

"So how about you tell us how you met Satoshi."

Perripi chimed in again.

“Ohhhh… That..? it was amazing.”

Feriana said, suddenly losing herself in some happy memories. Satoshi sat on the floor at the back with Dora. She had taken over her slate and was drawing with Satoshi, though I could tell his attention was on our conversation.

“He saved me from some bad people who tried to rape me.”

“....”

She looked so ecstatic as she said that I was confused about what to think about her statement.

“And then.. well, some stuff happened.. and we decided to go on a journey. Now here we are.”

Feriana looked a bit uneasy while saying that. The 'stuff' must have been something really bad.

“Huh?”

Perripi let out a sound of confusion.

“Wait, you just gave us the start and the end of the story!”

“Well, in summary, that is what happened.”

Feriana replied to Perripi thoughtfully. I was starting to get a headache with these girls.

“If that’s your entire story, then I’m the same as you! He saved me from the climbertooths and now here we are!”

I just couldn’t understand their need for competition.

“If you put it that way…”

Feriana continued again.

“Once I took him to my home, I realised my father had gone away and was never coming back.”

What surprised me more wasn’t that she had gone through so much hardships but that she was strong enough to talk about it so casually.

“So I took Satoshi to my room and took off his clothes and..”

“Okay, that’s enough.”

I decided to put a stop to their stupidity. Clearly, Feriana was about to go into explicit details of her relationship with Satoshi to mess with Perripi.

“I have a question, miss Feriana.”

Thankfully, Roda came to the rescue. He my 15 year old son and the only one I had left, after I lost my first two at the hands of Sheraja, the mightiest beast in the forest. He was by no means a quiet child, just he hadn’t gotten a chance to speak with all the new things happening around him.

“Oh you do? Sure sure, ask away.”

Feriana happily nodded to herself as she was put on the spot.

“What kind of magic does mister Satoshi use?”

Ohhhhhh.. Now this was something even I was curious about.

“Umm..”

Feriana looked a little troubled by that question but I was really hoping to get know as well so I refrained from making any comments like “You don’t have to answer if you don’t want to.”

Suddenly there was a shuffling sound from behind and I saw Satoshi moving. He picked up Dora and stood up. His movements were unnatural, like liquid, as he stood up without the need of any support, holding Dora in his arms. He brought her over and handed her to me.

“Magic.”

He said, looking at Roda. I guess he could follow our conversation.

“Wind.”

He said, again, lifting his right palm. Everyone looked at it as a small wind started to gather on his palm and rapidly evolve into a tiny tornado.

“Whoaaa..”

Both Roda and Perripi were excited to see the fancy display. Well, I was excited as well but I had to maintain my stoic attitude in front of my children.

Satoshi rotated his hand and the tornado stayed upright, independent of his movements. He kept going and brought the tiny tornado to rotate on his finger and then it jumped across each. Finally, it came back to where it started, on his palm and Satoshi entrapped it into a fist. He opened it again to reveal it was gone.

“That was amazing!”

Roda was amazed. As was everyone else.

“Can you do more???”

He excitedly asked Satoshi. Even I wanted to see more, so I didn’t stop him from asking.

“Wait.”

Satoshi replied, conforming to my hopes.

He spread his arms as he slowly lifted off the ground. His robe came off on its own to reveal his inner clothes which were simple pants and shirt. The left leg of his pant dangled with no substance underneath. Satoshi was still missing a leg but he had had no trouble moving around.

One of the chairs on Satoshi’s side slowly slid out from under the table and flew to behind of Satoshi letting him sit on it.

“Feriana. Stand.”

He called out to his companion. She did as he said and got off her chair. Suddenly, she started to fly as well. She went around the room in a circle and came to beside Satoshi. Her body then turned horizontal and went under Satoshi’s chair to come up the other side and stood upright again.

*clap* *clap* *clap* *clap*

Dora and Roda happily clapped their hands at the brilliant display. Feriana slowly flew back to where she was taken up from.

“Don’t move.”

Satoshi said, pointing to Roda.

“Huh, what?”

“Don’t move your body. Just relax. He cannot control you very well if you flail around so be careful not to do that or you will fall.”

“What do..?”

Before Roda could ask what she was talking about, his body lifted off and he flailed and he fell over.

“Rodavie!”

I quickly stood up to help him but he was on the other side of the table. But the sound of him hitting the floor never came.

“Don’t move.”

Satoshi said again. I kept standing, apprehensive.

Slowly, Roda’s body lifted up as some external force made him upright.

“Don’t worry. Nothing will happen to you. Satoshi is very good at this. You just need to relax your body and let him take over.”

Feriana shared her expert opinion and Roda nodded. He took a deep breath and left his hands dangle. Suddenly, the main door of the house opened and a lot of air moved in, rotating around Roda.

“What happened!?”

Tanami shouted from inside the kitchen and ran outside to see what the noise was about. She came just in time to see Satoshi escape with her son, both flying, out of the door.

“Rodavie!!!!”

She screamed at the sight.

I ran up to her sight to calm her down.

“Don’t panic. Calm down, Tanami.”

“What is happening!? Where is he taking our son!?!?”

She started to turn hysteric. The loss of her eldest sons must have been coming back to her.

“Don’t worry miss Tanami.”

Feriana said with a giggle.

“Satoshi just took your son to let him experience what freedom tastes like.”

“Yeah, mom. Don’t worry. Roda will be okay.”

Perripi followed up after Feriana with an unnatural amount of confidence. I also wanted to trust Satoshi but inevitably, it was about my own son so even I was worried, but I had to be calm in front of Tanami.

“Don’t worry. Our son will be just fine.”

I gave my half-empty reassurances to Tanami.

------------------

I managed to convince Tanami not to worry and sent her back into the kitchen. I took on her worries so I was immensely relieved when Satoshi came back with Roda 10 minutes later, their hair a mess.

“THAT WAS AWWWEEESOMMMEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!”

He screamed at the top of his lungs as soon as he landed back into the house.

-------------------

Tanami came back out and breathed a sigh of relief to see her son safe. After that Perripi insisted to have a go as well, despite my and Feriana’s protests. Satoshi obliged her and they came back 10 minutes later, with Perripi just as enthralled as Roda had been. He offered me as well but I politely refused. Truth be told, I was scared but I made it out that I didn’t want to trouble our guests any further. Tanami refused, though she outright claimed that she was scared and there was no way her heart could take it. Dora was too young, so she wasn’t even offered a chance, not that there was any way I would have let her go out of my sight like that.

“Feriana. How come Satoshi doesn’t use chants? I don’t know much about magic since the only magic user in our village currently is Bombatta, who is a healer. Though every time he needs to heal someone, he has to use a chant. Is it an anomaly? That mages don’t, in general, use chants?”

We had all been directing our questions to Feriana since Satoshi couldn’t talk much. He would sometimes put a few words in but it was few and in-between.

She looked troubled at my question, almost a little scared as well.

“Mages cannot usually use magic without chants… Satoshi is a little special in that way.”

“Oh, is that so?”

I could tell she didn’t want to answer so I didn’t pursue. Though I obviously won’t hold back if anyone else wanted to ask deeper into it.

“Really? That’s amazing! I want to learn magic as well! Can I dad!?”

Roda, who had been absolutely captivated by the charm of magic, asked me.

“I’m not really sure how it is supposed to work….”

I looked towards our guests if they could give any insight into his question.

“I’m not really sure either. I come from Domania and there, you have to take a test in the mage’s guild and then train under a professional mage for several years to hone your skills.”

Domania was the beast people’s kingdom, ruled by the lion people. It was too far from this place to make it there on foot just to take an exam. And there was a criterion to train there for several years, so there was no way I would let Roda go.

“Though I can at least tell you this much for sure that you shouldn’t take Satoshi as an example to judge mages. As I said, he’s somewhat special and normally mages are not nearly as powerful.”

Rodavie lowered his head, dejected, while Tanami tried to console him.

“I am wind elemental.”

Suddenly, Satoshi said out of nowhere. He would often do that since he most likely couldn’t really tell when was a good time to say something himself.

“Elemental?”

Perripi asked back. I had heard the word, but I couldn’t put my finger on where I’d heard it. Feriana looked at Satoshi in surprise while he calmly but intently looked at us, seeing our reactions.

“Isn’t that from that story? Where five humans appear, each wielding the power to control one of the common elements?”

Tanami put forth her opinion. Her input also helped jog my memory.

“Yeah, I’ve heard as well. I doubt the kids have though.”

It was a long time ago I heard it. I thought it was a fairy tail.

“Fire, air, earth, light and water. The five common elements and five humans who could control them with their will. But if I’m not right, doesn’t the story portray the elementals in a dark light?”

“No, that’s not true!”

Feriana replied to our mutterings frantically.

“Satoshi is nothing like the stories say!”

“Is that so?”

I could agree with her there. There was no way this human lad here would go around the world bringing destruction and carnage.

“What’s this about, Father?”

Perripi asked. She had not been addressing me this entire time but her curiosity finally outdid her pride.

“It’s nothing. It’s just a fairy tail, or at least that’s what I thought. According to the story, five humans once appeared and they had absolute command over one of the common elements each. They go around adventuring and sightseeing. The story is about what they see and how they deal with different situations together. That’s almost it. I don’t remember anything about the incidents themselves though.”

I made up something about the second half of the story. They didn’t need to know the original said that the five humans killed a lot of people. It was most likely not true anyway.

“Whoaaa really? Satoshi is straight out of a legend??”

I could almost see the hearts in Perripi’s eyes.

“The story should have been very old since I heard it when I was a kid. There’s no way Satoshi is that old. From what I know, beast people and humans have similar lifespans. If he was from the elven race, then that would have been another matter.”

I looked towards Feriana again for answers but she shook her head.

“I don’t know any more than you do either. And I don’t think Satoshi does either.”

“Hmm.. Maybe ‘elemental’ is a title or something? That is inherited. And the story is about some great anscestor of his.”

“Could be.”

Feriana neither affirmed, nor denied our speculations as she claimed to be unaware of any of his circumstances and we couldn’t really get any answers out of Satoshi. The dinner proceeded on casually with chit-chats about random things. We asked Feriana about their future plans and she instead asked us if we knew of any civilisations nearby that they could visit. The only ones I knew of were Volaris, the lizard people’s city and Domania, the beast people’s kingdom. They had already visited Volaris on their way here. I didn’t know of any other place so I told them I’ll ask the village leader and let them know.

Soon, Borara and Kamudatou came to our house. They greeted all of us and chatted some with Perripi. They asked her about her lip but she brushed off the topic. Kamudatou told us he was supposed to guide our guests to their home for the night and we saw the three of them off. Tanami told them to come back in the morning to have breakfast with us. It had certainly been lively with them here and I wouldn’t mind having them come over again.

“Mister Smirnie. The leader calls for you. All the other hunters have already gathered.”

“Haah, I knew this was going to come.”

It was a standard practice whenever something major happened to hold a discussion with all the hunters in the village. The gatherers were also invited but unofficially, no one really cared about their opinions.

I was going to be scolded really bad but I was ready to take it like a man.

I saw off my family as well and left with Borara to the meeting.

I failed to notice Perripi sneak out after me in the direction of Kamu and our guests.