6 months. That is how long she had lived in this world. In that amount of time, she had managed to master the language.

“Who here is ready ^gb shgd& breakfast?”

Ok, maybe not master the language. But, she was making good progress. Including, drum roll, please.

*dun*dun*dun*dun*

Her name! Whatever the fuck that means. Also, the spelling didn't really line up with what the name sounded like, but she just chalked that up to still learning the nuances of this language. Her name sounded out like (who?), (A), (Bay). The first time she read it, her name sounded more like (Huh?), (Abe).

But those are the challenges of learning a new language. On the bright side, Huabe was now an information gatherer extraordinaire. She knew the baby sitters name was Relk, but also, more importantly, her family's names!

Case in point, that lazy sack of shit snoozing in the corner. Yantye, (Yan), (Tie). Or as she liked to call him, Yawntye. He was the second hatched, only four days older than herself. But the dude was big. Not overly large, but it was still slightly noticeable. She did not know how he grew to be so big. He ate the same food they all did. Perhaps it was the sleep? But he was still a lazy sack of shit regardless of how big he got.

She still remembered that day. Yantye had fallen to sleep on top of her! It wasn't anything life-threatening, but he was fucking heavy. She screamed in his ears, of course, to wake him up. But to no effect. He just kept on sleeping away. God, she still got mad to this day thinking about it.

Relk, the babysitter, lowered the bottle towards Huabe’s head. She reached out to grab it but was interrupted at the last second when the bottle was pulled away.

She saw Relk look down and Huabe followed her gaze. Down on the floor, currently attacking the young woman's shoe, was Tiaosu, (Tia), (Oh),(sue). He stopped for a second, seemed to notice he had been caught, and then darted away as fast as his little limbs could carry him. This was the trouble maker of the 4 siblings. She often theorized that he must have hidden a stash of sugar somewhere because she had no idea where he got so much energy. He also did not act the part of an older sibling, of which he was the eldest of them. At five days her senior, he was the oldest of them. He was also a god damn thief! Point in case, that devious scoundrel was headed right for the sleeping Yantye, probably to nab something off him.

But before he could nab something off of Yantye, her last brother stepped in the way. Duanso, (do), (an), (so). This brother of her’s probably didn't have one evil bone in his entire body. You would think a baby wouldn't have a sense of justice, and yet here he was. He had the heart of a lion, and the brain of a bird. She had once caught him defending her from a fly. A fly. A harmless black flying insect. Duanso had thrown himself, as best he could at the time, in between herself and the fly. Of course, with his weak little limbs, he was nowhere near her. The fly flew off and he had just looked up with a confused expression on his face. He was the last brother, only two days older than herself.

As she watched her siblings, she saw Duanso’s denseness on full display. Tiaosu simply went around Duanso, and the blockhead just sat there looking confused. It seemed that Duanso was a doer, not a thinker.

But she ignored her sibling for the time being and got back to eating.

.–...–.

The time was nigh. The outside world awaited.

Wenku, her father, set her down on the ground. Outside! The ground outside!

She could feel the grass between her fingers and the hard dirt beneath. Her three brothers were similarly marvelling at this new sensation. Duanso’s expression was especially priceless, his mouth hanging open in shock.

Of course, it didn't take long for Tiaosu to dart off. Followed shortly after by Duanso, and then, finally, Yantye, for even that lazy bones had enough energy to explore this new wide world. And soon, Huabe began to crawl as well. She was not one to be left behind.

–Radio voice (for fun)–

She soon overtook Yantye and then kept going until she was even with Duanso. They were neck and neck, crawling for speed and supremacy! What's this!? Huabe just tripped her brother! Oh, what a dirty maneuver by the clever Huabe! And with that dirty move, she pulls into second place. Yantye is still in last place, tailing behind Duanso.

Tiaosu seems to have a commanding lead, and he isn't giving it up easily folks! Huabe tries to overtake him, but the speedster is just too fast! What is his secret? Sugar? Spice? Everything nice? Who knows, but whatever it is, it’s working!

Whaa!? This is unbelievable! Huabe has truly reached into the abyss for this weapon in her arsenal. A grab, ladies and gentlemen! A grab! She truly embodies a crocodile with that grip, and she is not letting go!

Tiaosu is trying to break free, but it is futile! And with that one move, Huabe takes the lead!

–End–

All that struggle to take the lead of this baby procession. Her brothers were too stubborn for their own good. What if they crawled off a cliff? Then they would have no one to blame but themselves. At least with her in the lead, there would be no falling off cliffs for the foreseeable future…

If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Although, the argument could be made that no father would let their babies crawl around near a cliff. But you can never be too careful! Just disregard that they were in a courtyard surrounded by a veranda and walls.

Where should she lead her brothers? Looking back, she sees Yantye lying on the ground, about to fall asleep. Duanso was also lying on the ground but looked like he was about to cry. And Tiaosu was grabbing at his leg, also about to cry.

Huabe almost forgot that these were babies.

First, she went to Tiaosu and gave him the biggest hug her short arms could accomplish. That seemed to do the trick as she felt him relax in her arms. Then she crawled over to Duanso and did her best to pick him up off the ground, which was very challenging with such a weak body. But she managed to get him on his knees again. Finally, she crawled next to Yantye and gave his butt a good smack!

Thankfully, Yantye didn't break into tears, but just got up onto his knees and followed after her. After giving her an exasperated look, of course.

Now on the move, the four of them set off to explore the manicured lawn. What they found was. Disappointing. There didn't seem to be much else here but grass. But Huabe did spot the colour-changing tree on the other side of the lawn.

So, she began to make her way towards it.

When she was halfway there, she took a look behind her to check on her siblings. What she saw were faces filled with wonder and awe. And she was confused for a while until she gave her face a baby slap to remind herself.

Shaking her head, she continued onwards.

The four of them arrived at the colour-changing tree. It was even more beautiful up close. The bark of the tree was an iridescent brown colour like someone spilled oil all over the normal tree bark. But when she reached out to touch it, it did not feel oily but instead just felt like regular rough tree bark.

When a cloud passed overhead, the leaves shimmered to that beautiful red colour. The bark of the tree stayed the same, not changing much at all.

The tree was large, some people would say huge. It towered overhead, and she couldn't quite get an accurate approximation of the tree's height, but she would say about 40 meters. Something she realized while being a baby was that estimating the sizes of things just did not work, what with the way shorter viewpoint.

The roots of the tree were large, sticking out of the ground in a wavy mass. And the trunk of the tree was large at the base. The roots plus the trunk made for a surprislingly good hiding spot. Her brothers also seemed similarly fascinated by this tree.

Yantye soon found a comfortable nook between the roots and then laid down. He kept his eyes open, guess he didn't want another pick me up from her.

Tiaosu was busy trying to climb the roots and failing spectacularly. Huabe didn’t know why he even thought his weak little baby arms could lift that chubby body up.

Duanso seemed to be staring at some gecko creature perched on a root.

Huabe hurried over to her brother to also observe the gecko. This would be the first creature she would see in this world, aside from bugs of course.

She stopped next to Duanso and looked at the gecko. And she was instantly scarred for life.

That gecko was like no gecko she had ever seen. Its scales were the same iridescent colour as the bark. On its tail was the same kind of shimmering leaf. So far, so kind of normal. But that is where the normalcy stopped. Its neck was long and skinny, akin to a noodle. And at the end of that neck, where a head should be, was instead a rounded mask that seemed to be made of the same bark as the tree. But the creepiest aspect was that the gecko had no eyes. Well, they could have been hidden under the mask, but there were no eye holes in the mask. So either way, how did the gecko see?

So, Huabe did what anyone would do when they suddenly had a creepy thing in front of their face. She whacked it! And she was surprised when her hand impacted the root instead of the lizard. Looking down at her hand, she saw that the gecko was fine. Its body was phased inside of her hand and little wisps of colour could be seen gently flowing out of where its neck entered her hand. The lizard swung its head to stare at her with its mask for a face as if saying ‘Ha! Idiot.’.

Then the lizard slowly walked away, a swagger in its step that she knew must not have been there before. It even had a swagger in its neck as it wiggled with every step.

There were gecko holograms in this world!? At least the little psycho monster had a physical body!

She looked to the side at Duanso and saw him stare after the gecko with stars in his eyes. Looking behind her, she also saw Yantye and Tiaosu looking after the gecko with similar expressions on their faces.

She swore then and there that she would get rid of that smug gecko. For the sake of her brothers, totally not because she hated its overwhelming smugness.

“Kids. It's almost beddy-bye dhfdshb. Let’s go.” One by one, they were carried onto the veranda by Wenku, their father. Huabe was the last to be picked up and carried.

As she watched the ground shrink away below her, she spotted something out of the corner of her eye. In the distance on the lawn, in an area where the grass was extra green and vibrant, a ball popped into existents. A ball made of grass, it looked like. Weaved grass with the pointed ends of the blades of grass sticking out every which way.

Huabe pointed that way and made some baby grunts at her father. Wenku turned and followed her finger.

“Oh. Looks gjsd a spirit sdhjbv. Don’t worry hbsc that Huabe, it's harmless. Now, who’s hungry? You? Is it you?” He ended the sentence by blowing a raspberry on her stomach which caused Huabe to break out into giggles.

When her father had set her down on the wooden veranda, she thought back to his words.

Before she could ruminate further, she had a bottle in her mouth and was too focused on not spilling any milk to think about spirits. As she drank, her belly began to feel a bit uncomfortable. After she was done, she had a little burp and felt much better.

Then a silver spoon was in front of her face, its payload a sickly green colour.

It was gross. Or should she say extremely bland? Either way, that green mush was much worse than the crispy french fries she was used to.

Sometimes, the simple things in life can seem so important in situations like this. Of course, she didn't know how many people were in her situation, but she was sure if there were any, they would share her feeling of food loss.

“Now, who's ready for story time?”