Chapter 4: Amrei’s Tempest

   The child was baffled by his behaviour. Sure, these were all special people, that was easily understandable if you paid a little attention. After all, a blue birch comb, children with miniature wings, alive wisteria vines; all of that was nothing that actually exists in the place where it lives.

 

   But this man, this man looked like a character straight out of a fairy tale the village nurse read from time to time. A showman, that's what she would call him, belongs in a spotlight.

 

   Amrei, as it found out its name, was behaving like he was on a stage, like he was an actor. It made it seem like none of this is real. The child bit its lips, but it knew this would happen at one point. No matter how much it wanted to deny it, these strange people and places were just hallucinations. Creations where it could laugh and not be scolded. It peeked at Ariel. Be hugged and coddled without being pushed away...

 

   Amrei stepped forward, but before he could say anything else, the child just blinked and disappeared.

 

    "Ah, you startled the wee one." A lazy grumble came from behind him. It sounded like the beginning of a lion's roar.

 

   "It'll come back again. It can come at will, right?" Amrei just shrugged his shoulders and looked at the tidy hair Ariel had. He didn't think much, the jumpers appeared from time to time, but they quickly lost their abilities as they grew up. The corruption of the adults ate their minds and heart away. They were then no longer qualified to enter God's Realm.

 

   Ariel stood up, leaned right in Amrei's face and growled, as if he was about to kill him. "It can't come at will. Don't make assumptions!" At the moment Amrei heard this, he gulped and his face paled.

 

   "It can't? B-but," Amrei stuttered, his eyes twitching, "doesn't that mean that it needs to go through a bout of seipsy to come here?" At the realisation, Amrei's eyes reddened. He pitied the child he just saw. It went through much suffering.

 

His voice cracked when he asked the next question. "When did it happen for the first time?" He knew that the jumper's growth stopped in this Realm at the time they visited for the first time.

 

    He begged that the answer be merciful toward the child and him. But what he heard had him stricken with grief. Ariel answered with grimness in his voice. "It has been seven years since the first time."

 

   The child looked around six to seven years old. This has been going on for seven years. Was it ever conscious during a bout till now? No, he couldn't ask himself that. Just imagining that made him shiver.

 

   "Why is the child acting as if it's still little? Don't the jumpers usually start behaving differently as they grow up?" This ate him.

 

   "I guess it's because it needs to destress and it gets that chance only when it has a bout of seipsy and comes here. You know that we can't look at their daily lives even if we wanted to until they come here consciously for the first time." Ariel bit his lower lip after spitting out this sentence. "It has been visiting here since its first bout, but it could never come here without the assistance of a bout."

 

   Amrei just stared. He should've known by now. He should've known that there was a visitor, an unfortunate jumper. Nobody bothered to tell him. He tried breathing deeply, but air couldn't go to his lungs. He felt weighed down. Why did no one tell him that there was a child that needed help?

 

   "Where is the jumper from?"

 

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   "Why, you wanna help? You know you can't." Ariel felt the change in the atmosphere round them. Not just him. All of the godhood in a kilometre wide radius felt the disturbance. He needed to get Amrei under control, and fast at that. So he kept his mouth shut.

 

   Amrei jumped on him and started shouting, breathing erratically, chest rising, but staying suspended for longer than necessary, "Tell me, you useless brick! Don't you try to hide this from me, you know I will find out anyway, better now than later. Spit! It! Out!" Ariel stepped back, aware of possible consequences. He saw the Goddess of Nurture running toward them and gesturing to him not to tell. It was too late for her to help anyhow.

 

   "He lives in the Dettermen Alliance." He answered, but Amrei didn't let up. He knew Ariel didn't say everything. "Which country, you measly clown?"

 

   "...Bailey Kingdom." At those words, a draconian tremor went through the whole of the God's Realm. Bailey was known for its discrimination against people with seipsy and any mysterious diseases. That's why they sometimes even resorted to killing the ill, just to clean the lands of cripples. It seems that the child didn't live in a town, but a village, as it survived till now.

 

   But although they wouldn't kill it, torture wasn't out of question. Starving, prostitution, child labour, anything is possible. How strong was the child's soul that it continued coming here? How was it able to keep a clear heart? All this disturbed Amrei.

 

   The Goddess of Nurture came to him and hugged him, attempting to calm him down a little. She didn't even think before starting to sing a lullaby to the God of Foolishness.

 

 "Lay down, my child

 It will be better tomorrow.

 Listen to the nature that is wild,

 For the lullaby their voices borrow.

 

 A hug from a mother

 A hug from a father

 Love we will onto you lather.

 

Don't worry, my little one

 For we will always keep your peace.

 So sleep, my little one

 Now all your worries release."

 

   As she sang, Amrei felt his heart numb, and he fell into deep sleep. All of the gods present breathed out in relief, but no one noticed that the wisteria tree had one root out of the ground. It already started recovering and the root slowly crawled back into the ground, but it was something that would take time to go back to how it was. Each action has a reaction, and in this case, a consequence.