"He said no..." Kyle said with regret.
"It would have been so nice, though."
"Yeah, it would have been so nice. You would have been like our brother." Jin nodded thoughtfully, both of them lost in their daydreams and not noticing that Hero began to cry, until they heard him sniffling.
The young villagers blinked at the little Human in confusion. They had no idea how their words affected Hero. When they told him what could have been, what he very much hoped for but now could not be, only made him feel worse. He was already sad that they were about to leave.
"We're sorry. Don't cry. It will still be all right. We won't be brothers, but we can still be friends." Jin told the little Human, sharing a concerned glance with his brother.
They seemed a little taken back by Hero's reaction. They heard from the other children that Hero cried a lot, but they had not seen it since the first day of their visit, when they got him in trouble for using his magic.
Hero saw their puzzled expressions and hid his face in his blanket, ashamed of the brine water leaking down his face. He really didn't want to them to dislike him or think that he was ugly and gross. He startled when he felt them hugging him.
"Don't be sad." The older child said gently, patting his back. "Maybe we can come and visit again. Although it probably won't be soon." Hero tried to dry his face in his blanket and then looked up at them, trying to smile through his tears.
"Or, maybe one day you can come and visit us, instead. When you grow up, you'll be able to travel by yourself." Jin smiled encouragingly. "You can come and visit us any time you like!" He told him.
"Remember the name of our village. It's called Little Casins. Will you remember that?" Kyle instructed and Hero nodded, not trusting himself to speak because of the tight feeling in his throat.
The children both smiled at him again and let go of him.
"We will see you one day again, Hero. Goodbye for now." Jin said, confident and believing what he said fully.
"We will always be friends, we promise." Kyle said in a similar tone.
With another smile at him, both children slipped out of the barn and went to the house to sleep.
Hero watched the door for a moment as if hoping that they would return, but then knew that they wouldn't. He then hid his face again in his blanket and began to softly cry, trying to be as quiet as possible so all sounds became muffled in the rough thick cloth.
He cried and cried and the tears didn't want to seem to stop, his little heart breaking with sadness of it all. It was probably his own fault that no one among Jalil's visiting people wanted to adopt him. If he didn't set the forest on fire, then maybe they wouldn't have believed all the bad stories that the other villagers told about him.
From what he overheard made him seem like he was a disobedient, bad child with very dangerous magic, who constantly did pranks and even made his brothers bad, too, just by growing up with them.
It wasn't really true. Was it?
"Hero? Hero..." Grandpa Grake's voice sounded sad as he peeked into the barn and heard him crying.
Hero didn't move from his spot where he was laying down prone, his face tucked into the blanket waddled up against his face. A moment later he heard shuffling steps approaching him and Grandpa Grake's arms gently gathered him and held him, drawing him toward him.
Hero buried his face against the old villager's chest.
"Shhhh. It's going to be all right. It will all work out. You will see. As long as you keep trying to do the right thing, it will be fine in the end. Just don't give up." The old villager repeated what he so often told him before.
"... Appa?" Hero managed to say and turned his splotched face, still sniffling as short, interrupted breaths shook his small body. Kind green eyes met him, his grandpa's face concerned and disappointed. Hero looked up in guilt and confusion.
"Am I bad?" He dared to ask. The old villager sighed.
"No, Hero. You are not. You are just a child, no better and no worse than any other." He said with confidence, which relieved Hero a little, though it didn't remove his guilt completely.
"Then... why does no one want me?"
Grandpa Grake gave him a lost look, his lips turning down more and instead of an answer simply hugged him tighter, rocking him as he used to when Hero was little.
"I want you. And so did your atta, Beor."
"I don't remember him." Hero said sadly. "Is it really my fault he is gone? Uncle Rangil is always angry. He said it is my fault."
Grandpa Grake sighed. "It was his own choice, kari."
"But it is my fault. Right?"
The hesitation in his appa's answer told Hero much and his chin trembled.
"I'm sorry, kari. I cannot tell you that it's not. But it is not all your fault. It is not your fault that you have dangerous magic. It's just in your nature as a mage. And there is no one here who can really teach you how to use your magic safely. That's why the elders decided that it would have been better if Beor found other Humans, who would have been able to help you. And he could not. The Humans are just too far away from here."
"I can go and find them. When I am older." Hero frowned. "I will try not to use my magic anymore. It's just... it keeps coming back on its own. I don't know how to stop."
"I know. I think they are making a big mistake trying to make you not to use your magic... It is a part of you and if you don't learn how to use it in a safe and proper way, it will continue to appear and cause problems. It might even harm you in the long term... But we don't know what to do. If we let you use your magic, it might grow even stronger faster."
"Then... What do I do?"
"Keep trying to be good. You are not a bad child. You aren't, Hero. And you are not a monster. Do not listen to them when they tell you that, all right?" Grandpa Grake said in a hurt voice.
Hero obediently nodded and yawned, quickly calming down. All the crying had already exhausted him.
"Appa?" He asked sleepily, settling down his head against the old villager's chest.
"What is it, kari?"
"You want me here, right?"
The old villager squeezed him tighter. "Of course, kari. And I will stay with you as long as I can."
Hero nodded, his eyes closing. The old villager continued to comfort him longer, as he had all the previous years, and then softly moved the sleeping child to lay on his mat, tucking his blanket around him.
"Shhh. It will be alright." He patted his hair and then quietly left.
Stepping out of the barn, Grake winced at the creaking of the door when he carefully leaned it close behind him. He then returned to the house, where his childhood friend sat at the family table and studied a half-filled cup of sweet berry juice.
"I'm sorry, old friend. I really am. But I really do not think that anyone in my village will take him in. And I am too old to do it, myself. Here, at least you have a relative who will let him stay and continue to provide for him a little bit longer. Grudgingly, but he will. He promised that to you, did he not?" Elder Jalil continued.
Grake nodded and heavily settled down on the opposite side of the table, feeling tiredness sweep through him, settling in his entire old body.
"Yes. He said that he would continue to take care of him, as long as the other villagers allowed him to stay."
"Your nephew is right, you know. Since it's been nearly five years, but he still looks like he is not even two years old, then it will probably be at least another eight or even twelve years before he grows up. So, he might still be a child even after your nephew turns old."
"...Twelve more years?" Grake asked numbly, his heart falling. That was a very long time.
"Of course, he'll probably be able to take care of himself long before that. He is not quite Human, after all. Your elders are probably right about that, too. I am sorry, Grake. I've thought about this a lot after everything you've told me. While human mages have different kinds of magic and some of them can wield fire, there is no stories that mention anything about them being able to talk to monsters. None. And the child's scary dreams? He is not Human, Grake. I am sorry."
Grake nodded, his shoulders wearily stooping.
"At least we can be sure that he is not one of the dangerous immortals, either. First, because you found him as a very small child, and all the stories clearly say that immortals always appear fully grown. And second, because he doesn't know how to use his magic at all. All immortals appear with the knowledge of how to use their magic."
"What do you think he is, then?" Grake asked with a note of protest stealing into his tone. "You also think that he is some sort of Monster, don't you? That's why you don't want to take him with you." He pressed and the other villager responded with a reluctant nod.
"I am sorry, Grake. I must think of the safety of my village first."
"But he isn't bad! It's not his fault that he was born with such dangerous magic! And he IS learning to control it."
"I didn't say that he was bad." The elder said defensively. "But he might TURN bad, considering how our people treat him. The only thing that's keeping him good is you, and you'll soon be gone."
"That's why I wanted you to take him!" The old villager threw up his arms.
"It won't solve the problem. Or did you not see how my villagers look at him now?"
Grake considered the elder's sharply said words and nodded again with defeat. If initially the younger villagers who had come with Jalil were simply curious, by the end of these several days their attitude toward his foundling changed to match that of the villagers who lived here.
"We can make all the rules we want, Grake." The visiting elder said patiently.
"But unless the other villagers become willing to accept him, we won't be able to do anything. If we try to push, they will just find ways to go around the rules they disagree on. They might even force us elders to step down and choose others to take our place, if they feel that we are not doing what's best for everyone... My villagers won't accept him, Grake. If he were a normal Human, they might have grown used to him. They would have teased him and tested him, but they would have let him live among us. But he has magic, which can hurt them. So now they are scared. Sooner or later, they WILL chase him away, like they do those among us, who are born different. It's already amazing that they let you keep him this long."
"You mean the Pale Faced. But they are bad from the start. Hero is not." Grake protested.
"Are they bad from the start?" Jalil squinted his green eyes at his friend. "Or do they become bad because everyone tells them that they are bad? If any creature gets attacked or cornered, does it not try to fight back?"
Grake blinked. Thinking of things in new ways was probably one of the reasons why Jalil ended up as an Elder in his village.
"It already happened once, did it not? Not long before we came? When a few children decided to tease him as they probably usually do? But he lashed out and burnt them?" Jalil prodded.
"Little Dash. He set his shirt on fire. But it was an accident! And his parents ran in and quickly put out the fire by making the child roll in the dirt. He was more scared than burnt. " It was Grake's turn to be on the defensive.
"Hmm... From the stories I heard, it sounded worse... But that only proves my point. The villagers are not going to accept him, either here or in my village. He is too different. Every mistake he makes will become yet another proof of what a Monster he is. They are going to chase him away, Grake. They already question why the elders still allow you to keep him."
"Isn't there something we can do? I don't want Hero to get hurt or... to end up living all alone in the woods somewhere." Grake appealed, hoping that his smarter friend might come up with a solution as he so often had before. Instead, the other elder only doubtfully shook his head.
"I don't think so... I hate to say it, but I agree with your nephew. You should not have brought him here. You should have left him where you found him."
"What?" Grake even stood up a little, blinking at his friend with disbelief.
"You do not mean that! He was just a little baby and he was crying... And you say that I should have left him? He would have died!... Or worse! What if he didn't die? What if his magic kept him alive and he just remained there all alone, for days, with no one to take care of him? Who knows how long he has been there already before I found him! I could not do it to a baby, Jalil. I could not just leave him there. And neither would you. I know you! You of all people should understand how wrong that is!" Grake's voice shook.
Abashed, his friend dropped his gaze. "Hmm. Maybe you are right. I didn't think about that... I do not know exactly how his magic works. Yes, I said the wrong thing..." His friend admitted with shame to Grake's intense relief.
"And I still think that he is Human!" Grake insisted while he had the upper hand. "I think what happened was that he was born different. It must happen among the Humans, too. Like a creature, born with the wrong kind of magic? Remember that Creeper we saw one time, whose eyes shone blue instead of red, and it wielded Water?..."
The other villager nodded and faintly smiled. It had just been very unexpected to see the angry creature puff out its glowing blue chest after they accidentally startled it at the stream and it doused them with water. They simply couldn't hold it in and exploded with laughter, even as they ran, soaking wet as the creature chased them, sending more splashes of water after them.
"There is a Traveler that often comes around here and checks on Hero. I think that what happened is that when he saw Hero, he became curious about his strange magic, because they get attracted to things with magic? And he took him away from his Human family. And then he abandoned him here, since Travelers often forget things as soon as they turn away."
"That's very reasonable thinking." The elder villager approved and Grake perked up, encouraged.
"When Hero was a baby, that Traveler used to come a lot. It really scared me. I would wake up sometimes and see him there, standing next to the window, staring at Hero as he slept in his crib. He never tried to break into the house, but I was afraid to take Hero anywhere because I thought that he might take him away."
"Hmmm." The other villager sympathetically nodded his head.
"It was hard. It was really hard to take care of Hero when he was that little." Grake shook his head heavily at the memories. "I could barely get any work done, because Hero cried all the time and wanted to be held. Our children do not act like that. And no one in my village would help me, because they hated his crying.
I was already old then. And then the Elders decided that I was too old to take care of myself and asked who in the village would come and live with me and help me. And no one wanted to come, because of my little Human. Even though he finally stopped crying so much. They still didn't like him. So I asked our friend in Jarosk, Elder Bart, and his adopted great grand-children agreed to come.
It was Rangil and his older brother, Beor. And little Margol, who just spawned because Beor asked for a blessing. So all three of them came. And they just loved little Hero. He was around one year old then and very sweet. No more crying, only smiles and cute little noises. He still could not walk, but he could crawl and stand. And he already ate normal food, so it became easier to take care of him." Grandpa Grake's face creased with smiling wrinkles.
"I did tell them to not take him outside, because of that Traveler. But they didn't really believe me. Well, they did see that Traveler appear late at night, but they didn't think that he was there because of Hero. They thought that it was just a coincidence. Because they do that sometimes, those Endermen. Come to windows at night and watch?"
"Yes, they do that." The other villager agreed with a faint smile. "Strange beings." He shook his head slightly with fascination. "So long as we do not provoke them and pretend not to notice them, they remain harmless. But should anyone look at them, they find fault and roar or even attack outright. It can be very frightening... Maybe it is like you said. That Traveler might have brought him here because of his unusual magic. Although that does not explain why a mysterious magic tree had appeared where you found him, too."
"Yes. The big oak! That tree definitely has magic. Last time that I took Hero there, he said that it glows."
"I didn't see any glow."
"I think Hero can see magic. And I think he and that tree are connected somehow."
"Hmm. I will have to think some more about that. I will let you know if I find out something."
"Thank you, Jalil. I very much appreciate that you at least came here to see him."
"You're welcome, my friend. I'm sorry that I could not do much." Jalil said regretfully.
"So am I." Grake sighed softly. "So am I."