Chapter 3: Growing Steps
By the time my first year passes, the world has grown noticeably larger.
Not because the cabin changed, but because I can finally move.
At first it begins with crawling. Clumsy, slow, and often ending with my face pressed into the floor, but movement nonetheless. The moment I discovered I could travel across the cabin without being carried was strangely exhilarating. Every corner suddenly became accessible.
The hearth.The table legs.The woven baskets stacked near the wall.
Naturally, my mother had very strong opinions about where I should and should not crawl.
"Kaelo—no, not near the fire!"
A pair of hands would scoop me up before I could reach the hearth, lifting me away with a mixture of amusement and exhaustion.
"You're going to burn yourself one day."
Despite the warning tone, she rarely sounded angry. More often she sounded tired in the way people do when they know resistance is pointless.
My curiosity, unfortunately for her, was endless.
The cabin itself only held my attention for so long. Eventually my explorations expanded toward the door.
The first time I managed to crawl outside on my own, the world nearly overwhelmed me.
The forest stretched in every direction.
Tall trees rose like pillars, their branches weaving together high above the ground to form a green ceiling that filtered sunlight into scattered beams. The air outside smelled different from the cabin—cooler, cleaner, filled with damp soil and leaves.
For a long moment, I simply sat there staring.
The cabin wasn't isolated.
Several others stood nearby, built in similar styles. Smoke rose from their chimneys, and narrow dirt paths connected them like quiet threads through the forest.
People moved along those paths.
Men carrying tools. Women hauling baskets. Children running between the houses with careless energy.
So it wasn't just our cabin.
It was a small settlement.
That confirmed my earlier suspicion. Wherever I had been born, it was probably part of a secluded community living far from larger cities.
The people here seemed to know one another well. Whenever my father walked through the village, others greeted him with relaxed familiarity.
"Morning, Haran."
"Back from the woods already?"
He answered most greetings with a nod or short sentence, never speaking more than necessary.
One afternoon he noticed me sitting outside near the doorway, staring toward the forest.
"Well now," he said with a chuckle.
"Already exploring, are you?"
He lifted me easily onto his shoulder. From that height the world looked even larger.
"You'll have plenty of time to run around soon enough."
At the time I didn't understand his words completely. My grasp of the language was improving steadily, but full comprehension still lagged behind. However, by observing tone and repetition, I could piece together the meaning of most conversations.
Language, like everything else, followed patterns.
And patterns could always be learned.
By the time I reached my second year, those patterns became much clearer.
Simple words began forming into understandable phrases. I could follow most of what my parents said, even if I still struggled to speak more than a few clumsy syllables.
The first time I managed to say my mother's name, the reaction was immediate.
"Rina."
The sound came out awkward and slurred, but it was recognizable.
My mother froze.
Then her face lit up like someone had lit a lantern inside her.
"Haran!" she called across the cabin. "He said my name!"
My father looked up from the wooden handle he had been carving.
"He did?"
"Say it again," she urged, crouching in front of me.
"Rina."
This time the word came out slightly clearer.
Her reaction was almost embarrassing.
She scooped me into a tight hug and laughed.
"My clever boy."
Haran only smiled quietly from his chair.
"He'll be talking nonstop before long."
He wasn't wrong.
Once speech started developing, the rest followed quickly. Words turned into simple sentences, and sentences slowly became conversation.
With language came something even more valuable.
Information.
From my parents' conversations and the occasional visits from neighbors, I began forming a clearer picture of our small settlement.
The people here referred to themselves as a clan, not a village. They spoke about protecting their traditions and avoiding unnecessary contact with outsiders. Travel beyond the surrounding forests seemed rare and carefully controlled.
That reinforced my earlier conclusion.
This place was deliberately secluded.
Why exactly, I couldn't yet determine.
But the sense of quiet caution that occasionally appeared in adult conversations suggested there were reasons.
For now, though, those reasons remained outside my understanding.
My attention gradually shifted toward something else entirely.
My body.
By the time I reached two years old, I could walk.
Not perfectly, of course. My steps were uneven and occasionally ended in sudden collisions with furniture or tree trunks. But compared to the helpless newborn I had once been, the improvement felt enormous.
Movement opened new opportunities.
I began following my father around the settlement whenever possible. Watching him work with tools, carve wood, and repair structures taught me more than any explanation could.
Tools had always fascinated me.
Even in my previous life, understanding how things worked had been more interesting than simply using them.
One afternoon, while sitting beside him as he carved a wooden bowl, I noticed something unusual.
A faint red glow.
For a brief moment it flickered across the reflection in the polished metal of his knife.
At first I thought it was the firelight from the hearth.
But the glow wasn't coming from the fire.
It was coming from his eyes.
The color faded almost instantly, disappearing before I could examine it properly.
I blinked, unsure whether I had imagined it.
"Haran?"
He glanced down at me.
"Yes?"
I hesitated, struggling to form the words.
"Your… eyes."
He frowned slightly.
"What about them?"
Before I could answer, the moment had already passed. His eyes looked perfectly normal again.
Dark.
Calm.
Ordinary.
"…nothing," I said slowly.
He studied me for a moment before shrugging and returning to his carving.
But the image stayed in my mind.
That faint red glow hadn't been a reflection.
I was certain of that.
Something about it felt different.
Important.
Yet whenever I tried bringing it up again later, no one seemed to react.
Either it was something normal in this clan…
Or something they preferred not to discuss with children.
For now, I stored the observation quietly in the back of my mind.
After all, I had learned something very important during these first two years.
Observation always came before understanding.
And understanding always came before answers.
If I kept watching carefully enough…
Eventually the pieces would start fitting together.