I had just finished brushing all the adult Gazts when I heard the gates open.

 

"Oh, my god. I can't believe-" 

 

I turned back, and saw Lily, holding something in her hands as she power-walk towards my direction. Seeing her looking so annoyed, I put down the brush and waves. "Hiya."

 

"Meli, I'm sorry." Lily patted my hair and pet the snout of a baby Gazts near us. "Our dad was naughty, so he's getting chewed by Aunt Mary right now. Remember to say no when he asks you to do weird stuff next time and wait for me, okay?"

 

"Mhm." I nod obediently. Lily put down the basket, then picked me up onto her lap, smoothly taking over the brushing duty. "Aund Ma'y 'sh here?"

 

"And me." 

 

A voice coming from young boy around my sister's age piped from behind a herd of baby Gazts demanding pets and scratches from him. He's frowning and is trying his best to make his way over and pet the baby beasts while at it. "Morning, tiny."

 

It's funny seeing the guy get overwhelmed for once, so I greet him back politely. "Hi Julian."

 

Julian, as always, merely scoffed at my reaction. What a brat, at least he's nice to Lily.

 

After a while, he finally managed to cross over the blockade and stand beside Lily. "By the way, what's in the basket? It smells really nice!"

 

"That's our breakfast," Lily cleaned the feathers and put down the brush momentarily, peering down with a gentle smile, she asks, "Meli, do you want to eat now?"

 

"Un." I nod. The fragrance coming out of the box is making me hungry, and even captured some baby beasts' curiosity. 

 

"Then what are we waiting for, let's go!"

______

Once we've brushed and harvested all the feathers, we opened the other gate to let them out to graze. Gazts are pretty smart, so they won't leave too far from their home and would come back after certain times. 

 

Which means, there's no need to monitor them most of the time. That leaves us able to do whatever we want until it's time to go home.

Because most vegetation hasn't grown much nearby, Lily directed them to the plains nearing the woods where small wild-life came out of their hibernation earlier. Gazts are omnivores, so they also work as a pest control for specific forest rodents once they're familiarised with the taste.

 

The moment we arrived and the beasts saw us sitting down in a shaded area, they immediately scattered in all directions.

It didn't take a minute for them to disappear and for Lily to unpack the food from the basket, so we began to eat.

"Here you go Meli, eggs!" 

 

Lily hands me one of the eggs that she already peeled. Julian forgot to be displeased with me stealing Lily's attention and helped himself to the food instead, munching happily on the sandwiches to the point his cheeks swelling up like a hamster. 

 

After devouring the first handful of bread, the boy happily declares, "Lily, you're the best!"

 

"I-It's just putting together bread and meat!" Lily looks away, her smile bashful. "Stop talking when you're chewing! Eat properly!"

 

Still, since no kid is ever truly immune from praise, Julian gets to have one more piece of bread when he asks for it.

 

He looks really proud of himself for that stint, and I don't really mind since it is nice to see Lily be more at her age, so I'll gloss over his smug face for another time and eat dad's cooking obediently.

 

 

The chance of breaking his dreams of eating Lily's handmade food will come at another, better time.

"Ah right, How's Nessa doing? Has she recovered yet?" Lily asks, although her hands never stopped from peeling my eggs and handing me mini stuffed breads. 

 

Julian nods, "Aunt Mary said that she is okay now, and that she only needs to sleep a lot before she can play out again with Kev."

 

"I'm glad!" Lily's smile brightens up even more, "I can't wait to see them again soon, it's been too long. Right, Meli?"

 

"Ya!" I chime in energetically.

 

Aside from Lily, the only other person I'd call as a sister¹ She's using the Japanese word nee-chan here would definitely be Vanessa. Since she's Aunt Mary's daughter, it makes her our cousin that lives on the other end of the village. 

 

Vanessa's father, who is a great hunter, is someone that this village looked up to because of his great strength and contribution for keeping everyone safe from wild beasts. 

As luck would have it, Vanessa inherited her father's strength and hunter skills from a young age, to the point that she can even beat teenagers double her size.

 

Which means, if she comes back, I would no longer be bullied by Julian!

 

Lily giggles, presumably after hearing my answer, and peppered my cheeks in kisses. Julian also finally remembered to give me a stink gaze because of this. 

 

Then, once the short mealtime is over, we head into the forest to wash our face and get something to snack for lunch. 

And if we manage to forage a lot, we can sell them for extra pocket money.

 

It took quite a while to venture to the popular spot by the river, so Lily carried me on her back and had Julian in charge of holding the basket. I got drowsy after eating so when I finally tuned in again on the kids' chatter, we've arrived at the river.

 

A lot of good stuff only grows in the middle and despite the water being shallow, I'm still not tall enough to keep the water below my chin. At least for the other two, they're big enough to have the water reaching only up to their knees.

 

Thus, after washing my face and hands from the grime, Lily sat me on a rock and went into the river 

 

With nothing much to do, I let my eyes wander around the blue sky and the clouds that float across it. Softly humming a nursery rhymes about going to the river and the mountains to pass the time.

At some point, after getting sick of making shapes in the clouds for hours, I threw my gaze to the ground around me. 

Most of the stuff that grows here are unnamed, or most likely, people are just unaware of what name is designated on them. 

This is a good chance for me to also train my appraisal skills, so I took a good look at every little flora and noted down each of their unique characteristics.

 

Then, as my gaze wandered further, a certain vegetation not too far away caught my attention. It was hidden behind a rock formation, I almost would not notice it if it wasn't for the sun rays hitting it at the right angle.

 

And since I can't physically climb down the slippery rock without injuring myself, I called out to my sister for help.

 

"What is it?" Lily pipes out from the river, she's still in water, her hands are holding her skirt high to make sure it doesn't become wet as it is full of berries.

 

"Leaf!" I point to where the plants I want to check are growing, "Long pind leaf!"

 

"Ok, wait for a bit." Lily deposited her bountiful harvest into the weaved basket by my side, and went towards the place my finger pointed. "Ah, you mean this pink grass?" 

 

"Ya!" 

 

Lily chuckled and uprooted a bunch of the grass, washed it by the river, then handed it over to me. In my tiny baby hands, it almost looks like a bouquet. 

 

"There you go! Anything else you want Meli?" 

 

I wonder for a second, then point to the harvest inside her skirt pockets. "Behly?" 

 

"Alright, open up!" Lily then picked a handful of the yellow berries and carefully fed me. 

The texture and taste of this thing is exactly like pear fruits that I knew from Earth. Minus the size difference and fact that it's not growing on trees here, everything else is almost identical.

 

Coincidentally, pear was also one of my favourite fruits. So I will happily feast on these until I can find something that tastes like pineapple.

 

In the end, I had to put down the grass on my lap so I could keep munching on a handful of berries, all while watching Lily going back and forth dumping stuff into the basket until it's almost filled to the brim.  

 

"I think we have enough for now." Julian also returned from the deep ends of the river and showed off his harvest with a tired face.

 

As expected of a high spec kid, Julian brought back actual fruits wrapped in a big sturdy leaf. The purple coloured fruit grows on the side that's muddy, which is across from where we're now. And since there's no need to have a bridge this deep inside the forest, it's a little hard for kids to get across the wide river. 

No wonder he looks exhausted.

 

"This should be enough for now right?" He asked, then stared at me weirdly, "What's with the grass, tiny? Let me see."

 

I hold the bundle of grass closer to my chest in reflex.

 

"It's fine Jules," Lily picks me up by the side, and holds the basket with her other hand. "It's just some Baby Grass, we have some at home for Dran in case he caught rashes."

 

"Alright then." The boy gave up on it and let me have my grass, though the fact that a kid is worried about me is really sad for my psyche.

 

Who knows that being a toddler would be this hard?

On our way out, Julian and Lily chatted about stuff that I'm definitely not paying attention to. I kept experimenting with the grass, trying to pick out the good ones from the bundle. 

Most of them have bug bites on them or some kind of weather damage, so getting a single pristine grass is not easy.

But I persevered, and just as we exited the forest, I finally managed to whittle down the bouquet into about a handful of perfectly sized and smooth textured ones. 

Since we're now on a more even ground, Lily put me down to catch her breath. Julian also put down the basket to stretch his limbs. 

"Eh, where's all the beasts?" Julian mutters in confusion, "I thought they would come back by now?"

 

Lily looked around, then her eyes locked on the sky for a moment before she pointed up, "I think we're a little early, it's still spring so the sun isn't that high yet." 

 

Thanks to that little miscalculation, there's nothing we can do but to wait for the beasts to come back out by themselves. Julian took this chance of being bored by teasing me again, "Tiny, did you eat all the grass? Are you grazing too?"

 

He caught me when I had my lips on the grass trying to blow on it, and since I threw away almost all the bad ones and left with a handful, it's not wrong to assume I ate it. 

 

However, I'm an adult on the inside, so instead of feeling hurt, I merely gave him a cold glare and kept my focus on practicing. Well, as cold of a glare as a baby could muster, at least. 

 

As a result, Julian could do nothing but pout again in defeat, although in turn for that, Lily grinned as she held back her laughter.

 

"What are you grinning at? There's nothing funny!" Julien quipped harshly to cover his embarrassment. I'm sure of it, his reddening ears are proof.

 

Thanks to Julian trying to reason out of his embarrassment, it resulted in Lily immediately losing it and laughing out loud.

 

"Jules, you're arguing with a baby- pfft!" Her body shook so hard, she almost hit the basket that I'm leaning against. 

 

"So what, she's rude!"

 

Lily laughed even harder, "You don't mean cute?" 

 

"Argh, Lily you-"

At some point during that conversation, I tuned out all other noises but the ones coming from from my mouth. 

My motoric sense is not that bad, considering that I'm not a literal newborn, but since it's been awhile since I do this, not to mention being in a new body, my coordination is as good as nonexistent.

It took at least another dozen attempts, almost going out of breath, and a very sore lips before finally,

P I I I I I I P

"Huh?" The two children simultaneously glanced over to the source of the noise. Lily quickly noticed that the loud shrill noise was coming from me. "Meli, did you whistle?"

 

I glanced upwards to face the kids, and note that during the time I wasn't paying attention, Julian now wears a well made flower crown. On my other side, my sister's hands hold an incomplete one, her fingers weaving the stems skillfully. 

Also, both of them seemed more curious after the surprise, especially Julian, a rare look of awe clearly present on his face. Lily also put down her braid momentarily to focus her attention on me, which makes my cheeks warmer for some reason.

 

Ah, it really has been a while since I got this much attention from people, even if they're from children, I'm no longer used to it.

 

So to distract them away while I recover mentally, I just hold up the single stubby grass I was blowing. "Ish whistle leaf."

 

"Ooh!" Lily looks even more intrigued, she even stopped her hands completely. "Can you do that again?"

 

I nod. 

 

Once I get the hang of making the correct shape with my lips, it's not too hard tuning into the correct notes. 

As I'm trying out the scale, I remembered something from my past life. A song from one of the old series I watched as a kid, one of the most memorable stories that remained from my childhood, with the notes playing vividly in my memory.

It was what made me want to learn about leaf flute in the first place.

Without realising it, I already began playing the first few notes from that song. Even though I'm closing my eyes to focus, I can feel that their gazes are locked on me. Now that I'm a little more ready, the panic for being the center of attention no longer wash over me as I slowly, and surely, regain confidence in myself. 

 

The feeling was familiar, as it reminded me of how the first moment I tried to sing. And I'm getting myself used to it all over again.

 

When I opened my eyes, wanting to drink in the sights of this little stage, I was greeted with a wonderful view.

Lily has resumed making a second flower crown, her expression appears more relaxed with a slight smile blooming on her lips. Julian had averted his gaze to the sky, but I know that he's listening, or at least paying attention because I caught him stealing glances at my sister on occasion.

 

As the song was almost over, I sensed something approaching from the depth of the forest behind us. Coming out from the shadow of the trees into the sunlight, are a flock of familiar beasts. I don't need them to get any closer to know that they're our beasts, with Bibi leading them to return from their journey to their home.

 

It is mystical, in a way, as if the simple music made from a leaf instrument and song from a nonexistent story is what's making today a little more special than any other day.

When the Gazts finally arrived, along with the last note blowing away with the wind, I can't help but smile knowing that even here, in a world of magic, music can still be a magical thing for everyone without being magic.

Hidden by the grass, I feel a smile blooming on my lips. And just for this moment, I let it be genuine.