Reborn

9: Fruit Grove (Rewritten!)

Breaks:

[L1,2 or 3] represents the beginning of a flashback to one of Elena's past lives. There is more than one past life, which is why I have put up the numbers. Though, these memories are usually told as she sleeps and Elena herself cannot remember them.

[/L1,2 or 3] represents the end of a flashback to one of Elena's past lives.

[P] represents the beginning of a retelling of a memory in Elena's current life.

[/P] represents the end of a retelling of a memory in Elena's current life.

~3~ is just a time skip

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Something was up with Moon. Ever since his abrupt crying session in Botan's hut he clung to me like how a newborn clung to their mother. While I enjoyed Moon's presence and we often spent days on end together, it wasn't quite like... this.

 Moon wouldn't let me put him down, not even so he could go fetch his hammer. If I somehow managed to get him off my shoulders or out of my arms, he never went far enough to be out of sight from me.

Most distressing of all, when my monkey friend looked into my eyes for too long, his would get misty and then he'd be clinging to me once more. To be honest, it made me uneasy. It felt like Moon was anticipating something inevitably horrible to happen to me and was drinking in every moment he had with me in response.

That evening, after more time spent in the village than I was comfortable with, I showed the party where the fruit grove was like I had with Yugo that morning. Evangeline and Dally had rejoined the group sometime after the midday meal and they'd all stayed within Botan's hut to talk about boat building when Botan had returned with the book on boats. With the topic of end of day meals on my mind and the need of a quick bathe also taken into account, I told the others that I could go fetch some fish and that I'd meet them up at the Summit Tree later.

With that, I went off towards the ocean through my portals, glad that I could used them again after so much walking around on foot. Moon joined me of course, not wanting to leave me alone, and only waited by the shore because he didn't like swimming in the ocean. That I could understand with how different the ocean waters are compared to the freshwater of the island.

There was always a time limit to how long I could swim in freshwater, my fingers and toes often shriveled up as consequence, painfully so if I tried to stretch it. Ocean water didn't seem to have that though as I could swim for however long I wanted without getting shriveled fingers. If there was a time limit to how long I can swim in the ocean, I haven't found it yet.

Of course, to Moon, he was probably more weary of the dangers of the ocean than any dangers that freshwater can bring. On the island there was only the one spot with the current that could suck you under the mountain and it could easily be avoided because of how slow it was to pull one in from afar. In the ocean however, there were several dangerous currents to watch out for; ones that smashed unlucky fish against stone in storms, that dragged you out to the deep depths of the water if you weren't careful and ones that pulled things into the sand at the ocean bottom.

If none of that caught you then it was the life in the ocean that you need be weary of next. In fresh water, the biggest thing that swam were the snakes- which generally needed to be avoided on land too. As for the ocean, there were several moments where I came across creatures just as big as me in there, and creatures even bigger. Sometimes they surfaced for a moment in the distance, well away from shore, while other times smaller- and perhaps younger- creatures might chase prey until both have wound up too close to land and unable to return to their home.