When the Dawn Breaks [TBAU]

☆ Chapter 1 ☆

Xisuma liked to think that he lived a good life. Or, more accurately, he lived a meaningful one.

He'd been the leader of Hermit Village for a while, ever since the previous leader (generik) left. Hermit Village was a sanctuary, a place for wayward souls to find a family and a home. There weren't many of them there, and Xisuma really did consider them all to be his family, not just his friends.

They were open to new hermits all the time. Whenever Xisuma left the village, anyone he found was offered a place to stay, and anyone who wandered into the village was offered one as well. And everyone was welcome. Human, hybrid, cyborg, it didn't matter. Hermit Village could be the place for them.

It made Xisuma happy that he could help people. Heck, sometimes he saved peoples lives. Like with Doc and Scar and Etho and Tango and Bdubs.

Xisuma loved his purpose, and he loved his family. And sure, they could be a lot of work sometimes, but the hermits were still everything to him.

And every new hermit was just as important as every original hermit, and vice versa.

And Xisuma was pretty happy with his life.

Xisuma blinked, realizing he'd gotten lost in his train of thought again. He looked back down to the chests he was supposed to be sorting out with a sigh. His spring cleaning had slipped over into summer.

Just about to start up again, someone burst through his front door. Xisuma spun around to the sound, finding Scar standing in the doorframe, bouncing on his toes.

"New person! There's a new guy X! There's a new guy!" Scar spoke very quickly, almost too quickly.

"Scar, say again? Who?" Xisuma asked, shooting up to his feet.

"There's a stranger here! He's probably just a traveler, wandered here, who knows!" Scar's excitement was clear, each word emphasized in an almost jittery and juvenile way. "Come on X! You've gotta introduce us, show him around!"

Xisuma smiled, now intrigued. He let Scar lead him outside, sticking right at his heels. Once they'd turned a corner around X's house, the scene unfolded before them. At least half of the hermits were clustered on the main, cobbled street, babbling excitedly. They surrounded the alleged stranger in a messy semicircle, all talking at once.

This was certainly interesting. They hadn't seen a passing traveller in a while, mostly due to Hermit Village's semi-remote location. Most of the village was surrounded by a forest, and they didn't have a proper paved road leading into the place. So for a wayward vagabond to find their way here was rare.

The chattering got louder as Xisuma approached the crowd. He quickly realized that while some hermits were ecstatic and curious, others were bickering over the stranger, namely False and Wels.

Xisuma sighed, wrote a mental note to talk with them later, and pushed through the crowd. From the way he held himself up, to the way he quieted the other hermits with a wave of his hands, you could easily tell he was the leader of the crew.

Xisuma tipped his head to the side, looking the stranger up and down.

He was significantly shorter than the admin, well, pretty short in general. He had messy chocolate brown hair and bright eyes that matched. He wore simple brown trousers, and a black t-shirt with a yellow 'i' in the center and hemmed in the same shade. A small pack sat in his back, too small to hold a reasonable amount of resources for traveling, and his hands fidgeted with the straps.

"Hello there! I do hope the others didn't alarm you too much, they can get pretty excited, we don't see travelers too often after all," Xisuma greeted. He noticed the stranger cast a wary glance towards False before looking back.