People of the Land

Chapter 1 - The Nomadic Yaunkur Tribe

Five Years after the Kuuybi Attack and Naruto's Birth

The Yaunkur were strange. Unlike the rest of the continent, they never truly settled down. They were a people who continued to move, as if the need to were in their very bones. They moved irregularly, sometimes disappearing across the waves in the winter, only to return in the spring. They slept in tents, and sometimes caves, but never in an inn. They kept to their own and seemingly held many secrets, and some suspected them to be a tribe of demons. They sang while they worked, danced when they walked, and laughed as they talked, as if they had no cares in the world.

Some people feared and hated them.

The Yaunkur were unique. It was a common fact that their charms and talismans were practically the only ones that actually worked, and their woven wool was some of the finest on the continent. They were amazing performers, and people came from all around when they heard the Yaunkur were going to be putting on a show.

Some people trusted and loved them.

However, what people often forgot was that the Yaunkur were a people just like the rest of them, with the same people problems. Like, for example, parenting.

"Annis Kahina!" A small voice called out in distress. "Annis Kahina!"

Kahina, matriarch of the nomadic Yaunkur tribe, stood up carefully from where she was hanging up the laundry to dry on a line stretched between two trees. She huffed at the effort it took with the child growing in her womb. It seemed that even standing was equal to the strain of a week's journey these days. A golden blur rushed to her and wrapped himself around her right leg. This would not have worked for any other child his age in the tribe. He was tiny. Well, physically at least. Kahina's husband, Dimos, often joked that in spirit, Nato was the mightiest of them all.

"What's wrong, Coru Nato?" She asked soothingly. The child lifted his face to look at his aunt. There were tears in his big and bright blue eyes.

"Why did my parents leave? Did they not like me?"

Internally, Kahina winced. How was she supposed to answer that question? Leaving her laundry, she knelt down to hug her nephew.

"What makes you ask this now?"

"The others teased me because I don't have any parents."

Kahina sighed, and gently said, "your parents didn't leave you with us because they didn't want you. They did it to protect you. They didn't want you to be alone. Sweetie, your mother and father may not be with us in this tribe, but you have me, your Onnis Dimos, your friends Kurama and Kiki, all of the others in the tribe, and soon you will have a little inni too. Do you remember just what our tribe name Yaunkur means?"

Nato nodded. "It means we're her people."

"That's right. We're part of the Land's family, we are a tribe and together one family, one people." And Kahina might just have to remind some other cora cora of that too.

Nato looked very pensive for a moment, and then he nodded. Kahina moved turned back to resume working on the laundry, but the look on Nato's face made her pause. It was a good thing that she did too, because soon the child opened his mouth again.

"Annis Kahina," he began, "I know that, but who were my parents? What..." His nose scrunched up. "What did they like to eat? What did they sound like? Would they have loved me?" The tiny boy looked down at the ground with those final words in sorrow, and a small tear slipped down his face. Kahina stood in silence, unsure of how to respond. She knelt down beside Nato and put a finger underneath his chin, tilting it up, so that he was looking directly at her.