6 The village

When Leo left the house he found Iris and Elder Grandma waiting for him. Contrary to when she was inside the house Iris had adopted a somewhat "cold" demeanor. But as she made eye contact with Leo occasionally, he would see a small smile at the corner of her mouth.

Now that he had left the house he could tell for certain that he was smelling and hearing things on a far greater spectrum and range than he normally should. He could hear the insects crawling in the grass, birds chirping in the tress across what he perceived as the village, and he could pick out specific parts of conversations throughout the village. (If only he could understand what they were saying)

He could not only see several people that he assumed were the local inhabitants, but he could smell certain odors that he was able to subconsciously connect to the people he could see, and locate ones he couldn't.

"Ahem" Iris got his attention and she then proceeded to lead him on a tour through the village. Leo couldn't help smiling as he followed her, listening to her explain various things as if she had forgotten he couldn't understand her. When he looked over at her he saw that elder grandma was also smiling at how Iris was acting. However he was able to learn a few words through her explanations, such as whenever she pointed at someone and said something he assumed that it was their name.

As they walked through the village, he looked around and realized that there were at most fifty people living there. With a closer look at the surroundings he saw that they situated on the side of a mountain that looked as if it had a giant slice taken out of it to create a shelf. With all that led to the forest floor below was a single pathway just wide enough for a vehicle. After looking around Leo guessed that the largest vehicle in this world though was just a carriage.

As Iris continued leading him she introduced him to various people throughout the village. First was Austin, the green haired man who he learned was the village healer. Austin had been the primary one in his treatment after his fall. He invited Leo into his home/clinic where Leo saw a variety of jars and pouches filled with different ointments, leaves, and medicine. Through a Small demonstration, he also showed Leo his first confirmation that there was magic in this world.

Next was the head of the village gardeners, Lucy. From what they were able to get Leo to understand, unlike Austin who mostly worked alone; there were several people who worked under Lucy tending to the gardens that they maintained. Leo was curious as to the reason why the plants were able to grow so well despite the northern chills, but until he was able to learn the details on how things worked he just used his same fallback for explanations, magic.

This was confirmed when Lucy demonstrated why she was head gardener. By pointing at what looked like a tomato plant, and growing a whole tomato from a single flower in moments. She then plucked the tomato from the plant and handed it to Leo, who then ate it while Lucy watched. When he finished eating the tomato he tried to express that he found it delicious, which earned him a radiant smile from Lucy.

Iris then practically dragged him away from there to show him the other areas, which earned them a round of giggling from the ladies tending to the gardens. Next stop was the loggers, who provided the village with the daily firewood and crafted various things needed from wood. The head loggers name was Jack, and what surprised Leo was that Jack had a second set of arms right below his first pair! Leo found someone with four arms strange, but as with the garden used his fallback magic. As if he wanted to show off to Leo, Jack then started chopping wood with two axes at once!

Using both hands on one side, and both hands on the other he swung two axes repeatedly while other loggers would swap out the wood rounds he was chopping. Leo thought that they were working at an amazing speed. Then a couple other loggers then collected the chopped pieces of wood, and started delivering them to the different houses.

As Leo watched the loggers work, he also thought about the gardeners. He then reached the conclusion that rather than a usual village, this place was more like a family working together. But as he looked at the various people he noticed that almost all the people around them had some form of physical "uniqueness" as he wanted to put it. Some people had obvious differences like Jack, while others had minor ones like Iris and Austin, while others had different skin. He wasn't talking about some had darker or lighter skin tones than others, he had seen people working and walking by that had different types of skin altogether. One guy had purple blotches all over like a bad rash, but no one seemed to notice. Another girl however looked completely blue! He didn't mean like depressed, she looked from head to toes a light shade of blue as the sky!

He had even seen someone else walk by with scales instead of normal skin. And another person had hair a different color like Austin's, except instead of green like his it was bright pink!