“Water has a scent?”

“Yes.”

“Fascinating. I would love to hear more but we’ve got Public Relations here so…”

“Yeah, you want me to go talk to them.”

“If that is alright with you”

It’s not alright.

“That’s fine. Super fine. Just give me some time, please.”

“Grea- Master En Kare. I do not wish to, how should I say, challenge your honesty. But there have been some cases we do not want again. You understand  what I’m referring to?”

“Escaping.”

“Bluntly, yes.”

“Escaping for the twelfth time would be no fun. And could you do me a favour? Please, give this letter to whoever is managing this whole thing I’m going to.”

“Sure.”

Not a very convincing ‘sure’. But he’s right to be like that. That letter is highly offensive.

He’s gone. So out the window I go. I could just camouflage but I like the dramatic. Just put my foot there and. Oh.

Ow.

“Hey T’wyndum.

Yuck. These pompous socialite wannabes again. They’re going to want to talk to me. Everyone wants to talk to me. Issue is I sort of hate everyone. But I’ll be nice. Or nice to their face, anyway.

“Escaping again?”

“We’ll see. At the moment, it’s only an attempt”

“We know you’ll succeed. Well, after you get back on your feet.”

“Thanks, Iassa.”

“It’s Ressawils. She’s Iassa.”

“Really? Cool.”

He looks like an Iassa.

And on my way. Aren’t adults supposed to stop you running away? But I guess these are young, rich adults so they're too cool to care about me. 

Where to go? The market? Boring. The river? Uninspiring. Maevink? Oh, I think we’ve got a winner. That’s like 300 kilometres, I think. Time to start now then. With a bit of flying it won’t take that long.

“Hi, T’Wyndum.”

“Hi…You.”

Who is this? Should I know him? Looks familiar. Looks 5 foot 11. I think I memorised all the 5 foot 11 people that work here out of boredom. Green skin, one of the red coaters, right eyebrow has a slightly bigger tilt compared to the left … Might be Xyalees. 

“It’s Xyalees, just here to get you for the meeting with Public Relations.”

I’m good at this.

“Ok. I’m coming.”

“Are you? Looks like you’re still walking away?”

“Just wait a bit. Looking for a good place to turn safely. Don’t want to do a u-turn, y’know?”

“What?”

There’s a bit of a crowd ahead. I think that’s the engineers setting up the fountains. Such decadence. I think there’s enough of them to blend in. Time to camouflage.

“Where did he go?”

I’m an alien. Sometimes, I forget that. Easy to forget really with all the species here on Terra. Close to the humans Umlaut, or me I guess, would observe but quite different at the same time. Looking at  this high street, so many of these human, not-human hybrid things. Those with feathers like mum. Those with a sort-of dog face. The most common here as well as in Maevink are green people like dad. It’s weird. (The animals are even weirder).  All these differences yet they all call themselves humans. Don’t know how that term reached here. I guess it’s Terrδe. The consciousness thing. I don’t think anyone understands it. Except the Interpreters or Interpretists or whatever. But they don’t let any boys in. Bunch of mean ladies with bad robes. No, the robes are pretty cool. The winter boots on the other hand. One of them gave a lecture, didn’t they? All I heard was that the consciousness called Terrδe made a duplicate of Earth we now call Terra and our link to the original Earth is important. That we even share the same sun. Yeah but when you get a person that was on that Earth, you don’t want to ask him anything. Makes no sense.

Well, they shouldn’t be interested in me. I don’t know why everyone else is. There’s all these different looking people across this planet. What’s one more type? And a select few have got abilities like me. They even have shapeshifting water. I guess it was the child-looks-different-to-parents thing. People love that. And then the famous-child-you-knew-is-crazy-now angle. As well as the Swamplands ‘heroics’, I guess.

I’m getting better at this camouflage thing. Don’t know how it really works because it’s not like changing colours. Umlaut probably did. There’s more to him than I remember. But I don’t want to get any closer to what I was back then. A weird alien. Maybe one day I’ll be better with hearing and all the stuff he did. The level I’m at is good anyway. As long as I’ve got flying I’m all set. 

Not sure if me flying would alarm people or if my camouflage is that good. I can see some people glancing at me but they look at me like any other stranger. Let’s just move to this corner here to be safe. Feel the gravity. And… There. We’re off. Will probably be there in an hour. I’ll take some stops here and there.

I can’t believe Wyxxitiez owns all this. I guess back on Earth, they would call him an emperor. But here he is called ‘Lord of the Land’. The big one. What the others say might be true. He just gives land to his brothers to make them feel important. Kinda crazy for the inhabitants but who cares about them? He really is just a King or Emperor. He does have a palace with all his courtiers and officials and stuff. Or maybe it’s just headquarters and employees. But it definitely is a palace and not office space when all his family live there.

I’m hungry. Where should I eat? I’ll stop at that village there.

Pretty quiet. Guessing by the people I’ve travelled quite far North from Bynn. The people here are hairy like dad’s species but a darker green. They wear simple tunics like the people back home in Khitters. These guys are all dressed in brown. According to Umlaut’s world, a lot of what we have here shouldn’t be. It’s a mish mash of eras. I think the suits we wear are like the 1960’s mixed with the 1700’s but the tunics from the year 500 or something. And there's classic cars but lots of old-fashioned wooden houses. Wyxxitiez always loves asking about the technology of Earth and always gets one of his experts to write it down to work on. Don’t know how much he can do with that when I don’t know any of the details. Maybe Umlaut would know. Unless he only observed the boring things. I can only remember the boring things. I hope I wasn’t a boring alien. Can there be such a thing as a boring alien?

I’ll ask this person here for food.

“Food?”

“Where did that- Oh. You want some food? Have you travelled-Wait a minute.

Big mistake from me. Shouldn’t have asked.

“T’Wyndum! Big fan. Big fan. A real life alien. I believe you are an alien. I tell my family everyday. It’s because my grandfather had an alien encounter. Yes, a human like you. Why don’t you come, meet my family, and I’ll tell you the whole story.”

“And eat?”

“Of course. My grandma is here. She cooks the best quiche.”

Three hours of stories, photos, and tangents about the stories and photos. And tangents from those tangents. I’m sorry but I had to camouflage out of there. I left them a note to say thank you for the quiche so I’m still a good person though. 

My mind’s been elsewhere again. I’ve been drifting. I don't know if it’s toward the sun but it’s up and away. Why do I do it? Because it’s fun? It would be fun actually going into space. Or, it should be. But I never want to. For whatever reason. I’ve been on the fringes of it. Dark. No stars there. Not one. All we’ve got is the brightness of the sun that lives beyond us flooding in through a weird hole in the heavens. It would look beautiful if it weren’t so… Anxiety-inducing? I should get back on course. Have to get to Maevink and back before I get too much hassle for being gone too long.

The swamplands. Nearly home. Great, I’m so tired. Did I hear something? Something familiar? They’re not stealing sheep again, are they? Probably not. But-

I’ll quickly check.

Dark. So very dark. I never get used to it. Nor would I want to. It would get boring if there was no mortal fear. Strange going ons in a dark place no-one goes to because of the strange going ons. Love it. What I don’t love is the STUPID WYXXITIEZ TROUSERS THEY MAKE US WEAR! It’s fine though. My trousers are soaking wet with dirty water. Fine. Wish I had brought my torch. And I must have left my matchsticks back in the conference room. All I have are chocolate bar wrappers in my pockets. I should get rid of those. I thought I was supposed to have amazing good sight. I guess I’ll have to rely on my amazing sense of smell to guide me. Good thing I’m just generally amazing.

How long have I been wondering? I should have a watch. I guess there’s nothing. But then again… Those trees in the distance do look weird . I guess I’ll walk over there.

Nothing. But is that a figure down there? That looks like something I recognise.

No but- Arghh! Someone from behind is covering my eyes!

“Why are you here?”

“Why are you covering my eyes?”

“You’re lost.”

“No, I was just checking- Yeah, I’m lost. What’s it to you? What are you up to? Thief, mischief maker, or the big one”

“Big one?”

“Violent hater of all men that roam Terra. I haven’t got that one yet.”

“I’m here to guide you home.”

What is this nerd on about? I’m going to turn around and get a good look at this jerk.

Where did he go? He just disappeared. I guess I’ll turn back aroun- Ah! My eyes are covered again.

“My guiding has some rules.”

“Don’t turn back?

“Don’t turn back.”

“How original”

His hands are like branches from what I can tell. So very likely he is one member of the Stick family. Every time you hear the shriek of a sheep, a Stick is there. Weird that it's helping me. Probably part of the long con to get me back home safely to shepherd and raise healthy sheep so his family can go ahead and take them. The Sticks must have known who I was after me stopping them. But guess they don’t get the papers down here to know I’m now in Aayles.

I could just fly out and see where I’m going but I don’t know how much he disappears. He could just be really good at hiding and still see me. I don’t want anyone to know I can fly. I don’t hear of the Sticks talking to outsiders but don’t want to take any chances. Everyone knowing I can fly would just be a lot to deal with. More interviews. More testing. More of me being a weirdo. I’d hate it. So I guess I’ll go with him.

“Why do you wonder?”

“What? I was just looking out for things.”

“Something in particular?”

“No”

“You avoid the truth. It’s fine but the reason why you lie troubles me.”

“What are you on about?”

“You should move on from the past.”

“Wait a second. Who are you to be giving me advice-”

“Hold on, remember”

Oh yes, he disappears. My fault for turning around. Back to being guided by the riddler here. Wish I got an outside-humans-are-the-bane-of-my-existence type instead.

“You mustn't turn around. Trust in who is behind you but do not look back.”

I’ve chosen not to get myself worked up. I’m like a hundred technically. Shouldn’t be raising my blood pressure.

“It took me some time. Forgive me.”

“It’s not been too long.”

“No, I realised the other reason you have been wandering. You have been avoiding coming back to-”

“We here yet?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you and bye.”

What a weirdo. Glad to be back home. I can smell chips. And I can see everyone. Mum, Dad,and M’ala. Happy at the dinner table. M’ala probably said something funny again. I need to humble her by reminding her who the big sibling is now. I can’t wait to sit down with her and everyone. Dad will have some stories about chasing sheep or what’s bad on television. Mum will have made up a new game and have stories about what’s happening in Khitters. Look at everyone-A perfect family. 

Perfect. 

Perfect

Why add something to perfect? 

Why add an Umlaut? 

I think I should go back to Aayles. I’ll just send them a letter. They probably don’t read them, though. Why would they?