Chapter Text
He is six, and the furthest he has been from home.
Chenyu Vale is a far cry from the raucous laughter of drunkards and the shrill cries of neighbours that echo through Fleuve Cendre. Clothed in an eternal tranquillity, the Liyuen village of Qiaoying feels like it had been plucked out from the dreamscape of peaceful slumber.
Freminet’s petite fingers tighten around his mother's hand. He doesn't understand the language flying over his head, he doesn't recognise the vast fields that surround him. Everything is foreign, and he finds himself missing Fleuve Cendre… slightly.
His mother keeps talking, about the various tea farms across Qiaoying, about the imports connecting it to Lumidouce Harbour, about how his father used to adore the serenity of the village, sneaking off as a stowaway on the cargo ships for a late night game of cards.
By the words “used to”, Freminet can more or less guess that his father's debt had extended beyond the borders of Fontaine.
“Mommy,” he begins, pushing a towering stalk of grass away from his face as they strode across a stone path. “When are we going back?”
“A couple of days, mon chéri. We're going to be meeting a few of your father's old friends.”
Freminet briefly wonders if his father truly had any friends, but he nods nonetheless.
They arrive before a little house amidst sprawling green. Its architecture is nothing like that of Fontaine, with curved, tiled roofs and wooden, see-through windows. The man that greets them is about forty, accompanied by a somewhat younger lady with a delicate smile.
“This is Yip Tak and Ha Leoi¹,” his mother introduces, patting Freminet lightly on the head. The boy had retreated behind her skirt, clutching it as if it were a curtain concealing himself from the newcomers.
Eventually his head peeks out from behind the fabric, grey-blue eyes widened slightly as he mutters a hello.
Tak chuckles, shaking his head. “If only my boy was as well behaved as yours, eh?” He glances suggestively at his wife, who only slaps his shoulder playfully in return.
“Baat jai is just energetic. Brings some vibrancy to the house, don't you think?” She turns to face Freminet, stooping down to his height. “What's your name, little one?”
The boy's face pales, a perplexing sight atop his already light complexion. His pupils dart between the ground, the woman, and his mother — the last of whom urges him to speak with a wiggle of her eyebrow.
Freminet stares at the couple for a moment, and promptly dissolves into tears.
Through blurred vision and the blood pounding in his ears he hears his mother sigh, lifting him up in her arms.
“It's alright, mon chéri. Mommy will do the talking, okay?” She rubs soothing circles across his back, turning towards the couple with an awkward smile. “Sorry. He's very shy.”
“Don't worry about it. He's still a child, after all. We must look like big, scary strangers to him.” Ha Leoi’s eyes soften endearingly.
As Freminet’s eyelids begin to droop, he catches the slightest glimpse of brilliant red at the corner of his eye, but doesn't give it much thought.
*
He is quickly ushered away when he wakes up.
Go play by yourself, okay? Mommy has been carrying you for two hours. His mother runs a soft hand through his pale blonde hair. I have some things to discuss with Yip Tak. I'll come get you later, okay?
Freminet nods, but soon finds himself at a loss once he is outside. It's all just tea leaves, grass and stone paths for as far as the eye can see. Lacking the scrap metal and loose bolts he salvages around Fleuve Cendre, nothing of interest to tinker with.
Grey-blue eyes pan across the vicinity, and eventually settle on a delicate pink shape.
Bobbing gently along the crystalline surface of a small pond is a single lotus, blooming petals curled into a shy curtsey. Encased within the floral skirt is its sun-kissed heart, a flawless circular bulb flaunting the ethereal beauty of Mother Nature.
Ah, but in the eyes of a child who has seen little flora in his life, the floating blossom appears as a mechanical toy, luring him to grab it.
Freminet squats on the pebbled ground beneath him, leaning forward. Petite fingers reaching out to catch it, brushing the tips of the petals, almost—
—He topples head first into the pristine waters.
The pond isn't particularly deep, reaching about the height of an average adult’s chest. But in most less-than-ideal situations, instinct triumphs logic, and Freminet likewise finds himself flailing frantically along the water's surface.
He opens his mouth, forcing a shout for help out of his throat, but all that comes out is a wordless gurgling, followed by a violent bout of coughing as water invades his nostrils.
Mommy, he thinks through his haze of panic. Mommy—
Then all at once, a hand grabs him by the waist.
Suddenly he's lying on solid ground again, drenched but alive and inhaling the sweetness of air in hungry gulps.
“You shouldn't eat the yellow bulb on top.”
As his waterlogged vision begins to clear, Freminet catches sight of a boy crouching beside him, dressed from head to toe in a glaring red that greatly juxtaposes the endless plane of green.
The figure prattles on. Brown eyes that gradient to an amber glow appear dead serious as he pulls Freminet up from the ground. “It doesn't taste very nice. The rest of the lotus is edible, though. You can eat the root, the flower, the seeds…”
Then he cuts himself off abruptly, covering his mouth as if he's appalled by his own behaviour. “Wait! I forgot to introduce myself. I'm Gaming; what's your name?”
Freminet stares at the small hand extended towards him. Then at the boy, then back at the hand.
An overpowering sense of déjà vu washes over him, and his face flares scarlet.
Perhaps the boy is more perceptive than he appears, or Freminet is just terrible at hiding his embarrassment — either way, Gaming quickly breaks into a grin.
“Never mind then. Judging by your looks I think you're Fontainian, so maybe a name starting with F…” He begins ticking off every syllable that comes to mind with his fingers. “Fo… Fa… Fe… Fu—”
“It's… Freminet.”
The words fly out of Freminet’s mouth before he can stop them. There's just… something about this strange boy that makes him want to correct him, however weird it sounds.
Gaming pauses mid-sentence, peering at him. “Fre… mi… niē?”
“It's more like nay at the back but it's… alright.” He feels his face heating up again. Why on earth is he suddenly so talkative around this stranger?
A moment hangs suspended between them; all is silent save for the low buzzing of dragonflies as they danced across the pristine waters.
Gaming bursts into laughter.
Freminet, in a sudden rush of energy unlike him, too finds himself giggling along.
“Nay? Oh… like a horse!” Gaming declares once his titters subside to an intermittent wheezing. “Horse boy!”
Freminet opens his mouth to protest, but closes it again. “Garçon rouge,” he mumbles eventually in a rare display of petulance. “Noisy red boy.”
The latter pats him on the shoulder. “I'm just kidding,” he insists, fishing a small bag from his sleeve. “Here, as an apology.”
Freminet glances at the round, flaky pastry the latter places in his hand, before squinting at him. “You… carry a bag of food with you everywhere you go?”
Gaming shrugs. “I get hungry when I play outside. Lou po beng; it's cheap and light and nice to munch on.”
“Anyway,” he announces, standing up. He points at the pond, which ripples gently as a dragonfly skids across its surface. “Don’t be scared of the water! I always think of it like a giant blue pillow. If you panic, you'll keep sinking, but if you don't, you'll naturally float back up.”
The latter blinks. That is perhaps the most… unlike-Gaming thing he has said since they met. “I—”
“Siu sai lou!”
They both freeze as the man Freminet recognises as Yip Tak appears before them. Tak's gaze trails over his petite frame, hair and clothes still dripping, before glaring sharply at Gaming.
“I left you on your own for less than an hour and you've already pushed someone into the pond?”
From the corner of his eye, he catches the slightest trace of panic flicker past Gaming's usually ebullient features. “Bà—”
His sentence is cut short by a yelp as Tak seizes his ear.
In that moment, Freminet can't fathom why he stays put, watching passively as his new playmate is dragged away amidst strained protests.
By then the pastry in his hands has been squeezed to a mush, golden brown flakes fluttering onto the pebbles beneath him.
Freminet's stare lingers on the pastry for a second, before he hurls it into the pond.
Later that evening his mother would ask if he'd found anyone to play with, and he would hide his hands, still slightly oily from the glaze of the pastry, while shaking his head.
*
The next few years become a hazy tundra of memories — nothing much to forget, but nothing much to remember either. Rusty cogs of sentiments that revolve similar to ones Freminet tinker with on a daily basis, the little pieces in need of further tuning.
What he does remember is the day it all ends.
That day his mother's grasp over his hand feels too tight, an iron grip that trembles ever-so slightly. Freminet struggles to keep up with her steady pace, pulled along almost like a ragdoll.
“Where are we going, Mommy?” he pants out, grey-blue eyes round and wide as he gazes up.
His mother doesn't respond, her own eyes fixed dead ahead.
“Mommy?”
Eventually they stop before a towering brick building. The thick door creaks open, revealing an imposing woman dressed in grey.
“Freminet, correct?” Her voice is not unlike the biting winds of Snezhnaya, icy and uncaring. “Come with me.”
Freminet blinks, searching for answers on his mother's face. He finds none.
The woman reaches for his other arm, crimson nails digging into his flesh. He squirms under the rough touch, wincing as her talon-like fingers poke at his skin.
His mother's grip tightens on his other arm, leaving him the subject of an unspoken game of tug of war.
The woman raises an eyebrow.
Freminet feels tears forming in his eyes.
At last his mother kneels down to his height, planting a tender kiss on his forehead. That musical pendant he had revived two years ago dangles from her neck.
Her voice, soft and gentle, is the parting zephyrs that caresses one's hair after a violent storm, entwined with the phantom melody that plays in his head.
“Be a good boy, mon chéri.”
And all at once, the raging waves of trepidation calm to a placid spindrift.
Mommy's only leaving for a while, he reassures himself as the woman pulls him through the thick door. His mother finally lets go of his hand.
She'll come back.
*
To whomever receives this letter,
Please deliver it to Foyer de l'âtre for me. Tell the director to pass it to Freminet.
To Freminet,
Don't wait for me, mon chéri. Let Pers the Penguin guide you through the seas of tomorrow, let Princess Marcotte sing you the lullabies of hope, let Mr. Fox and the Clockwork Guardsman shield you from the darkness of the world. And should you ever feel lonely, just remember — Mommy will always watch over you from above, wherever you may be.
I'm sorry, mon chéri.
Mommy loves you.
(The letter remains on a chipped table in a house somewhere in Fleuve Cendre. Beside it, the sender's delicate fingers have gone cold, but are still wrapped firmly around a fountain pen.)