Down Kazu fell; further and further, he tumbled and summersaulted, losing track of all time and space around him. He closes his eyes, trying desperately to fight back his fear and uncertainty, and hopes that this feeling would end soon. He doesn’t like the feeling of falling, of not knowing what’s going to happen next. After what feels like…forever, really…the young boy feels something against his feet. ’Solid ground? But…when did I?’ He opens his eyes to a most marvelous sight.
Short, pointy-eared, people were running every which way, all around him. He was inside some sort of building, but it was unlike any building Kazu had ever seen before: brightly colored, and filled with toys, gifts, and doo-dads of all sorts, this place seemed like some kind of Wonderland. Multiple windows looked outside, where he could see something white that looked like sand but seemed to fall from the sky. There was a lot of it, too — it bunched up against the windows, partially obscuring the view, and making him feel…cozy? Warm. It was hard to explain, but the young kid who had grown up in a vast and harsh desert his whole life felt very much out of his element.
”I must be dead,” whispered Kazu to no one in particular. ”The sandworm ate me, and now I’m dead.” He got a few odd looks from some of the short people (elves) walking by, but they all seemed too busy with some task or another to bother stopping for one weird kid. Peering around him, suddenly Kazu spotted a familiar face — Ren was standing just a short distance away, surrounded by a bunch of the elves who seemed to be concerned and worked into a frenzy. Kazu doesn’t really care about that. His face goes from shocked, to relieved, to just plain miffed as he storms over towards the mono-syllabic girl and her soon-to-be-more-injured hand puppet, Usagi.
”REN! You reckless, thoughtless, crazy little…!” He closes his mouth before he can say anything more, but it’s clear that the words are trying to fight their way through his closed lips. Chewing them back down, Kazu reaches into his belt pouch, pulls out the sewing kit, and thrusts towards it the single-eyed puppet, Usagi, whom he had gotten it for. ”You could’ve at least waited a second for me to patch up Usagi’s eye with this before jumping off into…into…”
Kazu’s voice trails off for a second, as the reality of the situation comes back to him. Looking down at one of the scurrying elves, Kazu tries to pull at one of their sleeves in order to get their attention. ”Say, where are we, exactly? And, uh, who are all of you?” Kazu then notices the medical stretcher coming nearer towards them, and the looks of concern directed at the puppet Usagi emanating from each and every elf standing near them. ”Uh…you guys know it’s a puppet…right?” Kazu has never heard of a ‘living puppet’ before, nor has he ever heard of any sort of puppet that was alive, so to the young boy this whole scene seemed…overkill. He meant his statement to be dismissive, where the elves would probably interpret his statement as oddly matter-of-fact. The miscommunication here would surely lead to…something.
