Yashi's Beginning

-Happy birthday to you! Happy birthday to yoooooooou!

It's the melody Yashi disliked the most. She smacked her lips. Next to her, just a few meters away, a funky party is in full swing. A happy family was celebrating the birthday of their dear son in a public camping area. What unnecessary cheers for nothing! Birthdays are just telling you that you are one year closer to death. As someone who experienced death once, Yashi can make sure it's not a fun thing. But that boy looked so happy, and she started to wonder why she was here to look at it. She walked away, found a long road to drift with, and again, dropped herself into another pool of thoughts. It has been two months since she first arrived in Velarune. Yashi is well aware that she has no power in this new universe, and there are lots of inconvenient things for a human to do to live among Equos. After all, working at Freaque Antique is hard even for Equos, not a weak, fragile human who is trying over her limit to fulfill her responsibility and prove herself to the hooved. But she still accepts it, in fact loving the job. It was just causing her some stress, and sometimes it overlapped with her worry about Tamao's crazed existence. That's why she went off tonight, walking on the streets of dreamers.

But it couldn't keep her happy for long. The locals still don't take humans as fair as their own kind. Ignoring the eyes, she has chosen to embrace the night and the beautiful rays of the moonlight, which are brightening the dark sky and blessing it with the most pure beauty. She walks with a sense of purpose, her steps echoing on the empty streets. As she walks, she feels a sense of freedom and liberation, as if the weight of the world has been lifted off her shoulders. The moonlight guides her, illuminating her path and providing solace in the midst of the invisible chaos that surrounded her for the whole time. If she chose to escape the dream to take a glance at reality, she saw herself trying to stay calm in the middle of chaos, incompleteness, makeshifts, and other temporary and insignificant things that still cost lots of her effort to keep balanced. Yashi fights to adapt to this world. There are often moments when she wants nothing more than to give up everything and return to her old world, where everything is familiar. Living in the war is fine, just because she already knows how that world operates. Negativeness filled her brain for a minute, until someone's voice suddenly rose up and resonated in her consciousness.

-I'm not weak. She's the one who went looking for trouble.

That's her own voice when she talks to Chess. She repeated her explanation to the hotel guards as a guarantee of how serious she is about working with Equos and joining the realm. In this moment, Yashi realizes that she is the stubborn one who keeps weeping and thinking negatively without accepting that she needs to change. The big thing she is staying inside and leaning on is this world, this large realm, and the people in it. If she feels unfair and wrong, she herself is the one who needs to change, to see things with different eyes, not this world. It's useless to blame everything around you but yourself. So, just comply with these, and from now on she won't need the acceptance of others to find happiness; she has found it within herself. Can't expect a trip to another world to teach that much. She suddenly felt like the Yashi of five minutes ago was such a funny joke. Why is she feeling jealous of a happy boy who is celebrating his birthday with his family? It's the fact that she doesn't have a family. Every one of her relatives has been ripped off of the wide lands or forests of Japan. She herself was dragged from this family to another. But that's the past; is she wanting to live with it forever?

Something touched her legs, and Yashi almost jumped out of surprise. That's... a small birthday cake? She can swear that there was nothing in the place just a few seconds ago! What on earth is happening? The Equos are not only celebrating birthdays but also making the cakes move on their own? What is this crazy prank? Is it some of their tradition or preparation for festivals like Halloween or something? When Yashi was busy with confusion, another surprise popped right in front of her eyes. The cake "stood" up, growing two eyes and two pairs of small limbs. So, it's just a small creature. But before she could sigh and continue to walk, the flame on the candles faded away. It looks unwell when it closes its red eyes and collapses. This creature seems hungry. Yashi feels a bit panicked; she can't leave a weak and poor creature here alone. After searching her clothes and bag to find something to feed him, Yashi found a handful of nuts she brought to snack on. In a hopeless mood, she tried to feed the cake and bring it home after waiting for half an hour in the park to see if its owner would come pick it up. Nobody came, and they don't bother looking down on their hooves to see which one is silently struggling. 

Yashi looked closer at the little cake. Its candles look distorted, melted, and ugly. The flames on them were also faint. Its cake skin has some red dots that are unknown to any source but don't look like diseases. Maybe this is why the owner abandoned it—for its appearance, which is not as cute as other cake creations. What a poor thing. After some minutes of thinking, she decided to adopt this small guy if he doesn't struggle to run away; she's being lonely after all! Yashi slowly raised her finger to gently touch the creature. Suddenly, it woke up and ran into her arms. She was a bit unexpected at first, but then she started to rub its head.

Since that moment, the unlucky Cakei has been her companion. It's very well-behaved and happy to go anywhere with her. Yashi feels very happy to have it, but it's the most intuitive example of a problem that's also very popular in her old world: someone who is beautiful will get better treatment. It helps her with handling the antiques when her hands are always full most of the time. With this creature, she can tell that the road in front of her will soon be less stressed and pressured.