Grounded

1

To be specific, this was his fourth life.

But even that was a bit ambiguous, because while it may be the truth, the amount of memories Este has left from those previous lives was minuscule.

His first life, he doesn't remember almost anything. He only knows that his name had started with the letter A, and he had died drowning. Gender, age, looks, nationality, he was missing all that and more in his recollection.

He doesn't even remember his name from back then! Just the first letter! Whatever it was he doesn't have a clue, and the rest of the memories don't give him any info he could guess based off of.

His second life was a bit more clear, although not much. He had been a young man named Nicolas, he had been a street orphan who fought his way through life in the 17th century.  He fought until he became a successful opera singer, and then he had died in a collapsing building. In his memory, the building that collapsed was the opera house during one of his performances.

He knew what Nicolas looked like at least. He had been an opera singer, so to him appearance mattered a lot. Nicolas had looked very gentlemanly even at age 45, with green eyes and short curly hair.

Este was confident of at least one fact about A because of his other lives though, and that was the fact that his hair will and always has been a strongly orange tinted strawberry blonde.

And then his third life, which was much clearer in his head.

He had been a European woman named Veera, and died in a house fire lit by her nephew accidentally. The boy had been playing with matches, and by the time Veera discovered the fire, it was too late. She only just managed to stuff the boy out of the house by a window before she was trapped in and eventually died.

Now Veera, Este remembers a lot about her. He knows how to braid hair so well because Veera had been a hairdresser. Veera had dyed her own hair multiple times, but it always ended up fading back to the strawberry blonde really quickly.

Este knew that Veera also remembered her past life, and that was a big reason for the hair dye. She wanted to distinguish herself among the memories, and a hair color that stood out was a good solution. Her favorites had been black and a vivid neon pink.

Now, this was his fourth life. He was born as Estchel Krüger, the son of the biggest glass merchant around these parts. His mother was a tailor, who only did small commission work nowadays. Once Este grew a bit more she would probably devote herself back to the craft.

Originally, his mother Ester had given up her stable job at the tailor's to be a housewife. The man she fell in love with and married is occupied with work constantly, and can barely be home on the weekend. Once she became pregnant, she thought she would have even more on her plate with taking care of the child but surprisingly enough the child that came out was more mature than some elders in the city.

Este didn't really mean to tell his new mother about his memories, it just, sort of happened.

He had been three, and Ester decided to bring him along to her visit at the cathedral. At first Este had been immersed in looking at the new scenery, but then something caught his eye.

The statue. It clearly had two braids, and oh lord was Este's brain combing through all of Veera's game knowledge.

After a few minutes, he finally swallowed down the realization. That was a statue of Barbatos, this was undoubtedly Mondstadt, this world is Teyvat. He is in a gacha game, that Veera had played.

It wasn't even that Veera was a gamer. She had played the game at first because it was popular. Then she got really lucky in the gacha, and suddenly got the rare red haired 5 star, and suddenly she couldn't give up on the game because her friend would smite her for giving up such good luck.

Nonetheless, Este recognized this world.

"So this is Mondstadt." He mumbled to his mothers hair, and she stilled.

Her gaze probing, he looked to the side. Este's new mother was good, and it wouldn't be healthy to keep the secret all to himself. Veera had never felt truly honest in her life, and she was only ever comfortable on her own or around kids who didn't understand her oddities.

Este bit the bullet, and warily opened his mouth to speak.

"Mom, I think I remember my past life."

Her expression was confused. A slight tilt of the head, and she closed her eyes. She resolutely drew in a breath and opened her eyes with a grin.

"So that's it! I was wondering how my little boy was able to braid mom's hair." her expression didn't falter. It was bright and accepting, even with a bit of helplessness lying on the curve of her smile, it made something warm bloom in his chest.

"Was a girl before..." He hesitantly mumbled and glanced at his mother's eyes. Once he saw that the accepting expression didn't change, he continued. "I liked braiding my hair, it was really long like mom's."

Her smile only grew, and he ducked his head when a wave of embarrassment hit. His cheeks heated up, and he couldn't look his mother in the eye.

"Then would Estchel want his hair long just like mom's?" Her question was gentle, with a hint of laughter in it. She poked his cheek, and Este ducked his head even lower as his face burned red. He couldn't see his mother's expression with his eyes trained on the ground, but he could deduce it by the sound of her soft laughter.

Este bit his lip, "Is that okay?" he asked.

His mother burrowed her head into his hair.

"Of course it is. This'll be our little secret for now, let's not tell your father just yet."

Her laugh echoed in the wind like a bell, and Este smiled.

This is just fine.