Why would a one month old infant need to be prepared, you ask?
Because I'm not an infant. Or, at least, an ordinary one. I don't know what I would prepare, but I will think of something later.
It was the next day. After leaving the training grounds, I was tired so Mother brought me to the room to nap.
I woke up hours later and the sun was about to set, my favorite time watching Glaedis to the right of the window and Saedli go to the left. They never set in one direction, but rose at sun rise from one side and went to the peak in the sky, then set in an opposite side like a T. Having two suns was something extraordinary for me, a former Earthling.
There was nothing like it, watching the yellow and white sons bathe everything in a myriad of colors from their magical properties. As it was still winter, Saedli was dominant and it was not very warm. Ice crystals were already forming on the flower beds below, the stars peaking out on either side of the sun as to not be out done. Truly something I would want to see for a very long time.
After watching the sun set while sitting in my white crib, I tucked myself back in and fell asleep. Mother had been watching me do this curiously, probably wondering why I was so quiet and focused, and how I was able to tuck myself in. I have no excuses. Don't think I'm possessed by a demon or anything. Just think that babies are amazing and don't sacrifice me to your gods, since everyone here is über religious.
The next day, when we got up, the whole household was clamouring. Maids were rushing around the halls, knights shining and polishing their armor as much as possible. Even Madtin, who kept a steady and cool demeanor, was fast walking around the halls while giving curt commands.
"What are you doing?" Mother asked while yawning to Thérèse. Thérèse smiled at seeing this level of comfortability, as always. She was my absolute favorite person even if I didn't see her often. Sorry Mom, but manhandling me has put you somewhere around three or four on my ranking.
Thérèse came into our room everything morning to tend to us as the "Lady's Maid" and also took the place of the "Nursery Maid" in name only since my mother wanted to take care of me herself. God help me.
But Thérèse's stats were unexpected to me when I looked at them for the first time:
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Name: Thérèse de Murovilla Age: 21 (30-Hidden) Race: Human
Main Job: Lady's Maid Current Job: Second Watcher of Firea-Madeline de Libellule (Former: B rank adventurer)
Status: Maid (Bodyguard-Hidden)
Title: None
Lvl: 15 (former 80-Hidden, former B-)
HP: 54 MP: 78 STR: 43 VIT: 64 DEX: 88 AGI: 23 INT: 90 LUC: 78
Attributes: Wind, Darkness
Skills: Cleaning, Cooking, Stoking Fires, Caretaking, Calming, +5 others (Assassination, Silencing, Intelligence Collecting, Weapon Mastery, +9 others-Hidden)
Condition: Normal
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...What is with this level of normalcy and extreme abnormalness??? I thought she was just a maid!
Her eyes flashed to me for a brief second which made me tense up, but when she just saw me dazed and looking at the ceiling, she removed her wariness and looked away. But that look in her eyes was something else.
She answered Mother's question calmly, like she hadn't looked at me like she was going to silence me.
"We're preparing to welcome the Lord, of course. We received a reply early this morning that he was coming home with the drafted soldiers for a few months."
"Husband is coming home?! Why didn't anyone tell me! I'm so unprepared!"
Only early this morning? But Blondie am Brownie knew about it yesterday. There's something wrong with that...unless you all just overslept or something.
Mother dropped her lax pace and immediately started hopping into pants, a linen shirt, and then bundled her long red curls up in a high ponytail. After fixing grabbing a wooden staff that had been lying against the wall of her bedside the while month, she scooped me up in one hand from my cradle suddenly and started out the door like a battle ready warrior. She was only nineteen for god's sake.
I let out a startled cry while I was being thrown like a ball underneath her arm.
When I was just about to faint from the jostling and all of air, someone stopped her.
"Madame!" A maid gasped in forced horror, looking at us as Mother dashed around a corner.
Ah. It's the bitch. The one who mocks Mother like she's crap, I thought since I had a spare second. No, I actually didn't have a spare second. That's some pretty strong sarcasm if you ask me. Sadly, no one did because they don't know I can answer...
"What is it, Magaris?"
*Queue innocent look from Mother*
She sighed and massaged her temples with her fingers, about to talk to Mother like she was a stupid child. My emotions weren't that well developed yet, but I still remembered what it felt like to seethe inside, unable to anything about a problem. The maid wasn't much older than my mother, her Status said 22.
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Name: Magaris de Iruieville (didn't even have her own last name because she was a commoner...hah...she took up the village name as all the others did) Age: 22 Race: Human
Main Job: Maid Current Job: Scullery Maid (good thing she's only for cleaning, she can't cook)
Status: Commoner
Title: None
Lvl: 9 (categorized F)
HP: 13 MP: 3 STR: 9 VIT: 10 DEX: 4 AGI: 7 INT: 25 LUC: 3
Skills: Cleaning, Blackmail, Acting
Condition: Suffers from megalomania, snide comments, narcissism, and condescending attitude. Has an insecure feeling in surroundings. To cure: A show of kindness on multiple occasions to earn trust. Show they aren't forsaken or worthless.
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The stats weren't even great. And the "To cure" part had a whole bunch of touchy feely emotions around that area. No thanks, I won't tread that path because there may be some yandere in there. You never know. Also, I noticed that the average for all stats is ten. Why the heck are her's so low?
"Madame...Out of all thing not to do, you should never hold your baby like that! Please consider her health if you do something like that! She is scared."
Again, the second time in two days, she looked down at me with a mystified expression in her face and paled. That was when she saw my red face from being held upside down for a long time.
"Fir...!"
"Lift her up! You are putting strain on her head!"
"Y-yes!"
I could freaking breathe when she shifted me upwards and I opened mouth as wide as possible, taking in gasping breaths.
Both Mother and I were red faced, her from embarrassment or shame and me from being unable to breathe.
"Fir, I did it again..."
"Indeed you did," Magaris answered for me, taking me from my mother's arms as fast as possible and forcing me to breathe more. "There we go," she breathed out her anxiety completely.
"Madame, what ever struck you to carry an infant this way?" Magaris sighed, tapping my back as I coughed out. Why are you forcing me to cough more? Ow! That hurts! Why are you squeezing my arm?!
"I forgot she wasn't a dragon kin baby..." Mother trailed off, despairing and distracting me from the pain. So that's what that sub race meant when it said dragon?! You are from a family of dragons?! And why would you carry any baby like that in the first place?
I cried out from my wrist being twisted slightly behind her back. This crazy maid!
"Fir!" The maid faked a distressed cry that I easily recognized as so, but Mother didn't and looked so heartbroken. I grew angry that this...girl, was messing around with my innocent mom.
In revenge, I turned and coughed in her ear while leaking slobber on her shoulder. I was disgusted by myself, but she reacted completely differently.
"Ugh! Oh my Jelke, what is wrong with this thing?!" She gagged and rubbed at her ear, pushing her dirty blond hair into her cap.
She marched forward the few feet she had run from Mother and dumped me in her arms carelessly. I almost dropped to the floor but a spell was said extremely fast, "Wind be her cushion!" and I was caught in a comforter of air.
Magaris turned and went away with a disgusted expression on her face, fussing over her "ruined uniform" while forgetting that a maid's uniform was meant to be worn and torn. Her haughty attitude and condescending actions were what made me dislike her a lot. And that's just dislike. But what made me absolutely, positively loath and resent her, was how she walked all over Mother and took advantage of her kind and trusting demeanor. I think it's time to look at my Status and plan on my to-be-made magic curriculum. I would have it out for a lot of the people here, only about an eighth of the 120 employees.
No vengeful thoughts here. None at all.
I was scooped from the air gently this time, and held as if I were the most precious thing in the world. Mother's beautiful eyes looked down at mine and it seemed breathtaking. If I hadn't known how she usually acted, like a kind and lively lady with a thick density that radars couldn't pick up, I would have believed she were the most perfect woman in the world. To think that she was still a teenager.
I was fourteen when I died, and if someone told me that five years later I would have a child then I would have used my portable drug test on them. Yes, I had one. My mother didn't want me to die, but succeed her stupid legacy as a famous, world traveling doctor...too bad, here I am now. It was a bitter sweet feeling to think that. I hadn't completely gotten over the shock of my own death since I was so "busy" here, the loss of my best friend...I hardened my heart when my eyes watered up.
Took a deep breath as Mother cuddled me lightly and started walking, staff strapped to her back.
Blew it out when my little lungs almost made me pass out again and we entered the yellow, tall pavilion.
Moving on.
We sat down with the domed ceiling not letting any sunlight through its stain glassed windows. How it could be a window and not let light through, I didn't know, but I thought it was pretty with how the light was trapped and continuously moving throughout the colored glass like little fish in a pond.
I was leaned against a large cushion with other pillows placed around it so I wouldn't fall over or be able to get out. It was a miracle I could even lift my head in this stage of infancy, but there was no way I could get out of this unless I wish for a death kiss on the ground about three feet below. Concrete. I didn't know this world had it, how curious, I mused while feigning interest.
"Sorry Fir, since Husband's coming home today, I want to practice a bit. We always spar when he comes back so I would like to not be out of shape. Stay put and watch the magic, ok? Thanks, I love you," she talked while positioning me even tighter into the couch. Her whole talk was one sided since I was already getting sleepy with no breakfast, nodding off.
Okay, I answered in my head, giving a small toothy smile. I loved this lady. I want to stay here, as long as possible, and meet my father too. I wonder what he's like?
After smiling back at me with love in her eyes, she walked a bit into a large grassy field we had to the left of our house. You could see the training grounds from here if you faced the house. It was in front of you and to the right because these places were right next to each other.
My eyes closed a bit as she took a position in the knee high grass, wooden staff out and head held up. Her lashes fluttered shut as she seemed to concentrate, and there was a little tug in the air. That jerked me right up because it felt like someone electrocuted me. I snapped my spine up unwittingly, all premonitions of sleep gone.
The air around me was uncomfortable, like scratchy cloth was being dragged over my skin. It was getting harder to breathe again as the surroundings seemed to become heavier and hotter. In an instant, a smile lit Mother's face as she started moving her staff up to point at the sky and chanted something. I couldn't hear it as a pounding started in my skull and my head fell forward.
A fire blazed in front of my eyes all of a sudden, dancing and spinning in different colors. It felt like I was dreaming lucidly, my vision going in and out as I tried to stay awake and look at the pillows. The fire seemed familiar, that short blast that consumed my sights as it swept in from behind and pushed forward, clashing and absorbing everything else.
My mother was gone from my eyes, her smiled and form dancing in the field burned away like an old photo from ages past. And I was alone in the fire, a trauma I didn't know I had creeping up over me as shrapnel pierced me all over again and I couldn't breathe. A face, crying in the distance, looked at me like this was the end. And for that life, it was.
This is somewhere else, I realized, and snapped out of my destructive and painful reverie.
The darkness soon faded away like a fog rolling back into the sea. It was replaced with a person standing on a horizon of never ending water as I, Itsuki Kaya, not Firea-Madeline de Libellule, stood atop it in my old Japanese body.
Like a mirror, the ground reflected the sky and bounced back and forth. My shadow was not present, nor was the sun even though I felt its touch on my skin and could see perfectly fine. The clouds moved at a low altitude, about ten feet above my head as they drifted by quite fast for their size. In the distance, it seemed like they mixed in with the watery ground. As I looked down and saw only my reflection from the day I died, perfectly fine, I felt uneasy.
It was probably because I hadn't seen this sight for a good month, and hadn't officially thought, "I died. Itsuki Kaya is dead," yet. Even these words I deny.
But the same question has been rolling around the back of my mind, the same shadow I could never catch as I pushed it farther away from myself. How do I let reality hit without sinking into a hole and never returning? How do I mourn for myself and my death without making it seem like I was full of self-pity like Magaris, too absorbed by myself to see anything else?
A devil whispered over my shoulder into my ear, smirking as it fed me the same words again.
I chanted it like it was a mantra as I closed my eyes and recognized it as the only self-defense and truth I could muster for now.
The answer to the questions?
It's easy. You don't let reality hit. If you think about it and how hurt you are, you'll break. It's best to just keep pushing it off till no one can see it-or the real, ruined you. Hide and act like it's fine. Otherwise, they'll just keep bugging you with standard questions they ask out of simple human habit, "What's wrong?" or "Is everything okay? Are you fine?" over and over again until you get sick of it, lie, and say, "Yes, I'm fine."
It's never sincere, just an automatic response. All of it is just to satisfy their own consciousness. A courtesy, if you will. After you answer, they breathe out the seemingly worried breath they had been holding and smile at you like nothing's wrong anymore, all because of your big lie. They don't search any further for fear of breaking the façade and bringing up trouble.
That same method had worked for me in Japan all those years, until I believed my lie of happiness to be true. Why wouldn't it work here?
Now that I've had time for myself to think, I realize that the happiness I was aiming for-to be apart of Takuya's warm surroundings-was not for me. It never was. I was just taking what could've been more of theirs to make a place for me, like a parasite. But what right did I have to chip off their lives, to take the excess of what is rightfully theirs? None.
Those thoughts looped around and around, searing themselves into me as I started to think in darker, deeper shades.
This new life of mine-this future-was it even mine? Did I steal this body from some other child and ruin their future? Or was this just a dream, something I had wanted all along? Just in a coma some place and destroying the happiness of the anxious people who's lives I had wormed my way into, refusing to wake up and see reality? Refusing to wake up and tell them that one little lie, "I'm fine," and let them go back to their peace?
No, that was a selfish thought anyway. Why would they care about me? No one should, since I wasn't meant to be born in the first place. My mother never wanted me, just a victim of some random man's pleasure after being attacked on the street. My older half brother was burdened with taking care of me when he could've been off, playing with other boys or spending more time with the family that loved him: his actual sister and respected mother, confident father and his own admirable older brother. Not with the black sheep that was good for nothing.
I don't remember how I met Takuya, my light that I was grateful for...don't even know how we became such good friends. Did I just force my way into his life as well? I used to wonder. My "density" must've been my narrow vision of life, not wanting to see how I annoyed others. I must've been a pest there too.
Did he even want to be friends with me? Or was he unable to sever our connection because I planted my spot in his life and refused to move?
They must all be relieved that I'm gone.
I never did anything for them. I just took. From Takuya and his family. My friends. Everyone.
Or I wasn't enough for the sacrifice they made, like my mother's peaceful marriage? My "sibling's" happiness? The time of all those who paid attention to me? I couldn't be what they wanted me to be. I would never be a doctor or meet her expectations, maintain the distance they all put up with me. Repay them for the life I hadn't really managed to live.
The sizzling pain that had made its home in my head was forcing these negative thoughts down the throat of my soul, striking harder with each pound. As it started fading away, I remembered all of this and just wanted to crawl into a hole and never come out.
See? It's better to just not face reality, otherwise you'll never come back.
Lucid memories of faces from my previous life stream passed my dull eyes, some welcome, most not.
Their livid expressions and taunting words would never leave.
Their kind voices and extended hands would never stay.
My hazy mind acted like it was dreaming even now. However, I knew I was awake when I saw in front of me, the woman with the silver-white hair. The wind had picked up right before I noticed her and started swaying her dark dress in the breeze, putting her in shadow as a cloud passed overhead. Her hair was short, only about to her shoulder as it was put up in a ponytail. She didn't even bother to hide her face, dead grayish blue eyes stared at me unblinkingly. She never lost eye contact with me as I tried to make excuses up for my existence to the mantle of expectations that have crossed worlds with me, hanging on my shoulders like an old cape.
"I came here to give you a warning while still within the time parameters. You shouldn't be here, Deviant."
Huh? It wasn't much of a shock, but I still couldn't believe it.
"Your existence shall not be tolerated."
My eyes creased in disappointment as I was about to lose hope. Even here? In this new life? I can't stay?
"You were never welcome."
Why? Why does this always happen?
"I do not know of the circumstances of which you think of, but ones such as yourself were never welcome in Tasega. There are written laws that prove as such. It was proclaimed so by the gods many years ago. It is not only you."
Ah, so I was self-absorbed again and assumed it was just me, huh? My old face formed a wry, self-reprimanding smile.
"If you wish to take it that way."
I don't wish for anything. Just a place to be, I shrugged. A place to be happy.
"That place is not here. Leave, Deviant. Tasega is not your place."
What is keeping me from staying?
"The will of the gods."
I narrowed my eyes. From all I had read, the gods were never "good" beings, just trouble and loss...and there are absolutely no exceptions?
"..."
Speak now, woman, I commanded while getting impatient. If there was any way to stay...I would take it. I got this life, so I would defend it to the last. This, I pledge, as long as I draw breath beneath the gazes of Glaedis and Saedli.
Until I have to give it up.
"You have no right to talk to me, Zuelis' representative, that way."
Zuelis is that main god of gods, right? Mother goes to give thanks to him every morning, as do all the others. I hear some other names said in thanks, but since the they were so weird I just ignored them. You are only using his glorified name.
"It is not glorified. He is simply revered throughout this world which is his domain, and respected. Any being would bow to his magnificence, so taking up his name is no simple matter," she ground out, eyes narrowing in defiance.
Whatever, I waved her words away with a flick of my fingers. Now, tell me, what are the exceptions?
A flash of pity crossed her face. She schooled it to be blank again as she opened her mouth to speak with that flat tone of hers. "You will regret this, Deviant."
I want to stay here. There weren't enough attachments for me to want to stay, but I would form them. With no own hands, my own time, I would sculpt my place to make myself want to stay.
"There's no telling what will happen in the future."
And the future is never certain. It's always changing with the choices that all of us make.
"Some futures are set in stone," she persisted, trying to change my mind.
Then let's just hope that mine isn't. Free as the wind, I would like to think. That's the point of having a whole new life, am I not right?
"All of you Deviants are the same..." she sighed, looking up at the real sky. "I will never understand what's so good about life to be that attached."
How can you preach about being Zuelis' representative if you don't even want to live and assume that role pridefully?
"It's a complicated matter. Either way, you will not change your mind about giving up this life and moving on to a different world? Zuelis' wrath is immense when you choose to go against his rule."
I won't be going against him if I take the legal way and be an exception.
"So be it..." She tilted her head at me and said, "You are an interesting human. And so, I will tell you what you will have to become."
Have at it. I've got all the time in the world.