Chapter 2: Chapter 2: Languages are hard

"Huuf nuspoph, movvmi upi. Fof zua tmiiq ximm?"

Urk... This is hard. I think that was a morning greeting? 'movvmi upi' seems to be how mum refers to me, or at least it's something she uses in the middle of a lot of sentences when talking to me, but not when talking to dad. How on earth do real babies pick up language without any context to go with it? Hmm, I probably shouldn't be using the expression 'how on earth' any more should I, because I'm not. Ah well, at least I'm not expected to answer yet.

"Owa ahh"

I answered anyway. My speech isn't even good enough to be called babbling, but making any noise at all always makes mum happy. It helps that both my vision and hearing have cleared up a bit since I was born. I still can't see properly but I can at least tell mum apart from dad, and I know when they're facing me.

"Et davi epf daffmz et iwis. Voni gus zuas giif."

Uh oh. I know 'giif' well. It means I'm about to have a boob shoved in my face. I seriously hate being a baby. Right, I can deal with this. Ignore the fact I have my own mothers breast in my mouth, and think about something else.

We've had a lot of visitors to the house these past few weeks. Of course they all want to hold the new baby, so I end up getting passed around like some sort of hot potato. I wonder if they have potatoes here? So far I've had nothing but milk, and that's likely to continue for a long time yet. My vision isn't good enough to see what everyone else is eating. It always smells nice though. Something to look forward to once I have functional teeth and a digestive system.

What I haven't seen is any electric. Par for the course for a fantasy world unfortunately, but that means no TV, computers or appliances. We do have lights. I'm not entirely sure what they are though, since they just look like small yellow blobs to my eyes. They aren't particularly bright, but I guess they beat candles. Less chance of burning the house down too. We do seem to have running water, which is a surprise. I'm not sure where it is, but mum gets water from somewhere for cooking and washing and I've never seen her go outside.

I've yet to be taken outside the house myself either, so I have very little information on where I am. We do have windows, but to me they're just white oblongs. The house itself is small with just a few rooms and no stairs. A bedroom in which we all sleep, a bathroom and the entrance room with a table and chairs and a length of worktop against one wall for cooking. Without seeing anyone else's home I couldn't say if we're comparatively poor or rich but we have plentiful food and enough space, so whatever amount of money we have is sufficient.

Although mum has been staying home with me, dad has started going out every day. He did stick around for the first week, and even now he's not exactly gone all day. It's likely that in this world there's no such thing as paid paternity leave, so he's probably doing his best. Fortunately I'm not exactly high maintenance as babies go, so mum isn't having a hard time of it. I have no idea what dad actually does for work. I can't tell if he's taking anything with him, nor have I gathered any other clues. I've caught mum knitting, but again I have no idea whether that's her day job or just something to do while housebound. All in all, I have a lot still to learn about my own family before I even start thinking about the world I've been born into.

A knock on the door heralded another visitor. "Dunoph,"called dad, heading over to let them in. Mum took the opportunity to detach me and start tapping my back.

"Huuf egvispuup, David. Jux ot iwiszupi vufez? O juqi zua'si emm nepehoph vu hiv ipuahj sitv."

David is dad's name. I recognised the start of that as a greeting, but had no idea about the rest. I also recognised the voice as belonging to Clana, a women who had visited a few times before already.

"Xi'si hivvoph up katv gopi. Peter ot e movvmi ephim. Tu ximm cijewif zua xuamfp'v cimoiwi. Tu nadj tu Lucy ot tvomm gsieloph uav e movvmi."

Second sentence, and they're already talking about me. Lucy is mum's name. No idea what they're saying about me, but I'll assume it's all good. I cooed appreciatively. That caused a sudden outbreak of daww's, which seemed to be universal to any language. At this point mum brought me over and joined the chatting. I listened as best as I could, trying to make any sort of sense of the conversation, but it was all still far beyond me. Of course, I was soon handed over to our guest to fuss over. Might as well put on the expected show then.

As I opened my mouth to begin my stream of attempted babbling, my attention was stolen by something more important. On top of the blur that was her head were two smaller blurs. It was still hard to make out, but... were these the fabled animal ears? I instinctively reached up, but of course my arms were nowhere near long enough. Clana seemed to find my behaviour amusing, laughing at me.

"Opvisitvif op nz iest? Zua'si David't tup emsohjv. Emxezt xepvoph vu qiv epzvjoph gmaggz."

Whatever she said caused mum to burst out laughing too, while dad sounded rather grumpy.

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"Ov xet updi, ul. Epf O xet upmz iohjv!"

That just made mum laugh even harder. Maybe dad had a thing for animal ears and was trying to deny it. No need to deny it dad; I will always be your ally here. Animal ears are justice! Hmm... Maybe I've been giving the Chūnibyō part of my brain a little too much freedom recently. Let's rephrase. Animal ears are merely very very cute. Also I'm a baby. I can get away with things that adults can't.

Surprisingly, Clana cooperated, lifting me up so that I could reach the top of her head. I guess that means they aren't some sort of private erogenous zone. Since I so obviously had permission, I petted away with everything that my single point of dexterity permitted. Which wasn't much; another reason to try and grow up as soon as possible. They were soft and fluffy, and from the shape I guessed cat. I didn't get to pet for long though, before I was lowered back down. I did my best pout attempt to convey my displeasure, with no idea how successful it was.

ding

Huh? What was that noise? Something definitely went ding. No-one else seemed to have reacted though. Was I the only one that heard it? Hard to believe, given my dodgy hearing. It didn't seem to correspond to anything I could see either. In fact, the noise hadn't seemed to come from anywhere. It was more like it came from the inside of my own head. Hmm, since I'm living inside a literal RPG now, perhaps it was a message notification. How do I check my messages?

New trait acquired: [Early Bloomer]

By wanting to check my messages, apparently. So that answers what the ding was, but now I was a little frightened to look up the trait details. Did I just get awarded something for petting Clana? It had better not be anything weird...

[Early Bloomer] - You like to make an early start in life. The first few levels of a skill are easier to obtain. (Rank 2)

Phew, thank goodness nothing strange came out. That must have come from my desire to grow up quickly. Wait, if I can get new traits just by thinking things... I want all the magic in the world! Nope, nothing happened. Darn. There must be some condition to it. Since skills are things you can learn, traits are probably fundamental aspects of your body or personality. There's a big difference between wanting to learn magic and wanting to already know magic, so traits for learning and skills for knowing, perhaps? At this point mum decided to interrupt Clana's prod-the-baby time, despite me being fully willing to offer it up in payment for my pet-the-ears time.

"O jies vjev duphsevamevoupt ug zuas uxp esi op usfis, Clana."

"Uj nz, vjev tqsief raodlmz. Zit, emm cioph ximm O tjemm jewi e movvmi upi ug nz uxp duni xopvis."

Hmm... I think I can actually work that one out. 'Zit' was an agreement. 'Movvmi upi' could be baby, since it's how mum refers to me. I'm pretty sure that 'xopvis' is a time of year. Maybe a month or season or the local equivalent. And the sentence was referring to herself. Conclusion: Clana is pregnant! Come 'xopvis', whenever that is, there will be a little baby catgirl. Or boy, I suppose, but I choose to remain optimistic. Hopefully we can be friends.

Clana put down a grey blob and took a white blob out of it. Despite the blobbiness, I knew what this was; our afternoon visitors always brought a meal with them. Presumably some sort of new mother support group was going on. It was nice that my parents had such good friends. A gorgeous smell permeated the room; of all of the food bearers, Clana's always smelt the best. Perhaps there's a cooking skill? I was put down in my cot while the adults got to eat all the delicious smelling food. Despite my best efforts I still wasn't strong enough even to hold my head up, never mind rolling or crawling, so I was just kind of stuck there listening to everyone else enjoying themselves. Have some mercy on this poor baby!

I continued practising my motor skills while listening to the conversation. I could decipher very little of it, but if I didn't put the effort in I'd never get it. Although I feel that deciphering any of it was pretty impressive given that I was less than a month old. What were normal babies like? I couldn't remember. At what point do they start to recognise their names, or basic words? When do they start the dada thing? When are they supposed to be able to crawl and walk? I never had a kid in my old life, so this wasn't information I'd ever considered important. I didn't want to get too far ahead in case I started freaking my parents out, but likewise I didn't want to accidentally fall behind. I think about a year old is when I'm supposed to start pulling myself upright and speaking simple words? So crawling must come a little earlier. As for recognising words, I really have no clue. It must be earlier than a year, but how much earlier?

Of course, even if I knew the expected timeline exactly, it doesn't help that I can't measure time properly. A day seems about the same as back on Earth, as far as I can tell given my habit of falling asleep at random, but there's no way I can tell the season or know the length of a year. Or if seasons and years are even a thing. Speaking of falling asleep all the time, it appears my stamina stat is almost drained again. I waved Clana a metaphorical goodbye, congratulated myself on another successful bout of baby acting, and drifted off.

ding
Strength increased by 1
Dexterity increased by 1
Endurance increased by 1
Charisma increased by 1

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