Chapter 10: 8: First words

Did I say I could learn the Elvin language within a month? No, no, actually I don’t think I said that. What I said was I could learn to understand the gysts of what people were saying, pick up the basic words such that I could at least figure out the general concept of what was being discussed. That would mean, roughly understanding around 30% of the more basic everyday speech type words. It seemed like a pretty reasonable objective at the time. Now, however, I’m beginning to think it was an arrogant goal to achieve.

I totally succeeded at it, but it was definitely arrogant. For the past month, the crazy elf medicine man has been insisting on bringing in armloads of items every day and teaching Levin and Rolwen the words for each. Of course, since I’m right there at their side, I’m able to pick up the words as well. At least, I try to pick up the words, but I keep getting frustrated and falling asleep. Despite the best of my intentions, it is starting to feel more and more like my existence as a baby is taking over.

I have been trying to fight it as best I can, but it is as though my adult mind is at war with my infant brain. I realize, I had never stopped to consider just how it was I was able to keep my adult memories in this obviously fresh infant brain. If it lacked the neural pathways for me to have a properly functioning motor speech center, then how does it have the far more complex neural pathways associated with memory that are supposed to network the entire brain?

Well, for that matter, how can memories be passed from one body to another after death like this? It almost seems as though the first question is completely answered by this second. It would seem that memories can be contained in some form of external spiritual body. However, at this time, I am feeling more and more like my previous life memories are actually at war with my current life’s body. That body, of course, belonging to an infant that wants to do nothing except to sleep and is violently protesting against all this brain work I’m making it do.

No, that’s clearly crazy. Thinking like that is to imply there are actually 2 wills within the same body. After reincarnating with all my memories, it does not seem entirely impossible for something like that to happen as well. However, I do not believe there is any real sign of me being possessed by another will. Or rather, any sign that I’m the other will possessing a baby. Rather, it is simply that my newly weak body simply cannot accept my strong adult will. So, that strong will itself has to be shaved away and weakened.

It is a frightening thing to feel my former life’s mental strength, which is the only strength I really have left in this new life, slipping away like this. As such, quite often whenever I feel myself becoming sleepy in the middle of one of the medicine man elf’s lessons, I get scared and frustrated. And of course, what does a baby do when they are scared and frustrated? You guessed it. They cry.

It’s not like I can even help it at all. Crying has become a natural reflex for me, and I seem to be getting less and less able to resist it. This frustrates me even more, and so I respond also by crying more. It becomes a vicious cycle like this. However, whenever this happens, it also makes it so that the lessons have to stop because of how much I’m crying. So, in a strange way, the crying actually manages to accomplish its purpose. That being, that I am awake for all of his lessons. Like this, he can’t give the lessons when I’m starting to feel sleepy, and often the excitement of all the crying wakes me up a little.

In this manner, despite all these struggles, I manage to pick up quite a few words in the Elven language. And, despite all these difficulties, I seem to have managed to reach my goal, which I have since concluded was a completely absurd thing to have expected from a baby. Even if that baby was myself, it seems to just be something unreasonable to expect.

I can honestly say I have cried many tears of frustration over this past month over my other training and exercise goals as well, although I really don’t know whether or not that says much these days now. I definitely cry those tears of frustration a lot more easily now. However, they have all been worth it, and I have managed to accomplish another truly absurd thing for my current age. And what is that truly absurd thing that I’ve worked so hard to accomplish? Saying my ABCs.

It may not sound like much to have such a simple thing be the benchmark of success, but if I were to compare myself to a stoke patient who lost verbal motor control and lost this ability, getting back to this level from being unable to speak at all would be considered an amazing accomplishment of someone who had the determination to put forth a herculean effort. In this case, I was working from literally no motor speech center to start with, which is definitely comparable to having it destroyed in a stroke. I suppose I have the neural-plasticity of an infant brain to thank for this, given I was able to accomplish so much while training only at night while nobody can hear me.

This whole question of neural plasticity has gotten me thinking though. Maybe the actual reason for why I feel more given to the whims of my body now is actually because I’ve become more attached to it. Perhaps… the spirit or whatever was storing my memories before was just like a temporary back-up copy so to speak. If that’s the case, then over the course of however long I was in the womb along with this past month on top of it, my spirit body had been “writing” my memories onto my infant brain. And then, maybe the reason I’m less able to control how fussy I am is because that external spirit is integrating with this body more.

Well, I can’t know for sure, but it definitely sounds like a good working theory.

At any rate, I’ve gotten to a point where there is still a little bit of slurring, but I am definitely able to say every single letter in a way that it actually sounds like the letter. Now then, for the next step. How about my own name?

It is the middle of the night as usual now, so now is my regular practice time for speaking. I look over to my sister and the two boys, using the neck muscles I have been training all month non stop, seeing them still sleeping soundly. Seems like the coast is clear.

“Aarereaaa… AAAUREIREN” Well, still sounds like baby babble, but it also did sound like my name. Definitely an accomplishment. Actually, this should be good enough. I’m still not at the level where I can speak to the boys about my concerns, but I also have to talk to them about it as soon as possible. As such, I have a plan I have to set into motion for the sake of appearances. I’m sure they’re going to all find it fairly shocking, but it’s better to do it this way than have my first words be when I’m ready to discuss the serious stuff with the boys. And besides, if this all goes well then it might help me to face fewer frustrations while learning Elven.

But that’s for tomorrow when that elf teacher comes back. For now, this speech training should actually be good enough. As such, this means I can dedicate more of my time to training my muscles instead. And so, I begin to go through the routine I have gotten used to every night, and sometimes even throughout the day.

First, I have to get this tight blanket off of me. I have done this several times, and it’s always a struggle. The adults have even gone to attaching a little clasp to pin the blanket in order to make it harder for me to remove, but of course with enough struggling it’s always going to be possible for me to work it loose eventually. In fact, if anything, this helps me. The more I have to work my arms and legs in order to get this thing off of me, the more it improves my motor control as the neural pathways are built.

Working my hands around inside the blanket, I begin by lashing out and struggling in every way I can until I feel the blanket start to shift. As I feel that, I determine where it seems to be giving the most, and from there I start applying more pressure there. My goal in this is to speed the time it takes me to escape. Every improvement in speed indicates an increase in my motor control, the skill I’m trying most to work on right now.

By this point, I’ve managed to get a fair amount of slack in the blanket. Now for the next step. I have to work that clasp off. I already know where they pinned it, so in order to get it off all I have to do is start struggling with the blanket near its location. I manage to work the clasp a bit more forward toward me, and begin struggling more. Eventually, I feel a sudden amount of give, but I didn’t feel the sensation of the clasp falling off the blanket.

Well, it must have worked the corner loose. That will be enough. The corner of the blanket is the most important part anyway. With this, it is a simple matter to struggle out of the blanket the rest of the way.

Of course, I do not completely throw off the blanket. The blanket is the only thing they put on me since I was born, since apparently it seems to be the Elven custom to wrap their babies in those blankets at all times. As such, they never gave me any cloths. They do seem to have put a diaper on me since they have been feeding me solid food in the form of those crushed berries every meal. Thankfully, I don’t seem to need to be changed often due to the low amount of solid food. However, it is in my diet so apparently it’s a concern now, which also leads me to really wonder about exactly how an elf’s physiology works since we can apparently also get by without food, medicine being a clear exception.

At any rate, once the restrictive blanket is out of the way, I begin rolling my head from side to side. Fortunately, the same muscles responsible for lifting the head also have a function in turning the head. As such, simply turning from side to side is enough. Somewhere along the line, I also practice rolling over. This has gotten rather simple, as the muscle to bone ratio of my limbs and torso is no where near as unbalanced as those of my neck Vs. my head. Due to this one limitation, my mobility is easily the area farthest behind in terms of me being advanced beyond a normal baby’s growth. In fact, I should be very rapidly approaching the natural age at which it’s normal for a baby to get the ability to lift their head.

Actually, if I’m getting so close to that benchmark age and I still can’t do it, then could it be I actually am somehow weakened by whatever the condition with my body is? Well, it’s possible, but there is another possibility that also springs to mind. Elves are supposed to have a longer life-span, and in most stories they are supposed to reach adulthood at ages ranging from 50 to 80 depending on who’s telling the story. If an elf’s development is so slow, then maybe gaining the ability to lift my head at the normal age for humans would be considered ridiculously advanced for an elf?

That feels like a rather unsettling thought. I really don’t want to have to spend several months with such limited mobility. Ok, that’s it. Time for the final phase of my physical exercises. Getting myself laid flat on my back again, I begin to struggle with all of my will in order to lift my head. I may not be able to do the action smoothly yet, but I have gotten to the point where I can lift it for at least a few seconds, and that much is enough to give good exercise to the muscles involved. Then, I keep doing this until my muscles become so fatigued that I can no longer continue, working myself completely to exhaustion on the actual goal skill of this exercise.

I am so close now I can feel it. A few more days like this, and I might be able to add sitting upright to the list of activities. However, the difficult point of my being an elf and likely so incredibly far ahead of the curve already is a bit concerning. It’s hard to picture how others may react to this. However, it might very well fit in with the rest of my plan. But honestly, if I didn’t feel I had to worry about these two boys I don’t think I would ever do what I’m about to do.

Satisfied with my workout for the night, I pull the blanket over me and fall asleep.

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“Looksh lrike Aerien bulled her blanket ov agin.” (Looks like Aerien pulled her blanket off again.)

In the morning, I was woken up by Levin picking me up and trying to tuck the edges of my blanket under my shoulders. Well, at least he got my name right this time, although I know from experience that this is not because he’s actually figured it out or anything. He was calling me Gaerien almost all day yesterday, he’s just gone ahead and switched it back to Aerien again. Well, if there’s one completely positive thing that’s coming from what I’m planning to do, it will be that we can end this name confusion nonsense.

(Why do they like them in these blankets anyway? I don’t think she likes it.) Rolwen speaks up.

(Caus she’ll get cold!) Levin objects to his remark. (It’s bad for babies to get too cold!) Well, he’s right on that one. Guess he must have at least some experience or knowledge about babies in his previous life, although this is pretty basic tier stuff. It’s clear that otherwise he absolutely does not know what he’s doing, the naming confusion here being evidence enough. It would probably have been a lot better if they had just picked one and stuck with it, even if it wasn’t the correct name. That way at least they’d be calling us by the same consistent name. Switching names with my sister wouldn’t really be a bad thing, and if I was a real infant I wouldn’t really know the difference anyway.

(You stay with them! I’ll go get Ms. Sonaby.) Levin says, pushing me over closer to my sister so that we are both next to Rolwen. Sonaby seemed to be the name of the woman who was taking care of all the kids here, and it has become part of our morning routine now that every morning Levin goes and wakes her up in order to get her to re-wrap the blanket around me. This is often combined with a diaper check as well, and since Gaerien and I really only have a little bit of berry juice on our tongue for meals we are often clean going on several days at a time. As such, we are only checked this one time of the day and it seems as good a time as any.

Normally, someone with previous life memories would probably get embarrassed at this. Well, I admit, I really was kinda embarrassed for about half a minute when I realized the obvious that, at that time, I was naked under this blanket until they started putting that diaper on me. However, due to some combination between having been a nurse and gone through assisting incontinent adults in my previous life, and whatever was happening as my previous life memories were being integrated with my baby brain, I really didn’t have a strong enough sense of shame for it to continue to worry me for very long. In fact, were it not for me being aware of how much trouble it would cause for others, I could easily see myself stripping myself like any other baby would once I get enough motor control to do so.

Soon enough, Levin comes back with the woman in question. After it’s confirmed that I’m clean this morning, she wraps me tightly in the blanket again and then checks on my sister who seems to actually get a little fussy about being exposed to the cold all of a sudden.

Now then, with the morning wake-up routine out of the way, now all I have to do is wait to set my plan into action. It all happens later in the day when the medicine man elf, who’s name I have learned is some crazy name that starts with an E, like Etheron or something like that, is in the middle of our Elven language lesson. For the time being, in my mind, I have begun calling him “Ether.” I know it’s disrespectful to call somebody by a butchering of their name like that, but what can I do? I can’t quite remember or pronounce his real name, and I feel like it’s a little better than calling him “the medicine man” like I used to. Oh well, given my age I suppose even if I actually did call him “Ether” out loud he would probably accept it as close enough coming from a baby.

“A' eller auta.” He says, having moved up to giving the boys some simple sentences. From what I can tell from all the pointing and miming he’s doing, I think he’s trying to tell them to move a short distance as he’s saying that. “Auta. A' eller auta.” He says again, pointing insistently at a spot on the floor a short distance from where Rolwen is sitting. Well then, this seems like a good enough opportunity for what I’m planning to do.

“Ata!” I yell out as loud as my little lungs will allow without it becoming a scream. “Ata ata!” I start writhing about inside the constricting blanket, trying to make myself look as excited as I can.

“Uma, err… a n’uma! A-u-ta.. eh?” He seemed like he was in the middle of correcting the pronunciation, but then things went quiet and I could see him looking in my direction.

“Gaerien men-ta’!” (Gaerien talked!) Levin calls out excitedly.

“Eeh? Re sai-nessa, sai-arinya sina mart-ten’.” The “Ether” person seems to have a stunned expression as he goes on to start saying stuff without bothering to put it in a way someone who doesn’t really know the language can understand.

“Eh? Uauuooao!” Suddenly, I can hear my sister’s voice, the real Gaerien in this case, speaking up as if in protest that it wasn’t her who said that. Or rather, that’s what I imagine her saying in my mind as some part of me has started to become bitter about how our names can’t be kept straight. At any rate, she seems to be speaking up more than normal. But obviously, her state seems to be about the same as mine was a month ago since she didn’t go through the same pain-staking practice that I did.

“Ay!” Levin seems to be talking to me as he lifts me up to actually sit me upright in his lap, and then he seems to look around for a bit before slapping the floor in font of me. “Talan! Ta-lan.” As a kid who is just learning to talk Elven himself, he seems to already be trying to get me to say more words. Well, it’s pretty admirable of you to have actually used the Elven word for it.

“Daran!” I do the best my little mouth can to pronounce the word myself, which seems to get Levin rather excited.

“Floor. Talan. Floor.” Ok, now he’s teaching me two languages at once. Why should I expect any less of you Levin? Well, this one’s not that bad in terms of the incorrect baby raising things he’s done so far. In fact, teaching a baby two languages at once is perfectly fine so long as they get sorted out later. However, in order to keep up appearances, I can’t immediately act like I know what he’s talking about.

“Dalan!” I say again.

“N’sav-uma.” our teacher says, shaking his head. “Eithel, auta no' tanya yassen.” He laughs, shaking his head as he stands up. It seems as though lessons are cancelled early today. He does not go too far though. Rather, he goes a short distance away and sits down, watching us. “Vora, vora!” He says, making motions with his hands that seem as though he’s encouraging us.

Well then, I guess that actually worked out better than I had planned. Now, if any of the elves ask, I have established a track reccord of speaking early and now on top of it the boys are “teaching” me English as well. So, other than how early I started speaking, there should be no real suspicion if I start talking with the boys in the language that the elves can’t understand. Now, the only question is whether or not I can get to it before the boys reveal something to the elves that could cause trouble. I am far ahead of the curve already, but I still can’t afford to relax my efforts.

Author's note

Well, I can understand the readers who want me to have Aerien grown up so we can get to the action part of the story faster. To tell the truth, I really want to get there too. There are more things that need to be set up though, and every time I get to writing another part of the set-up, I start getting lost in the details of the scene being set up. Well, it's always better to have an abundance of details than not enough anyway, so I guess it's probably a net positive despite how slow moving it makes the story.

Also, I finally got a cover for the book, which means Novel Updates will finally show when the story updates. So, welcome everyone who found this story on Novel Updates, glad to have you here.

There's not very much to my book cover, I do not have much in the way of art skills so I just did basic text over a background. I am hoping to find someone I can ask to do better artwork, and already have a few leads on that. Well, I hope everyone enjoys the story at any rate.

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