Chapter 13: 11: Things progress, and things change

Author's note

Having to go through a lot more edits now that Gaerien is communicating and providing exposition dumps. It's very easy to get a little too esoteric when it comes to explaining the lore and mechanics of a magical world, so it's really vitally necessary to give it a second look and ask if it's written in a way that's too confusing or needlessly wordy.

Anyway, biggest time skip yet. Going to try and start having events speed up here now that the basic introductions are out of the way and most people have a fairly good sense over just what Aerien is doing in order to properly earn her accelerated growth.

From the moment I had discovered I could communicate with my sister Gaerien, who was in fact the very fallen goddess who helped me to save my grandaughter, the two of us began regularly helping one another to grow and adjust to this world. On my end, I helped her by telling her what kinds of physical exercises and what kinds of words she should be practicing in order to improve her ability to talk. I did not, however, direct her to do the ABCs as I did. I wanted something she could practice during the day without running the risk of alerting Levin and Rolwen before we were ready to talk with them.

Gaerien did not seem entirely convinced that it would be all that important to take these precautions, but she did not go against me on it. However, she did tell me something that set at least one of my major fears at ease. Apparently, spirit energy was something that humans naturally produced as a by-product of simply living, kinda like the CO2 they create from breathing. As such, absorbing it as we do would not be doing any harm to them. In that case, using this analogy, it seems that fey like us would be plants. Comparing elves to plants seemed to make this a pretty fitting analogy.

Even with that though, while the manner in which we fed ourselves did not seem to be something to cause harm to them it did not change the fact that them being abducted from their families likely did quite a bit of harm. In the case of these two, who clearly seemed to be reincarnators like myself, the blow would be mitigated somewhat. However, that would not be the same story for the other children here who were clearly normal children and who also clearly were not with their families. Because of this, my opinion about elves had not changed in the slightest. The only thing this did was make the tension and fear for the immediate near future lessen slightly.

As for Gaerien, she returned what I did to assist her by teaching me what she knew about magic and how the extraordinary world of gods, spirits, fey, and monsters was structured. I didn’t expect her to know much about this world in particular, but at least she could give me the corner pieces to the puzzle and then I could work my way inward from there. However, as she was explaining about how these things in the magical world worked, she managed to offer one rather stunning piece of information.

This revelation came one day when she was teaching me about the arcane energies and the mutations they cause. Apparently, it is easy for someone without training to accidentally take these arcane energies into their bodies, fey and spirits mistaking it for spirit energy and humans or other animals, or rather “god-born” as she called them, mistaking it for mana. In fact, several animals simply take it into their bodies naturally it seems. Apparently, according to her, the specific kinds of monsters that appear and what people choose to call them vary by what kind of creatures are around and what the sentient races choose to call them. This is when the bomb shell dropped.

‘Actually, just like with those Centaurs or Manticores you mentioned before, it is very likely that you might know more about these monsters than I do.’

 

‘And exactly how would I know anything about these kinds of monsters?’ I had asked. ‘There has been no magic on Earth for, how long did you say? Thousands of years at least. And for that matter, any monsters here would be completely different from those that would show up on Earth.’

‘Well, it’s actually BECAUSE of the barrier that humans who lived on Earth might know more about the worlds outside of Earth than almost any god.’ From here, she went on to explain several things about spirit energy, gods, and how the world within the barrier that surrounded earth differed greatly from the world outside of it.

The most important thing in all of this was that spirit energy contained the thoughts, memories, and emotions of the person who radiated it. Gods could not just pick up spirit energy like the fey, it had to be willingly directed at them by the humans who followed them, via those humans attempting to communicate with that god by projecting their spirit energy. By her description, it sounded an awful lot like she was describing prayer.

Since the anti-magic barrier had also eliminated the conditions that make it possible for souls to become fey, and with gods only able to absorb spirit energy directed at them, this meant that a lot of unclaimed spirit energy was building up in the atmosphere of the earth and it became rather dense.

So, apparently, after spirit energy sits around and becomes stagnant for long enough, the thoughts attached to it begin to wear away and get replaced by thoughts and memories that were copied from other spirit energy. This turned Earth into an environment where it was even possible to pick up on the thoughts of people from other worlds. And, humans who were especially sensitive to spirit energy were able to read these thoughts from the other worlds and interpreted it as their own imagination. The more creative among those sensitive people would then portray the memories of strange creatures they would have picked up in stories, literature, and art work.

Because of this, while gods could not pick up on this spirit energy from other worlds, humans could, and humans would then use art as a medium to tell all the other humans of earth about these things. So, in other words, the fantasy and folk lore of Earth was, in fact, the best guide someone from Earth could possibly have to what could be expected from this world so long as one could pick out what was inspired from messages from the other world and what was simply inserted by the artist’s imagination.

Going back to my puzzle analogy, forget the corner pieces, this information was tantamount to giving me a completed frame of all the side pieces already assembled. I may still have to grope around to discern fact from fiction on a few points, but it gives me a huge starting point. At the very least, I ought to be able to figure out the identity of most creatures I’m looking at by sight, and if I can recall enough folk lore then I might have the ability to make a reasonable guess as to what kinds of abilities the creature may have.

Taking that as my starting point, I could also make some deductions as to what creatures might exist out there. The most likely creatures to exist here in this world are the ones that are most enduring and popularized in the fantasy stories of Earth. So, this would mean trolls, goblins, ogres, orcs, harpies, mermaids, and things like that. Well, harpies may even be another type of fey come to think of it. And mermaids too for that matter. I’m not 100% on harpies, but there’s no chance mermaids are not members of that variety of fey that have the upper half of a human and the lower half of some animal their souls dominated.

Now, there is one other highly popular creature of fairy tales and myths. This one, perhaps even more common and popular than all those others combined. There are even stories about creatures of this sort in every culture told by every people regardless of whether or not they had ever been in contact with one another. Every culture around the world tells the story of some form of great flying scaled beast. There are some details that are different, but every version tells of them having some other great power as well. As the European version tells it, they breathe fire. As the people of eastern Asia tell it, they have power over the very weather, and can create storms on a whim. In the west, this creature is called the Dragon.

It was a frightening thing to think about, but there was no real getting around it. Dragons were just too well known on Earth not to have been from this world, that according to Gaerien was likely our next door neighbor. The elves were proof of that apparently. Or, more to the point, the fact that I had seemed to think elves were something common as a type of fey. Rather, Gaerien had said that elves are a truly absurd mutation among the fey, something she had never seen or heard of in the time before the Earth was sealed behind its barrier. It may in fact be the case that elves only existed on this world and no other. And, the fact that they were so well known in Earth’s folk lore and fantasy community meant that this world had to be in very close proximity to Earth on whatever higher dimension plane our souls and spirit energy travels through.

At any rate, while I had begun teaching Gaerien how to improve her body and brain, her increased level of activity did not go unnoticed by Rolwen, Levin, and Mr. Eirlathion. Oh, right, Mr. Eirlathion was the “Ether” guy who's name I had a lot of trouble with at first. I had finally learned how his name was supposed to be said. However, I always added “Mr.” to it in my mind, because he was an adult after all. Although, he was an elf still. I would still add the Mr. though, not so much as a term of respect, but as a marker of distance as I was not going to be feeling too familiar with him.

As I was saying though, those three took immediate notice of how active Gaerien had gotten. Since Rolwen, Levin, and I were starting to get pretty good with Elven by this point as well, I was able to understand their comments and how they wondered if Rolwen and Levin had somehow switched us. Yes, I was a little less active since Gaerien started up, especially during the day. As fun as it would have been to string them along with this perception that Gaerien was me, I did quickly break the illusion when the Elven language lessons started when I clearly demonstrated that I was better at talking than my, until now, completely unpracticed older sister.

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As for my personal goals, I may have been less active during the day, but I certainly did not slack off. In fact, I was starting to become a little bit of an insomniac, since I started training more regularly and often wind up practicing on moving and talking all night. In the past few months, in addition to becoming far more fluent in Elven than I would have thought possible in such a short time, I also started to practice moving a lot more. I felt as though I always had energy to do more, and Gaerien simply could not understand how I was doing it since she still seemed to sleep as much as she always had.

The strange thing is, I have never really felt any sense of anything being wrong when I stayed awake. I have been noticing more and more that I really don’t even need to sleep at all. For the most part, while I take advantage of my ability to move, I try my best not to wake anyone. I have not tried leaving the bed yet, I am afraid I might not be able to get back in and I might worry everyone. However, I have managed to be able to sit up and crawl. I haven’t tried standing yet, but I feel that it shouldn’t be too far off.

So far as the physical benchmarks though, I am only slightly ahead of a human baby. Although, I assume this means I am absolutely absurd for an elven baby. I have been noticing that the boys are growing a lot faster than I am after all, despite me being the one who is supposed to be in the more rapid development period. So, this would definitely indicate that elves grow slower. I mean, my teeth hadn’t even started coming in yet. I would be way past due for that if I were a human baby. That in mind, even though I’m holding back quite a bit on what I show Vs. what I’m capable of, I am probably already making poor Mr. Eirlathion’s head spin.

Levin and Rolwen don’t seem to have that solid a concept of even human baby developmental benchmarks, so they don’t seem as bothered. Because of this, it means I get to enjoy watching him walk around in an astonished daze by himself. Speaking of the boys, I haven’t actually told them about me being from the same world as them yet. I have been playing to the illusion so much until now that I haven’t been able to find the time or the right words. I will probably have to wake them up some time after everyone else is asleep. That’s how it’s going to have to be. It seems like Mr. Eirlathion has been listening in on the “English lessons” the boys were giving me, and when he asked the boys seemed more than happy to teach him as well.

That was one miscalculation in my plans, but there is little I can do about it now. He speaks English. Not well, but I know from my own experiences that usually as you learn a language you are able to understand a lot more than you can speak. It’s enough that it’s simply not worth the risk, which means that now I will have considerably less freedom in communicating with the boys than I had thought. So, talking with them at night it is.

With that in mind, I sat and watched Rolwen, Levin, and Gaerien sleep. In times like these, despite being the youngest of the group in this life, I felt like myself in my previous life again, filled with the memories of the sleeping faces of my own children. Rolwen and Levin seemed to be approaching 2 years of age now, and while it was not as driven as it was in my case, they seem to have been rapidly exploring their bodies as well and were already pretty good at walking and moving around.

Thankfully, they have decided on their own not to talk about their status as reincarnators. I have heard them talking over these past months, they seem very aware of the fact that they were kidnapped and have developed their own mistrust of elves. However, they do seem to keep debating with each other on occasion as to whether or not they should talk to Eirlathion since he seems “nice” to them.

Well, considering the direction of their conversations, even if I did tell them about me being like them, it would only mean that I could be included in their occasional debates on the subject, but at least it would mean I could get my opinion in. However, there was one more reason why I would really have to tell them about myself soon. They seem to be talking in increasingly hushed tones whenever they discuss the subject lately, and often discuss it more in terms of the pronoun game, debating whether or not to tell about “that” rather than specifying anything about the subject they are discussing. They also used to exchange information about who they were in their previous lives, but now that has stopped as well, every time with a paranoid look toward Gaerien and I.

It’s rather obvious that they are very concerned about us hearing them now that we are demonstrating ourselves becoming better and better at talking. I really should not have allowed this to go on for so long. There is no choice. I will have to tell them. I made my resolve. I would tell them about it tonight. I would be waking them up once everyone else was asleep.

Making my resolve, I laid my head down and closed my eyes. It really doesn’t seem like I need sleep anymore, but my body is still capable of it in cases where I become bored.

-

That day, when Eirlathion came in, he made a rather shocking announcement.

[I think it is probably time. I don’t think you should be living here anymore. You two should be enough for the girls, the four of you will be living in my house from now on.] He said. He simply declared it like that, leaving no room for negotiation.

[Why?] Levin demanded with a quaking voice, slightly delayed as he probably wanted to say something different but couldn’t find the right words in Elven to say it.

[What about them?] Rolwen came in to the rescue, indicating their brothers and sisters in the room. “Our family!” He switched to English for that word, probably the exact word Levin had been struggling to find as well. That’s right, I don’t think Eirlathion ever actually taught us the Elven word for family.

Eirlathion seemed a little bit confused for a moment, but then he looked around and it seemed to click for them. [Oh, you mean your family?] (nosse) He got a difficult expression on his face for a moment, and by this point the discussion had attracted the attention of the other kids in the room. [Look, I’m sorry.] He said, leaning in really close to us. [I can tell you the reason later, but we really need to do this in order to take care of the girls. It’s… well, I don’t think you can understand it right now, but this is really important.]

After saying that, he reached down and lifted me right out of Levin’s arms. What the hell was this bastard doing!? I started struggling to quickly remove my blanket so I could fight him off. As this was going on, I saw him dip his finger in a bottle of something he pulled out from a pocket in his robes, and then before I could really get my arms out to do anything I had the by now familiar unpleasant experience of having this guy’s finger shoved into my mouth. Only, this time, instead of sweat tasting berry juice it was the bitter taste of some kind of herb.

[I’m sorry, I know it doesn’t taste good.] He says with a remorseful face as he hands me back to Levin, who holds me possessively and turns his body to the side to protect me with his shoulder against any repeated attempts of that sort.

[What did you do to her!?] He demands. At the same time, I hear Gaerien start to cry. And… as I’m looking up at Eirlathion, I manage to catch a slight smirk on his face as his eyes glance over in my sister’s direction.

[She’ll be Ok, it’s just a little bit of some new medicine.] He says. [That’s why we need to move to my house, there are more treatments I would like to try that could help them.]

As he is talking, I begin to feel the sensation of a dull non-painful paresthesia creeping down my arms, and my head feels like it’s swimming. At the same time, I begin to get a sense of tunnel vision. I recognize these symptoms immediately as the onset of drug-induced sleep. That stuff must have been infused with alcohol or something, because it entered my bloodstream immediately and is already having this powerful of an effect.

This is not good. I feel like I’m fading fast here. I may not require sleep to get by anymore, but that gives me no actual resistance to drug-induced sleep. I am only just barely able to stay conscious long enough to see how the boys continue to argue with Eirlathion, and eventually he leaves the room, saying something about how he was going to have to have someone help. I wasn’t really clear on the exact words he used due to my drowsy state, but given the situation I was able to quite easily figure out the meaning. However, by the time he returned, I had already succumbed to the effects of the drug that bastard had given me.

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