Chapter 15: 13: Reasons and regrets

Author's note

There was some confusion expressed on the subject of Aerien's pseudo split personality, so I will clear it up here since it comes up again in this chapter. The two personalities are actually not truly distinct from one another, not a thing like people who really have multiple personality disorder. Rather, it is more appropriate to say that the "past life" self is just a store of the knowledge from the previous life that the "baby" self can't quite process yet.

The "baby" side is starting to develop distinct likes, dislikes, and opinions independent of the "past life" self, but because they are completely connected on a subconscious level the past life is getting dragged along into those factors of her personality as well. Ultimately, at some point, the past life self is going to completely assimilate into the baby self once her brain is developed enough to handle the knowledge from the past life.

Incidentally, this state has existed since the beginning, but the past life self didn't notice it until the baby Aerien's personality started to develop. At the same time, the baby mind only started mistaking the past life self as a different personality.

All of this being the case, the way I am handling the "split personalities" is that they can switch very rapidly, in the middle of a paragraph. One sentence will be from the perspective of the baby mind and the next will be the past-self knowledge in control. The best way to think about it, rather than split personalities, would be that when the "past self" is taking over it's a little bit like the "Avitar State" from "Avitar the Last Airbender," except without all the flashy lights and no power boost attached, only a skill boost.

Anyway, long story short, it's deliberately confusing, because even Aerien is sorta confused about the whole thing. Well then, here's the chapter. Enjoy.

I began to cling even tighter to Levin’s chest as that man approached us. Because his last action I remembered was to grab me straight from Levin’s arms and then drug me, I kept a very distrustful eye on him as I peeked from behind Levin’s shoulder as the others seemed to turn away from him in protest.

My past life self couldn’t help but mentally sigh at this. Of all of us, only Gaerien was older than he was, but I really can’t help it. I’m just a baby and, well, I was the one who that guy grabbed like that. It was a little bit of a traumatic experience. I know from my past-life memories this should really rank as nothing in terms of what is and isn’t a trauma, but I really can’t help the way I feel.

That guy let out a sigh when he saw this, and of course it wound up being Levin, or rather, me that he walked straight toward after he finished his apparent mental preparations. I had kept my eye on him while he was at a distance, but as soon as he knelt down behind Levin’s back I immediately let out a small squeak-like whimper in my throat as I ducked down and hid myself against Levin’s chest.

“Aerien rashwe mani?” [What’s wrong Aerien?] He says. I see his hand on Levin’s shoulder and his head peering over. Levin, in response, let’s out a defiant groan and pulls away, getting another sigh out of that guy. [I’m sorry Levin, I know I upset you by taking you before, but I need to check on Aerien right now.] I felt Levin’s entire body being pulled, and me along with it, as he began to struggle. After this, his hands were on me once again, trying to pull me from Levin’s arms.

[Don’t! She doesn’t like that!] He protested.

‘Old man, help me!’ I said a desperate prayer to my past self as I tried my best to use the meditation he taught me in order to give myself up completely to him so he could control my actions. I knew my little baby body was way too small to use any of the techniques I knew in my previous life properly. If he were at least unprepared, I might be able to do something. However, he was actively trying to get ahold of me right now, so every single aspect of his weight distribution was prepared and he had no weak line along any angle I could exploit with my small body.

Since there was no way for me to effectively fight him now, I would save my tricks for when they might actually work. Instead, what I did was while he was trying to loosen Levin’s grip, I willingly let go of Levin’s shirt and tilted myself out of his arms and rolled right into his. This may seem like a completely paradoxical thing to do if the goal is not to let him take me from Levin, but this was like a Chinese finger trap. If I helped Levin to resist him, he would just wind up taking a strong grip on one of my arms or legs or something. However, if I made certain to let myself fall right into his arms in a way where his hands were touching nothing but my torso, I could actually keep control of the situation.

I felt the tension leave that guy’s arms having thought he succeeded. That was the very second he lost. All I really had to do was just sit up during the exact half second interval between his thought that he succeeded and the time he managed to successfully adjust his grip. And, with that, I wriggled right out and landed on the floor. After this, I rolled over to my hands and knees and pressed my feet hard to the floor, moving with everything I had to get behind Levin’s back. [Go away!] I shouted in Elven as I clung to the shirt on Levin’s back.

[Ok, ok, I’m sorry Aerien.] He says, shaking his head. [I didn’t mean any harm, I just had to check that you were Ok after the sleeping medicine. Well, if you can move like that you are probably fine.] He tried to circle around Levin to look at me. I just dove between Rolwen and Levin, and Levin quickly took me back into his lap and glared at that guy.

He did not try to do anything else after that. He just remained crouched on the floor for several seconds before finally standing up. [Ok, ok, it looks like you don’t like me very much.] I was hiding my face against Levin’s chest at this time, so I could not see what kind of expression he had on his face. However, I guess he must have been standing there in thought or something because the next time I heard his voice he hadn’t moved very much. [I guess you must really like Levin, huh? Sorry, I won’t try to separate you from him anymore.]

I heard that guy’s soft footsteps, audible only by the slight rustling of his robes, coming in our direction again. I knew from my training in my previous life exactly what it took to move like that. It only took about 5 minutes to learn the basic tricks, but weeks of practice to perfect it and even more discipline to make it a habit. Every time he lifted his foot, it would have to completely clear the ground in order to avoid any audible sound of scuffing, and then he would not simply allow his foot to fall to the floor after that. He would have to gently place his heel on the ground, then maintain the muscle tension in the front of his leg as he lowered his toes to the ground as well. Only after the entire foot was on the ground would he start actually allowing his weight to shift over the hip that leg was attached to. The mere fact he was able to take this entire procedure and make it such a habit he could move at a normal walking pace without it even really slowing him down spoke to just how much he had practiced this. If he had chosen different clothing and was conscious of the rustling of the fabric, it’s very likely he could easily eliminate even that sound and move completely silently.

After he had taken about three steps in our direction, I felt Levin’s arm wrap protectively over my head, and then there was a very slight change in that guy’s breathing that I could hear now with how close he was. His robes rustled again, and I could tell it was the sound of him straightening his posture back to a standing position. [Alright, I guess I will leave you all alone for a while. I will be downstairs. I will bring dinner up in a few hours.]

I tried my best to track him with my ears as he retreated back toward the stairs. I had never really paid attention to it before since the nursery where we were before was always so noisy with all the other kids, but now that it was quiet enough around for me to actually try to pick up small sounds like people walking I found it absolutely unnerving that that guy had the ability to move so quietly like that. If he was one of my students from my previous life, I would have nothing but praises for him. Now, however, he was the enemy.

Well, Ok, enemy seemed to go a little far, but I definitely didn’t like him at all. Also, now that I was in on the secret with Rolwen and Levin, I could seriously feel the pressure from being unable to talk openly about it when someone could be hearing what we were saying at an inopportune time. That was the worst thing about it really. Never knowing when unwelcome ears may be listening in. The mere lack of privacy was absolutely unnerving.

-

Eirlathion heaved a really heavy sigh as he sat down at the table. He was at a bit of a loss, it seemed like the children had taken being moved here a lot harder than he thought they would. Hopefully Aerien would get over it after a little while, she probably just got scared when he had taken her out of Levin’s arms. She seemed really attached to him. He just wouldn’t bother her for a while and maybe she would calm down once she saw he wasn’t going to try anything with her anymore.

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Well, at least he wouldn’t have to go through the motions of feeding the girls anymore. The reasons behind that were misguided from the beginning, he was more aware of that now than ever before. In fact, Aerien in particular may not even need to eat for her entire life, and so long as Gaerien stays with the three of them she should be in much the same position when it comes to the food of this world. Neither of them will be in any danger of loosing their physical forms. They would have to actually be physically harmed by someone in order for their lives to be in any danger.

He would have stopped feeding them a long time ago if it weren’t for him needing to keep up the image that they were ill. If the rest of the village found out the real reason why their skin was that color, well, most of the people would probably not have it in them to harm children, but all it took was one person who had the fear of their father’s line overtake their morality to have disastrous consequences. The best thing would be for everyone to keep thinking the girls were just sick.

However, the illusion that they were sickly children was getting harder and harder to maintain with each passing day. Those girls… they were just something incredible. Aerien was already starting to talk when she was only one month old, and then she continued her monstrous growth and development from there. He had heard that she liked to throw off her blanket at night, and would always get physically active as soon as Levin was not actively holding her. It also seemed that Gaerien was starting to pick up that same behavior, only she was becoming even more unruly. Aerien at least seemed to calm down when Levin was holding her, but Gaerien would struggle and throw off her blanket even in the middle of the day.

Gaerien’s increase in activity had posed the largest obstacle in getting the girls moved. He had told everyone that one was always fussy, while the other was lethargic. But now, they both seemed to be rather active, and not really in a way that could be considered “fussy.” The level of energy they showed, it was the very picture of a healthy baby.

There was no way the human woman that was the children’s caretaker hadn’t noticed this yet, she had already begun making comments about how they seemed to be doing so much better. This was when he knew he would have to move them. He had quickly come up with a story, saying that their mana and spirit energy consumption still was not good, but that they seemed to be recovering enough that they could probably stand a change in environment. He would move them to his own house in order to take better care of them. Of course, the real reason was not to cure them of their non-existent disease but to hide the fact that they were more than just healthy but still had that ashen skin.

The abundant energy they demonstrated was going to work against him for this though. The brief time he had them in the open to move them to his house was probably not enough to really make anyone suspicious, but he couldn’t take any risk when the girls’ lives were at stake. This was why, in order to maintain the illusion, he had decided to give Aerien a sleeping drug. He really did not like the idea of drugging a child at all, but it was better than the alternative. He had brought along a strong tincture made from a leaves he had personally received from a dryad, and then sped the diffusion process with a time acceleration spell. If cast on a person, this spell would take years or even decades off of their life. But, for non-living objects such as this it was just the right thing. It was a very high level spell though, so it was still practically unheard of to use it like this.

After giving Aerien the sleeping medicine, he heard Gaerien start crying almost immediately. This was an almost perfect response. One of them sleeping, the other crying. With this, there wouldn’t be a single person in the village who found something inconsistent with what they had heard about the girls. However, when he tried to check on how Aerien was doing with his mana sight, he saw something that absolutely scared the life out of him.

All of the waves of spirit energy and mana that were being almost constantly released by Aerien had stopped. Not just that, they reversed. She was no longer letting out her own spirit energy. Instead, she was feeding off of Levin’s. Well, ultimately this really just meant she was doing the same as any other elf her age would be doing, but when the norm for her is to radiate her own energy it seemed absolutely unnatural.

He calmed himself from this shock, telling himself that maybe it was actually a good thing for now. He had been wondering how he was going to explain Aerien’s aura to everyone. He had planned to just say that what they were feeling was actually Levin and he had somehow become stronger as he aged, but now he didn’t even have to do that. However, it was still very concerning. Luckily, it seemed when he had gone up there a moment ago to check on her, her aura was not only back, it seemed it had even gotten stronger than before.

It was amazing almost to the point of being unfair. Her aura seemed to grow in strength just as she grew. It was normally so hard for an elf to cultivate an energy like that, but for her it was just natural. Eirlathion doubted he could even be her magic tutor in the future, perhaps only the faeries could teach her what she needed to know.

It all seemed to be going well. About the one real problem in all of this was the boys. He had thought they would be too young at this age to have grown any strong bonds with their families, and he had been closer to them every day than their own brothers and sisters who largely did their own thing throughout the day. Since he was on top of the girls all day every day in order to keep people from noticing how healthy they really were, the siblings were not even filling the purpose they were intended for in keeping the boys in line. There was very little interaction between them, and yet…

Eirlathion had never really had interactions with humans this young before. Was it natural for them to have such a strong family bond from a young age like this? And yet, despite that, he had seen the way human parents treated their children. They beat their children, sold them as slaves, married their daughters off to adult men when they were no bigger than an elven 40 year old, what he was told was merely 10 to 12 years of age for a human. And then, after that, they had so many children. This wasn’t bad in and of itself, but what he had heard from the changelings who have lived among the humans absolutely made his skin crawl. In many places, they didn’t even give their children names until they reached the age of five. All of this because they were operating under the expectation that over half their children would die by that age.

The way humans treated their children was absolutely disgusting, and yet… those boys already had such a strong attachment to their families. If they had not been taken from their parents, they would be in a far worse situation than they were now, but Eirlathion could imagine they would have been equally as upset being taken from their parents. This was why the elves always used the magic laced in their music and their food in order to calm the children’s minds when they took them, so they would not be distressed when they woke up. However, these poor boys had resisted that magic. Eirlathion was now getting a first hand glimpse into how much love a human child had for their family, and for them to have that much love when their parents would treat them so poorly, it practically made him seethe with the rage in his heart.

He let out a breath. Those boys may hate him for a while as well. That was really going to make things difficult.

For the next several days, Eirlation kept his interactions with the children to a minimum. Whenever he brought food for the boys, he tried to talk to them a little in order to slowly gain back their trust. He didn’t think they would understand his reasons, how could a child so young understand how harsh the world could be? If he simply told them it was because he was afraid someone might hurt the girls, maybe they would understand, but it was also likely they might think he was lying.

He did not say anything about that. Instead, all he did was just try to ask some simple question such as how they were settling in, trying to watch their reactions and gauge the level of hostility in their responses. He always had trouble gauging human ages, but they seemed to be close to an elf around the age of 5 to 7 at this point. Really young, a mere toddler. However, they seemed to have an amazingly sophisticated level of emotion in their response, and they could really hold a grudge. So, he gave them more space and more time. Now that they were safe from others who may discover the girls’ secret, he could afford to give them as much space as they needed.

Author Note

I would like to thank everyone for their support of this series up until now. It's been just over 3 weeks now, and already it's pushing 9K views. When I started writing this series, it was just a little something I threw together because there were some things I wanted to see in an isekai that nobody else seemed to be doing, and other things that when somebody did do it (like reincarnating an old man or gender change reincarnations) it was packaged together with something else that I just couldn't stand, and I just wanted to see a series that had those things done right in them. And, well, you know what they say you have to do if you want something done right.

I thought some people might also be of the same mind as me and also enjoy this series, but I honestly did not expect it to be such a large response that this series has even wound up on the first page in the daily rankings on some days. When I realized just how large a response it was getting, well, it's always uncomfortable to talk about money but with this much attention it's simply a waste that I haven't monetized this series yet. Part of this, again, is because I never expected this series to be this big. It is by far not the biggest on the site, but it is still far bigger than I ever expected.

The second is because I have some major issues with the behavior of the biggest and most convenient crowd funding platform today, that being Patreon. Given they have shown a history of arbitrarily terminating accounts that have not even violated their terms of service for politically driven reasons, it's simply a platform I cannot trust. I do not believe I will ever be in a position to be in danger of the same happening to me since I actually find myself agreeing with most of the political views that seem to drive patreon's mission, but politically based censorship is absolutely not one of them, and that by itself is such an incredibly large issue that I can never support that platform.

As such, I have opened an account with what is currently Patreon's most viable competitor, Subscribe Star. Since Scribble Hub does not support this platform, I am going to have to link it manually in an author's note at the bottom of every page unless and until Scribble's staff decide to start supporting it. (I might wind up making a thread on the forum on this subject in fact.) Until then, please bare with me and please support me on Subscribe Star. (link below.)

https://www.subscribestar.com/jemini-s-stories

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