Chapter 27: 24: Baby steps

Aerien’s POV.

It had been made abundantly clear to me by this point, the energy I channel during my meditation is incredibly obvious to elves and Ether guy is going to be able to sense it the very moment I attempt to drop my meditation in any manner. With this being the case, I will not be able to try out this new magic of his as long as he’s awake. Fortunately though, that is exactly where I have the edge.

I have not slept at all in several months, ever since this body gained enough control over its neural functions to be compatible with my meditation. I think being only a few months old is more than a little advanced for that, but I suppose it is another example of my past-life consciousness supporting faster brain growth. At this rate, maybe I will even get some actual frontal lobe development and become able to keep myself from crying at the slightest stimuli. That’ll be a god-send.

At any rate, waiting for nightfall was a very easy thing. Just to be certain though, I decided to wait a few extra hours. I had noticed Ether guy’s schedule. He usually comes down from his lab an hour or so after the other three wake up, almost exactly at the same time as sun-rise. There is no reason to assume that elves sleep the same amount of time as humans, but if I were to make that assumption then he would still have a good three to four hours between the time he goes upstairs until the time he goes to sleep. That is, assuming that he comes down immediately after he wakes up.

Just to be safe, I decided to wait until about the middle of the night, biding my time doing bear-crawls back and forth across the floor. I still didn’t quite have the stability for walking, but I was still trying to graduate from crawling on my knees. A bear-crawl, crawling with the knees off the ground, was not exactly a step toward walking. It was strength training if anything. Still, it was not a complete waste and it made me feel like I was doing something to occupy myself.

I could only do those bear crawls for so long before the anticipation got the better of me though. If I was going to try and do this magic thing, it might be easier if I had that nut thing. I presume that nut must be some kind of low-bar training method for young elves just learning this kind of magic. Something that will give a more noticeable response with less mana or something of the sort. I could probably try and retract that wall that leads up to Ether guy’s room, but that may be more trouble than it’s worth.

I make my way down the stairs using the same method Levin had earlier this same day. After all, it was actually a method I had taught him. Of course, a toddler could not carry an infant safely down the stairs. Back when I had him bring me down to put me on the chair to confront Ether guy, we each got ourselves down the stairs using this exact method of going down backwards, using the step in front of us for support.

In fact, this was not the first time I had done this either. I felt that going up and down the stairs was an excellent step toward being able to stand and walk under my own power, so in this past week since we had come here, I had frequently gone up and down these stairs as part of my practice to work the muscles and neurons associated with walking. I could already feel the improvements from it too. I would likely be ready to stand and walk on my own after another week or two of this. That was not my goal right at this moment though.

Once I had gotten to the ground floor, I looked around the room. It was dark, I was plenty aware of that. However, to me, it was nowhere near as dark as the inside of a completely unlit building with small opaque windows should be. The faint moonlight that came in from the windows was as good as a nightlight would be in my previous world in terms of how well it lit the area for me. It was not enough to see everything in the room clearly, but it gave me just enough illumination to navigate easily and make out objects by their rough shapes as I could make out the silhouette.

I looked over the table to see the area Ether guy had sat me down earlier. In that spot, I saw a roughly cylindrical object sitting on top of the table. Jackpot! Now, the question is, how to get up there?

I make my way over to the table, this time content to go down to my hands and knees. That is the trade-off with that bear-crawl. It forces my head down. In this case, I want to be able to see my surroundings. As such, navigating my space like the baby I am is what I have to do. In this manner, I manage to reach the chair set in front of the item I’m trying to reach. I pull myself to my feet. However, here I encounter another obstacle. I’m just too short.

As I reach up for the chair, I’m only just able to bring my hand up over the edge of the seat. That’s how small I am. Yeah, this is definitely frustrating. There has to be something I can use to get up there though. The difficult part is that with my limited mobility, it would be a serious pain to navigate around this entire room to find something I can stand on and then bring it back here.

After weighing my options for a moment, I arrive at the perfect solution. There actually is something I could use to climb up on that is about the right size and is also close by. Another chair!

I turn around, the next chair over where Ether guy had sat Levin before is still so close that with my developing ability to stand on my own I am just barely able to let go of this chair and grab onto the next chair before falling over. I edge my way around it, using it as a support as I walk around to the other side. As soon as I am on the far side of the chair, I begin to push it. I had meant to tip it over, but it only slides across the floor a little.

‘What are you thinking?’ I chastise myself. I had spent almost 40 years training explicitly to knock over humans who are trying to resist winding up on their rears. It was almost as though I had forgotten all my training. I re-position myself around the back of the chair, this time placing my foot against the leg of the chair, and then I begin to pull on it. This time, I manage to succeed. Unfortunately, what I just knocked over was the very same thing I was using to support myself. So, I also wind up on my butt myself, and with a chair falling straight toward me.

Fortunately, the fact I was supporting myself on it meant that my hand was still touching it, so with my arm in the way I managed to avoid the thing smacking me in the face or chest or anything of the sort, and I managed to deflect it. However, falling hurt, I did have an object about 4 times my size land on top of me, and to top it all off it really made a lot of noise as it hit the ground. Of course, with my baby brain that had next to no frontal lobe development, I was unable to stop myself from doing the same thing I had always been unable to stop myself from doing. With that having happened, I scared myself enough that I really started crying.

-

Eirlathion POV

This had been a really long day. After sending Túeth home, Eirlathion had attempted to begin Aerien’s magic training. He had seen how she seemed to have a remarkable control over her spirit to the extent she could alter it to the point she even ceased her own energy output completely. That being the case, he felt that infusing her mana into the Lakira nut and coaxing it to grow would be a simple matter.

Unfortunately, he had made the mistake of telling her that it was similar to what she had done before when she was playing sick, and it seemed she had actually wound up doing the exact same thing. As soon as he had felt the spirit energy in the air sharply drop, he was startled. He immediately began yelling at her to stop. However, for some reason, instead of her snapping out of it the spirit energy only dropped farther and she began to cry.

Eventually, after he had peeled the Lakira nut away from her, he managed to get her to return to normal. Ultimately though, it was looking like he would have to abandon the idea of teaching her to learn magic today. Perhaps it really was too soon after all. Well, she WAS only two seasons old. Half a year of age for an elf was pretty much still a newborn. He almost forgot that at times with how frighteningly fast she seemed to develop, but an infant was still an infant after all.

“Nymph.” Eirlathion said with a heavy sigh when he had retired to his lab at the end of the day.

“Hmmm...?” A lethargic sounding moan greeted him as something the shape of the sleepy face of a small child, around the same in appearance as a 15 year old elven child (5 yo human,) formed itself as though it was a decoration in the wood next to him.

“Just in case something goes wrong, I would like for you to watch Aerien tonight.” He said to the small tree spirit.

“Hmmm... ? But it’s niiiight!” A child-like voice greeted him. Despite the childish voice and tone though, Eirlathion knew this spirit was several hundred years old. This was the spirit and intelligence of Eirlathion’s home, and he had planted this tree himself 600 years ago. Still, in terms of spirit age, this nymph really was just a child.

“I know, I know, it’s tough for you when the sun’s not out. I’ll give you a night harvest seed to help you out. I just can’t help the feeling Aerien might do something at night, she is part dark elf after all.”

“Hmm... Oooo kaaaayyy...” the grouchy and lethargic voice responded to him. “I won’t be able to do anything without that seed though, it’s already been dark for a while, you woke me uuup!”

Eirlathion walked across his lab, and the face of the small child vanished at the same time as he walked away, melding back into the wood of the wall. Once Eirlathion had arrived at the far corner of the lab, he opened one of the cabinets, then pulled out a bag. From this bag, he extracted a tiny almost insignificantly sized seed. By the time he stood, the upper-torso of a miniature version of a 15 year old elf child emerged from the counter top.

The child had a feminine looking face and a great mane of hair formed from the sculpted wood, full and voluminous as it lifted away from the little girl-like face and fell down the back until it seemed to merge into the body. There was no design over the front wooden front of the child’s form that resembled clothing, but there was also nothing that resembled the proper anatomical features of a mammalian creature either. The chest was simply completely smooth like sanded wood. It was as though the artist had simply forgotten to add any features or detailing of any sort to the chest of this otherwise highly detailed masterpiece of a wooden sculpture.

The child-like wooden form held out its cupped hands for Eirlathion. When he placed the seed into those hands, it seemed to immediately be absorbed into the wood. Just like that, the childish form’s face lit up from it’s lethargic state and put on a huge bright smile, before all of a sudden those bright and highly detailed features seemed to reverse and hollow out. That bright face suddenly became blank, the hair was absorbed back into the body leaving the form bald, and then the sharp detailed facial features simply became two round circles for eyes over one round circle for a mouth and it became something that looked closer to some form of effigy that was supposed to be roughly humanoid shaped instead of a sculpted doll.

After this amazingly quick degradation of the formerly finely detailed masterpiece, the ethereal form of a miniaturized child sprung from the doll with a bright happy face. “Wow! That’s much better!” The child said energetically. “Wow! Those seeds are really something! I feel more awake than when it’s daytime and my leaves are getting plenty of sunlight!”

“Hey! Don’t leave those things on my counter!” Eirlathion yelled at the ethereal child, indicating the now somewhat creepy looking upper torso of a doll-like form that was sticking up from the counter top.

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“Hehehe! Sorry! Got a bit excited there!” The ethereal child waves its hand at the doll and then it sinks back into the countertop, vanishing as though it was never there.

“Well, don’t get too excited. Remember, you do have a job to do here.”

“I know! I know. Watch Aerien and make sure she doesn’t get into any trouble. What kinds of things should I be looking out for though? She usually gets pretty energetic at night.”

“She does?” Eirlathion responds. “And you’ve never seen fit to tell me about this before?”

“Well, the nursery tree said that kind of thing is normal, children are awake at night all the time and it sounds like Aerien has always been more energetic at night than she is during the day too, even back when she was in the nursery.”

“Well, I guess she is part dark elf, so that sort of makes sense. Well, anyway, if she hurts herself or makes herself sick again, I would like you to let me know about it even if I’m asleep.”

“You got it master! I’ll keep a real good eye on her!” With those words, the ethereal child body raises quickly into the air, before reversing course and diving head-first into the floor, vanishing from sight the moment they came into contact with the wood.

After this, Eirlathion lets out a sigh as he walks to one of his lab tables. “Well, that’s just fantastic. I hope Aerien can behave herself. I do not have enough night harvest seeds to have nymph watch her every night.”

-

After having placed nymph on duty to watch Aerien through the night, Eirlathion began to tend to the various plants in his lab. Over his time as a magus, Eirlathion had found all manner of useful plants throughout the forest, several of them quite rare, that could grant various benefits and be of use to him in several different ways. For a magus who practiced the green word such as himself, it paid a great deal to be in intimate contact with plants at all times. So long as he took care of these plants in his indoor garden, they would take care of him in turn.

It was his nightly ritual to take each of the sun-loving plants down from the terrace, rotating them out with the moonlight-loving plants. As he took them down, he placed each one at their appropriate sub-section of the table. The tables were divided according to how often each type of plant required water, as well as where they were on their watering schedule. It was harmful to most plants to water them every day. Very close attention needed to be paid to this subject.

Of course, for Eirlathion, it would be possible for him to simply ask them when they were in need of water, but sometimes the plants themselves didn’t really know what was good for them in terms of what was and wasn’t enough water. Small plants like this were not smart. When it came to going for water or any other nutrient, they were actually quite greedy and would always crave more if he were to ask them whether or not they wanted more. A responsible gardener of the green word did not merely listen to what the plants had to say.

After placing all of the plants in their appropriate spots, Eirlathion then tended to them. First, he sprinkled a powder onto the top of the soil. This was a special powder he had made from dried leaves, ground up with a mortar and pestle earlier that same day. He added this powder to every plant that was to be watered today. Just a small pinch of it, enough to provide a little bit of the same nutrients they would need in the soil.

This powder from the ground leaves would be good for all the plants, but for certain plants he added some additional powders. These powders were made from all manner of other things. Some were from ground stones and other minerals. Others were made of other forms of vegetable matter, and even some were from ground insect wings. Each was special for the purpose of providing the specific plant he was giving it to the exact nutrients it would need to grow at its best.

After sprinkling the powders down, only then did he water the plants that were ready for water, allowing that water to carry the nutrients he hand just sprinkled down into the soil for the plants to utilize.

“Master.” The child-like voice of nymph spoke up as Eirlathion was in the middle of this ritual. Normally Eirlathion would not appreciate an interruption while he was in the middle of tending his plants, but considering the assignment he had given Nymph a few hours before he did not complain in the slightest. Rather, as soon as he heard Nymphs voice, he put the watering can down on the counter and turned straight to the glowing form of the miniature child floating in the air.

“Aerien just pulled a chair down on top of herself.” Nymph says. It takes Eirlathion a moment to process what he has just heard.

“What!? You said a chair? You mean she’s down on the first floor!?”

“Uh-huh. That’s nothing unusual for her actually. She goes down there all the time when you are asleep.”

“Hahhh... right.” Eirlathion grumbles. He did not know a whole lot about children himself, but it was already becoming rather clear to him that a tree spirit like Nymph knew even less. The mere fact that they had somehow thought a baby wandering around at night and going up and down stairs was somehow normal was testament to that.

“Oh, it looks like she’s alright actually, she’s stopped crying.”

“Right, well, it’s probably not a good idea for her to be messing around down there.” He says, grabbing his mana lamp and going toward the one clear wall of his lab. As he approaches, the floor near the wall opens up to reveal stairs, which he descends down toward the second floor. About the time he reaches the landing between the two sets of stairs, he hears a clatter from downstairs as though something was just knocked over, and then the sound of a small object clanking across the ground.

Eirlathion furrows his brows as he continues to descend down the stairs. He turns toward the middle of the room where he sees the chair Nymph had mentioned, tipped over on the floor. However, right next to that chair he sees something somewhat surprising. The knocked-over chair seemed to be laying right next to an upright chair. And, in that upright chair, he found Aerien sitting there. She turns in his direction immediately, shielding her eyes from the light of his mana lamp.

He looks around a little more, and quickly notices she is covered in planting soil, which is also all over the table, the chair, and all over the floor. Right in front of her on the table is the wooden pot for the Lakira nut he had brought down to have Aerien practice with earlier. After seeing that, he realized immediately what had happened.

Seriously! How had she managed to actually get from pulling a chair over onto herself to using it to climb up on another chair in the time between when Nymph had told him about it and now? The fact that she was able to do all this simply did not surprise him anymore, it was the speed with which she did it.

Eirlathion was chastising his past self now for thinking these kids were going to be easy to handle because they were so smart. Aerien in particular was obviously going to be a serious handful to deal with. Well, let’s just get her cleaned up for now.

Author's note

Alright, act 2 is in full swing now. With my school requirements done, I have been working hard to try and get more chapters out. With any luck, I'm hoping there may be a second advanced chapter up on my scribble hub sometime soon. I appreciate all the love I'm getting here in the comments section, but the fact it's not reflecting on Subscribe Star means I probably have to do more to make the rewards worth it. That's how I see it anyway.

EDIT: I only just now realized a few hours after posting this chapter there was a definite pun opportunity with how the title of the last chapter was "can't even come clean," and this chapter ends with Aerien dumping dirt all over herself.

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