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Is hard work good enough?
Working, working hard, yet no progress.
Is this good enough?
Is it ever good enough?
Or is it all fate and luck?
Questions, questions, yet no answers.
None, for the world is cruel and you must be tough
Lest it all be asunder
Someone had come to see us, or rather me.
He wore a black robe with a spiraling dragon crest on his left chest. And unlike every other the humans I’d seen so far, he didn’t have pointy ears. He was a real human and he just made it clear my mother wasn’t one, thus, I wasn’t necessarily human either.
But who cared? I sure didn’t.
“He is ready, I assume,” the man said. Or at least I thought he said it.
I could basically understand most of the words but not quite. But at the same time, I understood the man more than my own mother. Is he speaking a different language?
I still wasn’t sure how old I was when I first opened my eyes. I had no idea about babies or the norms or if any of them even applied to this world and frankly, I didn’t care. I didn’t care till now that is.
I suppose you really start caring when your back hits the wall, huh?
“He is...” mother said, in a rather odd way. She was having a hard time talking.
Definitely a different language...
And I knew this different language more than my own mother tongue. Weird.
“Please stand back. I will perform the ritual right now,” he said.
Mother sat me down on the wooden floor and took a few steps back. Just me and the man. He sat crossed legged in front. With something akin to a chalk, he marked a circle around me and then drew doodles on it. Pretty weird. What’s weirder, the doodles started glowing... at least for a few seconds.
This world has magic!? I actually thought of the world as a fantasy one when I came about. Mother looked like an elf and we lived such primitive lives. Surely there was magic and stuff, right? At least I hoped there was. But I never saw her using anything resembling magic. Nothing at all.
So, you bet I was excited as hell when the darn white lines started glowing even for just few seconds. Sure, magic was probably just theatrics but at least they were fun to watch.
“No talent,” the man said. “Ordinary, no magic.” He sighed, hanging his head. “Not worth-”
“Shh!” Mother lounged forward grabbing the man’s mouth, basically lifting his whole body up in the air. Eyes bloodshot, she glared like she was about to murder the dude. And wait, mother was taller?
She strong! She’d apparently lifted the guy with just one hand and kept him up with ease.
The man was at least five-ten. Then mother was over six feet?
Boy was I glad. If my mother was that tall, how damn tall I’d be! Fucking hell, farewell my average as fuck past, hello brand new tall as fuck future!
Mother slammed the guy on the floor, basically breaking the flooring. “Out,” she said.
Panting like he was on life-support, the man staggered to his feet bleeding a bit from his forehead, and ran out. Bet he can beat Bolt
In my previous life, I had little to no talent outside of studying. I studied hard and became 4th in the third grade. This kind of tripped my mother and she for the first time started talking to me. Before that, she ignored me and focused more on my brothers because I was a waste of time. She started talking to me and took me to afterschool centers, private coaching centers and even got me tutors. She focused a bit too much on me and for the first few years everything was perfect. She loved me, or at least she appeared to, and pressured me to focus more on studies. I got up before sunrise, and slept after midnight: I had no real life outside of studying. I had no friends, just competition. But it changed when I met Billy. I became a bit more sociable and...when I failed to retain my top position in tenth grade, she again ignored me. But this time, she also made sure to make my brothers ignore me. I guess they were all disappointed in me, the wasted potential.
I lived in the same house, but I wasn’t part of their group. I wasn’t part of the family. Why? Because I had talent but refused to make use of it. I was a waste of time, a waste of potential. One day, mom got really upset and we started arguing badly. So bad in fact-
I left them. I hated that family but I had to admit, their extra money did come in handy. I rented a house with dad’s credit card and lived alone. Luckily the guy never bothered to block his card, and I didn’t misuse the card either. For the first time, I could just be who I was without actually giving a fuck about my mother’s approval.
I could be free. I could... and yet... yet I felt miserable. My mother had singlehandedly indoctrinated me to the point where even I viewed my life as meaningless without doing what I was good at; studying. So...
I could understand, this woman. So, I could understand why this mother was so furious. Why she took it out on the robed man. Why-
“Don’t listen to him,” she swooped in and dragged me to her chest, hugging me firm. She said nothing else. She just hugged me, her eyes and cheeks wet.
I didn’t care if she was pretending. I didn’t care if this warmth was a lie. I didn’t care if everything was just lies.
I didn’t care.
I just... hugged her and sniffled, refusing to cry for the first time since I came to this world.
***
Apparently, that robed man was a priest. And priests in this world held the power to look into the future of individuals and their potential.
If they deemed you dangerous, they had the authority to notify the church of Askavan and ‘escort’ you out of society. If they deemed you full of potential for any particular way of life, they could in theory just force you to choose that path. And if they thought you were a waste of time, they also held the power to make sure you didn’t exist anymore....
But mother didn’t let that happen. Heck, she even went to the church and threatened them.
How I knew all this?
Well, another particular dude came to visit. One of those pointy eared guys who were so eager to kill me. Tall, a bit taller than mother but thin. Even mother had more muscle than this man. And no, he wasn’t any less hostile but he didn’t hurt me at the very least. “Look at me, talking to a literal child...” He sighed, part way.
We were sitting by the wooden balcony, watching over the woods. He sat cross legged, a hand on his chin, looking out. While I sat by the edge, my feet dangling. Lately, I’d been crawling and stuff, having lots of fun. Who’d have thought some mobility would be this darn entertaining?
I obviously couldn’t keep my balance up with these darn fatty legs though. So I suppose it was going to take a while before I could walk around properly.
“So, you better grow up to be a good man. You better not disappoint Lin,” he said.
Lin, or rather Lindell Arnius was her name. I’d found out only recently. I still had no idea what my name was, but given how my mother would often call me Solrel or Sorni, I thought it was one of the two, but hopefully not. I found no real appreciation for either name.
I stared at the dude, and slowly raised my hand towards him, trying to reach out. I could display a thumbs up but I had no idea what it meant in this world. I didn’t want to accidentally offend him or anything. He was way larger than me and could kill me without any remorse whatsoever. He was the last person I wanted to piss off.
“Alright, alright,” he rolled his eyes, picked me up and to my utter surprise, put on his thighs.
Silence.
Awkward silence.
If there was silence, and it wasn’t awkward, that was proof that you were comfortable with the person. And yeah, I was definitely not comfortable with this guy. Regardless, I didn’t initiate any conversation with him. I had plenty of questions but not for him. Why? Because he didn’t know I could talk.
And yes...
I... could talk. More like I could barely put out some words but yeah, I could talk if I put my mind to it. I hadn’t talked to anyone though. Not even with mother. Cause again, I had no idea what was normal here, and so far, the people weren’t panicking that I wasn’t talking and stuff, so it was probably no big deal... yet.
I didn’t even know his name but... but he was warm. And he didn’t like me. Which I kind of liked about him. He didn’t bother pretending, he didn’t bother faking it. An honest dude. But guys like him were the scariest. The most unpredictable.
Billy was my friend. An honest boy. I liked him quite a lot, enough to call him my best friend. And... I trusted him with my life. I thought he felt the same. I thought wrong.
I was wrong.
Why did he betray me? Why did he murder me like that? No idea. Hence, I couldn’t trust them anymore. I did like them, honest people. But I no longer trusted them. I no longer felt safe around them.
Yet... yet, I wanted to relish this warmth. I wanted to not feel so damn fucking paranoid.
Sigh.
“Tired?” the man said, staring down. His name was Den something. At least I thought it was.
No, he wasn’t mocking or looking down condescendingly. He was genuinely concerned. No more hostility, he didn’t even grumble like usual.
I nodded and the dude immediately lifted me up high, running back to the front yard, back to Mother who was apparently washing some clothes? “He understands words,” he said.
“Of course he does!” Mother shrugged, not even turning his way. “He’s been understanding words for like what, two months now?” She giggled.
Wait what... she knew? Fucking hell. Never underestimate that woman, ever again. I etched the words on my very soul.
“Huh...” the man sighed, almost disappointed. No, the dude wasn’t disappointed that he hadn’t found something before mother. Rather, he was disappointed because he wanted to get some points with her, using me as an excuse. I could tell.
I never really had a love life, never fell in love, never even had a crush. Sometimes I wondered if I was asexual or something. And yet, I could tell just from the way this guy looked at mother.
Head over heels.
No idea who my father was, but since he wasn’t in the picture, I didn’t care. As for this guy- if mother was okay with him being with her, I didn’t have any objection to that either. He seemed like a decent guy and liked mother; good enough for me. As long as he didn’t force himself on her of course.
“Oh right, he’s tired,” he said, handing me over to mother.
Mother held me in her arms, so warm. I felt awfully drowsy, and no, this time I wasn’t pretending to be. “Tomorrow we’ll go see some pelicans,” mother said, smiling.
I hated those fat birds though.
***
Apparently, Pelicans weren’t fat?
All my life I imagined pelicans to be fat ducks with a big beak. And yeah, they were fatter than a duck but darn things weren’t nearly as fat as I imagined them to be.
Wet rice paddies and birds as far as I could see. I could see for a good two hundred meters. Anything past that, I couldn’t see; blurry mess. Maybe I was a little myopic? In my previous life, I had pretty okay vision. I wasn’t necessarily myopic but I did have a hard time seeing the blackboard from the second or third bench. Okay, maybe I was myopic...
Anyway, birds!
Not just pelicans but all sorts of birds. Some swans, and some rather odd shaped ones too. Odd as in, two heads, three tails and five eyes and stuff like that. Odd... yeah, odd didn’t really cover my emotions.
I pointed at the multiheaded birds.
“Those are Xen birds. Said to bring good harvest,” mother said. Both of us sat on a mound of sorts just by the paddies. Still about two meters away from the wet ground.
On our way here, I’d seen some houses. They were like our hut just bigger. Mostly pointy eared folk but they had one, two humans. The people stared quite a lot at me. Mother pretty much never let me down, she didn’t stop to talk to them either. She just carried on. There weren’t any roads here, but since there weren’t any hills, walking around was easy. Apparently the forest was safer than these farm lands?
We didn’t come across any monsters. Yes, there were monsters in this world. Mother called them Fiends, animals who’d absorbed mana and transformed. Some of them were harmless and stayed out of our way, while others viewed us as their mortal enemy. For the most part though, they didn’t take any unnecessary risks when dealing with people. Perhaps a great sign of their intelligence.
“They’re also pretty tasty,” Mother said. “I’ll fry one when you’re older,” she whispered. “Don’t tell anyone though,” her index finger pressed on her lips, while she smiled.
I did the same and she started cackling, almost falling over with the giggles. She let me down, and I just sat down on some grass; the cold leaves tingled. We watched the orange sky light up more and more.
For the first time, instead of crawling, I tried walking. And... I fell, I fell flat on my face. I haphazardly looked back, expecting my mother to panic and stuff but she didn’t. She didn’t even get up, almost as though, wanting me to get up on my own and keep going.
Good, cause I never liked being pampered too much. Almost groaning, I somehow made it back on my feet, taking a step at a time. This body was pretty weird, and kind of fat. Just some months ago, I was so damn lean and tiny, and now I was fat. But- Move! Another step, and then another. By the third, I was walking, almost tumbling over... almost.
With about seven steps I’d neared the end of the grassland, staring at the wet land and the paddies.
Mother started clapping, coming my way. But my focus was elsewhere. Namely on the water, or rather... my reflection.
I didn’t have long ears like mother. Actually, was she even my mother?
In a split second my heart crumbled, feet went cold, chest ached. What was this? Why? Was I afraid? Afraid of being different from her? Afraid that...
Lin picked me up in her embrace. “What’s wrong? Did you pee in your pants?”
I shook my head. And... touched her ears. Then mine.
Her eyes opened a bit wide, then narrowed. “Sol,” she stared. For the first time she didn’t use any weird suffix on my name. “You’re my son,” she said. “Our ears may be a little different and maybe our races too.” She didn’t look away. She was speaking to a baby who was at best a year old. Yet, she didn’t look away, she didn’t try to baby talk; she didn’t try to dodge the subject. “But I ‘am’ your mother.”
Again, I didn’t know if she was pretending. And again, I didn’t care. I hugged her; I hugged her tight. Though with my limited muscle mass, she probably didn’t feel a difference. Or at least I thought she didn’t, but then she hugged tighter and almost made me cough. She did ease up a second later though.
So, she really is not my mother... I did wonder who my real parents were but considering how shit my previous ones were, I didn’t want to find out. Lin may not have been my birth mother, but she was every bit of ‘mother’ I could hope from a mother.
And... that was good enough for me.
Lin was my mother.
