The 2Month


    I awaken mid-scream and finally, finally, finally I have met my mother. She doesn''t seem to be the loving sort, preferring to have someone else hold the drooling baby while she looks at me. Not that I don''t empathize, beinga baby,I can truthfully say that we drool way too much. So even thenIfollow her face with my eyes and smile at her. I get a cool nod in response. No hug or baby talk or anything an infant could interpret as affection.


    Maybe she''s not that expressive though? I don''t know, I really don''t. But she does address herself as ''Mother'', which is one of my most recent entries in the mental dictionary I have been compiling. Because while I see many, many children on my trips out and about, and see them interacting with their parents... They use a less formalvariant. How she says ''Mother'' really doesn''t translate well but it''s the way you address your mumwhen you''ve knocked over herfavouritevase, or some other form of naughtiness.


    It''s strict, stern and non-casual. Honestly, if I was not atwo-month-oldbaby I would seriously think I had done something wrong. But I am a two-month-old baby and therefore can''t exactly do much other than eating, sleeping,slight movements and babbling. And, well, going to the toiletbut nappy changes are done by one of the slaves responsiblefor me so that cannot be it.


    PerhapsI was sick on her? Her clothes are a soft green fabric that''sembroideredheavily. In a world without sewing machines that would have to be done by hand. Which would have taken ages, which in turn makes it expensive – just like how lace used to be worth a fortune in the past. Still, she''s really a beauty, with sharp green eyes, long black hair and an amazing figure.A seriouslyamazing figure. It''s to the extent that I am glad I am bottle fed. If I was thinking as an adult during breastfeeding itwould have been as awkward as hell.


    She says something sharply to the woman holding me. Who promptly hurries over to lay me down on a table with a concave surface. Pale gold lacquerednails reach out towards me. I truly feel like a tortoise waiting for a golden eagle to swoop down and grasp it with its talons.


    Luckily,they aren''t actually that sharpas they twist, turn and otherwise move my body for inspection. I try another baby gurgle and smile, but being creeped out does wonders when it comes to inhibiting facial expressions from seeming natural. In turn that makes me feel... bad. Shouldn''t a mother have an actual child to love? Not some reincarnated old soul trapped in achild''sbody?


    And then I lose it. I take back my guilty emotions.And continue tolose it. Because while I have somecontrol over my emotions, that was beaten out byaninfant''sinstinctive reaction to pain. That woman jabbed her fingernails into my shoulder! On purpose! So,I cry, andscream,andmentally say words which notwo-month-oldshould ever know the meaning of. And then I either revert to baby mode orhyperventilate myselfunconscious.The last thing I see is her pleased face...


    The 2Month &2 Weeks


    There was a lot of shouting coming from outside today. I''m enduring though it istough. At times like this I want to revert to baby mode. But the joy, I have to think in order to exhaust my mind back to that state. And how am I supposed to do that when the yelling is making me unable to hear myself think?! Literally!


    There are horses neighing as well, but I won''t hold that against them. It''s the fault of thehumans who ride them. Besides, they are currently on the move, hooves thundering against the ground as they carry the loud menaway from the tentcomplex. Better for my eardrums, though everyone has become rather tense. I hope we''re not getting attacked. If I am stuckin this world,which I am, I would prefer to be on the higher side of the social hierarchy.


    It is precisely because I am that worried that I push myself to the limits and stay awake for as long as possible. All I do for what feels likehoursand hours is strain my ears for ahint of their return.I wound up falling asleep before any news came my way though. When I woke up the woman looking after me had dark circles under her eyes. And she dropped the bottle with my milk in. It ended up smashed, which was a pity. And the replacement bottle wasn''t warmed.


    I would be concerned about it being spoilt, but it was chilled. Like, fresh out of a refrigerator chilled. Is that a dimensional storage cheat as well? It made a nice change from the monotony of warm milk so I didn''t complain. Besides, she seems stressed enough as it is without a cranky baby. Just let this be over and done with soon. Please?


    The 2Month, 2 Weeks & 2 Days


    We won. Or lost badly enough that the soldiers absolutely have to drink all thealcoholin the tribe before the enemy gets to it. I''m opting for the former, the latter was sarcasm. Terrible, I know, but the drunken carousing is inhibiting anyattempt at genuinehumour on my part.


    ...Some idiot just knocked a candle over and setthe tent on fire. I''m going to scream before I die of excessive smoke inhalation. Or not. As soon as the fire reached palm size a runic pattern on the tent activated and sucked up the fire. Should I be worried to live in a tent with this function?This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.


    The 3Month


    Not that it was cold during the daytime before, it was actually quite pleasant, but recently the weather is muchhotter. The daylight hours are alsolengthening, I presume, because my daily thought limit gets in the way ofconfirmingthat. Conclusion: it is Summer. And then for a dose of reality: Summer is not enjoyable without air conditioning and bugrepellent. Leaving me with the dilemma of boiling while hiding under the blanket or getting irritating bites should I forsake it.


    Well after my caretakers discoveredthe many mosquito bites over my body some kind of incense was lit in the corner of the tent. It stinks, but it does keep most of the insects away, and in the nick of time as well. It is not nice to have a blood-sucking thingcrawling over you and being unable to get rid of it. Other than by rolling over, which takes intense concentration and physical effort.


    I did try squishing the mosquito, but it flew away to another part of me on the first attempt and the second attempt resulted in nearly poking my eye. Not good. I haveno intention of finding out just how lacking medical care is in this tribe until absolutely necessary. Unless they have healing magic, which would be awesome.


    But since that is not confirmed,I like having good vision and will stay away from eye-risking activities. I always wore glasses previously, and still never achieved this level of clarity. Not that it''s worth living a medieval life, but looking on the bright side is useful upon occasion.


    Another positive would be that my language studies are going well. I can figure out one word in ten, on average. Usually what amounts to a filler word – such as ''and'' or ''the'' - though. It would have been even better had I not spent so much time hung up over the differentgrammar. Despite all this I have yet to figure out my name. It''s ''Young Master'' this and ''Young Master'' that from the slaves, and I don''t get other visitors. I really am quite the pariah.


    That was why it was so surprising whenthe witch with the sharp nails, aka ''Mother'',came on her next visit and brought some children with her.So,these are my siblings? There''s three of them in total, two boys around fiveyears of age who are glaring at each other and a little girl who is probably two years old.


    I genuinely didn''t expect this. For a start, my Mother looks to be about twenty-one. How young was she when she had her first child? Ah, right. This is aworld closer to the past than to the present, the age for marriage is going to be younger than themodern-daynorm.


    That aside, she is currently gesturing one of theboy''sforwards with a slight smile on her face. It''s easy to tell the difference between the two, one is strongly built while the other looks like a gust of wind would blow him over. Sickly doesn''t even begin to cover it, even now he''s coughing into his sleeve. A hacking cough, not just clearing his throat. Sounds nasty.


    While on that train of thought, is it really a good idea to introduce an ill child to your new baby? Really? I''m bottle-fed as well, it''s not like I have been fed antibodies through breast-milk so I am more vulnerable to disease. Irresponsible parenting has been added to the charge of absentee parenting. Wait? What are they saying?


    "Tsuri... I...????... first???"


    They''re arguing about who gets to say hello to the new baby first? At least that''s what I think the frail boy was going on about. And the other boy namedTsuriignores him.So,he tries again.


    "Tsuri... I eldest son...???... Eldest son...????... goes first?"


    Eldest first would make sense in a tribal or feudalworld. But I won''t judge just yet -because I could have mistaken thesituationgiven the total scope of knowledge I possess. Then mother speaks and I could have sworn the temperature in the tent dropped. Does she have ice magic?Gone was the faintly pleased smile. Nowwasthe time of the glacial glare.


    "Enough...???…????????-????...?? ...Juntel!"


    Juntel. A word which I wasactually, for once, veryfamiliar with. Just never, ever in this kind of context. When I was taken outside, it would inevitably be toa child friendly area. And I was grateful for that. Children havemore limited vocabularies and are morerepetitivein speech.Therefore,learning the language was easier. Along the way I had also picked up a collection of jeers and taunts.Juntelnumbered among them.


    Calling someoneJuntelwas the equivalent of calling them a weakling, useless, a failure, nothing but a burden. It wasdefinitely not a nice word.Upon several occasionskids had been punished for using it within adult earshot. Not that that stopped them using it. Kids can be cruel. Theadult tribespeople seldomintervenedin thechildren''smatters, that showed just how serious this one wordwas.Breaking someone''s nose was less of an issue than calling them it.


    And ''Mother'' had just used it to refer to her son.She wasn''t even that angry! It wasn''t said in the heat of the moment. Itwas just a casual dismissal... which caused tears to form in my eldestbrother''seyes. My other brother,Tsuri, sneered before walking forwards. I didn''t get exactly what he said, it was too formal. But it seemed to be a perfunctorywelcome to the familyspeech? Then they all left, Mother giving me another sharp pinch on the way. What was up with her?!


    The only one to look back was eldest brother. His tears were gone, reddened eyes being the only remaining evidence of them. And he was glaring at me. Then, as if that was not enough to convey his hatred he spat on the floor rug. That triggered another coughing fit, which sprayed even more spit around. Before he finally left. If there was a door it would have slammed shut, but this was a tent so the flap simplyswishedback into place.


    I was left with just my thoughts. Which were mainly on the resent sequence of events. I didn''t comprehend them at all. Why hate me? I clenched my stubby fingers, reminding myselfonce more that I was now a baby who hadn''t even had their first birthday. What wasthereto loathe? I was hardly treated well... the flesh on my right arm still stung as testament to that... I give up. I just don''t know.