A year has passed since I reincarnated into this small, fragile, and dependent body.
Gradually, like a mist slowly dissipating, I began to understand some words and loose phrases of this strange language. Even so, I still can't fully comprehend everything they say around me. It's like listening to a song where only a few notes make sense, while the rest remains a mystery.
Like every baby in this world — or any other, I suppose — I am going through the basic and inevitable phases of early childhood: eating, soiling diapers, and sleeping. An endless cycle that, for an adult mind trapped in a child's body, becomes a daily exercise in patience.
To be honest, the feeding part is a bit strange. Not that I feel anything uncomfortable or inappropriate, like getting aroused by my mother breastfeeding me — gods, thankfully that doesn't happen! — but the taste of breast milk is... peculiar. A curious mixture of sweet and salty at the same time, as if it couldn't decide which flavor should dominate. As strange as it is, it's nourishing me well, and my small body grows strong every day.
During this first year, I also discovered a little more about my new family and social standing. Apparently, we are nobles. Well, at least in title, because in practice, the reality is quite different. We hold the title of Baronet, which basically means: poor nobles. Very poor, I might add, with the dignity of a title, but without the fortune that usually accompanies it.
Lucius, my father in this new life, despite being a "noble" by inheritance, lives practically like a common peasant. Every day I see him leave even before the sun rises, his hands already calloused and his face marked by constant worry, to work on the lands that make up his small fiefdom – lands that barely produce enough for our subsistence.
My mother, Maria, spends most of her time at home, her blue eyes rarely letting me out of sight. I imagine that, after the trauma she experienced — almost losing her child during childbirth — she refuses to move away from me, as if she feared I might disappear at any moment if I wasn't under her constant vigilance.
I won't deny that I like this devoted attention. I don't quite know why. Perhaps it's some biological interference from this new body, some primordial instinct that makes me want to stay close to my mother. Or perhaps it's the memory of the mother I lost in my previous life, the one that depression consumed after the tragedy of our family. I don't have a clear answer, but I know that this proximity is... strangely pleasant, like a balm for wounds I didn't even know were still open.
However, to be completely honest, sometimes this dependence is a bit frustrating. With my mind already formed, I am essentially an adult trapped in a body that doesn't respond as it should. Having to deal with a reality where I am treated as a helpless baby – which, physically, I indeed am – is uncomfortable and at times humiliating. Not being able to speak my mind, not being able to move as I wish, being at the mercy of physiological needs I cannot control... it's a prison of flesh and bone.
— Elian, my baby! How are you today? — Maria says every morning, her face illuminated by a tenderness so genuine it almost hurts.
I even try to answer, to formulate words that express my complex thoughts, but all I can produce are primitive and inarticulate sounds like "Aaaaa" or "Baaa." Babbles that don't do justice to the storm of ideas swirling within my mind.
Curiously, these meaningless sounds seem to make her radiant with happiness. And, for some reason I can't rationally explain, seeing her happy... also makes me happy. As if her joy were contagious, or as if this infant body instinctively responded to the maternal smile.
Sometimes, when the house is quiet and time seems to slow down, I find myself remembering my old family. My biological mother, Beatriz. I remember how she took care of me when I was sick, bringing homemade remedies, making vegetable soup, singing lullabies with her soft voice that seemed to ward off any evil. I remember how she smiled before the tragedy, before life stole everything from her.
Whenever these memories arise, I involuntarily feel my eyes fill with tears. It's as if my current body responds to the pains of the soul that inhabits it. Maria, always attentive, notices immediately. She picks me up with infinite delicacy and begins to speak to me in a melodious tone. I don't understand all the words of this strange language, but, in some mysterious way, that sound, that warmth, that familiar smell... all of it comforts me in a way that comprehensible words perhaps couldn't.
Six months have passed since my last conscious thoughts about my situation. Time seems to flow differently when you're a child – sometimes dragging, sometimes flying. I believe that, now, I must be about 1 year and 6 months old... Well, something like that. I still haven't fully mastered this world's calendar.
I discovered that, just like on Earth, here too there are four well-defined seasons: Summer, Autumn, Winter, and Spring. Nature follows its relentless cycle, indifferent to the human dramas unfolding beneath its mantle.
The summer in this region is unbearably hot, with days that seem endless under a relentless sun. The winter, on the other hand, is bitterly cold, penetrating to the bones, transforming every breath into a small white cloud that dissipates in the freezing air.
By the way, it is precisely in this harshest season that we are now. My father, Lucius, has spent the last few months meticulously preparing for this period, gathering as much food and wood as possible, working from dawn to dusk without rest, trying to ensure that everyone here at home could get through the winter with some comfort — or at least, with the minimum necessary to survive.
I'm not yet fully in the solid food phase, although I've already tried some porridges and purees. My main diet, for now, still consists of breast milk, which, honestly, still has that curious taste: sweet and salty simultaneously, as if it couldn't decide its true nature. It's not unpleasant... and, more importantly, it's keeping me healthy and strong, which is essential in these cold months.
From my high chair, I carefully observe the dinner table, studying our daily diet as an anthropologist would study a distant culture. I notice that our diet is simple, without luxuries or excesses. There is always a thin soup, dark bread, a piece of boiled potato, and a small piece of meat. From the appearance and texture, perhaps it's chicken or some similar bird from this world.
The main difference between our table and that of a common peasant seems subtle, but significant: the bread — ours looks fresh, with a golden and soft crust, while theirs, from what I've heard in conversations, appears to be dry and hard as stone — and the amount of meat, which, however modest it may be on our table, is still greater than the portion available to common laborers.
Well... it doesn't seem like we'll have a life of abundance here. We are nobles only in name, but in practice, we live just one step above poverty.
As I silently observed, absorbing every detail of that daily scene, my parents dined in silence, each lost in their own thoughts. Suddenly, my mother, Maria, put her spoon — a simple iron one, probably the best we could afford — aside and looked intently at my father, her face a mixture of apprehension and something else I couldn't immediately identify.
— Lucius, I have some news for you — she said, her voice soft but firm.
Immediately, as if sensing the importance of that moment, he stopped eating. He carefully placed his spoon on the soup bowl and, with a serious and attentive gaze, encouraged her to continue with a slight nod.
— Lucius, I believe I'm pregnant again — she revealed, the words hanging in the air like snowflakes, delicate and transformative.
Not only was my father visibly surprised by the news, but I also felt something strange stir within me. Of course, no one noticed my internal reaction, after all, I was still trapped in the body of a baby unable to fully express complex emotions. But Lucius's face was an open book, impossible to ignore even for inexperienced eyes.
His expressions changed constantly like clouds on a stormy day: happiness, fear, nervousness, hope. He opened and closed his smile, as if trying to understand if this was a divine blessing or another worry to add to his already heavy burden.
The truth is, even after so long, Lucius still hasn't fully overcome the trauma of what happened at my birth. The ghost of that day still haunts him on the quietest nights. Perhaps, in his view, he really lost his biological son on that fateful day... and now, here I am, a strange consciousness inhabiting this body that should have been his true son. Since I don't know exactly what or who brought me here, there's no point in trying to find answers for now. Some questions may never be answered.
The silence that formed between them after the announcement began to grow dense and uncomfortable, filling the small room like a physical presence. Finally, my mother, with a gentle tone that seemed to want to dissipate that tension, broke the heavy atmosphere:
— Aren't you happy? — she asked, a rare vulnerability showing through her normally confident voice.
Lucius replied quickly, almost stumbling over his words, as if he wanted to erase any wrong impression his silence might have caused:
— It's not that! Of course I'm happy! I just... — he paused, taking a deep breath, searching for the right words before continuing. — I'm afraid, Maria. Afraid we won't have enough money for another mouth to feed. Afraid that everything that happened before will repeat itself. Afraid of losing you... or our child. I couldn't bear to go through that again.
During this time living under the same roof, I heard fragments of conversations about how my mother almost died during my birth. The hemorrhage, the fever, the despair. And, according to them, she only survived thanks to the miraculous intervention of the elder Margareth, who used advanced healing magic to save her when everyone had already lost hope.
By the way, I discovered that my parents also possess some magical ability, though limited. Lucius can use basic earth magic, useful for cultivation, while Maria has an affinity for beginner-level water magic. But... that's a topic for another time, when I better understand how the magic system of this world works.
My mother, with a gesture that seemed to contain all the tenderness in the world, held my father's hand in hers. She looked deeply into his eyes, as if she wanted to transmit her strength through that contact, and spoke with surprising firmness:
— Lucius, I understand your fears. Believe me, I have mine too. But I know we'll manage, as we always have. Elian will be almost two years old when the baby is born. Will it be difficult? Yes, of course it will. But we'll make it, together. We'll take good care of him, or her, just as we're taking care of Elian. Our family will grow, and that's a blessing, not a curse.
And in that, I really can't complain or disagree. My parents, despite the simplicity of our lives and financial limitations, never let me lack the essentials. We have food on the table every day, we protect ourselves from the cold with simple but sufficient clothes, and whenever we get sick, they find a way to pay for treatment, even if it means personal sacrifices.
— So I'm going to have a little brother... or a little sister? — I thought, the idea slowly forming in my mind like ice crystals on a winter window.
At the exact moment the word "little sister" echoed in my consciousness, an old and terrible image arose like an unexpected blow, tearing the veil of the present: the image of Luana, my sister from the past life, hanging by the rope, her inert body gently swaying, returned to my memory with cruel and merciless clarity.
An agonizing pain, like a thousand poisoned daggers, pierced every part of my soul — a pain that, even after reincarnation, even after crossing the abyss between worlds, remained alive and throbbing, like a wound that never fully healed. It was an unbearable weight, a sadness so profound that it seemed bottomless, dragging me down with a force more powerful than any rational understanding.
Unable to contain that whirlwind of emotions, unable to process them through the limited mind of a baby, Elian — I — began to cry. Not a common child's cry, but a deep lament that seemed to come from the depths of another existence.
My parents, who until then had been immersed in their own moment of complex happiness, were visibly surprised and frightened to see me cry so suddenly and intensely, as if I had been physically hurt. Maria, my mother in this life, didn't think twice. She immediately got up from the table, knocking over the napkin in the process, and picked me up in her arms with the urgency of someone saving something precious from a fire.
She cradled me with infinite tenderness, murmuring words of comfort that I was beginning to partially understand. She rocked me gently, softly sang a local lullaby, stroked my back in slow and comforting movements... but nothing, absolutely nothing seemed to be able to stop my desperate crying.
How could I explain to her that I was crying for a sister she never knew, from a world that never existed for her? How could I say that I feared, more than anything, failing again to protect a sister or brother?
After long minutes that seemed like hours, amidst the seemingly endless tears and the suffocating tightness in my chest that even this new body couldn't disguise, physical exhaustion finally won the battle against emotional pain. Still nestled in my mother's protective lap, feeling the comforting warmth of her body and the rhythmic beat of her heart, Elian — what remained of Rodrick — finally fell asleep.