Three years passed with agonizing slowness as I experienced countless stubbed toes, bruised elbows and knees, and numerous small cuts.
It was all worth it though, for at the age of four, I had completely mastered my senses!
Within a basic sphere of influence approximately half a mile wide my senses could steadily give me a picture of my surroundings.
With bare feet I could feel the vibrations of the earth and get a complete picture of anything touching the ground in my surroundings. (I never wear shoes any more because of that and it gives my mother an immeasurable amount of grief.)
My ears could pick up the slightest wisp of sound, telling me the location or anything in the air.
I could parse through the most delicate of scents and track things down better than any hunting dog.
By sliding my fingers across a page of a book and feeling the letters of ink, I could even read. (there is a very slight difference between the feel of plain paper and written letters, I had to make numerous painful begging faces of 'Mommy will you please read this to me?', my pride took a considerable amount of damage.......)
Mwahahaha, that's only on a normal basis though.
When I use mediation, my area of influence increases exponentially, allowing all my senses to expand to a three mile wide area.
Hahaha, being blind is awesome~~
That's not even the best part!
When I focus on just one sense, I can extend it to a nine mile basis.
That's eighteen times larger than normal~
This toy is getting even better the more I play with it *cough* I mean, its only natural with the amount of training I've improved this much.
Thanks to all the moving around I had done, Adrianne had stopped worrying about me, even though I refused to hang out with other kids my age, and had never spoken a word ( I had seen my parents reaction to Aaron's first word, and I was determined to delay my own experience as long as possible)
I guess with all of Aaron's antics, my little quirks were more of a blessing to my mother than a reason to worry.
For the past four years my brother's impish nature has had him grabbing the sharpest objects he can reach in the house as a baby, constantly pulling all the drying, freshly cleaned laundry into the mud at the age of two like it was a fun game,and at the age of three, he became the head of his own pack of trickster toddlers that wreaked general havoc among our small village that sat at the doorstep of the Redsword Mansion.
I suppose my brother was something of a genius in his own way, not many three year-old's managed to accomplish that much chaos.
At the age of four, my brother and his friend's only escalated their irksome actions.
Luckily for them, the adults managed to wave off their antics, stating that 'it can’t be helped, children don't know any better' despite several broken windows and various other small damages.
I was rather disappointed in the adults, if they kept letting them get away with things, it would only make the situation worse.
Sometimes a kind heart must be occasionally discarded for the sake of a child's future.
Not that I've done any better.
I've basically avoided the rascal at every possible moment.
The only time I actually initiated contact with Aaron was at the age of two when I brainwashed *cough**cough**ahem* when I introduced the concept of me being the older brother and him being the younger brother.
Since then, despite my mother's many efforts, Aaron has continued think of me as the older brother.
(Hahaha Mom, take that! There's no way that an immortal such as myself would ever allow myself to be referred to as little brother, even in worlds where I had significantly older siblings, I was never called little brother. My pride as the oldest being in the universe would never allow it!)
In fact, as Big Bro Felix, I'm the only one that Aaron always listens to, but I've hidden the fact, because as soon as it was known, I would be continually bothered with requests to stop my twin brothers craziness.
One day however, my brother got into a bit more trouble than he and his buddies could handle.
It started off like any normal fall day, the coming winter adding the brisk scent of cold to the air, the sounds of countless migrating flocks of birds filling my ears, and there was a slight chill in the ground that the sun failed to warm.
It was late in the afternoon, my father already home from his guard shift in the mansion, when my mother realized she hadn't seen Aaron since this morning, which was unusual since he usually at least showed up for lunch.
Not too worried just yet, Adrianne asked Seph to go and check on Aaron and to remind him about lunch.
Curious, I quietly followed him, unnoticed.
Generally, when Aaron disappears for a long time, it results in one of his more interesting experiences, which I tend to find quite amusing.
However, upon asking around Seph and the other villagers realize that Aaron and his pack of brats have been missing for a few hours.
Starting to worry, they organize a search and confirm that the children are no where in the village or the nearby fields.
My brother knowing better than to trying sneaking into the Lord and Lady's mansion, the only possible place was inside the Mistwood forest.
It was one of the classified danger areas that our kingdom of Ediraseth had failed to fully explore, despite it being well within our vast borders. The Redsword noble house had tried for generations to fully conquer it, but the magical beasts that lived inside were just too strong.
As children, we were told countless times to stay out of the woods, but looking back on it, that was just like leaving a piece of candy out unguarded and telling my brother not to eat.
With the fearlessness only children had, my brother had led a secret expedition into the woods probably with the goal of finally being the ones who had finally conquered it. (I had noticed my brother eagerly listening to the stories of old soldiers describing their embellished exploits a few weeks ago, but had taken no note of it after several relatively uneventful days had passed, it seems my brother put even more planning into this than I had expected.)
Luckily, most of the animals living in the outer edges of the forest were nocturnal, but the deeper the group of brats got, the higher the likelihood that they would meet a magical beast that didn't sleep during the day.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
Everyone was now frantic at this point, there was only a few hours left before night began to fall, and the chance of finding the children before that was close to nil and once dark fell, there was absolute certainty that Aaron and his friends would be killed by a magical beast.
*sigh* I suppose I better help them out then.
Still unnoticed, I sat down cross-legged and slipped into meditation.
Not expecting four year old's to be able to get too far with the twisted roots and crowded undergrowth hindering their way, I first stretched out all of my senses three miles into the forest.
The rustled of wind on leaves, the sound of birds, the feel of hundreds of towering trees and the long faded scent of my brother where the only things I found.
Wow, I underestimated the brat pack's determination, they must be really fired up this time.
I then focused solely on my hearing and began slowly moving it past the original three mile boundary, I wanted to make sure I didn't accidentally miss them, I was covering a lot of land after all.
I finally found them five miles into the forest.
What in the world!!!???
Are these guys really four year-old's!!???
Tch, what a little pack of monsters, I should probably pay more attention to them.
In my shock, I absentmindedly let my hearing spread its full nine miles
What I heard made my blood run cold.
About three miles away from Aaron and his group, a magical beast was beginning to stir, and on the children's present course, they would walk straight into it in about an hour, the same amount of time it would take the adults to reach them if they ran.
I broke off the meditation and ran to my father, desperately tugging on his sleeve.
Aaron may be a brat, but he was still my little brother and it was my duty to protect him.
Haaaa, even I can be serious sometimes...
"What is it Felix? Father is really busy right now, we need to find your brother and his friends."
I didn't even dare speak, in case it initiated the 'my child spoke his first word' fiasco despite the serious moment, and ended up wasting precious time. (I've never been able to accurately predict how my parents would react to something)
I pointed at the forest and used a little ki to begin pulling Seph towards it, by his sleeve, a physical feat that would be impossible even for my brother's band of irregular monsters.
Seph quickly caught on.
"Are you trying to tell me you know where they are?"
I nodded vigorously.
"Everyone, Felix knows where the kids are!"
"What are you talking about Seph, the kid is blind, there's no way he can know where they are"
I recognized the voice, the old blacksmith Drake, who liked to often point out how I was blind and couldn't do 'nothin'
I ignored him and kept pulling on Seph's arm, but I felt my father hesitate.
Darn, we didn't have time for this, time for plan B.
I let go of my father's arm and began to run towards the forest.
"What is he... Everyone Stop Him!!!"
I heard the adults begin to run after me.
Strengthening my body with ki, I began to run even faster as I entered the forest, easily avoiding twisted roots and protruding rocks, or anything else that could trip me while the adults followed more clumsily, unsure of their footing.
I made sure I always remained in sight as I carefully guided them towards Aaron's group.
I fell into a new half-meditative trance as I ran that stretched my normal senses to one and a half miles
Hmmmm, it seems I still had more to learn and develop, despite what I had previously thought.
That was how, when I was a mile and a half away, I heard the children's first terrified screams.
There was no time, I rocketed forward, ignoring the fading shouts of the people struggling to follow me as I turned my ki on full blast.
Within five minutes I arrived at the clearing where the magical beast and Aaron's group had met.
Without pausing to check on the children, I rocketed towards the magical beast, having already examined it during the five minutes it took me to get here.
It was a large feline the size of a horse, and from what I could tell, its fur was impervious to all attacks, physical and magical, but I had already located its weak point.
I leaped forward and drove my foot through the cat's eye and deep into it's brain, killing it instantly.
The danger at hand dealt with, I turned at check on the brat troupe.
I heard Aaron and the other five kids (I had never bothered to learn their names) distinct heart beats and a breathing, both of which were just starting to slow down from the rapid beat of fear.
They were all alive, worse for wear, but alive.
It seems the feline had inherited the kitty instinct to play with its food before killing it.
*Sigh* Those brats are really lucky...
The adults arrived a few minutes later, with Seph in the lead.
I had just managed to pull my leg out of the magical beast's head (my foot had gotten stuck) and was wiping various chunks of brain off.
*Blech* there goes a pair of perfectly good pants.
The children had begun chatting happily the minute their fear had worn off, not even trying to help me.
My annoyance level reached dangerous levels.
I mean, they almost died, they should be a little more serious about it.
Uugghh, and if I leave it like this, they'll keep coming, sure that I'll fish them out of dangerous moments.
Ignoring the amazed stares of the adults who had frozen at the scene in the clearing, I walked over to Aaron and slapped him hard on the cheek.
"Owww! What was that for big brother!!??"
I spoke in a wintery voice
"No more forest"
I felt the air move as Aaron meekly nodded.
I then turned to the adults and cracked my fist.
"Nothing about what I did today will be spoken about, understood?"
There were nervous murmurs of assent from the group.
Then I heard a familiar roar.
Drat! I had forgotten about Seph!!
"My son spoke his first words!!"
I refuse to tell you what happened afterwards.