Alex had a headache. A migraine not strong to make him wince in pain, but persistent enough to make him moody. He was a stubborn, full of life and happy child - as one would expect from a seven-year-old. But when he complained to his parents about this headache, and when they noticed how grumpy he was, they were still worried.

This worry grew as the pain didn't go away. Alex's mother, Silvia, decided to take him to the healer in Reaverhill, which would have made the boy excited for his first travelling experience if it wasn't for the pain. It would take them a week in the carriage pulled by horses, but by the third day, before stopping to rest for the night, Alex lost consciousness.

Silvia noticed that the boy wouldn't wake, had a fever running and that his pain was still there - as even in his sleep he was making anguish faces. As a mother, she never felt so powerless.

When they were born she was happy, but her life made such a tight turn that she had a hard time dealing with all the changes.

She used to be an adventurer, a loose term for a group of people doing odd jobs that involved monsters, fighting, exploring, gathering resources, protecting people... All sorts of different dangerous jobs. Her life was full of excitement and it was during one of those missions that she met him.

Her husband, the love of her life, was actually a gnoll. A race not known for their brains, but something was different with this assortment of creatures. They looked different from all the other ones. Their village looked like a proper village, their clothes looked like proper clothes. They acted as one would expect from a human, not a monster.

Her party, a loose group of people from different races - mostly demi-human of different kinds - had the same expression of disbelief when they saw the hidden gnoll village on the edge of the forest.

They trusted each other. Their bonds were tight, forged during hours of life and death struggles, many hours of travelling and camping together, commemorating and crying over any number of topics you could imagine.

So, when one of them decided to interact with the village, they all decided to do the same. Silvia was sweating bullets at first, but when she noticed that they were not the only demi-humans around she started paying attention to the faces in the village. They were smiling. 'That is a good sign' she tough.

Silvia never regretted stopping being an adventurer and settling down. In her eyes, her husband was as loving and caring as any other. Even if he was a gnoll, that is. Their children, half-blood, were even cuter than anyone could imagine.

After disbanding the party some stayed, some left the village, but those who stayed fell in love with her children. 'Well, they are as cute as me, that is for sure!' She thought, laughing at those old fools playing with babies.

Now, Silvia felt powerless. The two times that feeling got close to this one were when she started adventuring, on her first mission, and when she had her babies and noticed she could not go back to hunting and exploring as she used to. That left her with a big hole in her chest, she would never be 'free' again. Depression settled and it was one of the hardest things she went through.

But now, seeing her children unconscious, she noticed that if something happened to him she would be devasted. So she prayed. To Sinimara, the goddess of life and the one that made her children so cute, and to Varkman, the god her husband prayed to every day. She prayed that Alex would survive.

---

In his dreams Alex saw a world full of perfect cubic houses, iron carriages, paper as white as clouds and finally, he saw a face in the mirror. The face wasn't his own, as it was a human face. But he knew it was him. It was a part of him, at least. The part that knew why someone would, in their right mind, waste paper to wipe their butts. Especially one so white.

He laughed at that thought. Not him, but his reflection. One thing he noticed was that the other side of the mirror looked like a room. Some kind of magic-powered light was shining brightly. 'It definitely isn't candlelight, that's for sure. It looks different, but the constant light reminds me of the mayor's house magic light'.

The pens and pencils on his desk were easy to deduce, but a lot of things on that side of the mirror looked foreign, but at the same time right. Just like when you go visit your aunt in the farm. The room might look the same, the same size, the same bed, but when you return home it just feels right.

Alex extended his hand to the mirror, touched the surface, but what he felt wasn't the surface of a metal mirror, but the hand of the boy on the other side. Boy wasn't the proper word, he couldn't determine the age for that matter. It was him on the reflection, and he was a boy. Or was he?

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

That thought caught him off guard and the dreamworld walls, as if it was just waiting for that single slip of the mind, started to crumble around the mirror - 'Just like that hole we dug near the river would crumble when it was too thin to hold off the water' he thought, powerless to stop the falling pieces.

Erika, his twin sister, loved to build those dams and Alex did everything together with her. They even built one using pieces of wood from his dad's workshop that could hold pretty well, just like the models he used to build in college... The drawing they would make and compete for attention with their mother was nowhere near as good as he used to be able to... His thoughts jumbled.

A deep well of memories unknown drowned him, flushing him down. Pain, sorrow, happiness, love... Things he had yet to experience and things he would never experience again. Creativity was like a floating plank for Alex to hold on to.

A whole life of creativity, that is. Drawings that almost came to life, ideas that never made to the paper. A whole world of things he could build that made the outside world look... bland?

He didn't know.

Firmly holding onto those images Alex arrived at different places. First was a classroom. He knew it was a classroom, even though he never went to one. There wasn't one in the village.

In the classroom, he read a book about a world just like his own but had talking animals. 'That is just dumb, everyone knows animals can't talk!' he thought, but then understood what an allegory means. 'The creation of the book had a hidden meaning!' And suddenly everything made sense.

Next, he was at a temple. No, it was a church, something slightly different. He was playing an instrument with a group of people while many watched him play. 'Shouldn't a temple be quiet so people can talk to god?' was his thoughts, but everyone seemed so happy. They looked like what a person close to God should look like.

Then he was drawing. It wasn't in one place, he was drawing everywhere. In school, in those iron carriages full of people, in a forest... no, a park. 'We don't have those since there are trees everywhere'. He was drawing people, places, things that existed and even things that didn't.

Finally, he saw a drawing of himself. Quite well made, but it wasn't by his own hands. Someone made it and he agreed it was amazing.

His head hurt with all those things happening so fast. He was remembering somethings he didn't want to remember and things that made him nostalgic in such quick succession that he couldn't fit all of it in his head.

Why do people even need to remember algebra? It could be useful, but he never used that. It would probably make more sense to remember those movies about things that didn't exist. 'At least they are creative and I could use some of the ideas in them to make new things!' he contemplated, frowning at the many new concepts washing his thoughts.

One thing that he would never forget was his family, the human one.

His father, pretty stoic, but more socially awkward around his family than anything. He was probably the most honest person he had ever seen. His mother was a teaching figure. She just seemed to know the answer to everything. She would encourage him to keep drawing and creating things, even if that meant he would be poor for the rest of his life. Not that she wanted him to be poor, but she wanted him to be happy.

His older brother was a hero sometimes, other times he just was the villain. He could do almost anything Alex did but better. That was a source of inspiration and fear. Fear of not being able to accomplish anything.

His older sister was far away most of his life. The age gap too big. He ended up not knowing her as well as he would like, even though she was, by far, one of the best people he knew.

Tears rolled down his eyes and a memory of someone saying he would take care of them came washing against the deep despair of leaving them behind.

Alex was whole now, and everything was falling into place. It wasn't crumbling down on him, he was building on top of it. Like a foundation that was underground this whole time and he didn't even know.

---

When Alex woke up it was morning. The sun shining through the gaps in the foliage made for a warm, but not so shining, wake. His mother was laying on a tree, Alex's head on her lap. She looked uncomfortable in that position, but all Alex could see were her boobs. He blushed and shifted his position, waking her up.

"Alex?! How are you feeling dear?"

Those words took him by surprise for a few moments. He finally noticed he was himself again, both memories combined. She was his mother, he knew that, and he loved her as such.

"I'm feeling better mum, sorry to make you worry..." He said, before being hugged in a tight embrace. His snout made the hug on her bosom somewhat sideways. He could hear her heartbeat fast, filled with worry.

"It's not your fault dear, your fever is gone, but you had a high one. You passed out, thankfully you woke up before the caravan left." She paused, looked him in the eyes with her hands holding his face on both sides, examined him with her mother eyesight. 'He looks well, it doesn't seem like the headache is bothering him anymore... I'm so glad! Thank you Sinimara!'

"Mom, are you alright? You are crying..." Alex said wiping his mother tears with the back of his finger. The pads on his fingers were not as good to wipe liquids as the sparse fur on the back of his hands. He felt used to this body like it was something he was born with. 'Well, I guess that is why Varkman said it would be necessary to have those 6 to eight years before my memories came back. Now I don't feel awkward with my snout, tail or ears...'

Silvia wiped the rest of the tears with a beaming smile. Sure, being a mother was tiresome and full of worries, but it was those small moments when you saw your child being themselves that made it all worth it. Her smile was so pretty that Alex blushed and had to turn away his face.

His bashful attitude made Silvia snicker and hug his son tight.

"Now, we have two options, Alex..." She said. "We can either go back to the village, now that you are feeling better, but after you pass out so suddenly I think it would be best for us to go to Reaverhill, check on the healer and maybe buy some things. What do you think?"

Alex's eyes shone and that was enough answer to his mother. That or his perked up ears and flaying tail. 'I guess I never had a good poker face, but now my emotions are so visible that I don't even know what to hide if I'm embarrassed... My face, ears or tail? Ha!' This thought made him conscious of his moving body and, just like when you think about breathing, when he thought about moving his tail it felt weird. Like he was taking his tail out of auto-pilot.

'Well' the waking people making their way to the boy and mom duo made him even more conscious of himself 'I guess I have a whole trip to get myself used. Don't want to be the weird boy in the village.'