"Your parents were something special," Ivian told me as she scrubbed me over a sud-filled basin. "They met at the mid-autumn ball when they were just come of age. After a dance, your mother approached the young Lord Sivis, requesting a walk with him beneath the stars."

I closed my eyes as a bit of the stinging soap trickled down the ridge of my nose and into my eye.

"Sweethearts of the evening, they were looked on with fondness by friends and family. But that was fate's last kindness to their courting years."

I really needed that soap flushed out of my eye. It stings so much. Is this the soap Mr Barker was making with the ashes?

Ivian stopped a moment at my wriggling and I pointed at my eye.

"Oh, sorry Tilly." The water stung too, but I welcomed it. "I'll look out for that better. You're such a man to not cry! Anyway, your mother and father were not of similar social standing."

How can a country noble have any standing, I wondered, but it didn't seem my parents' story was of the usual sort.

"Your grandfather was hesitant to say anything too forcefully against the children’s play. Cianna's father, after all, was an important supporter of his, but neither was he willing to let them be."

Supporter? Wait, don't tell me... I'm the illegitimate prince of the kingdom, born of the king's son and his commoner princess, eloped to the countryside in passionate irresponsibility?

My soul was squirming to hear a bit more as I tried not to flinch at the towel roughing my head and shoulders.

I wish I could say something, but this curse of silence wouldn't disappear for awhile.

"Too high a status to be a mistress, too low to be a wife, your mother being a source of tension between your parents families. But their passions were only fanned by the scoldings of their families. Forced betrothal to the fiancé his father had long planned only made them long for each other the more."

This is my father you're talking about, right?

My father didn't show much joy or reaction to his own baby son. I had seen him from time to time through the windows, practising sabres with Saul or one of the village militia with a bright smile on his face. But around me? Nuh-uh. I got fish eyes, or was just plain ignored.

It's true that around mother he would sometimes seem more happy. But he wasn't filled with kisses and hugs, at least not that I could see, even for her. It definitely didn't seem like passion.

"And then your parents disappeared one night. If not for the guard who had seen them going towards the harbour and reported to your grandfather, perhaps your parents would have put aside their dreams after that night of illicit desires and lived lives of their own, but fate, it seems, had its own plans for them."

I shook my head, trying to poof the scary images of a white haired man and woman entangled on a bed. I didn't know if they were fighting or in pain, but they were groaning weirdly. Why did they show up all of a sudden? Father and mother sound like they should have been running and holding hands and calling each other their pumpkin, no?

"Tilly... don't do that. Look, you're getting me all wet now." There was a splattering of water and soap on Ivian's white shirt.

I was kind of happy though. Just a moment ago, Ivian had seemed to be going off into her own world, the lights of a distant harbour at night reflected in her eyes. But now she was looking at me.

Still, I wanted to say I was sorry, but all I could do was open my mouth and close it again soundlessly.

"When they returned to their houses the next day, they were both locked in their rooms and your grandfather publicly broke ties with your mother's father, only further adding to his indignation that his daughter would be sullied and then so ruthlessly cast aside."

It felt strange, what Ivian was saying. The little I knew of the white haired people seemed to tell me love was free and beautiful, but the black haired people seemed to fight over it.

"There, you're all dressed now," Ivian told me as she put me back on my own two feet. "I'll tell you the rest of the story inside."

Her still damp and cool fingers brushed over my forehead and then she picked me up. In her other hand, she emptied the large basin's water onto the grass and then carried it with us.

As we walked into the manor, Vis hurried by us, his face a shade of green.

Ivian and I watched in surprise as he bent over and barfed over the grass.

Quickly turning away for my benefit, Ivian put down the basin inside the storeroom and then brought me up the stairs.

Thinking that I might have been worried, she reassured me of today's earlier events.

"Don't worry about the shaman. Aian will make sure everything's sorted." She placed me in my crib, and then left me again, "I'll be right back Tilly, I just need to go check on Vis."

I rolled around in the crisp, dry sheets and enjoyed the air passing over my skin.

Then, Ivian came back, the door clicking shut behind her.

"Tilly? Can you say something yet? The curse should wear off soon. It's not supposed to last more than a few hours."

Did Ivian not know that the curse would last roughly a day? Since he added an unbinding sequence, the spell's effect would be compensated with duration.

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"Well, we'll just let it be then. I should finish the story of your mother and father." Ivian said, trying to cheer me and herself up as we waited. "I only heard this story from a maid of a visiting lady, a friend of your mother's. The maid had come to the bakery in the village since the manor was a bit short of hands back then. I was lucky she came and told us this tale of romance and tragedy that had spread across the capital."

Her confession just confirmed that I couldn't trust all of this story. No matter how well informed the rumours were, it just seemed unlikely to me that gossip would capture even that a guard had seen them going to the harbour on that dark, stormy day.

"Perhaps it was in jealousy or perhaps in shame of being flouted by her fiancé and in the middle of the public eye. Whatever the poor reason though that, that witch had taken out an evil artefact that should not have been unearthed."

"Your mother was afflicted with a lingering curse of infertility," Ivian smiled and thumbed my cheekbone. "Perhaps the it wasn't a lingering curse as your grandfather's mesmers believed, but whatever the reason, you were born against all odds. The son of the infertile wife of an exiled heir. I think the capital must be ablaze with a new tale now."

My chubby legs wiggled up and down on the chair at the mention of me.

"You're a little miracle Tilly, even the gossips will have trouble believing in you."

It sounded amazing to be called a miracle by Ivian. As soon as I recover my voice, I will promise to become your miracle.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The affectionate eyes through which I wished to look at my parents were quickly cleared at the table.

Both my parents looked exhausted and mad.

I noticed some brooding glances from my father as we ate mostly in quiet. That seemed exactly like the father I knew.

I shouldn't be too sensitive though. He was probably brooding in general, having been informed of the events of the day.

If the shaman was so ill, it was highly possible I would break out in coughs at any moment. Or mother, or both of us.

Maybe that's why he and mother seemed so dark and quiet. Still, isn't that when a family is supposed to bond together and cherish the time they have left remaining?

I tried to imagine father a few years younger, standing up to his own father after running through the night with my mother. It was really hard though.

You shouldn't believe everything you hear in the rumours, Ivian.

Perhaps there were circumstances. He was a warrior and an exile. If he was brought up as a man of high station, scolded for his indiscretions and bearing the guilt of the curse placed on his true love... perhaps there were some good reasons he could have changed.

If he was just uptight, practising cool detachment with the same deliberate manner he seemed to have when cutting his food, then perhaps there was an inner part to his heart and feelings. When I grew up a bit more, and could talk properly with him, maybe he would have things to teach me and I new things to learn.

I realised only half way through our meal that it was the chef in a splotchy apron who was bringing out the plates of food. He was shaking a bit as he put the steaming ham onto the table, a clatter drawing the eyes of the family, and a brief apology from the man himself.

Perhaps Vis and Aian were given some time away from the manor. Considerate, considering the troubled day. It would also probably be better to live apart until we make sure no one had come down with the illness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

It was my mother who came to tell me stories after that.

Fables, like one of a boy who shouts "dragon" to distract the villager's eyes while he pilfers apples from market stands. Until, one day, a real dragon appears and when he warns of the dragon, no one believed him anymore, and neither he nor the villagers had any more time to flee.

Ghost stories, like the beauty of the forest who sometimes appears on the bridge beyond the willow tree and dances while glowing like a wispen light, luring her would-be suitors into the forests in the night. There dancing in the embrace of the tree, they find themselves cursed, never again able to flee.

Mother spoke too of the far off peoples and places, more fanciful even than the myths and fables. Thin, pallid men who could not live under the sun's rays, and would bite human children with their sharpened fangs before sucking them dry of all their blood.

I think she just made that one up to get a squeal out of me as she puffed a kiss into my neck before leaving for the night. Unfortunately, my squeal was still a silent one.

"I'll leave this bell right here by your pillow. If anything happens, ring it and I'll come."

I took the bell and tucked it away. I wouldn't need it anyway. They were just overreacting because of the curse that would last until tomorrow. Ivian was always in the room just beside mine if I needed help.

I looked towards the window where I heard the chirping of crickets in the night breeze, flowing through the room.

I hadn't known my parents were from the capital. Ivian's story earlier in the day had taught me a lot I hadn't known.

One moment, the night breeze filled with the chirping of crickets was the only thing in the room, the next, I was surrounded by streets with people innumerable, drinking from paper cups with colourful sleeves.

They faded and I spoke the strange buzz word "capital" into my room again, enjoying the colours pop up around me and in my mind's eye.

Crystal buildings hang in the sky with lights streaming from them to paint giant people immaterial upon the air. One moment the giants are there, the next they disappear, replaced by others to see and hear. All the while, crowds walk calmly underneath or stop and to discuss the giants' conversation or gaze on high.

Maybe the capital was the place where I would find the white haired people. I could ask mother or Ivian to take me sometime. After they take me to see the kitchens though.

When all I saw was the wood of the cradle and the wooden planks holding up the ceiling I triggered it again.

There were people around me with spheres of liquid light suspended atop their palms, messages and pictures flickering within. Points of light flashing as runes flicker in and out of existence, only one constant, the logo of VirSphere.

They were all wondrous sights, of a convenient city, where everything seemed crowded but clean and bright.

How the dreams of my memories seemed so strange and wonderful compared to the rustic simplicity of my current surroundings.

If mother was from the capital though, then where was her virsphere? What were these phantom images and people that only I seemed to see?

Suspicions tingled inside me. I felt like I might cry, if it weren't for the curse of silence still muting me.

All the visions seemed real and familiar, almost as if that world of the ghosts was the place I was meant to be.

Here, the meats of the manor's repasts and their unfamiliar scents and singed exteriors were so different from anything in the visions' world.

And today, that shaman, both familiar and not. He was a practitioner of magic, but only the simplest of tricks. His reliance on tools like the clock and crutches like his chanting were nothing like the mages I could see flickering around him.

I rely on Ivian and my mother, and love them, and they love me. But am I really just Tilly? Just the baby who dreams of the shadows of another world?

Even now, I see other white haired youths. Young men and women with robes in vivid colours, throwing fire and ice with nothing more than a flick of the hand.

I don't know yet who I am, or who I was.

Perhaps I am not a baby dreaming of a strange place where I used to be a man, but a man dreaming he is a baby in this fragile illusion of a world.

That would explain why I felt like I knew more, could do more than I was limited by my frame.

I felt my eyes begin to close, the worries and thoughts bringing with them drowsiness as another world of dreams drew closer to me.

Am I really born into another world? Or, as the whispers of the mages in my strange memories suggest, is this place the real illusion, just a false, virtual world?