As a soul begins its journey in a physical form, it receives a name. This name is given by the creator of the soul, rather than by those who would nurture the form it physically resides in. Matt somehow retained the memories of his previous existence as he opened his eyes for the second time, born again. He was human, or something similar, but as he tried to use his voice, it only came forth as infantile cries. He was lifted by a young woman, seemingly his mother or perhaps another woman who was present at his second birth. He couldn’t tell.
Yet one thing was certain to him, even though he couldn’t make heads or tails of his situation. His vision was undeveloped, but even so he could tell with his limited senses that the woman and man who doted over his tiny form cared for him. He was in a loving home, not unlike the one he was born to in his previous life. Despite having a physical form again, and retaining his memories from nearly eighty years of life, he wasn’t able to do much with his current body. His motor control was essentially nonexistent, and his senses were practically useless. His vocal chords could only make high-pitched cries and wails even if he strained them to their limits.
Where was he, he wondered? His vision was too blurry and undeveloped for him to tell. And so he decided to allow time to pass and meditated in the time he was conscious about what he would do as he grew. Even so, his infantile brain wasn’t developed enough to explore complex thoughts for long, and he found himself tiring his mind quickly and falling to sleep. Days seemed to last mere minutes, and weeks blurred into one another without much noticeable change.
At about six months old, his senses began to develop enough for him to see somewhat and hear as well. The language of his new parents was very foreign to him, yet his “young” mind soaked in every word like a very dry sponge laps up water spilled in a desert. He began to be able to form short chains of thought, exercising his mind enough to determine that he needed to also exercise his body.
From what information his limited senses could gather, this was not a modern world with all the conveniences he was previously accustomed to. It seemed more medieval, perhaps even around the time of the “Dark Ages” of his own world. There didn’t seem to be anything like plumbing or electricity, and although it’s possible gunpowder could have been invented and utilized, he didn’t notice any signs of it or of any kind of complex machinery. Engineering must have been very primitive here.
At one year of age, he was able to begin to understand his parents’ language enough to reply to their words in his own rudimentary, infantile way. They seemed overjoyed by his responses, as basic as they were - a feeling that felt foreign to him from his previous life. In all of his memories, he only seemed to remember the disappointed looks of his parents in their sadness and their anger. The looks of hatred from his enemies, and looks of pity from those who dared to call themselves his friends despite the trouble that caused them.
His thoughts were becoming more complex than before, and he could focus on a series of thoughts for about two minutes or so now, by his own reckoning. Time was measured differently in this place as well. In fact, they didn’t really keep track of time, and relied merely on the passing of light and dark times of day to perform certain tasks. He seemed to have an older sister who was a couple years his senior, but that was of no consequence as of yet since he couldn’t really communicate with her.
His motor skills were still very poor, though he had learned to walk for short distances before he fell over again. However, his reflexes didn’t allow him to protect his head from impact, and so he would try to lean his body when he fell so that he didn’t hit his head. His name was Frederick, and his sister was Veronica. His parents didn’t speak their own names in his presence, only referring to themselves as mama and papa.
Time passed, and by the age of two he could speak small words, equivalent in meaning to words like yes, no, please, and thanks. In his previous life, he’d had a decently developed vernacular, albeit not impressive by any means. And certainly below average for someone who’d lived to as venerable an age as he did. His motor skills had improved enough for him to walk freely, but not enough for him to run without risk of falling yet.
However, he could move with somewhat of a decent pace. He exercised his body as much as his small body could tolerate without injury, although he failed to prevent self-injury a few times as he tested his limits. But his small and young body recovered rapidly, healing injuries from the previous day overnight. Small cuts and scrapes would seem to heal the same day or night he acquired them. His parents didn’t seem surprised by this at all, so apparently such behavior as well as such healing traits must have been common to youths here.
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Even though he had limited ability to communicate with his sister, and she was often frustrated by his lack of vocabulary, he had decided he would be good to her. Far better than he ever was to his siblings in his previous life. He would at least try to right the wrongs he’d previously committed by being nicer to people in general, especially those close to him. Although his words didn’t convey his feelings much, his sister seemed to understand that he cared and warmed up to him after a while.
By the age of three, Frederick began to be able to speak in short sentences. But the thing that surprised him most was that he has an abundance of energy and his balance and basic motor skills improved drastically. Over the year or so he spent being three, by his own reckoning of time, he was able to learn to read from the children’s stories his parents read to him at night, and he was able to run around their small farm most of the daylight hours.
With his knowledge of his previous life, he had at least known some basic exercises he could do to strengthen himself, such as jogging and running, as well as bodyweight exercises like push-ups, sit-ups, squats, and jumping jacks. He never did learn any complex forms of exercise in his prior life, nor did he have access to modern exercise equipment to rapidly gain strength. However, he did learn how to wield a sword a bit before at some point, and he began to practice swinging around short-handled brooms and other light sticks when his parents weren’t watching… or so he thought.
On his fourth birthday, which here was called a “starday”, he received his first starday gift from his father - a small wooden sword that he’d carved for Frederick. By this time, Frederick had learned to read quite efficiently, though since his parents didn’t know how to write, he lacked the opportunity to learn how aside from mimicking the shapes of letters and characters in the children’s tales he read with his family.
Also, his “starday” was the same as everyone else’s, which was another difference in tradition from his own world. Regardless of age or time of birth, everyone became “one star older” on the same day each year, and it seemed that the years consisted of exactly a thousand dawns and dusks. Seasons existed as well, but they seemed to be unrelated to the way people kept track of the passage of life’s events here. Time was a phenomenon that existed only abstractly in the minds of the people living in this world it seemed.
Small amounts of time were measured in steps, heartbeats, or other natural phenomena that occurred rapidly. Reasonably long periods of time seemed to be recognized only by major events that occurred, such as wars, droughts, or major events that lasted for long periods, such as revolutions or rebellions… The latter was the same as the former in essence, only named the way they were by the winning side of the conflict.
Frederick was a peasant, born to a peasant family. However, that didn’t mean that being born a peasant prevented one from rising in society. Either by wealth, by deeds, or by connections with the powerful, one could rise to great heights in this world. Apparently, even a few former slaves rose to the rank of leading nations in the folklore of this world, which essentially served as this world’s form of historical record. Most events were passed down in song or word of mouth - only the most important historical events were physically recorded in any way.
Another thing Frederick learned as he grew into his role as a normal peasant child was that the resources of this world were fairly scarce, and agriculture was highly undeveloped. They had no form of crop rotation, something that even ancient peoples of his previous world had discovered early on. Thus, they were highly dependent on the seasons and the conditions of the weather, as well as the absence of crop-damaging pests.
Also, it seemed that although peasants were allowed to bear arms, few possessed any form of real martial prowess, and disputes with weapons quickly devolved into bare-fisted brawls when their poorly-crafted weapons broke. Also, it seemed that fights rarely resulted with the loser leaving the fight alive, and it was accepted practice to kill your opponents in any violent dispute here, both legally and morally.
These were a few parts among many others that he didn’t like about the world he now lived in, and so he had to live cautiously and use his words carefully. He walked a fine balance between being respectful and not being self-deprecating, as any sign of weakness welcomed enemies who would take advantage of it. He learned all of this before his fifth “star day”. The days and nights were shorter by his own reckoning, possibly about half as long as a normal day in his previous life, but the fact that each “star cycle” contained 1000 days and nights was a fact that threw his calculations into disarray.
However, he had a height and weight similar to a typical six-year old boy in his previous world. His sister was two star cycles older, but seemed closer in height to an eleven-year old girl. Eventually, Frederick determined that a star cycle was approximately five-hundred full day cycles from his previous world. That made his life a bit easier, as he contended with both the memories of his previous life, as well as everything he learned in his new one.