My first memories of my second life were muddled and disjointed. As a baby, my senses were hazy, and while I can perfectly recall the events, my hearing wasn't good enough to actually pick up the words. I know there was joy, then quickly concern, and sadness. Something was wrong, and I quickly determined that there was something wrong with me, specifically. I wouldn't find out what until much, much later, though I certainly felt fine at the time.

All I can recall is that we left the place we had been very quickly, and my mother seemed very sad. I can vaguely recall the salty smell of the sea, and then travel. Lots of travel, though I would often just find myself falling asleep and waking up in a completely different place, with my mother and different people examining me, and sometimes performing strange procedures. Everything looked very… classical, I think would be the most charitable way to put it. Lots of stone and glass, bright colors and loud noises. Nothing I could recognize as modern, which made me wonder if I was in the past, or in another world of some sort. I would eventually determine that it was both.

This pattern of behavior - new people, new places, new procedures and experiments - seemed to go on for what felt like years and also no time at all. I began to suspect that my mother was somehow putting me to sleep and only waking me when necessary. As my senses improved, I eventually determined that that was precisely what was happening. Furthermore, my mother, and many of the people she brought me to, appeared to have magic.

That certainly seemed to confirm my hypothesis that this was either the past or a new world - magic didn't seem to exist on my first world, but we had enough tales and legends about it that I couldn't discount it having existed in the past. Besides, I didn't recognize any of the languages my mother and the people she met with were speaking, so either we were far enough in the past that none of the languages I had encountered in the many decades of my first life had been introduced yet, or we were not in a world where those languages existed. Unfortunately, it was still too early for me to start speaking, and between the many languages my mother used in communicating with people, and the fact that many of those conversations were, while most likely about me but not actually with me, it would be some time until I could actually ask those questions.

I think my mother was beginning to get desperate, as she began looking more harried, and the experiments were becoming… more invasive. It wasn't surgery exactly, for which I was grateful, as I wouldn't have liked my chances, but there was an aspect of ritual to things that began to get more esoteric, and the level of discomfort I experienced with things grew. I soon found myself feeling uncomfortable in my own skin, like my bones were too big for my body. This seemed to excite my mother briefly, before her disappointment returned and we were off to the next location.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

At some point, I had become inured to the changes - at one point, my eyes itched something fierce, and through one of the longest periods of wakefulness I recall, months of recovery where I couldn't help but bawl and wail like - well, like the babe that I was, really. My mother just held and rocked and spoke to me softly. It was here that I began to learn two things - the language my mother spoke, and that she really, truly loved me.

After that experience things slowed down for some time. I think that my recovery period made my mother a bit cautious about pushing things too soon. I started to grow, and what I can only guess had to be another year passed before the next “procedure”. This one burned like the dickens, like razor blades running through my veins, and that feeling of discomfort in my own skin returned.

I soon started to develop strange, glowing markings on my skin—lines and curves that vaguely reminded me of certain early runic or cuneiform characters. My mother was quite excited about this and began to teach me to read—although apparently, the lines on my body weren't used or weren't used anymore, it wasn't quite clear.

It was another half-year or so before she pushed for another procedure, and after that one, I started to notice that some people and objects or structures seemed to radiate light, almost like a heat mirage. Mother seemed particularly thrilled by that, though a follow-up examination seemed to bring her down once more as she still wasn't finding the result she was looking for. When I asked her, she told me not to worry, but I couldn't help but be concerned.

Eventually, it seemed we had exhausted almost all of our options. One day, around my third or fourth year of consciousness, my mother told me that we were going on a new trip, far away, and potentially for a long time. She packed our things, the entire contents of the house and all of her equipment somehow shrinking down into her bag once more, and we left.

We traveled for a few weeks. I was mostly carried during the day in a wrap on her chest or back. Eventually, we found ourselves outside a yawning cave mouth. We camped out under the stars that night, some sort of glowing wards around us protecting us from the elements and wild beasts. I remember looking at the stars as my mother told me she loved me as I fell asleep.

That was my last conscious thought before I slept for over a thousand years.