I never really considered that babies actually have little to do. I am currently struggling with overpowering boredom. well, a normal baby would be crawling around, looking at everything, and putting everything she can in her mouth. I hope that my family doesn't think that it's weird that I don't. I just can’t bring myself to put random things in my mouth no matter how odd it may look not to. That's probably due to my past as a researcher

Thankfully I am strong enough to crawl around, that took me just over four months, a bit earlier than normal, maybe. My best estimates place me around six months of Earth time in age. But I grew tired of being immobile, so while no one was around and after much experimentation, I was able to strengthen myself. I've been continuing with expelling my light and I've noticed a marked increase in its capacity, and as usual, no one can feel it. I have gotten pretty good at shaping it. Since I have been expelling it every day I started making shapes as I did, animals, plants, objects, and letters. I found when they detach from my body they hold their shapes.

Maybe if I find someone who can see the light too, I can try and communicate with them. Though that doesn't seem like it will happen anytime soon. My siblings have been allowed to visit every day now. Which made me happier than I thought it would. There seems to be some kind of school or education in place in this world. They always come at around the same time, to the best of my estimate, around late afternoon.

While here they read to me, reading time makes me wish I could see. I'm sure there are cool animals here. Judging by what little descriptions I could make out. The kids' stories Anna reads mention some monsters(?). Lia loves to read books about plants, especially flowers which she seems to love. Andi reads books about adventure and exploration, from him I learned that people will venture into dungeons, of a sort, and kill monsters(most likely) bringing back something that is in their bodies.

“...and then Marth returned to his family, vowing/promising never to touch random … again,” Andi finished.

“Thankfully Lilli won't have to worry about any of that,” Lia said, picking and holding me up. “Will you Lilli? No you won’t.” She buried her face in my belly and blew air against it. Despite the embarrassing situation I giggled, I mean anyone would giggle too if someone tickled them. The gaps in my language knowledge were beginning to frustrate me to no end. I hope that I can find someone to teach me soon.

*****

Things progressed in good time, I can stand up now, I practiced it while the others slept. I can walk, kind of, it's unsteady and I fall on my butt a lot. But I can walk nonetheless, I can also make proper speaking sounds, but it's only one-syllable sounds and I can't make harder noises. The first time I looked up at my mother and said 'Ma' I thought she was going to explode. She let out an enormous amount of light and hugged me tight. I'm glad it made her so happy, and it gave me a decent opportunity to compare my light to hers. Now that I'll be able to walk soon, I have been experimenting. I tried to probe my room, which I still can't believe I hadn't thought of before, with my light but I'm pretty sure it just passes through physical objects.

After that i tried to send it through the windows, there was a resistance there, so I began to pour more light into it, eventually having to compress it to apply more force. I managed to break through but the strain was so high that I lost consciousness. When I woke up I was in a different room and people were in a panic. From what I gathered someone penetrated some magical(?) defense and they were looking for them.

Oops... well I won't try that again, surprisingly I was being held by my sister. Anna was guarding what I assume was the door. After a few hours someone I've never seen before knocked five times, then two, then four times. What I saw made me happy, she was another maid judging by the outfit, she was pretty from what I could tell. What really caught my eyes however were her cat ears and tail. That basically confirmed that I wasn't on Earth. Well, I suppose it could be some distant future full of genetic engineering. Though I highly doubt that.

“Lady Mirriam said it's safe to take the misses and mister back to miss Lilliana’s room,” she said softly, her voice tinted with a low purr.

“What happened Anna?” Lia asked her as she held me tight.

“Nothing, it was just a drill/test/practice is all. Let's go back to young Lilli’s room.” She opened the door and waited for us to walk through it. This is perfect, I’ll get a feel for the size of the house. We walked for a couple of minutes actually, I estimated how far by counting the steps. We traveled for about one hundred feet before traveling up a staircase and traveling another eighty steps. We passed by many servants, I think because they stepped aside and bowed.

“Anna, come here for a moment.” I heard my mother call from behind.

I couldn't make out what they were saying but looking at Anna’s light it wasn’t good. She walked back over to us, her face was set in a stoic mask but her energy betrayed her feelings. I am really curious what happened between them. I found myself a little sad that my mother didn't come over and greet us.

“What’s wrong Lilli?” Lia asked. Normally I try to hide my emotions as much as possible but I guess I failed this time.

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“Wu ma oah.” I say and hold out my arms toward where our mother went. They looked at me with large smiles. We continued walking, well carried in my case, and by the time we got back to my room Anna’s light was mostly back to normal.

It took a week for the activity in the manor to fully subside. I didn't realize that I'd cause so many problems. Something did change with my light however, it seemed to become slightly clearer. Maybe it's a result of my training, maybe it has to do with something else. It seems like my siblings were on break as they came to my room in the morning and left only to eat.

Concerning food, I've started to be fed mashed fruits. I'm still being breastfed, still weird but I got used to it, I am a growing girl after all. The fruits are pretty sweet with an interesting flavor, a kind of tangy umami. Since I can't see the spoon, bowl, or food I have to be fed. Usually by Anna, though mother comes and feeds me sometimes as well as Lia. Andi tried to feed me once but it was a disaster that forced me to take a bath.

I napped too much earlier and now I can't sleep. I hate being left alone like this, it leaves me with my thoughts. I spent a lot of time wondering why I reincarnated here. Once I started having circular thoughts I stopped thinking about it. Guess I'll exercise, though I am not even sure if they’ll let me walk around. They usually try to prevent me from crawling too much. Having finished my exercise for the night I laid back down and prepared to expand my light. Just as I released it I saw a small face poke its way through the wall. The small person looked down at me then I blacked out.

When I woke up the next morning I saw a small girl sitting on my chest. She was watching me with eyes filled with curiosity. I think she might have been waiting to see if I could see her as when I opened my eyes she started making gestures. I smiled at her and she floated up, I followed her with my eyes as she drifted around the room before settling back down on my chest.

Lifting my hand from my bed I pointed and expelled some of my light. She watched it float away, finally someone else who can see, I almost wept in joy. She opened her mouth and started talking but I couldn't hear any sounds. I shook my head, pointed to my ears, then shook my head again. This made her frown and closed her eyes looking lost in thought. Then her face brightened as she mimicked my release of energy. But instead of a shapeless mass, she formed it into a series of shapes. They were probably letters but I didn't recognize them. I created some English letters and she looked at them.

She frowned and shook her head, it would seem that neither of us can understand the other. But this was the first person who I could communicate with so I wasn't eager to let a little thing like a language barrier stop me. I wrote my name over my head in English, she smiled at it and copied it. Then made her name over her head, which I memorized and copied. She smiled and nodded when I got it right. We have our names now, granted neither of us can read the others but we can at least get each other's attention

When Anna came in she was surprised I was already up. She lifted me from my crib, making the small girl have to float away a bit. After that last scare there was a new device installed in my room. It allowed people to talk to each other, though I don't know the range. She ordered some of my food to be brought to the room.

The small girl, spirit(?) I don't think she's a fairy because she doesn't have wings, was flying around the room. She floated above Anna’s head and spelled out a word. That spelled either woman or adult, which I copied and memorized while practicing it a few times. I put it above her head and she giggled and nodded. The sight of which brought a smile to my face.

A short time later there was a knock and Anna opened the door as a male butler walked in.

“Why’d you bring it?” she asked him.

"My apologies Miss, I was the only one available, and I didn't feel it was right to make Madam Lillana wait to eat.”

My spirit friend went over to him and put a word over his head, confirming that what she wrote before was girl/woman. The new word, which I assume meant man, floated over his head so I copied it and she smiled again, nodded, and flew over to sit on my shoulder. Anna fed me, and the girl sitting on my shoulder wrote something over my food which I interpreted as food. I copied it and she nodded

About an hour later my siblings came into the room. When they did I quickly made the words for woman and man and put them over their heads. She nodded then held up a single finger, flying over to them she wrote words underneath what I wrote, which I assume meant boy and girl. After I copied and memorized them I continued to practice. I was so excited that I wasn't paying attention to the book. However, she was. When I refocused my attention she wrote something right above his hands which I assumed was the word for book. Into the mental dictionary, you go.

This isn't the best way to learn but until I figure out how to hear her it’ll do. We spent the day communicating in our limited way. I drew a few animals and objects from my previous life and she drew things from this world, I assume, while sitting on my shoulder. I was happy and apparently, the others picked up on that. Anna was watching us with a small grin on her face. She stood up and went to order more food for me.

When it arrived my siblings went off somewhere, probably to get something to eat themselves. After dinner, Anna gives me a bath and lays me down in my bed. She started to read to me sitting in a chair next to my crib. I'm not sure how many books we have but so far she hasn't read the same one twice. She read for a while then started doing something with her hands, it took me longer than I care to admit for me to realize she was sewing something.

A few hours later she left the room, finally letting me do my exercises. First I do squats while holding the bars of my crib. It has been getting easier and now I can do multiple reps. Then I practice walking. I walk around the inside of my crib as many times as I can. Finally, it's time to increase my light capacity. She had been sitting on the edge of my crib watching me exercise with interest. When she saw me start to manipulate my light she flew over and sat on the bed looking at me. I began compressing it, releasing as much at a time as I could.

I remember when I had barely any light and releasing it left me so exhausted. Now I was releasing what I originally started with and didn't even break a sweat. I noticed however that my light had once again grown brighter and clearer. Maybe the compression really was doing something. As I released the last bits of my light I felt her poke my chest. She released her own light into me, the sensation felt weird. Like a bolt of lightning running through my body, it gave me goosebumps, but also a kind of warm feeling as I began to lose consciousness again.

The last thing I saw as my vision went dark was her lying down and smiling at me.