The next few days were a little more lively with everyone back from their errands and visits and all. I still needed more time before I could branch out and talk to other people outside of these three... well four I guess it is now.

Marrine made things that much more interesting. She had no plans of leaving and really took an interest in me. I couldn't entirely complain, but at the same time it was a little unnerving.

She battered me with questions at one point, asking things like how I got my scars, where I was from, stuff like that. The sad part is... those are questions even I didn't know the answers to.

I guess I'm due for a much longer talk with Lydia. Or ghost Lydia, as it would be better put.

Sometimes when I talk or when I know certain things that I guess most people wouldn't - like when I mentioned infection one time before realizing that that's not something people know about, or at least not properly - Marrine sneaks a suspicious glance at me, as though she thinks something's not right with me.

So from then on I realized I had to be a little more careful around her. She is an angel after all, and from what I gather, has been around for a long time. She's an angel so... I think that comes with the title. Perhaps she knows of this strange reincarnation dealio. Not that I was necessarily reincarnated. Body swap? No, Lydia doesn't have my body on Earth.

Whatever describes this unearthly (literally) predicament I'm in, Marrine Zola is honestly the last person I want to know about it, because I fear she's the first that would.

The angel tends to follow me around, usually with a book or some sort of notepad or something of that nature in her hands to occupy herself. Of course, she almost never walks, and instead opts to just drift through the air as easily as walking itself.

While Myu was having her lessons, we walked the halls together, sort of aimlessly conversing.

Did you get that? Conversing.

I'm having real conversations! Woooooo!

She just had a way of drawing the words out of me, no matter how much I resented conversation I couldn't think about that when I was around her. This walk through the halls was particularly intriguing. Lasory loved to tell bedtime stories that always had at least some truth to them (though some of them about as truth-based as a paranormal horror movie), but Marrine's were historical accounts, and the way she described them was almost like a documentary.

She taught me a lot about this world's history. Myu had a little bit, but the angel brought up some deep stuff that seemed almost as pivotal as the Roman Empire. No, that would be a mere bar story compared to what she described.

The Kavari War: apparently a brutal, terrible, and long war, about a thousand years ago. Demons, elves, fairies, angels, humans, monsters, and absolutely anything and everything that had even a lick of conscious thought battled or had their hand forced into it, regardless of preference on the matter.

The skies were blackened and clouded with ashes from burning empires, powerful magical explosions, and perhaps even the remnants of dead men, turned to nothing but soot by the sheer and brutal magnitude of the powers of this war.

It shaped so much of this planet's history. Most of the major kingdoms, countries, and empires around today were born after the ashes of this war cleared.

I learned about the brilliant power of the angels and their... decimative nature. How they're a confident race (which Marrine said... with confidence) that is too ego-driven to even associate with others of their own kind.

I was curious as to why she wanted to know this information, but she sort of revealed that without me having to ask.

"I'd love to learn more about your past," she said mischievously. "In trade, I'd be happy to give you any knowledge or material possession you desire, within reason of course. Consider it a gift from a friend."

It totally didn't seem that way, but I wouldn't mind sharing. Except I don't even know about my past, so I couldn't share if I tried. I want info but I don't even have info to give. Do you see how this could just maybe raise a few issues??

I was busy racking my brain for a suitable response that didn't raise major red flags about me, but she once again cut me off, holding her finger up in the air.

"But, I've gotta blaze," she stated nonchalantly. She began to speed off through the air, but I called out, "how will I find you?"

Marrine stopped. "Oh, we'll meet again dear," she reassured, and then vanished around the corner.

Just like that, she was gone, seemingly as suddenly and out-of-the blue as she arrived in the first place. When I told Lasory and Myu about it later, Myu was a little sad, mostly because she adored the angel, referring to her as "auntie," but otherwise they didn't seem to flinch at the notion that she'd performed the best Irish goodbye I've ever seen, and that's coming from an antisocial shut in who's very good at sneaking away from conversation.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

At that point, the sky was of night, and with nothing better to do before she was ushered off to bed (and also to run away from being told to go to bed), Myu and I went and sat under the rai tree again.

I asked Myu about her family and how her kingdom came to be, thinking about my captivating history lecture from Marrine.

"Well, there's my father, King Lockwood. He's of course the king. I had a mother, but she died giving birth to me."

Having grown up with that fact, she seemed used to it, and I remembered that death during pregnancy was pretty common for people of even the highest status before the rise of medicine.

"I have two older siblings though!" she cheered proudly. "Laurie, my sister and the oldest, and Kino, my older brother."

She looked over at me and giggled. "You would be great friends with Kino! Neither of you talk at all!"

The purple-haired princess said that just a little too proudly and matter-of-factly for my liking, and I couldn't help but be hurt a little bit, but she's also not wrong. Shut-ins tend to get along because we all know the best ways to hide from conversation, and nobody bats an eye when two people walk away rather than just one.

"What about you Lydia? Do you have any family?"

I hesitated for a moment.

"I have a mom. Well... I had a mom." I remembered the accident. I hoped she was alive, but I also realized that if she is alive, she's probably mortified about how things went. As far as she knows, I'm dead. And in a way, that's true.

"A sister too..." I mumbled, but Myu didn't hear.

Kinda.

~

Of course, it didn't take long for Ayami to come hunt down the princess, and she about carried her off to bed herself. I was a cool kid and didn't have a bed time I guess.

It was really warm out tonight - that or the temperature really just didn't bother me - because the soft, cushy summer grass was just so nice. Summer nights like these were filled with contemplation, and especially without school or the internet or anything like that, all I had time to do was think and mull over stuff.

Again, it wasn't all bad thinking, but it was deep.

Maybe I could set my sights on doing research and investigating. I'd have to talk to some smart people, and I won't even bother to think yet about how that'll happen, but if I'm to leave the mansion at some point, I would love to make it home and see my mom again. Sure it'll be weird now that I'm different, but at the end of the day we're all each other has left, and the more I think about it, the more it's eating me up inside about how terrible she must be doing - all alone now with the family and life she built gone before her eyes.

I thought a lot about Marrine. Why was she so interested in me? Even if I did come from another world, why would that matter so much in the grand scheme of things?

Thus bore another night of deep thought, and I fell asleep in the grass, somehow oblivious to things like temperature and comfort.

The next day, Lasory and Myu explained to me that they would be holding a ball celebrating the coming-of-age of Kino Sakari, and asked if I would like to attend.

Against better judgment, I agreed to go. I would later regret that decision.

I had to be taught how to dance, at least a little of it. The first time one of the servants tried, I got about 5 minutes in and then ran away crying when I couldn't figure it out.

The second time, though, I was a little more resilient, and my ghost friend showed up to help me. I guess she really knew a lot about formal dancing.

They didn't spend long teaching me, mainly because my complaints about it were the subject of almost every dinner conversation, so they decided two lessons of an hour each would be enough to get me by.

I was more than awkward as a dancer, and expressed that I'm only learning just in case.

One thing that wasn't revealed to me until the day before the ball was that King Lockwood, as well as just about any other important figure in the kingdom, would be there, too.

So I got to chew on that all day and drive myself outright insane thinking about all the things I could say or do wrong, how I could ruin the whole ball, how I can barely mumble out a yes or no response half the time, let alone be all formal and polite in front of the king himself.

It also didn't help that I didn't know anything about him. Was he the serious type that took the breaking of formality as a heinous crime? Would he be disgusted with a peasant near his children?

Myu and I took a bath together that night, and we helped wash each other. We've been doing this a little more often, so it wasn't totally out of the ordinary.

"Hey..." I began thoughtfully as my hair was lathered up in the best soap I've ever smelled. "Why does nobody like me?"

Myu sighed and paused for a moment, hesitant to reply. I know Lydia mentioned that it had something to do with the scar on my face.

"It's that scar," she confirmed.

"That" scar? Is there some kind of grudge you hold against it too?

"What's so bad about a scar?" I asked.

She continued to lather the soap through my hair. "It means you did something really bad. The scar marks you as a grave sinner."

The way she spoke was less like she was explaining it to me and more like she was repeating something. Maybe she doesn't believe in that? I can't say I see how some mortal sin would magically place a scar on your body, but at the same time this is a world I'm not familiar with. Perhaps its rules are much, much different.

The explanation was kind of simple, though. I expected it to be something much deeper-rooted than just that, but I'm a fan of simple. Granted, in this case, simple does not mean simply overcome. But in a world like this, prejudices and spiritually-facing beliefs are to be expected.

It was my turn to wash Myu's hair, which is something I've grown to kind of enjoy.

"Does that have to do with why you guys have me here?" I questioned, feeling like Marrine's brazen perceptiveness had rubbed off on me a little and given me a one-time-use token of smart.

She froze, and despite ulterior motives coming to light, I couldn't help but cheer just a little, laughing out loud a little bit. I figured it out! My two remaining brain cells did their job!

"Something like that. But you're here either way, and you're my sister," Myu reasoned. She calls me sister a lot now, which feels... good, in all honesty.

We washed up, and being contemplative and nervous about tomorrow like I was, I asked to sleep in her room with her, which I'd never done before. To nobody's surprise, she was completely ecstatic to let me do just that.

Her bed was practically its own bedroom, and I just couldn't help but sink into the mattress and topple over the blankets, too comfortable to even be bothered to cover up in them.

"Mmmmmmmm," I found myself uttering without realizing.

Myu giggled like a child. "Go to sleep, silly."

I also couldn't help but feel a little like a child, too. I looked like one and really I was free to be one. In some ways, while not permanent, this was like a second chance to me.