It was supposed to be Edith.

My name, that is. I'd picked it and everything. Wrote it down at the top and decided it and all! Even tried a few mock conversations where people called me Edith.Sure, the Horned God might have looked at me and grinned at that but....

I'm Cinder now.

I know! I know. I know I know I know. I could have spoken up. I should have! Could have had it just like I wanted it, been exactly like I hoped for it! And then?

Well... Who knows. I don't. Because I didn't.

I mean, they just.... Looked at me! Didn't expect anything. Didn't want anything. They just.... They were happy I was. That I was their kid, you know?

.... How could I take that away from them?

The rest of the day was just.... a blur.

The two kids, my siblings, they both had their fun talking in and over each other, running this way and that way in the house. Well, after Sybil ran off to tell her friends that is.The older one, the girl.... my older sister. Er.... Younger?

Eh, it's complicated. Either way, Sybil ran off, telling her friends, and by the sounds of it half the village about me. Mathis though? He was happy to stay home and just bounce off the walls, grin at me like a loon and play something with blocks.

Oh, the names? The lady called them that. Considering each perked up, I just sorta put two and two together.

Me? I was just looking around. Gathering my bearings.Seeing what sort of family I just had been dropped into.

I knew pretty well nothing about Nyarel. The character creation screen only had a picture and a short description for me to go by. And beyond the fact that they, er, we are carnivores and tend to farm heathbugs? Nothing that couldn't be gathered just by looking us over. Home was but one of the many unknowns.

Caverns? Homes? Dungeons? Keeps? Past the fact that I was here, no clue.

Sitting on the lady's chest as she rocked in the little wicker seat, I got to look around and make some sense of the place. Seems like wherever we were was the main living space of the home. Granted, with only two little chairs, and a large rough woven rug on the ground, there wasn't too much there. Well, that's not true. If I craned my head _just_ right, I could peek over the lady's shoulder, and it looked like there was some sort of counter on the back wall? Something glimmered there, but I couldn't quite make it out.

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A wide space on to the right led into the kitchen, and the only real source of light in the place. Three small tables, a pair of wooden benches to either side, well worn and scuffed by the look of things. What set it apart though was the walls. Sure, the same earthwork as the rest of the place, but they were simply littered with shelves. Mostly straight, some crooked, with near a dozen small jars littered about them. Couldn't see into any of them, but with the little fire pit beside, a large pot on over it, and the muted light streaming in from what looked to be a smoke pipe out? Kitchen.

Left, the open space narrowed some, a pair of exits, but I couldn't see into them. Large rough woven mats similar to the carpet covered the entrances and a little clump of earth, almost like a speed bump strip was before both of them.... though one of them looked familiar. Yes, the sorta shift of the spiral on the edge, it had that same sorta ruddy red blotch as before.

I'm pretty sure I hatched on that.

Ahead though, the ground grew an incline, rising on up and up, till it faded out on a corner. Seems the home's exit wasn't too hard to find at least...

Though considering my body, doubt that made much of a difference.

Oh, right. My body. It.... Well, I had the body of a child. Young, very, very young. Not quite the newborn body that I had imagined I'd be landed with, but it wasn't too much better. From struggling to roll over on the carpet to still resting, easily smaller than the lady's chest? Running out simply wouldn't work.

Fine by me though. I intended to stay here. At least, as best I could.

It's a new world. It's strange, and unknown, and unexplained. What better way to come to know it than to grow up in it? In this case, literally? And none of that fake action, I mean honest to goodness growing up.

There was.... an option, I will admit. It was tempting. With Reincarnation, and the variant I took, you could... well... you had the option to pick your family. To set them up, and make sure you were reborn into the type of place you wanted. Into the world you dreamed, and with options at your front door.

I.... didn't take it.

I probably should have. Might make things way easier for me to get to know about the world! But...

I wanted to see the world. Not a pretty castle or a fairy tale cottage.

But, as I looked around the room, realizing that if one bedroom was for the parents, and the other was for the kids...

There simply wasn't other rooms for anything else.Restroom. Study. Closets. Storage. Home was... Where you slept.

A more decisive eye followed the rest of my new family as we ate and shuffled off to bed. My new mother praising me for being so quiet and easy. My new father... he had a strange look, but simply agreed, watching me for a while.

I don't know why he looked at me like that though! I was just being quiet and waiting! It's what you are supposed to do! I might be a baby, but that's no reason to not be polite!

A few minutes of that curious glance on over dinner and he seemed to be settled about the whole issue though. If I was to be quiet, easier for him to handle the two who weren't. And.... goodness. Sybil might settle down for food and to let people talk a bit, but Mathis? Someone probably just put batteries in his feet. He just... walked. Talked. Rambled on about anything and everything!

Honestly I was quite thankful for it.

Sure, most of it was on talking about adventures he dreamed up with his friends, when his mother thumped his nose, telling him to stop scratching, you know what I found out?

I'm gonna shed! Right and proper like. Full skin suit of old skin. Seems like Mathis is coming up on another molt in a few months, so was scratching like a beast about it.Might tear up fresh skin though, according to his mother, so he tried to stop.

At least, when his mother was watching.

A meal passed of something.... I couldn't quite describe. It smelled crisp like lemon, but off. Soured somehow.

The fact it was a roast of some sort made the smell all the more concerning.

Still, food passed us by and the excitement of the day wound down. The other kids winding themselves up till they all but collapsed on the carpet. Their father lifted them, one under each arm, hauling them off to the other curtained room. But, not before dropping a peck off to the lady. A gentle kiss for the giant, before carrying them off.

And myself?

Well, I was tired when I woke up for the family. It was enough that I could mumble to him "Gdddn ninnnt" to him as he passed.

I think he looked at me funny again, but I hardly had time to think about it before I was off in the world of dreams.