- - -
- - -
Chapter 2: Immobility
- - -
- - -
I can only characterize being a newborn as a state of immobility; utter indolence, sluggishness, idleness and inactivity.
Fortunately when I’m conscious my mind regresses to that of an infant and I’m completely oblivious; to the point where I can’t tell how many days it’s been since I was born into this world of Orro.
I think it’s been 3 days, but it’s possible it’s been 2 or 4 days; we’re kept indoors so I can’t tell, and the fact that we sleep so much distorts everything.
I basically run on my sister’s clock; she’s very energetic and constantly moving around so I can only sleep when she’s asleep. Fortunately all that moving around tires her out and she falls asleep often. I on the other hand am …….. I don’t like waiving my hands, feet and tail all day long like my sister so I don’t get that tired; I think my personality will be very different to when I was human.
The baby me seems to enjoy using my thermal imaging crystal eye to look at things; because every-time I see something the thermal imaging activates and I take a peak at it with the thermal imaging crystal eye.
It’s entirely possible that the Svern normally start using their thermal imaging crystal eye in this way at infancy and my baby mind is simply responding to that instinct. However using my thermal imaging crystal eye seems to cause mental fatigue so I end up sleeping about as much as my sister; it’s likely I’d be sleeping more if my sister didn’t keep me up.
I’ve noticed a strange pattern.
My sister and I seem to eat a lot; by eat I mean breastfeed.
We feed once about every 30 minutes.
Strange; right?
Now that I’m asleep and can thing at the level of an adult I can conclude that our mother has reached an age where it should not have been possible for her to have children.
I know this because it looks like she can’t produce sufficient milk for our needs.
Fortunately our mother is the queen and there is no shortage of male servants that can provide the milk we need to nourish our rapidly developing bodies.
Yes; it’s the male servants.
Don’t ask me any questions about it because I don’t want to thing about it.
Haaa.
I get the feeling that we are growing at a noticeably fast rate; I can move around better. I can only move around my limbs and I have no control over the fingers and the tail but it’s better than when I was born, and I feel stronger. I suppose I’m noticing these things because I remember looking after human infants as the big brother and I have some understanding of what a newborn baby should be able to do. It seems obvious that the more animal traits of the Knora are at play here.
The humanoids of this world have antelope ears and the Knora are no exception; though from what I’ve seen the Knora ears are for the most part covered by a large head of hair which is more like the main of a male lion. The hearing is therefore very acute and I can already hear far better than I ever did as a human. It’s a pity I can’t move around my ears yet; it would help me focus my hearing in order to quickly learn the Knora language which sounds very alien to me.
That’s right; my bigoted genetic father never bothered to learn the language of the Knora because he considered it pointless since there wasn’t much to learn from the Knora. That bastard!
That genetic father of mine learned the languages of the Svern, the Dvern and the Gvern as well as that of the Norr and the Habu. Yet he saw no reason to learn the language of the Knora because he considered them primitive barbarians. That means my infant mind has to pick-up the words and remember them for me to process the meaning with an adult mind while I’m asleep. This is needlessly complicated and will make sure that the other 15 million babies will communicate faster than those born to the Knora.
But I shouldn’t worry about that; since apparently the Knora pregnancy is half that of the other humanoids. Also; the Knora seem to developed twice as fast as the other humanoids. So if my calculations are correct the other humanoids take about half a year to start walking but the Knora do that in half the time. Talking takes about the same time as the other humanoids because the Knora language includes some complex gestures and animal calls as well as normal words.
The most common languages are those of the Norr and the Habu since they made up most of the humanoid population of Orro; the Norr are 37% and the Habu are 38% of the humanoid population while the Vern are 8% and the Knora are 17% of the humanoid population. Apparently the Vern have the lowest fertility of all the humanoid races. However the situation is slightly different since the demon invasion and both the Vern and the Knora population should be even lower since they were the worst hit.
The reason the Vern are called Vern is because of King Vern of the First Age.
According to the memories of my genetic father the Vern Race was once as varied in colour as the other humanoid races but after the establishment of the Vern Kingdom magic training became regimented; focusing on Plant Magic, Water & Ice Magic and Fire & Earth Magic. Over thousands of years the other Vern colours vanished and the divisions between the Dvern, Gvern and Svern became increasingly more pronounced; ultimately resulting in some leaving to establish their own nations.
The Vern kingdom persisted until it was utterly destroyed by dragons.
According to the memories of my genetic father legends say that the humanoids of Orro were once the same race called Orro which died out as a result of a plague that fell from the skies. The Vern believe that the epidemic was likely the result of a virus from space that triggered mutations that killed most and transformed the rest. The pestilence happened too long ago to have definitive proof but bones of the Orro race have been discovered and that lend compelling evidence in favour of the validity of the legend.
Ah; I’m waking up my sister must be awake.
- - -
If today’s experience is anything to go by it’s been ten days since birth; mother is completely healed and we were taken to meet the family as Knora custom demands.
This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.
According to the memories of my genetic father it is customary to introduce newborns to the rest of the family on the 10th day.
Family is an interesting word when it comes to the Knora.
What happened is that we were carried to a room where there were at least a hundred Knora women with Vnora children.
Apparently my sister and I were the last children in the family to be born.
According to the memories of my genetic father Knora pregnancies take a minimum of 143 Orro days. Depending on the nutritional state of the mother the pregnancy can be extended by up to 44 days. Thus given that my sister and I are twins which is very rare amongst the Knora the pregnancy would automatically extend by some 25 days. However from the looks of things the pregnancy went all the way to the maximum time limit of 44 Orro days extension.
I know this because all the other Vnora children at the room can already sit up which indicated that they are at least 40 days old.
My conclusion is that mother is very old; I mean 200 years old kind of thing.
As proof of this assertion I point to the seating arrangement at the gathering; there were no children to the right of mother.
According to the memories of my genetic father seating at Noble Knora family gatherings has to follow honour custom. To the right of the Matriarch sits the First wife, second wife, third wife and lastly the male consort. The other 4 are technically the spouses of the head of the family and the male consort is responsible for impregnating all the females thus guaranteeing that all the children are siblings. When it comes to sexual pleasure the female Knora are very masculine and as such copulate with both male and female, but for some strange reason the Knora society frowns upon male to male romance without explicitly forbidding it.
To the left of the Matriarch sits the next Matriarch then her First wife, her second wife, her third wife and lastly her male consort. The next Matriarch is probably my sister, and she’s also holding a pale white hairless male Vnora child; her wives are also holding pale white hairless female Vnora children. Because mother is the current Matriarch it means that my twin sister is automatically the next Vnora Matriarch. It wouldn’t have mattered if the child of the next Knora Matriarch had been female since the child has to be born to a reigning Matriarch to inherit her Rank Authority.
However if my twin sister wasn’t there and the child of the next Knora Matriarch had been female she would have inherited the highest Rank Authority and would have automatically been the next Vnora Matriarch. Thankfully I don’t have to worry about my older sister assassinating my twin sister in order to create a favourable situation for her own daughter. However I will have to worry about the previous person to hold the rank of next Vnora Matriarch since my twin sister likely usurped her throne.
High Ranking Knora female normally give birth to 10 to 15 children during the child bearing years which last until they’re 185 years old. It’s uncommon for women older than 185 to fall pregnant but on rare occasions someone over 190 might get pregnant. Older women have more miscarriages and the children often end up with birth defects. It is therefore likely unusual that mother got pregnant and gave birth to 2 healthy children.
So there is a strange contrast between the left and right royal seating; on one side there are Vnora children and on the other side there’s nothing.
Mother’s consort isn’t interested in me and my sister.
It’s understandable give that it is likely most of the adult children in the room have some kind of connection to him. He likely fathered at least 40 children from the Matriarch family, and they are likely in the middle of their child bearing years. Then suddenly interlopers showed up and all his child bearing age daughters and granddaughters were made pregnant by the hated Dvern and Svern. The kicker is that the twins in the arms of the Matriarch are not his.
I’m gonna have to watch this consort; make sure he doesn’t do something to my sister.
I don’t know when it happened but I’m very attached to my twin sister; I think we kind of imprinted on each other when we were in the womb. I find it hard to get comfortable when my sister isn’t around; I somehow got used to her being next to me. At the room I got a bit overwhelmed by people making a fuss all over me and ended up crying which triggered my twin sister’s crying; we ended up wailing and forcing mother to comfort us.
Being a baby is embarrassing; I don’t think people are supposed to remember being a baby.
- - -
It’s been a few days since meeting the family and I’ve come to a few conclusions.
But first some derived lessons from my previous life:
Lesson 3: Start Early; and you’re likely to get there first.
So in this life I have to Start Early.
I figured it out; if you Start Early you don’t have to be the fastest; it’s called a head-start.
My original plan was to rely on my twin sister to make connections for me and ultimately hook me up with one of her friends.
But that won’t work now that I know that she’s a future Clan Matriarch; she won’t be allowed to keep me around and mother will likely use me to create connections with powerful elites of Vnora.
So I somehow have make myself indispensable to my twin sister; make it impossible for mother and older sister to use me as a pawn to carry favour with powerful elites.
In order to be allowed some level of freedom I have to be an asset; a powerful asset that my twin sister can’t do without.
To Start Early? I can’t exactly start training because I’m simply too young.
Fuck!
Wait; I used to be a surveillance expert, and this Red Forehead Crystal Third Eye is a thermal imaging tool that I can probably use for surveillance.
Also Learning to Deep Meditate will allow me access to memories without being in deep sleep; that should be my top priority.
But how do you get a days old infant to meditate?
I mean when I’m conscious I’m basically an idiot with some awareness.
I should focus on the Forehead Crystal Third Eye; my baby brain likes it so maybe I can somehow trigger Deep Meditation through learning to focus.
It’s a long shot but it’s all I got.
Plan B: Become a Competent Dependable Asset.
- - -
- - -