I looked out into the street of the small village centre where my family’s bakery is situated; the last signs of winter receding into nothingness as the warmth of spring envelops this town. I never really noticed how cold it got during the winter until recently when I started begging my mom to take me outside: she’d simply opened up the door for me and let me feel the icy chill that the winters here brought forth. I had never been more glad that our family business involved operating a large oven.
“Mom?” I asked, trying to sound as cute as possible, which I thought was quite cute given I did have the voice of a two-year-old, “Is it warm enough to take me with you when you go shopping today?” I pushed the cuteness factor as far as I could, puppy dog eyes and all.
“Let me see sweetie,” she walked over and opened up the front door as she spoke. “Yes I think it should be fine, I just don’t want you getting sick, it’s not that I don’t want you to come with me.”
I felt almost certain that while she was worried about me being sick, she was also not looking forward to the endless things I would most certainly be asking her once I was able to see the world around us to ask about.
“Yay! When are we going? When are we going?” I was genuinely bouncing with joy, my curious mind desperate for new things to learn about.
“We’ll go as soon as your dad and I have finished setting up the oven for today. Why don’t you go play with your sister while you wait?” I hardly waited for her to finish as I bolted over to the back as fast as my tiny legs could carry me, which was admittedly not very fast.
“Hi Aly!” I exclaimed at my adorable baby sister sitting in the same baby-holding chair thing from which I’d often watched my parents work as a little baby. “You’re just the cutest little thing!” I moved my arms around her, letting her grab onto them before pulling away and covering her eyes to play peekaboo.
I loved my little sister, and I was worried that my unreasonably rapid development might make my parents feel that she was unintelligent or perhaps falling behind in some way. Still, I could only hope that they talked to enough other parents of young children to recognize that I was just an outlier. There was, unfortunately, very little that I could do as a two-year-old to change whatever notions they might have formed.
A short while later, I heard my mother calling out for me and returned once more to the front, mind filled with anticipation.
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I walked and was sometimes carried by my mother as we made our way into the market. From what I could tell, the sellers here were not farmers but merchants who travelled around the nearby areas to trade with farmers for their surplus in exchange for other goods that were hard to make on their own. The system in place here didn’t seem to quite match up with any time period in the world exactly, but I blamed the existence of magic for changing the equation on certain things.
As we traversed the market, picking up a few different vegetables, most of which it seemed were preserved from last summer, I was able to learn the names of many different foods as well as learn, to my absolute horror, that the currency system here was even more complicated than the old “pound shilling pence” system in Britain. The system used three different metals to mint the coins, copper, silver, and gold, with each metal having both a flake and a coin, where 10 flakes made a coin. Between the metals, it was 8 copper coins to 1 silver flake and then 12 silver coins to one gold flake. The flakes were just small coins with a tenth the mass of the normal coins, and luckily, it seemed almost every interaction was handled only in the value range of copper. I’d had to ask my mom about the other coins to learn the value of anything above a silver flake.
I tried to limit the questions I was asking my mom so that she’d not regret bringing me along since I desperately needed the time outside of the house, and it was simple way to learn more about the world around me. I also realized as we went by comparing our clothes and spending habits to the others in the market that we were likely pretty well off compared to the average city dweller, who, if my memory of medieval times held true, was generally more wealthy than the average farmer.
As we continued on through the market, we picked up some cheese, and I began to wonder if the magic gave my mother extra strength as she seemed to be leisurely carrying a lot of weight, but I might just be mistaken about the scale due to my small body. We continued until we found ourselves walking into what I quickly realized was a butcher’s.
My mom quickly walked up and ordered some cuts from animals, the names of which I didn’t yet have the context to place the meaning of, which sent the butcher into the back to prepare them.
“Mom, where do the animals come from?” I asked, curious since I recalled that this kind of meat consumption was not commonplace for any but the nobility until much more modern times.
“They are caught by the hunters in the forests sweetie, they catch them to help protect the farms and provide meat.” I noticed that she avoided the word kill when describing it.
“But don’t farmers have animals? What about those?” The meat market here seemed to be mostly based on hunting, but I wanted to confirm.
“It’s like ya mother said, missy,” the gravelly voice of the butcher caught my attention from behind the counter. “I’ll rarely get some farmers sellin’ an old animal they can’t keep no more, but those usually stay as a feast for the nearby farmers. Most o’ the meat comin’ into the city here’s from hunters protectin’ the place.” He gave me a quick look to see if I’d understood as he handed over bags which presumably carried the cuts my mom had ordered. “Make sense there, missy?”
“Yes thank you, Mister uh...” I realized I knew neither the word for butcher nor his name.
“Ya can just call me Andrews little missy.” He chuckled in his deep and heavy tone as he filled me in on his name.
“Okay then! Thank you Mister Andrews!” I turned to follow my mom out the door as he chuckled behind me.
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As I sat on a stool at the dinner table, slowly eating the warm stew my parents had prepared along with some very soft bread, I looked up and decided to finally ask my parents the question I had been avoiding out of fear for what the answer might be. “Mom, Dad? Who’s in charge of the city?” I was almost certain that answer was going to be some form of nobility; every sign around me pointed to this being some kind of feudal society, but I’d held off on asking not only since I supposedly didn’t even know what was outside of our house until now but mostly since I really just wanted to hold onto any sliver of hope that maybe there wasn’t an aristocracy and I wouldn’t be in a world subject to the whims of a most likely very inbred collection of rulers by birthright.
“That would be Lord Raster, Nessie.” My dad replied as I felt my fleeting hopes for a different world fading by the second.
“What does ‘Lord’ mean?” I asked, wanting to confirm my suspicions on the meaning of the honorific my dad had used when describing the ruler.
“It’s how you address a Noble.”
“What’s a ‘Noble’?” My mind was filling in the new words with what I knew in my heart were their meanings as I still desperately hoped that I might be mistaken.
“It’s the one in charge of a family chosen by the King.” My dad was explaining things in simple words, probably avoiding all the more specific terms that should be used so I could understand: an understanding I frankly wasn’t sure that I wanted.
“What’s a ‘King’?” My final hope, but seeing as how there are already appointed families, I saw no other way that this explanation could go.
“They’re the one in charge of the whole country.” He clarified as cleanly as possible, though I realized that since the language here lacked grammatical gender, it’s likely that the term ‘King’ might be more accurately put as monarch. I had no way of knowing.
“How does one become a ‘Monarch’?” I already knew. I was simply going through the motions of my curiosity, though the nature of succession isn’t the same everywhere.
“The current monarch chooses one of their children to replace them when they get too old.” I was unsure if abdication to the next ruler was common or if my dad was following my mom’s footsteps from earlier today and simply avoiding mentioning death, but either way, it seemed that there was no preference for gender, and the monarch chooses their successor rather than it always falling onto the oldest. That or my dad was just oversimplifying things since I was two; I really hated being a child; it’s so hard to tell when people are dumbing down all their explanations because they think you won’t understand.
As we finished dinner, I followed my mom to lean on her legs as she fed Allysa, or Aly, as we’d all taken to calling her.
“Mom, you always say that I can learn magic when I’m older but how much older? I’m much older than Aly.” I spoke softly, playing into the childishness mostly because I enjoyed the fun.
“In the spring once you’re five years old you’ll go to the temple to see a priest who will unlock your ability to do magic.” I wonder if it’s because I was quiet and didn’t run off when we were at the market today, but she finally decided to answer my question. But that was a long time to wait.
“You said ‘unlock’ like the door. Does that mean I already have magic? Can we learn more magic?” I started getting excited. This is the first real opportunity to learn anything real about magic here.
“The priests can explain this much better than I can sweetie,” she ruffled my now shoulder-length hair, “but people can only do a little bit of magic at first, you can learn more but it’s really hard.” She used her magic to create a small flame a little bit away from my face. “Mommy couldn’t learn any more magic but you’re a smart girl so I know you can.” She ruffled my hair again as the flame faded away.
“Alright mom, I’ll learn every kind of magic and be the best mage in the whole world!” It was nice to have the leeway to hold unreasonable dreams and voice them out to the world, even if I know that it’s super unlikely.
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My childhood continued to pass by, my days spent playing out with the other kids who hadn’t gotten their baptism yet. Baptism doesn’t really convey the meaning of their words, but it’s not like English has a way for me to cleanly convey a “ritual in which one is accepted into the world properly and given a gift from god,” so baptism is the closest thing I can think of; it at least carries over the religious implications of the word.
In terms of religion, this place seems to be much less religiously motivated than a typical medieval society would be, I haven’t seen any religious imagery and the temples seem to function as places of study into the nature of magic more so than anything I would associate with religion from Earth.
Many times, I’ve regretted that I couldn’t wait until I was slightly older to gain back all of these memories. My inability to use magic or access any meaningful resources means I have no way in which I can use my previous knowledge. I’ve had to content myself with sharing some more complex kids’ games, so I have more fun things to do with my sister and the other kids.
I probably could cause a stir by sharing my knowledge of calculus or other complicated mathematical ideas, but after some careful consideration, I’ve determined that I should try to understand where this world is and then build upon their existing knowledge base to develop the fields of math, physics, and engineering a bit more naturally. Mostly, I’m just unsure if not doing so could have any adverse effects on technological development, and I can’t necessarily be sure that the laws of physics are the same: Magic clearly indicates that some things about the operation of the universe are fundamentally different.
I ponder these things as I am brought by my parents up the steps of the temple on a chilly spring morning in the fifth year of my life. Each step here now literally taking me closer to sharing my knowledge and developing new ideas.
“Remember, Nessie, don’t speak unless the priest asks you a question and be respectful when you ask.” My mom is worrying, as all parents are wont to do, that I’ll forget the instructions she’s given me 273 times (my memory boon is annoyingly helpful at keeping count of that). Though considering I’m quite nearly shaking from excitement, I don’t exactly not understand why she’s worried.
“I know Mom, I know.”
Both of my parents smile a little at my response.
The interior of the temple is beautiful. The main area we’ve arrived in is full of statues that seem to depict mages of all sorts in the midst of all manner of magical feats. There’s a seating area filled with pews or something at least very similar filled with parents and some young children, while the area up front is filled with a neat row of children about my age sitting on the floor.
“Good luck Sasa!” My little sister almost shouts at me as my parents take her to sit down.
I take a deep breath, walk up to the front, and sit down at the end of the line of children awaiting their baptism.
After a 15-minute wait, I see the priest walk out and take his place in front of everyone. He’s wearing light blue robes, which appear to be made of a very fine fabric which contrasts well with his messy brown hair.
“We are gathered here today to witness the blessings of The Great Mana be given to these children.” He spoke with a gentle and somewhat reassuring cadence, but his voice was projected out with confidence. “Today these children will be truly welcomed into the world as they are accepted by The Great Mana and given a gift, let us join together and call upon them.”
“Great Mana, we ask of you,” the entire crowd began reciting along with the priest, “gather here before us so we may know you.” I felt a strange sensation, like there was electricity building up around me. “Gather here before us so that these children may know you as we do.” The feeling kept getting more and more intense as they continued. “Accept these children into the world so that they may know you. Allow these children to know you so that they may know the world.” The strange feeling kept growing and growing, and then, as the chanting finished, the world faded to white.