Liliana looked at her son who was currently reading. Edrie’s head kept turning between the book and the lamp crystal, unable to decipher its secrets. His mother laughed silently at the cute show he was making. His little twitches, his rapidly moving eyeballs, the exasperation in his expression, it was of utmost delight to her.
Edrie had devoured the book in a matter of minutes, this wasn’t the first read. Not even close. He had read it by himself an innumerable number of times, and she read it aloud for him a dozen, at least, as to make sure he had understood the wording.
A normal child would have stopped a long time ago, bored of the fruitless attempts. Yet her son thrived in defeat. No matter how many tries, he persevered. In the end, Liliana knew he would make it, it was a matter of time. With every failure, a grin popped in his face, a desire to make the lamp glow.
Liliana thought to light the lamp as Tel’am had done before to help Edrie progress. But she decided otherwise as her son’s suffering was quite amusing to her. She gave her son a warm smile, the child unbeknownst to his mother’s dark thoughts.
So, dad crafted a book for me. I used the verb crafted as he did make the cover and sew the pages together by himself. He didn’t just give me a pile of papers about how to do it, but he actually manufactured a book so I could learn. Props to the man.
While I appreciated his efforts, it didn’t make much of a difference. I could now understand some of the wording, yet lagoons of uncertainty in my vocabulary remained.
One could easily notice how he had simplified the writing to make it as simple and understandable as possible. Decomposing words into whole sentences so the message was fully transmitted. And yet, the were some words that simply escaped my insight.
Father wrote about the energy that flowed across every elf and if one weaved it correctly, it could transform into the phenomenon I call magic. Thanks to the book I also learned that we weren’t called elves, but Ellari. At least I learnt something from it. He had taken advantage of my interest in magic to make me learn more about the world, which I greatly appreciated.
It became a daily practice for me. I would wake up, gave a thoughtful read to the book and do the exercise it established to channel energy. Yet, as the days passed, I made no progress whatsoever.
Father was no longer pushing, like the first day. He welcomed me to try, and that’s all. I actually think he knew I was going to do it anyway, and it wasn’t good to neither of us if he kept putting pressure. I wonder how my parents were so thoughtful sometimes, and other times they were morons.
Mother was content with this. With what I caught in glimpses of conversations, the activity of channeling energy (or tel’men’ora as they put it), was something incredibly difficult that even my mother couldn’t make without a lot of effort. So, I was totally wrong about it being something instinctual for our folk.
And yes, that is the first tri-compounded word I have seen in ellari language. This raised the question if there were longer words the size of phrases, but that was a question for later. I also don’t think there’s a translation to my language as it seems to be an expression related to magic, which I believe wasn’t present during the life of my previous incarnation.
Honestly, tel’men’ora was a good thing to teach a baby if one thought about it. Well, not the activity per se, but the process. Having to work for something in a daily basis, created a routine where a child was being consistent. It was a good way to enforce discipline.
Days of fruitless labor became weeks. Weeks became months, and then, months became a year. Two years since I had been born between the ellari had passed. And I was still alien to the magical foundation.
The only memorable moments of those days were the frequent strolls around the city as it became easier and easier to walk and going to Marissa’s home and playing with her toys. She probably wouldn’t remember any of this as she was like three years old, but fellow babies should play together, shouldn't they?
Anyway, I liked visiting Marissa only to break the monotony that was my childish hell. Toys, even if they were simple, alleviated boredom. And I made my parent pretty clear that I didn’t want them to buy me toys. Knowledge was the only thing that could satiate my boredom. Borrowing Marissa’s toys was but a fine diversion I would indulge in from time to time.
I also kept writing menial things in my diary with crayons in my previous incarnation’s language. This way I could remember things that I may forget in the future and practice my calligraphy.
I tried to draw some of the structures I visited on my strolls, like the marketplace we always visited, but between the fact that I was a baby with sausage fingers, and I was working with crayons, let’s say I was handicapped, to say the least.
My diary was full of annotations of words and memories I was able to recall, like the word “sausage.” I haven’t seen a sausage since I was born as ellari didn’t enjoy meat much, nonetheless I knew the word and I could visualize the food. Thankfully, reading the entries didn’t make my head feel like it was getting drilled, that was reserved to my spontaneous recalling events.
I’d like to think that I became in sync with ellari culture. In the end, all the books I read were tales and short stories made for children. Most of them were about adventurous ellari who went beyond the city, exploring the unknown, or archmages who stayed in and accumulated power worthy of gods.
Talk about bipolarism, am I right?
Now that I’m mentioning the city, it is quite a curious prospect. The city I live in was truly an amazing place. It isn’t just a city, but a country. A city-state so to speak. It matches with the size of this metropolis. What wasn’t so obvious to find, was that our city is the only ellari stronghold in the world.
The reasons about why it was this way was beyond me. But after some time, I discerned that the word city in ellari was the name of our country. If an entire race lived in a city, it made sense that the name of the place described it.
Without further delay, the country and city of the purple, blue, and violet elves was called Ferilyn.
And yes, that was the first word, excepting ‘ellari’ (which I was confused if it was made of three or two syllables), made of three syllables in ellari language. I think the reason why this happened is because a name became a word, not the other way around. And we know that ellari names aren’t limited by the syllabic limitation of the language.
Another thing to consider is how the word ‘ellari’ is used. It seems that the ellari don’t have a demonym as such. It was a polysemic word. Anything related to their culture was ellari. One would think the demonym would be something like “ellarian”, but no. They’ve preferred keeping it simple. Which was ironic enough as everything else was overly complicated.
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Why did I make such an extensive analysis on ellari language, you ask? It was to prove a point. To show that I have reached a certain mastery in their language. To demonstrate that I could finally understand the book father made for me a year ago.
That didn’t mean I magically could make magic, obviously. But now I looked at the book from a different perspective. Now, instead of some mystical nonsense, it was a detailed scientific script on how to canalize magical energy. Well, as scientific as you could get when your target public was a baby. A complex manual, you could say.
About magical energy. Ellari called it men’ora, but after one of my spontaneous bits of forgotten information, I decided to call it mana in my head. I don’t think I should tell you that I don’t know the reason why I did so. The men’ora entry in my diary proved to be the most extensive one, documented with every discovery I made through this year.
It was a day like any other. At the beginning I counted every day since I began the tel’men’ora, but at some point, I decided it was useless and stopped.
I did the exact same exercises that I had been doing for a year. Nothing was happening, as usual. And then, I felt a ping. As if a cold needled pierced my skin, like water descending from my arm.
Men’ora. Mana.
The energy that made magic work.
I briefly thought. I didn’t want to lose my concentration. I couldn’t afford to; this was a year in the working. I combined the different streams of the liquid-like feeling into a single flow, which had my fingertip as the destination. My arm became cold, as if blood had stopped flowing in my veins, substituted by another liquid, one colder and more powerful.
I skipped a heartbeat.
I touched the crystal.
I skipped another heartbeat.
A dim blue light shone at me back.
I stumbled in the floor out of fatigue. I feel my consciousness fading away, the only feeling I had was the smile plastered in my face. I had reached the apex of satisfaction when my nape hit the ground.
“Edrie's being awfully quiet, isn’t he?” Liliana told to herself, she sat in the balcony sunbathing.
Normally by this moment he would have cried for food or to get his diapers changed. He even cried sometimes to make her read him a book. She began worrying herself and stood up.
She opened Edrie’s room door to find his son collapsed on the ground next to the crystal lamp. She rushed to his son’s side.
“Edrie, Edrie!” Liliana took Edrie in her arms. “Edrie, talk to me!” She lightly shook the baby out of nervousness.
Edrie slowly opened her eyes. “Mother…?” He asked her in confusion and suspicious fluency.
“Yes, Edrie, I’m here.” Liliana embraced her child tighter. “Are you all right, Edrie?” But the frenetic mother had failed to notice such event as she was drowned in worry.
“Me gooh~” He responded with difficulty, not pronouncing the words rightly. Edrie pointed at the lamp crystal. “Maah-na!”
“Mana?” She repeated whilst looking at the inert crystal. “Did you succeed in the manaflows?”
“Aah.” Edrie cooed in affirmation.
“Oh, Edrie, that’s great!” The mother rose her son to the skies as she quickly understood what had happened. “You’ve done it! I’m so proud of you!” A tear was shed. Her son achieved at such early age something she couldn’t do easily. “Your father will be so proud.”
To which he responded with a giggle.
“…rie, tol sa’min!” I heard the voice of my mother.
My body felt sluggish, my eyelids heavy. It was difficult to think.
Either way, I talked back to her. “Del’mani…?” Moving my lips and tongue to articulate was a daunting task. My internal alarms flared as I noticed I had spoken with uncharacteristically fluent for a baby. Thankfully, mother wasn’t as perceptive as I.
“Son, Edrie, sa’ne fal.” Mother said. “Al na’tir da’fori, Edrie?” I think she asked if I was well.
“Da’honi~” I tried to communicate my wellbeing with my limited vocabulary. Then memories struck me. I remembered why I was unconscious. I’d done it! I canalized mana! “Men’ora!” I told what happened by marking the crystal with my little fat baby fingers.
“Men’ora?” Mother followed my hand with her gaze. “Fir a tel’sa den tel’men’ora?”
Did I succeed with flowing mana? Yes. But I felt more and more tired, so I responded with a grunt. I tried to compare whatever happened with my frequent headaches, but it was different. What happened now made me feel tired, my body weighted more than it should as strength left me, but my headache were more psychological, more… spiritual.
“Oh, Edrie. Fir’na des’ca!” She elevated my in the air, higher than her pointy violet ears. “Fir nit al na! Yor’am tel fin!” Was she crying? “Del’tori sam’en gul.” One didn’t need to be a genius to notice those weren’t tears of worry, but of happiness.
Even though I wanted to celebrate with her, my strength faded away at a giant’s pace. Flowing my mana into the crystal took everything I had. Dreams claimed me once more.
Edrie fell asleep fast after that. Liliana was pleased with his child and let him rest in his crib. She waited in the living room, reading one of the books from Tel’am’s collection to spend time until her husband arrived home.
The wait was short as Liliana put Edrie to sleep at the afternoon, when Tel’am should be cleaning the workshop and reading to leave. Her ears’ tips wiggled as she heard the noise coming from the hall door.
“Lilin, I’m home!” Tel’am said as part of his daily routine.
“How was your day?” Liliana asked out of courtesy.
“Same old, same old.” Tel’am sighed as he hanged his coat, in a monotone voice. “Not a lot of clientele, I’m afraid. So, I spend all day in the workshop, inscribing some final parts of a levitating parterre. High-born extravaganza.” He scoffed then kissed his wife.
“Well, my day was bit more interesting.” Liliana told with a roguish smile.
“How is it?” Her husband asked as they moved to the kitchen table.
“I tried to practice sewing with our old sewing machine with a bit of success, I sunbathed a little, Edrie achieved manaflowing, oh, and I also read one of your books.” She described in an orderly manner.
“Oh that’s nic-“ Then Tel’am noticed that one wasn’t like the others. “Honey, that’s amazing!”
“I know!” She grabbed his hands, doing little hops on the spot, as if she was the child of the hearth. “Our little boy can canalize mana!”
“Oh, I hate that I missed it.” Tel’am said with a bittersweet tone. For a practitioner of magical arts like him, manaflowing for the first time was more impactful than the first steps or even the first words.
“I have one doubt, though.” Liliana asked once they’ve stopped celebrating. “Edrie collapsed next to the lamp; do you know why?” She may be an ellari and married to magical practitioner, though that didn’t mean her magical knowledge was underwhelming.
“Ah, sure. I’ve forgotten he was a baby after all.” Tel’am began explaining. “Newborns tend to emit mana outwards, instead of keeping it for themselves, as they haven't formed their mana pool. Edrie must have collapsed because he was already low on mana and then used the little that he had.”
“Does it leave permanent damage?” She was still shocked by the sight of her son on the ground even if she hid it with a façade of happiness. Mana strain was a serious problem after all.
“For one time? It won’t.” Tel’am remembered having his body constantly reaching critical levels at school constantly when he lacked a mana pool of his own. Not a single time there was an accident. “But, if he does it repeatedly at an early age, there will be some damage. His next step as a mage will be forming a mana pool to prevent it.”
“I see.” Liliana responded a bit more relaxed. She crumbled in the chair. “I still can’t believe it.” The wife expulsed air from her mouth, with a half-laugh, half-sigh.
“Well, you should.” Tel’am was clearly happier for this event than Liliana. The stoic ellari was grinning from side to side, the corners of his lips reaching his nose. “Not only our child is smart, but he also is a superb elemental user. Affinity be damned. It actually surprised me more that he took so much time to achieve his first manaflow after all he has managed.”
“But it is still an incredible feat.” Liliana said as to not undermine Edrie’s effort. She was falling behind a newborn in her magical prowess, but she didn’t really care about it. Actually, she took joy out of it.
“It is.” Tel’am hugged her wife.
The man himself only managed to do that well after he enrolled on school, yet he forced his son to do this whilst he was just a baby, forgetting it was actually difficult after a century had happened since his first manaflow. In retrospect, Tel’am noticed he had been too harsh, yet now, couldn’t help himself and be proud of his son.
They forgot how much time had passed in their embrace; it didn’t matter to them, for this moment was of happiness and celebration.