I felt an unfamiliar yet peaceful rocking that wasn’t the crib, so I woke up. I found myself in the arms of my mother, underneath the warm sun. Hmm, the sky color seemed off. Shouldn’t it be blue? Too pink for my taste. New world, different rules. I suppose. Too many things that I couldn’t remember yet I could know if they were right or not. This will surely get old really fast.

My mother looked absentmindedly at the horizon while rocking me. There was something peaceful at the sight that I couldn’t really pinpoint. I giggled a bit to see the reaction of my maternal figure.

“Del’mini, mir a tel’san?” Mother looked at me with a smile as blinding as the star in the sky. Her skin may be purple, but her teeth were white as pearls. Yes, I know that is the most cliché comparison possible. No! I don’t know that. Damn it!

I cried a bit as I was feeling hungry. It seems hunger did happen; I just needed more time.

“Oh, mene ut sun, del’mini?” Mom seemed preoccupied by the baby crying in her arms. She didn’t seem to catch the memo as she rocked me side to side.

I know I am the one who started crying, but you are making more ruckus than I. Really, I’m not even shedding tears, just shouting. This went on for a pregnant moment. Mother, I am not nervous or scared, I am starving. I need food intake. I couldn’t communicate this, of course. I moved my arms close to her breast, trying to pass on the message.

“Vul ni ten?” I guessed she asked me. Ah, the difficulties of not knowing one’s own language.

Yes, yes. Bulniten mother. Feed me. How did babies request food? Wasn’t crying enough of an alert?

In the end, after a while of fruitless communication, the elf appeared to catch my intentions as she proceeded to open her blouse. Her bosoms were exposed to me.

“Soi so, del’mini.” Mother said as to encourage me to take a sip.

It now crossed my mind that this was a bit of a violent situation. I was a being of unidentified gender and age about to suck milk out of what appeared to be a first-time mom. For all I could know, I could have been another mother in another life or an old man. A newborn drinking milk directly from the source is commonplace, but a reincarnated being doing so… I should stop thinking about these things.

Even then, hunger overtook me. My decision didn’t matter in the end. It would be weird if a newborn rejected the food offered from his mother. Raising alarms wasn’t my intention. Au contraire. Nice, now I said something I don’t know what it means. As per usual, these weird words and thoughts made my head hurt badly.

I cleared my mind, and I did the baby thing, sucking milk. I am no culinary critic, but it tasted a bit bland. I found myself a bit defrauded. I actually expected some kind of ambrosia or nectar. And I got pasty milk. Beggars can’t be choosers, I guess. Also, it wasn’t like she had a great pack. Weren’t female breasts supposed to enlarge during pregnancy? I felt they were a bit lackluster. Another elven characteristic, or just the genetic lottery?

Upon the feast before my eyes, I ate and ate until my stomach couldn’t take it anymore. Once I finished my business, mother closed the buttons of her blouse while she smiled at me. I smiled back and I giggled as a baby would usually do.

Hmm, I just noticed that I would have to act as a baby for a few years at least. Ugh, this will certainly get old fast. Couldn’t I get a fast-forward or something? I obviously didn’t get an answer to my not-really-a-prayer. It would have been a nice touch, though.

“Nan que te mornis, del’mini.” Mother told as she patted my head.

Del’mini… she has pronounced this word multiple times now. Is it supposed to be my name or something? Every time she is directing to my person she’s using the word. Is it maybe a pronoun?

A fleeting thought crossed my mind saying it would be funny to purr like a cat, but I didn’t want to weird her out, so I conformed with another simple giggle. Mother was rejoiced by this, as she began playing with me. She put her finger to my reach, which I promptly grabbed. I touch it as I laughed. Then I thought what a baby would do in a situation like this. So, I licked it.

Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there.

Truth be told, it made total sense in my mind. A baby sucking her mother’s finger as it was her breast was the most natural thing in the world. If you accounted the reincarnated soul into the factor, things turned weird. But she was none the wiser, of course.

Liliana felt true happiness. There were few moments of her life that could be described like that, yet this one of those. Her childhood contained some happy memories, but not to the level of true happiness. The first time she could recall was when she met Tel’am. She thought that happiness peaked when she married him, yet now after seeing her offspring laughing, she knew she couldn’t have been more wrong.

That reminded her to go get Tel’am. They had yet to name the boy. While in her pregnancy they decided that both would choose two names, one male and one female. This was so when the baby was born, they could decide for themselves. It was questionable if a newborn could choose their name, but to the newly wed, it sounded incredibly romantic.

With her child in arms, she went to fetch her husband.

Tel’am was reading a newspaper in the kitchen while drinking orange juice. It was still early in the morning for any stronger brewage.

“Hello, darling.” Tel’am said as she noticed his wife entering the room. “Is he awake?”

“Yes, he is. Darling.” Lilin got close to Tel’am and kissed him. The man also took advantage of his position and kissed his son on the forehead.

Tel’am looked at the baby as he could promise he heard the little boy sigh. He disregarded it as he was yet exhausted from yesterday, as it was a day full of sentiment.

“Well,” Lilin said, “I think it’s time he chooses his name.”

“I concur.” Tel’am responded. “Here, leave him upon this cushion.” He signaled a pillow in the ground as he left the newspaper on top of the kitchen table.

With the upmost care of the world, so as to not hurt him, Liliana left his child on the cushion as she kneeled before him. Tel’am followed her gesture. The whole family found themselves on a colorful carpet, with the youngest on a pedestal of pillows.

“Are you ready?” Tel’am told.

“A bit nervous to be honest.” Lilin explained, laughing to herself to hide her bursting feelings.

“Do not worry, I will win this competition.” Tel’am laughed and his wife pinched his arm. “Ouch.”

“Come here, sweety.” Lilin told the baby. “You surely like Edrie as a name.”

“No, my son.” Tel’am raised his arms frantically. “Don’t let your mother fool you. Verin is a better name.”

“Fito’ri men?” My father asked as my mother left me on the ground for reasons that escaped me.

“Fil ni aka na vesta.” My mother replied with a dry laugh.

“Tin a mir, vit’ir ten minar.” Whichever thing he said, mother didn’t like it as she pinched him. “Ouch.” Then he grunted in pain. See, that I understand. Some things are just universal.

“Fil o’ni, del’mini.” Mother told me. Once again, the del’mini came into action. Now I was mostly sure it was intended to refer to me. “In tiner edrie sunam.” That I did not catch.

“Ein, del’tori.” Father told. Del’tori, looks like it is another form to refer to me, at least in the way he used it. I may be most likely wrong. “Einen finer del’ei tun fir. Verin itest sunam.”

Do you guys understand that I have been born hours ago? I probably shouldn’t even be capable of crawling on all fours. Wait. Is this some kind of elven trickery? Maybe they are born with some instinctual knowledge of the language. If that’s the case, I may be really screwed. Eh, I can always roleplay as a dimwit. Not that I would like, but that’s a very valid option depending on the circumstances.

As I stood still, my parents realized that I couldn’t exactly understand them. Are they incompetent parents or is this truly elven instinctual behavior?

They start moving their arms towards them, to incite me to go to them. But they were too far apart as to teach me how to crawl, it was more like of a decision. Father or mother? Hmm… are we already starting with the “who do you love more, mom or dad?” dispute? Please no, I don’t know how I know that, but I know for a fact that it’s a tedious and useless endeavor.

“Edrie, edrie.” My mother called. I remember hearing both say ‘flushia, flushia’ when I was born. Are onomatopoeias so long in this world?

“Verin, verin.” Father said in a composed yet energetic manner.

Then after agonizing seconds of silence thought, my cogs stirred. Are they trying me to choose my name? I hope they are not, and I’m just thinking stupid things. But if that’s the case, are they alright? A normal baby wouldn’t be able to discern the message. Even I (in the improbable case I’m right) took some serious brainpower to guess what they want. Babies would simply crawl to whichever parent was the lousiest in this scenario.

Well, if I understood their intentions correctly, now it was time to decide my name. Both were alright, I think. Neither sounded exactly familiar, though. Verin sounded more masculine than Edrie, but Edrie rolled better out of the tongue. Decisions, decisions. Not a day awake, and yet already making a live-defining choice.

I, as a matter of fact, didn’t care a lot about this. Both names felt nice, they weren’t hideous or something that will make bullies bully you. It would be nice to know my surname. Being called Verin Verin, wasn’t exactly a thing I wanted to live with. That idea was reinforced by my mother pinching my father before.

So, I crawled to my mother.

Wait. I paused before arriving at my destination. Does the middle name come from the father or the mother in elven culture? Did I mess up already? Either way, I had passed the point of no-return because my mother was quick to grab me in her embrace.

“Edrie! Edrie!” She said rising me in the air with bottomless joy. “Del’mini, Edrie!” Yup, definitively my name. Well, I hope I might not regret it.

From that day on, I became Edrie.