In the blink of an eye, a whole month had passed. I still didn’t know if months were a thing here, I needed to research more. Either way, I developed a theory that elves perceived time differently to my previous incarnation. This was pure speculation as I had no proof to test my hypothesis other than my own experience, but I didn’t think I was wrong. I also still didn’t know what species I was before reincarnating, yet random trivia assaulted me constantly.

I can’t point out how skewed time perception is relative to whatever I was. What I can say is that the factor of distortion was reductive. Meaning that elves perceive time a lot faster than what I’m used to. For example, an elf year might be ten years to the previous me. But I doubt the distortion is that big. I would be more inclined to say something around one year is a year and a third, but this is a random number I’ve just thought now.

This is a solid explanation why this month had passed with such swiftness. As I felt every time I blinked, a moment of my life passed before my eyes. A moment which was happening currently.

This probably would explain why in mythology elves are so longevous, or even immortal. I would want to know which mythology they originate from. I have this feeling that I know it, yet I recall nothing. A prison, a torture, for a seeker of knowledge.

Exaggerations aside, in this month I read a lot of books. Almost one per day. Well, or more accurately, mother had read to me. I’ve still had yet to even begin to comprehend sentences. Though I already memorized the most common words.

Mother and father started talking to friends who might have children’s books so they could gift or lend them at least. Reading was truly an expensive hobby.

Today I found myself in the house of a neighbor who also had a baby. From what I understood, this baby had one year more than I, but I may be wrong. Mother had given me a whole theater act with her fingers, trying to help me to understand. A lone finger always popped up, so that’s where I took the year from.

I had learned all numbers from one to ten, but I could understand why she tried to be so imaginative with her hands instead of talking to me. Zero had been omitted, it was easy to comprehend that a baby wasn’t able to visualize having zero apples or fingers.

I looked at the infant before me. A common elven baby. By this I mean that she wasn’t really a year old. Time perception being distorted and things. She could neither talk nor walk. I have the omen that babies should be able to, at minimum, walk during this age. This fact reinforced my time perception theory. I was able to recall instinctual knowledge of my previous incarnation far better than any other type of memories. This was a bit of a negative because it really skewed my common sense.

Hey, at least, she could crawl. But that was barely an achievement, wasn’t it?

I stood beside her as mother talked with the baby’s mother. They drank what looked like tea over a conversation. Mother, obviously, seemed to show off her genius child. She tried to hide her air of superiority, but her laugh was clearly overpowering it. Ah, parents taking credit for the achievements of their offspring, a tale as old as time.

…Sometimes I worry about my inner thoughts.

Anyways.

I wanted to read, but Marissa didn’t let me. Did I forget to mention that her name was Marissa? Things like that were easy enough to catch in conversations. Mom said something like “Edrie, tin’el fir se Marissa.” And I said to myself, “Oh, her name is Marissa.”

A thing I noticed about the elven language is that the grand majority of words tended to be short, either mono or bisyllabic. So, a name like Marissa, stood out in a phrase. Well, bisyllabic wasn’t the exact term I would use, words were long, but they were like… separated? I’m no linguist, that’s a given, but there was a clear pause in some words. Distinctive of a pause you would use between words or at the end of a sentence.

The right term might be… prefixes and suffixes? I magically know what they are, but I don’t know if the same logic applies here. They seem different in use to what I’m listening.

Talking about Marissa, let’s describe her with my inner poet.

Her ears were longer than mine, but I didn’t know if that was related to age or sex (mother had an obscene long pair of ears whilst Marissa’s mom didn’t). I’ve seen that women tended to have longer ears. About hair, she had yet to fully develop it, but Marissa had a solid light blue hairline for her age. Another common trait about elves was that almost all of them had light colored hair. Marissa was also blue-colored like father, albeit of a paler shade, and had blue icy eyes.

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My overall all impression of her was… blue. I, myself, wasn’t even this violet.

Unlike with my mother, I felt no mystical attraction to Marissa’s ears. This reinforces the theory about it being a maternal bond sort of thing, but maybe it’s just because her ears aren’t really… attractive? The elven standard of beauty was complicated from my privileged standpoint.

I had seen my own eyes a while ago. Even though we did have a mirror at home, it was at a high ground in the bathroom, and I couldn’t use it. I instead looked at my reflection in the round window of my room. Lavender eyes, if you were intrigued.

I would say that lavender wasn’t your typical eye color, but I lived surrounded by purple-toned pointy-ears colossals. Normality was questionable at its very best.

Their living room was far more modest than ours, with just the essentials and not much more. Were they poor, or were we rich? I doubt it was a minimalist decoration style as the only style I had seen so far is filling every blank space with something. Like, really. Vanity is like a lifestyle for the elves.

Marissa cooed and giggled while playing with wooden toy blocks. Those which has imprinted letters or numbers on the sides, and you could build words. Some things were universal, huh? Well… Now I know that those cubes are, in fact, universal. Not going to lie, it would have been quite the spectacle to see a child play with tesseracts.

What in the name of the Lady of the River is a tesseract?

I sighed and distracted myself as I could foresee a headache brewing in the horizon.

I should start writing down whenever I recall something. Maybe I could triangulate (is it still called triangulate even if the question in matter doesn’t work with vertexes?) matters like my race, position, or the hobbies of my previous incarnation.

You can notice that today I was especially thoughtful. That’s because spending an afternoon with a braindead baby isn’t exactly entertaining. I still play with the building blocks, though.

That’s a bit rough to poor Marissa here, it’s not her fault that her brain is literally underdeveloped. Uh, that sounded even more offensive.

Funny enough, I hadn’t obtained a toy in my short elven life. Mom and dad were so excited and passionate about their little baby being able to read (or what it looked like to them) that they wanted to push me to read more. My mother may read most of the books, but I can take a lot of information from them alone. Though I won’t deny her help is appreciated.

Normally I would mortify parents like them, who push their ideals into their children. But I wasn’t a child. And I wanted even more books. I showed happiness every time mother or father bought a book and read it with me, so they didn’t feel bad for making me ‘study’ all the time. In the end, books were my toys. Not your common baby toys, but toys for me, nonetheless.

Then out of nowhere, Marissa knocked the word I was building with the blocks I had picked up. Oh, ho ho… Girl, that game can play two. So, I knocked her incoherent mess of blocks. She had just put one on top of the other without any connection, while I had written “tree” and “house” in elven language, so I didn’t feel bad about it.

Marissa started crying after that. Oh, come on!

That’s quip pro quo for you. If you knock mine, you don’t have the right to cry if I do the same. I think quid pro quo works here, but eye for an eye is more terminologically correct. My point still stands.

Mine and Marissa’s mother were alerted by this. Marissa continued crying until she found comfort in her mother’s embrace. Marissa’s mother was pissed by this. Not angry, mind you. Even though I looked like the aggressor, it was just some blocks toppled over, no one was injured. Just some cold water on their conversation.

Their little tea party was then cancelled, nonetheless. As before, nothing serious. Marissa felt sleep the moment she tranquilized. And either one of the mothers decided that it was time to pick up things and leave. It was, with utmost certainty, not my fault.

“So, Edrie knocked the girl’s blocks?” Tel’am recapitulated what Liliana told him. The man had came for work and his wife explained as soon as he arrived home.

Little baby Edrie just rolled around the pillow-sofa, with a book in his hands, dissimulating. He wouldn’t want to be caught listening to their conversation.

“Yes, Marissa was crying around littered blocks while Edrie stood there.” Lilin confirmed.

“What a relief.” Tel’am sighed, patting the boy who sat in the mountain of pillow at the living room and responded with a little yelp.

“Why?” The mother asked with surprise. If that was to his husband’s statement or the baby’s funny reaction, that we may never know.

“Because our little Edrie never acted like a normal baby, and I was actually getting scared. He was too… perfect. They told me to prepare for the worse when I was going to have a child, but until now, I haven’t done a thing.” Tel’am admitted. Then he lifted Edrie in his hands, a smile appearing in his face. “But this is what a baby would do. It comforts me knowing he’s like the rest.”

“… Yes, you are right.” Liliana pondered over her husband’s worries. Her façade showed a glint of sadness, taking pride in the uniqueness of her son. “Still, those aren’t manners. A good gentleman shouldn’t do those things.”

“Don’t worry, he was just born yesterday. You can’t expect to teach him manners.” Though a whole month had passed since his birth, for a parent it was just a blink.