Chapter 1: First Breaths
The newborn opened her eyes. Small locks of green hair tickled her nose. If one were to ask who this child’s parents were, you probably wouldn’t say two cat-eared beastkin.
Well, that is if you were from her past life’s Earth. On this Earth, there were a multitude of different races. This ranged from elves, dwarves, then to beastkin. Not all people are familiar with the beastkin trope so let me explain.
They are a race of people that have animal-like traits. This ranges from having dog or cat ears, to a full-blown lizard face. But it never gets to the point of them just being bipedal animals.
Now what was truly strange is how this little girl had green hair. Now, if you watch anime you know that means that she is a protagonist. You are pretty much correct.
This little babe is or who used to be Frank. Every 50 years, a spirit beastkin is born among a population of beastkin. This “spirit trait” that these people are born with allows them to speak with spirits.
This is the blessing that Elder Guardian spirit gave Frank. The two parents looked at the newborn with care and love in their eyes. This was their first child, and she was to be named Aisling.
People in this world or at least, this culture, had their job as their last name. so, she was to be known as Aisling Woodcutter. Yes, that was to be her name. but it wasn’t supposed to be given to her yet.
These two parents talked about which name to give to their child. They would have a year to do so, for that was a special sensitive time in a person’s, or commers’, life.
For children of a year or younger had a mortality rate of 60%. It was rather hard to keep these kids safe in a world full of monsters and magic. Even noble children to a certain extent had to be careful.
If one were to ask the child themselves. They would say they were confused. For they were only told of the world and not of the place they would be reborn in. It was quite a shock to say the least.
She opened her eyes and looked at her new parents. They were both happy to see their newborn open her eyes for the first time. From the parents’ perspective this was but a normal child. Well, she was as normal as a Spirit beastkin could get.
Sher looked up at them while laying in the newborn crib, a crib for newborns, and started to cry. She wasn’t used to the air anymore. She wasn’t used to the chill that seemed to emanate from everything.
The mother picked her up and spoke to her in a strange language that she couldn’t wrap her head around. The mother seemed not to bothered as she unbuttoned her shirt and put the mouth of the crying child to her… wait.
Did the author put a nudity warning up? I don’t think he did. Well, let’s continue anyway. As she suckled on her new mother’s nip, she thought back to her old life. She wondered what her little sister was doing right now.
She shouldn’t have, for she soon started to cry as the emotions came back. Why did she have to die? Why did she have to leave that adorable little sister of Her’s? Why was Fate so cruel?
Now the mother seemed flustered as she pulled the child off of her chest and soon started to panic. This was her second child, and she didn’t want upset them all the time. Then again. Babies cried all the time. That is simply what they did.
Soon, the panicked mother felt a hand on her soldier. It was her husband coming to save the day. The mother handed him the little bundle of teers and sadness. He held her in his arms and soon started to sing a lullaby.
It was a somber song, it told of an army of men going to a land far across the sea to find their hearts which had been stolen by the women there. It told of how they protected this new land they found and settled.
It calmed the child to the point of her falling asleep. This earned a sigh of gratitude from the mother and a peck on the cheek. The father gave the child back to the mother and she set her back down into the crib.
…
He had been reborn. Some would say isekeied. He thought to himself how this day couldn’t get any worse. Why is he complaining? Some would ask him that. But if you were a dude that suddenly got smashed by a tree, then got reborn as a little girl, you would complain to.
He, or should we say she, knew she shouldn’t be complaining. But it was so bogus that she was born as a woman. She would have to deal with periods now. She would have to deal with cat calling now.
Well, at least she wasn’t a slave, right. She could have been born into a slave family. She could have it much worse than being born into a commoner family. In fact, if she recalled right, this country was basically the same as the Irish.
Though, in this world the majority of the population of Ireland was beastkin. Since the British Isles weren’t isles in this world, Ireland was seen a lot now favorably as it had a head up on the mainland. As one could guess, the sea was Irelands ally.
She sat up in bed, over the course of the year she would grow into the body of a three-year child. And because of that she could do things that no other human child could, build her body.
She looked around the nursey and noticed her older brother looking at her, awake in bed. He seemed shocked that she was awake. She put a finger to her mouth and tried to make a shushing noise.
But all that came out was a wet, blowing noise. Her older brother smiled at this and looked at her as he got out of bed. He seemed fascinated by her, and she couldn’t blame him. She had green hair and was still awake at like 2 in the morning.
He walked over to her and picked her up. She was shocked by this and looked at him with her big green eyes. Her older brother was about 10 years old. It didn’t help that he looked 13 years old.
What I’m saying is that she didn’t like being picked up. But she put up with his antics and smiled back as best she could. He seemed to notice her discomfort and put her back into bed. She rolled onto her belly and closed her eyes.
Her brother frowned at this and manually rolled her onto her stomach. She then frowned back and rolled onto her stomach once more. He frowned and tried to get her onto her back, but she started to get irritated and then started to cry without meaning to. He became flustered and went back to sleep.
…
“Child, wake up. It is time to speak. My brother across the realms told me of you,” a voice above the baby’s head said.
She looked up. There, floating above her own head was a skeleton, well not really a skeleton. He was more of a tree in the shape of a skeleton. She didn’t know who this was, and she didn't know if he was here to do anything bad to her.
But wait, what did he say about his brother? Was this spirit thing related to the guardian spirit back home? Was this Spirit here to help instead of harming her? Things were starting to get confusing.
“I will explain who I am. I am this family’s guardian spirit. Your new father’s great grand father was a spirit beastkin. He bonded with me, and I have stayed with this family ever since. Now, shall I teach you of spirit magic or should we save that talk for another time?” the old spirit seemed to ask.
The newborn nodded and she looked at him. The spirit nodded and looked at her with eyes that conveyed the hope of a teacher for a new student. Over the course of the night, she was lectured too.
She was told of the power of life essence called chi. This energy could be turned into magic. Although magic and chi were polar opposites of each other, it could be used to make mana.
Elves’ bodies naturally made mana instead of chi. Humans’ bodies made chi instead of mana. This was why they were so different. Beastkins’ bodies made both and this is why they couldn’t use each.
Since they both repelled one another a beastkin couldn’t do magic or power oneself with chi. But because of the source of mana being in a beastkin’s heart, the chi in their body circled throughout their whole body.
This is why they were so strong, and this is why neither human nor elves particularly looked at them with kindness. The majority of beastkin were like this. But not spirit beastkin.
You see, they could turn the chi flowing throughout their bodies into mana and sign contracts with spirits. This allowed them to use the abilities of the spirits they had signed contracts with.
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Though, this did leave them to be enslaved more often than the norm. it was seen as a statice symbol in Francia to own a spirit beastkin as a slave. They weren’t all too rare. Being born around once every fifty years in a single population was kind of weird.
Like, that meant there was at least one in every village. Which wasn’t all too special in the newborns head but whatever floats their boats. The spirit then offered to sign a pact with the Aisling, and she had no other choice but to accept.
And all the rest of the night she was taught the secrets of spirit magic. In fact, it was easier than normal magic as the spirit did half of the work. In normal magic the caster would have to do the chanty and direct the mana in their body to the place where they wanted to direct their spell.
As night wore on morning broke and the newborn Aisling fell asleep. She had been woken up right after her older brother had fallen asleep. Now she had fallen asleep at around 6 in the morning. Of course, staying up that late really wasn’t what the old spirit had in mind but, eh.
The studying took to long. She was now put in a magic sleep that would last for 11 hours exactly.
…
It had been a full year of living in this new world for Aisling to get a full grip on her body. Everyday, old man spirit who didn’t like being called old taught her about most of the goings on of this land.
While he did try to teach her the language of this country, all but spoken words seemed to stick. Whenever she tried to speak it would come out incredibly accented.
She sounded like she was from an incredibly rural area of Ireland. The speech was so thick with hillbilly that she just didn’t speak at all.
Now it was her first birthday in this world. She was rather excited about that fact. When she woke up and stretched her little legs a loud crack from her back was heard.
Now, one may ask why such a sound was heard. A normal person would question why a one-year-old-that-looked-like-a-three-year-old child would have back problems. It was simply a matter of a bad bed.
Her bed that her father seemed so proud of was rather bad. The cushion was straw, and the frame didn’t have any suspension. All in all, it was bad. She thought that maybe other beds were better, so she often went to her brother and slept in his bed, and it wasn’t any better.
Her parents were already up at the crack of dawn, so she went to the door and opened it. On the other side was her brother. He was leaning on the door and looking at the ground.
He had a glum expression on his face. Aisling walked over to him and tugged on his sleeve. He noticed and looked at her with a sour expression. She calked her head to the side. She was trying to get him to tell her what was wrong.
It seemed to work as her brother began to tell her why he was sulking. It turned out he had gone and told the neighbor kid, Sarah, that she was cute and kissed her. In response, she kicked him in the groin.
As a person who used to be a dude, she could relate. Getting kicked there hurt a lot. As girls seem to misinterpret how the pane works, the author will explain. He also needs to write more words to fill his dopamine meter.
It isn’t really a sudden pain, it is more like a soft oomph, then a large spi8ke of pain and you suddenly find yourself crumpled on the ground.
Now, it seemed like he had gotten over the pain and was now sad that his feelings were rebutted back to him. He didn’t seem to be having a good day. To cheer him up, Aisling grabbed his shirt sleeve and pulled him to the cellar.
The cellar was the place where she practiced magic in secret. She wanted to show him some cool-looking magic tricks she had. When they got to the cellar her brother reared back and forced his little sister to stop.
“There are ghosts down in the cellar sister. You shouldn’t go in here,” he reprimanded her.
She nodded at his thoughtfulness to his little sister and pulled him hard enough that he nearly fell down the stairs. She still wanted to show him her magic and brighten up her day.
as for the ghost problem well…
There were no ghosts. Her older brother had simply thought that all the magic practice for the past year was a ghost infesting the walls. After they had gone downstairs, she looked at the walls of the cellar and noted the amount of wine there was.
Not everyone in the town she had never really seen could afford a cellar. In response, her family lent space in their own cellar. Whine was what most people kept. That and rum.
She sat in the middle of the dirty floor and gestured for him to sit too. When he sat down, she summoned old man spirit. He then appeared in between the both of them. Her brother nearly freaked out until he saw his little sister looking at him.
To him, it looked like she was exasperated with him. Because of this, he calmed down. He looked up at the floating wooden skeleton and calked his head to the side.
“Where have I seen you before?” he asked the spirit, pointing a finger at him.
“I am the guardian spirit of this household. I saw and appeared to you once. That was when you were just a babe,” old man spirit told him.
The young boy was now less confused but still much so. He didn’t know of the powers of a Spirit beastkin. He simply thought she had red hair, and it was as simple as that in his head. Aisling’s older brother wasn’t too smart as the reader can tell.
Aisling decided to ignore his confusion as it would soon turn to wonder when she showed him her magic.
Sitting crisscross-applesauce, she places her arms palm up on her legs. She then poured her chi into these areas and closed her eyes. She had minor spirits of essence and light dance through the air for the two of them.
Soon, streamers of light and gold danced in the air. The cellar shown with light and the older brother who, moments before was sitting there confused, was now looking on in wonder.
…
In the later hours of the day Aisling and her brother, Kaelin, along with the rest of the family are sitting around the dinner table. Kaelin and Aisling are recounting the adventure in the cellar they had just hours before.
The two parents are having a hard time believing that little Aisling can already use magic at her age. After all, the only reason she knows how to use the magic at all is because of old man spirit.
He is the one to teach her all about it and its side effects. All in all, it was hardly believable that a one-year-old could do this. Of course, beastkin aged quicker than humans.
If you really wanted to push it, you could say that a girl of her age shouldn’t even be able to think like she does. By the end of dinner both of the parents looked like they wanted to tell the kids something.
That something was the fact that Aisling’s mother was pregnant. Aisling had known this as she did know what sex was and she guested they were trying to get another child so they could help out cutting trees and hauling lumber.
“Both of you are going to get another sibling soon!” said mother.
We are going to be calling her mother from now on just for simplicity’s sake.
“And later today we are going to officially go to the town hall and sign Aisling’s name onto paper,” said father who is also going to be called father for simplicity’s sake.
Now, it would be easy for the talk to end just there, but something strange happened. A knock came from the front door. The whole family didn’t know who this could be.
Father walked up to the front door and opened it. On the other side waiting was Jeffery, the tax collector. Now, this confused the family even more. They had already paid their taxes for the week.
“good morning, the tax has been raised so I’m here to collect an extra-“ he flipped through his papers, “-15 Crownes”
In USD, that would be 250$. So, the fact that the taxes had gone up so much set Father and the rest of the family off. The taxes, just so you know, the taxes were about 25 Crownes before.
This much of an increase meant that the king of this land or the local lord were doing something strange. In fact, it made Father and Mother uneasy.
…
They were on their way to the town hall. The town hall was in the middle of the town, and it was the place where if you had any grievances with the government, you would go there.
It was also the place where you signed in your child’s name if you had one that was coming to their first year. This meant that Aisling would be going to leave the house for the first time in her life.
Aisling was sitting in her older brother's lap and was currently braiding his hair. She had learned how to braid hair from her past life’s mom after she wanted to braid her little sister’s hair.
The braids themselves weren’t anything special. They were short as his hair was short. They were simple as Aisling was out of practice. But it made her happy that her brother put up with her and her stuff.
When they got to the building Aisling noticed a couple things. First were the people. There was a group of people with two toddlers among them. The majority of people in the group were beastkin.
Next, she noticed that the door seemed to be locked. The front door was a deep red wood color. That brings up the building so let the author describe it. It was a tall, yet narrow structure. The outside of it was a deep tan color and it seemed to be made from granite.
The tall walls seemed to be like that for the flex on the other structures around it. The glass windows and shades visible from the inside of the building lent to the poshness of the building.
Finally, after Aisling had taken it all in, they git off the cart. The mule pulling the cart was owned by her father and he often used it to pull lumber. When she got to the ground, she looked at the two other children standing by their parents’ feet.
The both of them seemed to be her age, chronological age that is. One was human and the other was Beastkin. The human child seemed to be 3 years old. The beastkin was one year old but, again, since they were a beastkin they looked 3.
The boy was probably there because their parents drove the beastkins parents. Not everyone owned a cart or carriage.
The beastkin was a boy as well, the seemed to be a cat beastkin just like her. She had brown hair and eyes, just like the majority of the people in this town. The boys stood next to each other.
They seemed as close as brothers at first glance. It was in fact true. The two boys lived right next to each other, and they often played together. When Kaelin and Aisling walked beside their parents, who themselves were looking at the other two groups of parents.
What the author means by that is, Aisling’s family did not know all of the people in this town. These were some of the said people. The grown-ups made introductions and eventually they started talking about Aisling and her traits.
During the whole introduction thing, the two children were looking at her as if she was a strange bug they found on the side of the road. The human boy, Graiger, thought that she was cute, but weird.
Looking at her made his mind feel all funny and his heart quickened. She absolutely had cast a spell on him with her spirit magic. He had heard the parents explain what it was, but his ears only heard the word ‘magic’.
The other boy seemed unimpressed with the young Aisling. His father was the kind of person to flirt with all the neighbor hood women and he had encouraged his son to gage how cute all the girls were. He seemed unimpressed.
That was rather rude of him. But Aisling didn’t really care all too much as she was more interested in finally getting her name put on paper.
The door finally opened, and a human woman came out. She was rather short and had blond hair. When she smiled, slightly yellowed teeth were shown. It appeared as though she was British.
She beckoned the first family in. This just so happened to be Aisling’s family. Later that day, Aisling’s name was put onto paper.