“Are you… are you writing this down? Why are you writing this down? I told you I was not interested in having my genius filtered through your base attempts at comprehension so that it might be shared with the masses.”

~Unknown

“Will!” Bella exclaimed as she slid into view between the doorframe. Fortunately, Vigil had followed Tina to the front room and was no longer occupying the walkway like a shaggy obstacle course. She seemed… oddly cheerful, given recent circumstances. “Why are you still in bed? It is daytime.” The excitement fell from her face, replaced by an annoyed frown.

I honestly cannot tell if this is a repressed memory situation or just the resilience of youth, I thought. I wasn’t exactly a psychiatrist in my first life, and it’s not like I’d had recent access to textbooks written by… Yeah, fuck, I can’t even think of a psychology-person whose writings I don’t have. Was Plato the one who did the behavioral experiments? Or am I thinking of Pluto because of the dog thing?

“Will, you are doing the thing where you stare off when I try to talk to you,” Bella scolded me with her arms crossed, interrupting my musings. In her defense, she was right. I had a tendency to get lost in thought while casually interacting with actual children, especially when I wasn’t performing for a supervising adult. Frankly, I was rarely interested in what they had to say.

“Sorry, Bella.” Inhospitable behavior might embarrass Tina and I preferred not being the focus of her ire. “It is good to see you. I am still in bed because-”

Fuck, we didn’t have time to discuss my cover story or if I even needed one. I quickly ran through a list of possible explanations that could-

“Wwwwiiiillllll,” Bella droned to get my attention. Evidently, taking a moment to think about what I was going to say counted as ignoring her again.

Bella’s whine was ramping up in volume, assaulting my ears and patience in equal measure.

Just say something! Clearly, I was overthinking things.

“It is a secret,” I blurted out and immediately felt like slamming my head into the wall. Instead of overthinking, I said something that suggested I enjoy using a power-sander to smooth out the ol’ pesky brain ridges.

Generous historians might refer to it as an over-correction, I sarcastically told myself.

“A secret?!” Bella gasped. “Tell me tell me tell me tell me tell me!” She started vibrating like a caffeinated chipmunk and rushed to the side of my bed. Her chant continued with a steadily increasing tempo that defied sensibility. I needed rescuing. Just as I inhaled to call for an adult, one poked their head around the door. I barely heard his bray of a laugh over the sound of Bella’s excitement.

I once simply referred to Bella’s father, Figuelo, as a mustachioed man. That may not have been completely accurate. This guy was a mustachioed man. Seriously, if Mustache Growing was a Skill, this guy had it, such was the fullness and uniformlity of that badboy. Every time I saw it I felt a flash of envy since any efforts at facial hair back in my first life were patchy at best. There was hope for me on the second go around, though! Tulos had a daily shaving routine - yes, he used the axe - but revealed that he could grow a beard if he wanted to.

“What is going on in here, then?” He asked warmly and stepped into the room. Bella had inherited her father’s blonde hair, and the slight hook to his nose; she took after him more than her mother by my estimation.

“Will has a secret!” She’d started clambering up onto my mattress at that point.

“Does he now?” Figuelo responded in the parental tone used by someone humoring their child. “Does he know you like finding out secrets, Little Sunflower?” I was of the opinion that he babied her a smidge too much, but to each their own.

The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

“He should!” Bella replied sternly and fixed a serious gaze on me, much to her doting father’s amusement. Knowing what Bella’s Skill was, I was reluctant to try and deflect the question further. Figuelo must have noticed my discomfort at the mounting interrogation.

“Bella, Will and I need to have a talk. Can you go make sure your mother is okay?” Bella looked like she was going to protest when she spun towards her father, but she hesitated. There was a pregnant pause as the pair locked eyes. I couldn’t see Bella’s expression, but I suspected if I could it would mirror the intensity I knew she was capable of when her Skill came into play.

It’s like she stares into your soul. It might have been decades of horror films warping my perspective, but little girls doing creepy stuff unsettled me.

“Okay, papa,” she suddenly chirped. Bella proceeded to boot-scoot off the bed and scamper down the hall. Watching the way she could flit from one emotion or activity to another like a distracted butterfly, it’s no surprise Tina and Tulos clocked me as odd. In hindsight, I couldn’t fathom why I thought I could emulate that level of constant, childish whimsy at all times in a way that was even remotely convincing.

“Will, I have something important to tell you.” He spoke with reassurance and knelt down so that he could be on my level. “I spoke to your father, and he gave me permission to talk to you about this. This is business concerning fathers and sons, do you understand?” I nodded. It was an interesting dynamic in the culture, but over the years I’d learned that - at least publicly - fathers had greater say in matters concerning their sons while the inverse was true for mothers and daughters.

Privately, well, that depended on the couple. I couldn’t recall Tulos ever trying to overrule Tina by invoking the custom. I occasionally wondered how the ‘rule’ applied to different family units, but so far as I was aware there weren’t any in Elbura so it hadn’t come up.

“Will, Bella told her mother and I what happened the other day. What I say reflects her feelings as well.” The feel of the linen bandage wrapped around my injured hand started to itch. “Will, we want to thank you. Sending Bella to tell your mother what was happening may have saved her life. If anything had happened to her…” Figuelo choked up, as if the mere thought would crumple his resolve.

“... I did not do anything special,” I said weakly. I felt entirely undeserving of the praise. In the eyes of Figuelo, I was a kid who made a mature choice that possibly spared his daughter the horrors Jusep went through. How would he feel if he knew the grown man responsible for his child indirectly contributed to the maiming of another?

Objectively, I knew that was a harsh stance to take against myself, but sometimes emotions don’t give a flying fuck about objectivity. I needed to do better - be better. I felt the mana in my core stir in response to that conviction.

“You did more than you know,” Figuelo rebutted, his tone serious. “I know Bella is not a fan of secrets, but would you be okay if I share one with you?” He made a show of looking over his shoulder, as if he expected his daughter to materialize at the scandal. I liked Figuelo, there was something earnest about the man despite his eccentricities, or perhaps because of them.

“Sure,” I replied. I tried smiling, but it didn’t reach my eyes.

“What you did was very brave. Not everyone would have done the same - even some adults I know.” I almost scoffed at the ridiculousness of that. Yeah, there were psychopaths out there who would watch a kid run alone into a potentially dangerous situation, but I liked to believe most people were decent. Besides…

“It is not like I knew the fueha were out there.”

“That…” Figuelo looked like my response had knocked him off his rhythm. There was something about the fueha attack the adults were hiding from us, I just hadn’t had a chance to figure it out yet. “You knew there might be wolves though, right?” Reluctantly, I nodded. “And foxes? Or bears?” I nodded again and Figuelo smiled triumphantly. “Yet still you rushed after your friend. Why?”

It felt odd that people perceived my relationship with the other children as friendship, not that I could dismiss the title without causing offense.

“Because it was the right thing to do.” I could see what Figuelo was trying to sell. I wasn’t buying it.

“Exactly,” he nodded sagely. “Your first instinct was to do what you could to help. That sounds pretty special to me.” My lack of a response caused the man to deflate somewhat, which made me feel like a bit of an ass. “Just promise me you will think about it, okay?”

“Okay, I can do that.” All things considered, it was the right thing to say. Figuelo left to fetch everyone else in a better mood than I would have otherwise left him in.

I can’t let myself off the hook that easily, though… not yet, anyway. It wasn’t much, but it was a start. It was a seed.