The man broke into one of the brightest smiles I've ever seen in my entire life and flashed from his spot to right where my father was holding me. Snatching me out of his hands and supporting my head with his right hand, he looked down at me warmly. This close, I could see him in more detail and noticed the smile wrinkles that lined parts of his face and that the black beard on his chin leading up both sides of his jaw had specks of grey. His golden eyes watched my face, and I heard myself let out a giggle. It was seriously a problem not being able to control my reactions to things. I had all the muscle memory needed to walk, run and even fight, but my body would not respond to what my brain told it to do.

By his appearance, he seemed to be in his late forties or early fifties, but his eyes seemed much wiser. Perhaps he was an uncle or even my father's father, making him my grandpa. My mother said something to everyone in the room, and when my uncle/grandpa heard it, I suddenly started floating over to her; I felt something supporting my head even while I drifted over to my mother. It was so sudden I let out another giggle, which seemed to amuse my uncle/grandpa greatly because right after that, no less than twenty glowing orbs of water started orbiting me. They moved up and down, some were spinning, and others would seem to crash into each other, making a bigger bubble. I let out another wail, this time completely voluntarily, while I had come to my own conclusion that particles could be given physical form; I'd never imagined for even a second that this was possible. I tried opening my sixth sense and regretted it immediately. Looking at my uncle/grandpa was akin to staring at the sun; the particles of white for wind and blue for water swarmed around him in an oval all around his body. Every movement of the particles seemed refined and perfected as if they had been circling his body forever.

And in the middle of it all was the true sun, right underneath where his heart would be was a ball of light so bright I could barely comprehend what I was seeing. If my soul was a house, then his was a skyscraper; it was like comparing a bedside lamp to a helicopter spotlight. I could see that he didn't let a single stray particle out of the casing around his body; it stayed with him at all times, not even leaving anything in the air where he had previously walked. Then, I felt some sort of fatigue set in, draining on not just my physical health, but my mental stamina as well. My sixth sense collapsed, the room returned to its previous colors, and my grandpa/uncle was no longer a sun; my eyelids felt heavy and my mind weary.

I reached my mother, and she said something once more before everyone other than the seemingly head maid left the room. She held me in her arms and starting singing a light lullaby; I don't know why I felt so exhausted, and I'm not sure if it was my baby instincts or not, but I closed my eyes and fell asleep, feeling more peaceful than I had in years.

It's been about six months since I was born into this world, and I've been hard at work and extremely busy.

"Ma...m..a," I spoke to my mother, who was currently holding me in her lap, and pointed at one of the mini-pastries set on the table. My mother, whose name, by the way, was Alecia Quinly, looked down at me with a wide-eyed expression of shock.

I had been practicing my language ability by trying to read this world's books, which were ridiculously heavy. It helped that my mother would read to me sometimes before bed but if I were alone I would struggle to turn a page. Anyway, that was the first time I'd ever spoken any words, so I figured she would hand me an extra pastry for saying her name before anything else. However, contrary to my expectations, she either completely ignored the hand I had pointed in the direction of the pastries or didn't notice because instead, she let out a squeak and jumped to her feet so fast I was almost thrown to the floor. She held me up to her face and kissed my forehead repeatedly before yelling across the estate to my father. I had a decent grasp of what other people were saying, even if a few words were still difficult, and I could have sworn she said something under her breathe about how she'd won a bet.

I let out a wail to refocus her attention on me; once she looked down at me, I once again pointed towards the table with the pastries. There was no way she couldn't understand this; I'd won. This was when my biological father decided to walk into the room.

His name was Nicholas Quinly and the apparent Earl of the entire Lake Clarity area. If you couldn't have already guessed, Lake Clarity was what they called the clear lake, which in my opinion, was criminally simplistic. The city we lived in had a population of around three hundred thousand and was also called Clarity; Nicholas ruled over them all.

In case you're unaware, an Earl was one of five noble titles. In descending order of most important to least important, the five titles given to nobles were Duke, Marquis, Earl, Viscount, and finally Baron. Duke was the most important and were only overruled by Kings, some royalty members, and Emperors. Most dukes were members of the royal families anyway. Marquis were right below Dukes, almost always a hereditary title, and ruled land bordering another country. For example, where I came from, Niagra Falls was on the US and Canada border. If someone was in control of that area, they would be considered a Marquis. Next up was an Earl. Earls were simply nobles who ranked above Viscounts but below Dukes and Maquis. Viscount was a rank above Baron and below everything else. Barons were nobles that owned land on, say, a small farming village; they were of little importance but still considered nobles.

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Nobles are important because the King cant manage the whole kingdom by himself. He gives pieces of land to influential families to rule over. These families collect the taxes from the citizens of their area and hand it back to the King.

I explain all this because it took me almost two weeks of reading to figure out what the point of these people was and what it meant that I was one of them. I found out that in most cases, succession as head of house went to the eldest son, which was not me. I had an elder brother named Calvin Quinly; he had just turned three years old last week on December 32nd of the year 1004, meaning he was born in 1001. My birthday happened to be on June 22nd of the year 1004. It didn't have a horrible ring to it, so I didn't mind. Also, while there were still twelve months in a year, there were 408 days in a year, 34 days per month. I'm unsure as to why both this world and my world have such similar calendars, but I decided I wouldn't worry about it for now.

Anyway, Nicholas walked in, and my mother wasted zero time explaining how I'd said my first words so early, reminding me that I should probably be careful not to be too smart at such a young age, lest it cause me problems in the future. Nicholas appeared to be in disbelief but grinned like a madman anyway, his golden eyes and sharp features locking onto me. He scooped me up by my underarms and held me up in the air, telling me to "Say pa...pa," and about three other variations of the word dad.

I still did not want to call him anything of the sort, it felt wrong. My chest felt heavy at the mention of it, Jerry had not left my mind since I was born, and his dream to live together happily weighed on my heart. I wondered what even gave me the will to survive as a soul, it was painful and mentally exhausting. Yet I persevered through it and ended up here, in an incredibly rich family, a world with magic and other strange creatures, and most of all, a loving family. I wondered if he too got the chance to have a second try, if anyone deserves it, it's him, and I hoped we'd somehow meet again someday.

I looked over at the pastries in reply, their velvety sauce and small stature even more appealing than before, and raised a hand to once again point to them. It was much easier to think of tasty pastries than the tragedy of Jerry's murder. So if he could manage to hand me a pastry, maybe, just maybe, I'd indulge him. He followed the path of my small hand, and for a time, I truly believed Nicholas to be amazing. However, my opinion of him instantly began to crash and burn when he instead picked up the family pet, who was curled up on the floor near the table where the heavenly pastries were located, and walked over to me. Hubert the Half Griffon in his arms. Hubert was an exotic pet that only the rich could afford and appeared nearly exactly as his name implied, a Griffon. He had the head, hind legs, and tail of a lion with two black wings extending from his back. The "half" part of his name came from his size, which was a little smaller than the average housecat.

Hubert let out a low-pitched mewl in response to being woken up and carried over to a baby who just wanted some pastries. While I had wanted the treats on the table, even I had to admit Hubert was adorable. Back when I was homeless, I would constantly play with the stray cats who approached me and even feed them sometimes if I had enough to go around. Nicholas set him down beside me at about eye level. He leveled his gaze onto me, his multicolored eyes twinkling with seemingly vast intelligence. If he didn't look like such an adorable little thing, I'd probably be terrified. But with his one red and one blue eye and white tip at the end of his tail, he just looked too cute to be taken seriously. He let out another mewl, seemingly done examing me, and curled up beside me, closing his eyes.

I moved to scratch behind his ear, when my grandfather walked into the room. He had just opened the door when Hubert shot out of his seat beside me and unfurled his mighty (tiny) wings to fly over to him, landing happily on his head with a small purr. My grandfather was the same one who appeared to be a star when looked at in the sixth sense, which I had learned was called mana sight. So it seemed my thrown-together name of particles was classified as mana in this world. It really wasn't all that surprising; I had read books where mana was the name of magic.

I also learned that people could have an affinity for a few different forms of mana, while the rest would be more difficult to use. Most people had just one affinity, but my family, the Quinly's, were apparently famous for almost always having both wind and water mana affinity. My grandfather's name was Uther Quinly, and also coincidentally the strongest person in all of the Clarity area. He had already passed on the Head of House title to my father long ago and was mostly free to do as he wished. Apparently, he had been the second oldest of two sons and therefore hadn't even been the original successor. Choosing instead to be an adventurer-type thing, travelling around the world before his brother died and he had to succeed the family. Just two years before I was born, he had apparently fought some big-shot emperor named Lucian Apax before the apparently large war had been called to a close. His strength was also up there on the list in the entire country, which was called Ethens. Basically, he was something of a celebrity among the people, along with his companion Hubert who travelled with him. There were two local shops in Clarity that were named and branded after Hubert.

He and my parents exchanged words that I honestly wasn't paying much attention to, instead redirecting my interest once again to the delicious dessert on the table and trying to scheme a way to get my hands on them. Finally, Uther looked at me, following my gaze to the table, and walked over to hand me two beautiful pastries. I could feel a smile light my face as I held out my little baby hands for the treats.

"Tta...nks," I managed, nodding my head up and down while wolfing down the pastries. I paid no mind to the crestfallen Nicholas, who muttered something about how his name still hadn't been spoken. The velvety sauce dripped down my lips and onto my shirt, but I didn't mind; mother would clean it for me eventually, and I didn't particularly mind being doted on.

I had a second chance at life, and I certainly wasn't going to waste my babyhood. So, while I wouldn't mind having some more control over my bladder, I didn't mind staying young for a little while longer.