Levin’s POV

 

This had been a terrible day. A terrible couple of days. Levin had been having a hard time adjusting to his new status as a baby. He also found it strange being a boy now, but strangely that was the easier of the two changes to accept. He would never have thought that, but being a baby was really hard, so suddenly being a boy was really not much in comparison. Aerien kept assuring him he would get used to it ever since he revealed he was originally a girl in his last life, and, well… she was right.

 

It turned out, Aerien was actually a boy in her last life as well. She was much much older, so a man would be the more appropriate term, maybe even an old man, but there was something about her also changing genders like him that made him feel so much closer to her than either of the others.

 

He felt comfortable with Aerien, but also, kinda intimidated. She always knew so much, but she was always using what she knew in order to help them ever since she revealed that she and her sister were also from Earth. It turned out these twin elf girls him and Rolwen were put in charge of were just the welcome faces they needed in this strange world.

 

Aerien always had them playing some weird finger game she said was to improve coordination. It was frustrating how hard it actually was to do this little game, she said it was because our brains were not developed right in these small bodies and this would speed it up. Him and Rolwen were getting better at it too. Aerien said it was because their neurons were growing. Just doing the exercise and then resting afterward would make their nerves grow very fast, and during the time they rested they would find they had improved a lot.

 

These exercises helped a lot. After only a week, him and Rolwen were both able to move in their baby bodies a lot more easily. Then, one day, after Aerien had taught them all their exercises, Aerien’s sister Gaerien talked about something called cultivation. It was very strange, but the thing that surprised Levin even more about it was the fact that Rolwen seemed to know about it. He said he read about it in some kind of internet book he called a web novel. He said some weird stuff about it, but then Gaerien made it so it made a bit more sense.

 

Basically, like our exercises to grow our nerves, cultivation was a kind of exercise that grew your spirit. This was a world with elves and magic, and apparently growing your spirit with this cultivation thing was how you got better at magic.

 

This was strange, but it made sense. The really strange thing though was finding out Aerien, the one he had come to rely on so much more, apparently had some kind of split personality thing or something where her other personality was an actual baby who started appearing only after she was reborn in this life. That was weird, it almost sounded like her second life was different from ours, maybe... Levin didn’t know about how this whole reincarnation thing worked, but maybe unlike them Aerien’s body already had a spirit when her previous life spirit went into this body? That was the theory Levin was going with anyway.

 

Well, after telling us all about this cultivation stuff, that was when Levin found out about Aerien’s baby personality. Gaerien said the old man personality had to do some important work inside her spirit and the baby personality would be in control of her body until then. The baby personality was actually older than her body somehow, apparently she had matured quickly because of the old man personality. She could talk, and she was a lot like a toddler. Since the older Aerien personality had already trained her body, she was also able to move like a toddler, so the comparison fit pretty well.

 

She was adorable like this, but it still made Levin feel kinda depressed he didn’t get the adult Aerien around. Seeing her act like a little kid now was kinda disturbing. Well, normally you would be more disturbed seeing a baby act like an adult, but Levin had already come to rely on Aerien like a mother… or… father? It was really confusing, this whole reborn as the opposite gender thing. Well, Aerien said that now she was definitely a girl and Levin was definitely a boy, and they had to get used to that idea. So, that’s that. Aerien is like a mother, or at leas the older personality is… even though he has to carry her around everywhere like a little baby.

 

It took quite a while, around 2 weeks or something like that, but the older Aerien finally came back. It was good to have her back, but… it didn’t last very long. A short time after that, a man broke into their room from the window. They were told by that little fairy thing that they should run downstairs, but for some reason Aerien stayed. He tried to get her, but somehow, even with her little body she threw him to the ground. At first Levin thought he had only tripped, but he tripped on top of Aerien and somehow she remained standing.

 

What came next though was the thing that made him absolutely sure he had not just tripped. She started a baby walk toward the guy as he reached for her, and she dived forward. It looked like a normal baby walking, but Levin could see something in her eyes. It was not the innocent exploring look that a baby normally has. Her eyes were focused on something. She held onto his leg as the guy picked her up. He did not see her take the knife, but he did notice she did something strange.

 

Next, the guy started acting weird. Aerien started punching him with only one arm, and he acted like her baby punches really hurt. However, Levin could see that something was very wrong. When Aerien’s mother came and pushed the guy, or rather, got pushed by the guy and then the guy staggered back, that was when Levin finally saw it.

 

As Aerien rolled off of the guy, her side was covered in blood, and so were her hands. That was when he saw the knife for the first time, the man reached for her and she stabbed the knife right through his hand. All of a sudden, a lot of things suddenly made sense. That was why she brought her hands near the guy’s head when he collapsed to the ground, she had cut his neck with that knife. She had blood on her chest too, did she stab him in the body while he was holding her?

 

She was only a little baby, but she was somehow fighting an adult man to the death and winning! She stabbed the guy’s hand, and then his leg, and it looked like she had won. But, suddenly, something really strange happened. She started screaming. At that time, Levin had suspected the worst. Maybe… some of that blood all over Aerien was actually from her!

 

After her mother picked her up and ran out of the room, he was so scared and didn’t know what to think. He tried to go over to the stairs, but when he was there he was told to stop by a grown up version of that faery thing to stop and that Aerien’s mother would come and get him if he wanted to see Aerien. He didn’t know where this strange woman came from, it was confusing, but what she said turned out to be true. A short time later, Aerien’s mother came into the room looking really scared and grabbed him.

 

She was very rough, and it hurt the way she had picked him up. But, she brought him and put him on top of a table next to Aerien. She was not moving anymore, and that made him really really afraid. He went over close enough to see her, but since that Ether guy was already over her and doing something that looked like this world’s equivalent of what a doctor does, maybe a healing spell or something, he decided not to disturb him and just let him work.

 

Aerien did not look injured in any way, but maybe Ether guy had already healed her, but she was not waking up. He started talking to Aerien’s mother. He couldn’t really figure out exactly what he was saying, there were several words he said like something about her “fea,” an elven word he had never heard before, and also that she probably did something to do with “val poika en' yala,” whatever that means. All he knew was that they were some elven words he had never heard before.

 

When Aerien’s mom carried her back down stairs, and dragged him along with her, (she didn’t really seem to care that it hurt the way she held his hand,) he heard from Gaerien that the fairy thing had talked to her and told her what they were talking about up there. Apparently, they thought Aerien had burned out her spirit by summoning too much power, it seems they thought she had some kind of energy summoning magic that she over used.

 

Gaerien did not think this was what really happened, but she had to talk to Aerien first to be sure. Apparently, because they are twins, they have some way of talking to each other that will even work with the way Aerien is now, but she has to be touching her in order to do it.

 

When Gaerien tried to talk to Aerien, she got hugged by her mother. She really didn’t like it. Levin didn’t blame her. That woman had been yelling at him and Rolwen to stay next to her for Aerien ever since she came down. She wouldn’t let go of Aerien, and she kept crying. Levin understood she was sad about it and wanted her to be Ok. He knew Aerien had wanted her mother to accept her before, and it looked like she finally had. And also, Levin really didn’t want anything bad to happen to Aerien, but right now their mother was acting really scary.

 

In his past life, when he was a teenager, he, or rather she at the time, was not as strong as his… her parents. However, she was not afraid of them. Now, as a baby, an adult was really scary, especially when they were angry and acting crazy like this. She was just way way stronger than him as a baby, and she kept hurting him whenever she grabbed him. He thought it was good at first when she was holding Aerien all the time, but now he was becoming more and more afraid of her and did not want to be anywhere near this crazy monster of a woman.

 

Gaerien never said why, but she seemed to hate her a lot as well. It wasn’t that she was afraid, she just hated her. Maybe she was mad that she kept rejecting Aerien, it had been really sad seeing the way the baby Aerien personality always cried when her mother ignored her. Or, maybe she was mad at her for how she was treating him and Rolwen right now. Gaerien was kinda weird about Rolwen. She would not let Levin touch her at all, but she was Ok with Rolwen apparently because he had always been holding her since around the time she was born. It had always been this way. That was really the reason why Levin always held Aerien, it was because Gaerien wouldn’t let him hold her.

 

Gaerien had a lot of very weird things about her, but she did still seem to care about all of them. Anyway, when she stopped crying, she said this whole thing about burning out her spirit was really not far from the truth. The reason was different, apparently it was something about Aerien’s cultivation being strong in her previous life, it tried to catch up in this life, and the little baby personality’s spirit couldn’t handle it. Right now, the older Aerien is fine, but she is trying as hard as she can to keep her own baby side alive.

 

Levin was very relieved to find out Aerien was going to be alive no matter what. It didn’t really strike him as that big a thing to loose one of your personalities like that, it seemed like maybe that might be a good thing actually, but he did not want to say that out loud. Aerien was asleep because she really did not want to loose that side of herself. Levin knew that his thoughts were bad, but he could not really comprehend the urgency of it. This made him a bit more resentful of the woman holding him and Rolwen next to her, making it so they couldn’t move and always yelling at them.

 

She was becoming more and more scary. She started yelling at Ether guy about how horrible she was, and all the time Levin couldn’t help but just be scared because she was yelling no matter what it was she was yelling about. He just wanted to cry half the time. This mean woman was always yelling, and she wouldn’t let them run around and play at all. He understood she was afraid for Aerien, but only one of them should be enough for that right? Actually, because of that special meditation Aerien told them about, they shouldn’t actually need either of them. Gaerien had said it was still working as the older Aerien was still fine, so there was actually no reason for him and Rolwen to be holding her like this.

 

They had been riding in a wagon now, Gaerien said the person pulling the wagon was apparently a changeling who could turn into an Ox. Levin hadn’t seen him, but he had heard his voice as he talked to Ether guy from outside the wagon.

 

After a while, Ether guy and Aerien’s mom got into another fight where she kept saying how bad she was. These were pretty weird fights. Yeah, you are horrible, you’re really scary! Now, please stop acting crazy! During the fight this time, Ether guy tried to touch Gaerien. She smacked his hand away just like she always does when Levin tries, but then when she tried to get away from him she started crying. Well, that has happened before as well. Being a baby seems to have made it easier for all of them to start crying even though they are a lot older on the inside.

 

Ether guy picked her up to take her outside, probably to calm her down. Well, that’s not going to work. If he knows Gaerien, she’s going to absolutely HATE that. Sure enough, after a little while she started yelling at him in Elven to put her down. At about the same time, he saw the changeling for the first time. He looked… weird. His hair was white, and his skin was blue, but the strangest thing about him was those huge black alien-like eyes. Seriously, those gigantic eyes that were completely black totally reminded Levin of some pictures of aliens. “The greys” he thought they were called. They seemed a little smaller than those aliens, but they were still a LOT bigger than a human’s or an elf’s eyes.

 

He didn’t stay long. He just picked up a staff from inside the wagon and went back out. He said some things to Ether guy while he was arguing with Gaerien. No, the term would probably be getting yelled at by Gaerien. Poor Ether guy never stood a chance. Eventually, he just gave up and Gaerien was brought back to the wagon just like she wanted. Oddly enough, it was actually the changeling again who brought her back.

 

They didn’t see Ether guy for a while after that, but when he came back he had a nasty looking cut on his chin. He seemed to ignore it though, and then he did something that made Levin absolutely love the guy. He told him and Rolwen they could get away from Aerien’s mom! They were both very eager to do this. After that, he put Aerien in their laps. It looked like they would still need to pretend to be helping Aerien with spirit energy and stuff she didn’t actually need, but that was Ok as long as they could finally be away from the scary lady over there, but something DID seem wrong with Aerien now that he had the chance to look.

 

He had never really noticed before when she was being held by Aerien’s mom, but something seemed really different about her now. She looked the same as always when Aerien’s mom dragged him up stairs to sit next to her on that table, but now she really looked different. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it though. She kinda looked… skinnier maybe? He looked up to Gaerien. Her and Gaerien were twins, so they should look the same. They didn’t though. Yes, Aerien definitely looked skinnier, but that was not all.

 

Levin was starting to figure it out now. He put his hands under Aerien’s shoulders and legs like he was going to pick her up in a princess-carry. Using his arms to measure her, he was absolutely sure of it now. She was bigger. She was almost as big as him now. There was no way he would be able to hold her like he used to now, not with her this big.

 

He decided to say this, to point it out to Gaerien and ask her about it. She probably knew more about this than any of them.

 

“Well, of course she is.” Was the immediate response Gaerien gave. “She advanced her cultivation farther than her body could handle. So, her body has to catch up now. It’s probably a good thing she’s asleep right now, growing at this kind of speed would probably hurt a lot.”

 

Wow! That’s right, Gaerien DID say something once about how cultivation could make you grow faster! So, Aerien was going to get bigger now? How much bigger though? After only one day, she was already starting to get close to being as big as him and Rolwen. Was she going to keep growing? It would be really weird if suddenly she was big enough to pick HIM up. Somehow, he didn’t really want her to get THAT much bigger. That would be incredibly embarrassing.

 

Meanwhile, as they were talking about this, Ether guy and Aerien’s mom were saying something about human names and when Ether guy changed their diapers. That was a pretty embarrassing subject Levin didn’t really want to think about, so he tried to ignore it.

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Subscribers comments of the chapter

"Aerien was mom zoned!!! But dang I was hoping that would be a potential love interest. But I guess it would be odd being in a relationship with what is basically "food"."

                                                                        -meowingLexi

"we shall see many storys i have seen have something like that but it fades with age."

                                                                        -Roy

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Debates about Levin's viability as a love interest and Roy's atrocious grammar aside, I just realized maybe I should use something other than quotation marks to indicate the subscribers' quotes. It makes it a little weird when they also use quotes in their comment.