The plan was simple: 2 months after my birthday in the month of Rebirth (this world’s equivalent to January, the first month of the year), in the month of Winds, I woke up in the middle of the night after telling my parents that “I didn’t feel well.” Could I just have asked my father to see his library? Yes. Am I an idiot who’s too anxious to explain to them that I have an adult reading level at 2 years old? Also yes! Either way, I was sure that this would be easy, I mean what could go wrong with a small child sneaking around the house at the dead hours of the morning to sneak into her father’s library for that sweet lore. 

Could I really call it lore if this wasn’t a fictional world? I guess it’s like… real life lore? I’m getting off track again, time to hatch the plan. I slowly crack open my bedroom door, clad only in my usual night dress (Really just some random cloth mom stitched together that wasn’t quite nice enough to wear during the day but also comfortable enough to wear at night) and barefoot. At my size I didn’t even really need to tiptoe to be silent. Across the common room and a few doors down from my parents bedroom lies the prize, or, lore?

Just reach for the doorknob… c’mon short ass body! Ok… and it’s locked. Of course it’s locked. Alright well unless I suddenly learn how to lockpick this door is unopenable without dad. Guess I should just go to bed. I start to walk back towards my room when I hear my parents door open, and who else is it but the towering image of my father, the same gatekeeper of precious books I needed. 

“Aria? What are you doing up kiddo?”

“Uh- I, bathroom? Yeah! Bathroom… definitely bathroom!” 

“Mmmm… hmmmm. What are you really doing, Little Song?” Oh dammit, he knows I can’t lie to him when he calls me that nickname. 

“I was kinda trying to sneak into your study to read.”

“Really? You know most of the books in that room are for adults, right?” He paused for a second, “I could’ve sworn I told you that…”

“You did, and I kinda didn’t listen because well, I can read at an adult level.”

“Hahaha!” He reached down and patted my head. “Maybe in a few years when you go off to school, you’re a pretty smart kid already.”

“Dad, I speak common at the same level you do and I’m only two. Is it really that hard to think I could teach myself how to read too?”

“But how? Your only experience reading is when your mom reads those fairy tales to you?”

“Well once you match the phonetics to the letters of the alphabet, it isn’t exactly hard, and then to understand new words you kinda just need to use context clues…” Granted, the amount of new words I’ve stumbled on have just been a few names and fantastical concepts originating from this world. Or perhaps even from Earth. Apparently the Goddess of Humanity is known by many as “The Lady Hito” which just screams someone who either spoke Japanese or was a huge anime fan in life. It’s kinda an adorable name though, if I see her again I might have to call her that….

Dad was pretty much lost for words after that. I suppose I either made sense or wowed him enough that he just kinda gave up. Eventually he replied, “Ok fine, I believe you. But no reading from my library tonight. Go back to bed you little genius!” He followed me back to my room and tucked me in, leaving me with a kiss on the forehead and a “Goodnight, Little Song.” 

I spent the next half hour crying. I never got to be my parent’s little girl like that in my old life. I can’t even remember the last time I had a hug from my old dad before I died. Just cold and empty “goodnights” between us. These little moments that I dreamed of in my old life, I have them now. I’m just… me. Aria, with her father’s bright and shining green eyes, and her mother’s dark hair with purple ends. The same little mischievous smile that runs on both sides. I feel proud to be their daughter. And I want to make them proud to be my parents. I never had that… before. Perhaps even more than being able to live as myself, I’m happy to live with them. 

It helps that he didn’t get mad at me for sneaking around the house either, but I’m not telling him that!

***

In the morning I could tell immediately that my plan backfired. I fell back to sleep and definitely overslept by at least 3 hours. The light of morning peered through my bedroom window and I guessed it had to be around 10 or 11. 

Groggy and tired, I made my way into the common, still in my pajamas of course, because who's going to tell me I can’t wear my pajamas? I’m a 2 year old! Not like I ever leave the house yet anyway. I almost did once, about around the beginning of winter when it wasn’t too cold yet in the evening. I sat out on the porch watching the first snow of the year with a blanket dwarfing my small body. I about got up and walked around in our grassy fields, but mom came out with a kind of hot chocolate and watched the snow with me until it was time for us to go to bed. 

Dad was out relaxing with a book, as he usually does in the mornings before training a bit with his sword and then making his way out to the farmlands. This is my time to meditate! He told me with a bright smile. You better find your own time to think when you get older, it’s how you can think on all the big decisions in life. If only he knew. That night sitting on the porch? I spent most of it thinking about everything that has happened in this new life. In my old life I had many like it. It’s how I figured out I was trans when I was 15. Or how I broke through my father’s manipulation and realized what he was doing to me wasn’t normal. How I grieved over my mother. That was my meditation. 

Dad heard my tiny footsteps walk into the room and his gaze shifted from his book Alchemy for Alcoholics–which I silently hoped wouldn’t get him into trouble later–to meet my eyes. “Mornin’ Aria! Did you sleep ok? You look a bit tired. Are you still not feeling well?”

“I actually overslept, I think. How’s the book?”

“It’s good! Some of it requires the use of magic though, so I don’t think I’ll be able to do much with it.” Magic? Just for alcohol? I don’t see the appeal, but to each their own. Magic was something I didn’t know much of yet in this world, other than that it was a learned skill. It actually is one of the first things I want to look into in the study.

“Mom and I are saved then! We’d hate for you to blow up the house just to make some weird drink. You aren’t secretly an alcoholic are you?” The question was laced with sarcasm, but I was only half joking.

“Ah- Aria! How dare you doubt your poor father like this?” I… have good reason to. It happens when you live almost two decades under the same roof as an alcoholic father. Goddess my head goes to dark places when I’m tired. I shook my head a little. Back to this life Aria, not the last one. 

“Aria? Are you alright?” 

“Oh, sorry dad, I’m fine, just kinda zoned out for a second.”

“You’re fine, I was asking if you still wanted to use my study still.”

“Yeah I do!”

Authors note:

Sorry it took a few days for me to get this chapter out! My best friend got me into Final Fantasy XIV and I've been a bit... distracted by it. Should have at least a couple more chapters this week at least.