Draken Residence, Mt Kailash, The Day After Tanya’s First Birthday

Tanya opened her eyes to the sounds of music and laughter. During her birthday, her mom played her a variety of uplifting songs, some of which had...questionable lyrics. After the whole day of joy and play, she was sung another birthday song.

Except, this song, even to Tanya’s ears which were not to parse the full extent of the sheer pirate-ness in the thing, could tell that the song was not meant for those whose age can be counted in not one hand, not two hands, barely for those whose age can be counted in three hands.

(Credit where credit’s due, though I did tweak a bit-

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdbhfpF3NA0&ab_channel=CharlesIvanovic)

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you

Well, it's time to celebrate your birthday, it happens every year
We'll eat a lot of broccoli and drink a lot of beer
You should be good and happy that there's something you can eat
A million people every day are starving in the street

Your daddy's in the gutter with the wretched and the poor
Your mama's in the kitchen with a can of Cycle Four
There's garbage in the water
There's poison in the sky
I guess it won't be long before we're all gonna die

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you

Well, what's the matter little friend? You think this party is the pits?
Enjoy it while you can, we'll soon be blown to bits
The monkeys in Marie Jois are gonna cook our goose
Their finger's on the button, all they need is an excuse

It doesn't take a military genius to see
We'll all be crispy critters after another big War
There's nowhere you can run to, nowhere you can go
When they drop the big one, we all get fried
Come on, boys and girls, sing along, okay?

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you (wow!)

Well, there's a punk in the alley and he's looking for a fight
There's an Arab on the corner buying everything in sight
There's a mother in the ghetto with another mouth to feed
Seems that everywhere you look today there's misery and greed

I guess you know the earth is gonna crash into the sun
But that's no reason why we shouldn't have a little fun
So if you think it's scary, if it's more than you can take
Just blow out the candles and have a piece of cake

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you (wow!)

Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you
Happy birthday
Happy birthday to you

And a pinch to grow an inch!

And on that particularly tone-deaf note, the song ended.

I mean, I’m not even over a foot tall! Or so I think. I’ll ask mom when I get older.

Maybe I can try by speaking to her? It’s about time after all...

I wanted my first words to be more mature, or at least, that would be the better route according to my other self whose ‘better route’ had led her down a variety of goose chases culminating in dying to unknown causes that were so extreme that her last years have been erased from her memory.

Tanya might be a baby who was still a tiny bits away from walking her first steps, and a tiny mite from speaking her first words, but she still had the special something that would make her unique.

She had a prodigious level of intelligence considering her... everything.

She was a one year old who is capable of speaking to adults and having a fully rational conversation. Despite the various impossibilities of her existence, she was a real being with a level of intelligence that had never before been theorized for a one year old.

What did Tanya do with this miraculous level of intelligence that she had earned in a life now forgotten?

She locked her intelligence away.

She locked the talent that defined her previous self, that propelled her prior self to heights ordinary people would not dare to dream about.

Tanya Von Draken did this for one simple reason.

Tanya Von Degurechaff was many things.

A military genius, a child prodigy, the perfect soldier, one whose talents might never appear again in the Empire, or the world.

Tanya Von Degurechaff was known by many names.

The White Silver, The Rusted Silver, The Devil of The Rhine.

But, for all her fame, for all her glory, Tanya Von Draken had one thing Tanya Von Degurechaff never did, and never got the chance to have.

Tanya Viktoriya Oksana Nicholaus D. Raken had her mom.

That simple difference changed oh so little.

And yet, it changed everything.

Tanya Von Draken had no need for things like prodigious intelligence, a drive so powerful it overruled the need for a conscience, and other things that had been the markings of the path tread upon by her previous self.

Tanya Von Draken had seen where following her previous self, Tanya Von Degurechaff’s path would lead her.

Logic would dictate that she take another path, which would lead to a better outcome.

There was no such guarantee her that her mother would protect her future.

But Tanya was still an infant, if just in body and not in mind. So she did what all infants do without exception.

She chose to trust her mother and entrusted upon Oksana’s petite shoulders the entirety of the weight that her future and all that entails carries.

Oksana felt something change in her daughter after she sang her song, unaware of the lengthy thought processes her young daughter just went through.

She felt no additional weight on her shoulders. She was Tanya’s mother after all, and she carried the burden of aiming her one-of-a-kind daughter down the path where she could shine brightest, living a bright life, like a star.

Oksana was aware of her daughter’s talents, to at least some extent.

Oksana had long before decided that, in the event of gaining a prodigious daughter, she would raise her as she would a disciple. She would do her utmost to polish the gem that was her daughter such that she shone atop the biggest stage there was, and ever would be.

The Seven Seas.

And so time went by, unconcerned by the pain caused to those who were hurt by its passing.

Tanya had just turned three years old.

Her birthday was a much more chaotic affair than it had been barely two years, or even a year prior.

On her second birthday, Oksana sang her the birthday song as she did before on her first birthday, but this time, she added more instruments, each floating in the air and livening up the room with the music they created.

It was, in Tanya’s own words, a spectacular, fabulous, fantastic experience.

This was reinforced when she received her very first birthday gift, ever.

It was a very small, downsized to scale veela. It played exactly like the real thing, but it was smaller.

Tanya learned her very first instrument from her mom. It was not to be the last.

On her third birthday, and the most chaotic one to date, Tanya listened to the other birthday song, sung by her father, with a warning attached to the beginning.

She may have heard it before, in bits and pieces, but she had not listened to the song in its entirety.

And oh boy, she loved the new song. The jingle, the rhythm, the beat, she loved them all.

The thing she loved the most in the song however, were the lyrics.

The lyrics, if stated to the Tanya of another day and age, would have either caused her to laugh hysterically, or shoot herself in the head out of sheer helplessness at her situation.

But now, while listening to her dad singing to her from a past era a song that would have drowned her in pessimism, now did just one thing to her and one thing only.

It made her laugh, smile, and optimistic of her future.

It did not matter if there would be another Great War, if the world itself was set to die, or if some pesky merchant outsmarted her and bought her stuff at an insultingly low price.

All she had to do was to live her life like there would be no tomorrow, consequences be damned.

And in making this choice, Tanya felt an easily perceivable change in herself. She learned to laugh from her heart.

Her new smiles always made her mom drop down and hysterically clutch her chest and wheeze hard, for whatever reason that apparently Tanya would not understand.

Oksana could not control herself whenever she saw Tanya try new types of smiles and always unintentionally end up smiling in a manner extremely reminiscent of her husband, a grown man who appeared to be in his mid 40’s.

Oksana had once prided herself over her impeccable control of her face and body language, but her pride was nothing of a two year old cute girl trying to smile ‘seriously’ to not be called cute, and only ending up cuter.

No matter how scary a smile she put on, Tanya was but a three year old girl. She would be the cutest little thing in the world, with highly pinchable cheeks.

And so, time passed the pair by.

On her third birthday, Tanya was just as chubby and adorable as ever.

Over her fourth year in life, Tanya received two tiny wooden swords from her mother, and they regularly played together, with mother and child each holding two swords each and going through various exercises.

On her fourth birthday, what Tanya received was a pair of beautifully carved sword sheathes with intricate designs.

They fit the wooden swords she carried snugly. The patterns on the hilt of the swords perfectly matched that of the sheathes, like they were meant for each other.

That night, the night of her fifth birthday, Tanya and her mother slept under the stars painted by her mom on the ceiling of the living room.

It was a transient experience.

Tanya decided that she would travel the world, leaving her name as a great adventurer, roleplaying as such in front of her mom, vanquishing some evil monster or the other.

Oksana laughed and told her beloved daughter, ‘No matter what, remember that your parents will always be by your side. Always.’

Tanya smiled and promptly fell on the makeshift bed her mom had prepared for her, snoring softly as she did so, even before her head hit the bed.

On her sixth birthday, Tanya was given her very first errand. She was to fetch a pail of fresh spring water by following the path that her mother had marked for her.

She had a week to fulfill her task.

Tanya hopped, skipped, and jumped across the hurdles that fully grown men decently trained in the arts of waging war could not.

She was given nothing but the bucket to carry the water back to the Draken residence and she came back looking for all intents and purposes healthier than before she set out.

Oksana took one look at her, at the bucket filled with crystal clear water and smiled widely.

On Tanya’s seventh birthday, she was allowed to play the full size veela. She did so beautifully.

On Tanya’s eighth birthday, she learnt another language, it had no name except for having a weird trait such as having two written scripts instead of the normal one.

On Tanya’s ninth birthday, she sparred with her mother for the very last time. She won for the very first time.

Oksana rubbed her hands at her kid beating her in a contest of pure skill, and smiled. It was not often that children surpassed their parents so early in life.

In celebration of the event, she gifted her daughter a pendant with silver angel wings.

She loved it to death, and immediately wore it around her neck. She promised she would never take it off.

Then, throughout her tenth year of life, Oksana slowly but steadily directed her learnings towards the scholarly rather than thew martial way, to balance her learning curve.

Oksana did not have much time left.

How time passed her by, it was already Tanya’s birthday.

For this great event, to celebrate, she would teach her daughter of the fruits bestowed upon mortal men, doomed to die by the Tree of Life, and those who stole the gift bestowed unto them, earning the curse of never stepping foot unto the Tree’s domain.

So much to teach, so little time...

No matter what will happen, this day, the tenth nameday of Tanya, would be the biggest event yet.