2 Chapter 1

The first thing I did was climb down the simply rope ladder of my loft and head down the short hallway leading to the rest of the cottage. Halfway down the hall was a simple oak door that lead into the water closet where a carefully polished plate of shiny steel hung on the wall opposite the door above a wash basin and stand. The reflection I saw in that polished steel confirmed all of my questions and worries more than the familiar layout of the building ever could.

It was my face. Not the scarred face of a grizzled warrior but the cherubic face of a small child with dark emerald green eyes staring back at me from either side of a small but pointed nose. This was my face and my body from my childhood.

Despite my appearance, I said something very UN-childlike as I asked of the empty washroom, "How the fuck?"

Questions without answers flitted through my mind as I rushed across the small room and leaned toward the mirror, closer examining my reflection for any flaws that did not match my memories. Of course, there were none. It was my face exactly as I remembered it, maybe even more properly detailed than in my memories.

I stayed in the washroom for a long time just staring at myself, time and again silently questioning how it was that I got here. Until a pair of voices at the other side of the house caught my attention with a cold chill that ran down my spine. They were voices I had only ever dreamed of hearing for almost twenty years.

I left the washroom as the voices continued softly talking back and forth and hurried down the hall to the living room adjacent the kitchen where the voices were coming from. In the kitchen I found a tall and broadly built man with reddish brown hair and dark green eyes sitting at a familiar pine table with a short woman of black hair and watery blue eyes. They were talking about sending one or the other to wake me for breakfast when we came into view of each other.

"Well, would you look at that, Hugo is already awake," my father remarks with a crooked smile, having argued that there was not much work to be done so they should let me sleep in. under normal circumstances, I would have been over the moon with joy at the prospect of getting to sleep in. However, after seeing both of their smiling faces looking back at me, the last thing in the world I wanted right now was to be asleep.

The curves of my mother's round cheeks, the strength of my father's thick neck and shoulders. The long and elegant fingers of my mother's hands, the crooked way my father smiled. The slight angle of my mother's eyes, the scars and callouses of my father's knuckles.

These were some of the many little details that time had worn away from my memory of my parents.

Something warm and wet finally freed itself from my eyes as I looked back and forth between their faces, then another something started rolling down the other side of my face. I could not believe it, here they were after all these years even though I was in the body of my child self. I took one slow and hesitant step, terrified that this was somehow a dream or vision of sorts that I would wake up from before ever having the chance to embrace them and tell them I loved them.

When the first step did not wake me, I took another even as my parents started to get up from their seats with looks of worry on their faces. They asked if I was alright and why I was crying but I could barely hear them over the hammering of the little heart in my chest pumping blood voraciously through my ears. I was too choked up to answer and reassure them that I was fine, so I just kept walking forward.

There were thin streams of warmth running down my cheeks as my parents started forward but I did not care, even if I was not a child there was no shame whatsoever in crying before one's parents. These were the people who made me, fed me, clothed me, and raised me for as long as the world allowed. What was there for me to be ashamed of?

I finally reached my parents when they came over to me and as soon as they lowered themselves to examine my body for any signs of injuries I threw either arm around their necks and hugged them tightly. Then, I just stopped fighting the tears and cried openly. They asked repeatedly if I was okay and what was happening with me for several minutes, but I just cried instead of answering.

It was a strange feeling, going from being a mercenary officer on the front lines to a crying child in my parents' arms, but there was nothing in the world that I would trade this moment for. Memories of a not so distant future flitted through my head as I held my parents. Memories of countless small and large gray-green bodies pushing forward as weapons gleamed in firelight.

Memories of watching the small town we farmed for going up in flames, memories of the sounds of dying men, women, and children. Among them were my father and dozens of other men fighting to hold back the hoard that dauntlessly converged on them. If this truly was a reality where I had become a child again, then there was a chance, a small chance, that I could keep from losing them.

"I..." I croaked hoarsely in a childishly high and breaking voice, "I love you… so much. Mom… Dad… I love you."

There was so much I wanted to say as they swallowed me up in their arms, rubbing my back and head and murmuring softly to console me. But there were no words I could find to try and explain things, to make them understand what I was feeling, so I simply told them again and again that I loved them. There did not seem to be any other words that mattered.

Finally, after several long minutes of just crying in their arms, I finally took a deep breath to steady myself before gently pushing myself out of their arms. Looking carefully from one pair of eyes to the others, I softly ask, "What… what year is this? How old am I right now?"

Both of my parents gave me looks of concern and worry, but my father soon said, "It's the six-hundred-and-twelfth year of the Matthias era. You are six years old. Is everything alright?"

Matthias was the current ruling empire governing the world, the same one I had served in the future rebellion. I was six years old. Two years.

I had two years to save my parents' lives and I WOULD do so- even at the cost of the rest of the town.

Little more than ten minutes later the three of us were silently eating breakfast. Even though they tried not to be obvious, I could feel it more than see it every time one of my parents would look at me with appraising eyes wondering what had been wrong. However, I was too busy with my thoughts to continue trying to reassure them.

Questions about how I could save my parents constantly drifted around my head. Should I convince them to sell the farm and move to a city with its own defenses? Should I make reports to the local and neighboring guilds about the small army that was probably developing even as I ate?

If we sold the farm then we would have to find a new livelihood while if I made reports nobody was likely to believe a child who lacked any credibility or proof. If I was still an adult and a silver ranked mercenary, I could easily convince the Guild to d something and even take part in the subjugation. Hell, if I was still my former self, I could seek out the enemy myself or hold them back alone in two years while the town ran away.

As it was, I was merely a weak and feebly six-year-old with no power or connections. Every time I thought about a sword in my grip, my shoulders and back would twitch slightly with reflexive urges to swing and thrust. My long and harsh years of training were still ingrained in my mind and even in this tiny body, but there was no strength in this frail body.

Maybe I would have a chance if I could use my knowledge of the future to convince others, but then my parents and many more would wonder how I knew what I knew. I did not even know I ended up coming back to this time and body so how could I try to safely explain it? The more I wracked my brain to formulate a plan the more helpless I soon felt.

"I..." I start to say as I stare down at my plate of half-eaten food, causing both of my parents to look up sharply with expectation in their eyes. I was so close to just telling them everything. Telling them about the life I remembered and everything that would happen in the following years.

But, somehow, I just could not bring myself to say the words. "I need to go outside," I say softly after almost a full minute of silence, getting up from the table without even waiting to be excused. I needed to clear my head and the best way I knew to do that was through exertion.