9: Bedtime Story

A bedtime story, don't worry, I didn't forget. What sort of story do you two usually listen to? I can't imagine any of the others being the creative type...

Ahh, life stories. I guess that makes sense, all of them have been alive way longer than I have. Life stories, life stories... I've been in here for so long that it's kind of hard to remember what happened to me in my early years. Give me a second, I'll try to remember something...

Yeah yeah, I know I'm old. At least I'm not five digits like your parents.

Alright, how about this. How I found out I was immortal! Doesn't that sound exciting?

Oh, you're actually on board for this. That's surprising. Uhhhhh, well... let me set the scene. It's a snowy day in a small village towards the outskirts of Aspuri. We lived pretty close to the border with Gheza, so it was pretty much snowing all the time. It was almost time for Sarbatori and like most other eight year olds, I was very excited.

Sarabatori is like life day, except instead of a group nap we have food, dance and song. Well, basically every human celebration has food, dance or song. What's special about Sarabatori is that everyone is made to place a gift around the largest house in the town and they're given back out randomly. Our village was using a raffle.

It's a lot of fun, trust me. I'd love for you two to get to see it yourselves. So anyway, me and my mother put our presents around the house of the one noble who decided to move in for some reason and everyone in the village sat around listening to the raffle. I managed to win a present from the nobles, the head of the house no or less, which had a magnificent scarf inside. We could have sold it for a year's worth of food, with enough left over in case of emergencies. It was one of the most beautiful things that I had ever seen and it also attracted attention from some jealous onlookers.

It was a bright blue, laced with gemstones and crafted perfectly even though it had an intricate design of snowflakes sown into it. The blue matched the blue in my mother's eyes so perfectly that...

No, it was intentional. The noble was trying to make a move on her and rigged the lottery so that I would get the scarf. He told me that letting her win it directly a little bit too forward a few days later. Anyway, after he tried to seduce my mother in front of me and his children, everyone went home at night and as is tradition, my whole family slept in one room. That's my mom, my dad, two aunts, an uncle and me all in the same room.

Well, his wife left him for eyeing up my mother too much. He didn't really care about his kids, so I'm sure he would have ditched the tradition for that night if he had managed to get through my mother's defences.

Yeah, my mom was pretty great. My father was... certain something. I'll tell you about him another day. So anyway, the next day the scarf which I had planned to give to my mom as a present was gone. I looked around the house for the whole day, but the box which I thought I put into my closet was gone. Eventually I had a hunch that my uncle had stolen it, since he was acting so suspicious.

He was smiling and being happy. My uncle never did that. After following him around for a few days, I managed to find out that he was selling the scarf so he could afford going to the capitol. So, on the night he was going to leave, I tailed him to his carriage to ambush him. I thought that if I could get it back by myself, my mom might think I was some sort of hero.

I snuck up behind him and jumped at his back, but he was a one hundred and ninety centimetre man and I was... an eight year old boy. He basically shook me off with ease and I started whingeing pretty loud once I realised I couldn't overpower him. Then he took a rock and lodged it into my skull before leaving on carriage as soon as he could.

Yeah, it was pretty shocking when I woke up. Since my powers were still developing, I woke up almost six hours later, dumped in an alleyway with a bunch of brain spattered on the dirt next to me. It wasn't exactly the best way to wake up. So anyway, eventually the village guard found me having a panic attack and took me home. Once I explained it to my mother, she told me about what I was. That I had magic.

Well, that's about it. My life isn't that interesting. I was just an average, poor villager who was born at the wrong time. Moral of the story is to not trust the creepy uncle that barges into your family.

Well shit. I guess that is me. You can trust me though, I think. Anyway, it's time for bed.

No, you can't have another story. I don't care if it's lame.

Well, I guess I won't tell you about the time my mom stabbed my dad for trying to sell us out. Or the time I was a champion at a fighting ring. Now go to sleep. You need your energy for tomorrow.