Our father and uncle casted his signature and each of us were in complete awe. You see, our Uncle Aether is the Prime Minister of Minami. Apparently, there isn’t a royal family that rules the nation, rather, the royal family of Garudora appoints someone in their family to govern it. It was a bunch of political stuff that wasn’t too interesting.

When our father and uncle finished, Myrlin and I had a plan, rather we wanted to put on a show for everyone.

Four Months Prior

Garudora, Ryudō-ShanGriLa; 17 January 4; R4

Myrlin and I found ourselves in the manor’s wine cellar, “*Iñé nayshko pényar tyndo iñé bor zyrá,” I said as I continued following my brother down the cellar.

“The coast is clear!” Myrlin whisper-shouted in English.

“Are you sure we can be here?”

My older brother shook his her and sported a smug smirk, “If we get caught, I’ve got a way to escape”.

The cellar was very dusty, but was stocked to the roof with wine crates, there had to have been at least six rows each with barrels of wine.

Myrlin climb on top of one of the standing barrels and took a seat. I explored the cellar’s many rows until I grew bored.

I met with my brother and I had a question that kept eating at me,”Myrlin, what was your past life like?”

He and raised an eyebrow to me, “Well, to put it lightly, I spent my entire life dedicating my time, energy, mental health, to one person, all for them not to acknowledge me”.

The air in the room was thick with emotional tension, “Mini, lemme ask you something”. The sudden attitude shift in his voice went from somewhat resentful to business was pretty jarring.

“Yeah?”

My brother softened his face, ”You’re a reincarnation, right?” He and I had discussed very briefly that we were reborn here, what‘s this about?

“Yeah, you know that already,” I don’t really care for when he gets all cryptic, makes him seem like one of those “Eeeeheem, Acccc-t-chew-ately” incels from the old 4chan and Reddit history lessons I learned about in grade school.

“You like music?” Myrlin’s eyes squinted as he asked.

I sucked my teeth, “Is that all? I’m from Memphis, baby I love me some music! What you wanna know?”

He snickered before clapping his hands together, “OutKast, Bombs Over Baghdad?” His face was stoic, whatever he had up his sleeve, I knew it was something serious.

“That’s literally a classic! I love Big Boi’s verse, I used to sing it with my Ma back when-,” that’s right, Ma, it had been so long since I’ve thought about you. But you don’t have to worry about me, I’m in a much better place, a place where I belong.

“It’s okay,” Myrlin said leaping off the barrel. “We don’t have to talk about the song-”.

I closed my eyes and shook my head in protest, tears of joy rolling down my face, “Please, it would make me very happy if we sang it.”

Present Day

We had decided to perform for our family Bomb Over Baghdad by OutKast. Myrlin had tried translating the song in Ryubá, but there are a lot of words that don’t have direct translation from English to Ryubá, go figure.

So, we performed the song in English, but it didn’t quite come out right, our whole lives we’ve pretty much only spoke English in private, and I guess because we both can speak the language, we can understand each other. However, when someone native to hTraé hears the language, it sounds both choppy and elongated. Nevertheless, we sang our song for everyone, and we managed to have a few folks clap along. This was after all our last night before left for Caliburn.

The Following Day

LeFey Forest, Ryudō-ShanGriLa; Diplomatic Carriage carrying the Wyllt family to The Caliburn Institute 

The trip‘s start was uneventful, we pasted by mostly foliage and vegetation. That was until a group of Lizardmen ambushed us and took Mother and Jade hostage. Myrlin thought quickly and used some weird power that stopped time, kinda like the sundial Astaroth gave me.

In this time stop space, or chamber is what MyrMyr called it allows us to moves so fast that time is basically stops. It gave us some much needed time to get accustomed to our fresh new signatures that had only recently manifested.

I wasn’t too thrilled when I found out what my signature was, shadows. It’s silly, I get it, but taking into consideration my last moments in my previous life and visions that have been haunting; safe to say shadows weren’t at the top of my list.

It wasn’t all bad though, I managed to learn a lot in the time we were in the chamber, I can grab with shadows. Manipulate other people’s shadows, and I can use them as spikes and projectiles. But with every perk, comes its downside, and because I can manipulate shadows, it means I can feel everything a shadow feels. 

Bones crunching when snapping the neck of a Lizardmen slave trader. The spiked pillars with Lizardmen organs falling from the decaying host. That was another thing, apparently, Myrlin’s time stop ability has an enemy side effect that poisons the target and corpses decay at an insane rate.

With an entire base of lizardmen disposed of, we made our way down to the dungeon where they held the captured elf slaves. Myrlin nodded his head, and each of us used our signatures to break the locks.

“*Mahadsanid, carruura jecel. Tiamat, Hooyo ee Xidiga Cuntooyinka, kugu bogaadin iyo kudbaafin,” one of the freed elves said while doing some sort of gesture that I can only describe as a praying mantra. She made a crescent shape with her right hand and wiped the corners of her eyes, and then she took two of her fingers and motioned upward from her forehead, kinda like she was making horns?

She did all this while chanting the phrase, “*Diid tusmooyinadaada ee ha dhago sumcadaha nolosha”. At the time, I didn’t know any better. I thought she was this world’s version of a Catholic, but that encounter would be one of the first of many that would set me on the path Astaroth mapped out for me.

We made our way outside and the bodies were piled up. All the of the death on my hands, and I could feel it. I ran to the nearest bush and vomited. Monspeed pat my back, “Take it easy Big Sis”. I gave him a reassuring smile and wiped my face. 

I wasn’t going to give in to my fears any more. I may not exactly like the feeling of death on my hands, but I understand that I’m going to have to overcome it. I lead Monspeed back over to the rest of our siblings.

“Did you find them?” Myrlin asked.

“No, all the cells are empty.”

When we huddled back up and went back into the chamber for the last time to look for Mother and Jade, yet something was off. It was minor, but I noticed something different as the transition into the frozen world. There was a second more massive presence here with us.

It was quick, but out of the corner of my eye I swear I felt that aura before. It kinda felt like, Father, no, Astaroth? Myrlin, it was no mistaken it, if there’s one thing I’ve learned is that most strange things can be blamed on Myrlin.

But this was weirder than weird, Myrlin, the one that was in front of me was only a year older than me; he had also been standing in front of me. The Myrlin that I caught out of the corner of my eye though, he was a full grown man. He looked a little different though, his hair was platinum-gold and he had locs, like our father. Half up-Half down, but that wasn’t all, it looked like he was running toward something.

When I came to, his presence was completely gone, everyone looked at me in confusion, “I think they may be that way,” I pointed in the direction the adult Myrlin ran to and we made our way.

The forest was easy to run through and in no time we made it to our mother, but it was too late. The leader of the lizardmen had stabbed our mother through the stomach. I ran over to her and covered the wound. There was a small bald boy standing near Jade, trembling at the sight of the blood.

I looked over at Myrlin and he looked like a completely different person. His presence matched that of the adult Myrlin’s presence I felt earlier.

The Following Morning

We took refuge in a small village that had a hospital and inn. Mother was being treated for her stab wound, the healer said she’s going to make a full recovery, that’s good.

Myrlin is still asleep though, he pushed himself to the brink yesterday, spamming his signature like that without cooling down. This was more than expected.

And then there was the elephant in the room, this boy that was with Mother and Jade. They said his name is Iniko Wyllt and that our mother adopted him. I don’t really understand why, or if Father is okay with it. But she and Jade insisted that he was worth keeping.

When Myrlin finally woke up, it had been two days, and the enrollment window was closing. Mother was escorted back by Father and Jade was left to finish our enrollment.

We made it to the school in no time flat thanks to Jade’s Momentum signature, we barely got to see the country side. But the Institute was a sight that I’d rather see any day.

The halls were ordained with gold trimmings and velvet ropes. There’s paintings of the administrators and teachers. These were some of the most dignified mage this world has seen, and we get to learn from them. It was a little unreal.

Monspeed, Myrlin and I found our way outside where a familiar sight was taking place. Three bullies ganging up on an innocent little girl. These are some clowns…

There was an elf boy, a girl whose skin kinda looked like it was melting, and as sad as this was, a Nightskin demon girl. Kinfolk, why!?

Myrlin looked at me and gave me this signal, ”That’s all I needed”. I took a deep breath and revved up cleanest punch to the face to the elf boy, I may have gone a little over board and punched him again for good measure.

The girl they had been bullying was Renata, and she was the daughter of the Head Mistress of the school. Usually the kid of the principal or head master is some kind of delinquent or the Student Council President, not someone so meek.

But Renata wasn’t bad, she was actually the breath of fresh air I needed. I’ve grew up in a house of boys in both my lives. I just want a homegirl to gossip and do dumb girl stuff with.

Six Months Later

Caliburn Institute; Female Dormitory Hall 3B; Coastal Federation of Avalon, ShanGriLa, 21 November 4; R4

Renata had definitely mustard to my hotdog, and the friendship she and I share is unbreakable. With her I learned a bunch of new spell combos and we even have our own training regiment that we do together.

“Hey Nerva,” Renata huffed as we did our morning run.

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever thought about ruling a kingdom?” Renata stopper in her tracks to catch her breathe.

“What? What are you talking about?”

“A kingdom, do you see yourself ruling a kingdom?” Renata often would make the most insane statements and questions with a deadpan face and expect me to play along, but this was different. She wasn’t deadpan, she had a face of genuine curiosity.

“What makes you ask that?”

“What do you mean,” she asked curiosity turning into confusion. The two of us stood there, confused and unable to cut the awkward tension. I moments like this, I never know what to do or say. “What do you mean, ‘what do you mean,’” but then just come off as a bitch, and this is my bestie for restie. 

“You know what,” Renata clapped her hands together, “Forget it, it was a dumb question, race you to the room!” Renata took off before I could even chime in. What was that all about?

We made it back to the dorm and got ready for Chapel. Every Wednesday morning, we attended Chapel for our studies in theology. It’s a little weird to be not even a teenager and already expected to understand how religion works here. But the religion actually helped me understand this world better. Astrodraconism or The Dragon Faithful for the common folk. The followers of the patron deity, Tiamat, filled this realm with the descendants of the Dragons, Demons, and Fairies.

It was in Chapel where I would learn about that gesture that one elf made and what she said, “Wipe your tears of despair, and Grow your Horns of Salvation,” is roughly what she said. It is the end of a prayer and it boosts followers moral and grants them protection.

I felt connected whenever I entered the Chapel. I felt a sense of nostalgia for the giant mega churches that would pop-up every other year. I’d never go, but seeing nonhuman people have faith, that was a beautiful sight to see.