Aeon POV
Six months had passed since Aeon opened his eyes to this strange new world. He could not count the days like an adult, but his sharpened awareness told him time was moving, and so was he. His once helpless body now obeyed with surprising ease: fingers curled firmly, legs kicked with hidden strength, and his head no longer wobbled like a half-filled flask. Yet sometimes, in quiet frustration, he tried to stretch his tiny arms toward a toy or a glowing rune and missed, the failure sparking a brief storm of irritation that left his fists trembling. Even the smallest task could feel like a battle.
The greatest joy was vision. What had been smears of light now sharpened into the soft lines of his mother's face, the fierce glint of his sister's eyes, and the glowing runes carved into every corner of their home. The scent of simmering stew drifted from the kitchen, mixing with the earthy tang of stone and the faint metallic shimmer of enchanted tools. The world was bright, legible, and alive.
And language. Oh, language was a treasure. By listening, mimicking, and connecting, he pieced together syllables. Their tongue, "Latis," tasted like a curious marriage of Sanskrit and Latin. He could not yet speak it, but he understood. Words slipped into his mind like puzzle pieces — bread, fire, lamp, sword. It thrilled him more than any toy could. Sometimes he would giggle at the way "sword" sounded in his mind, a tiny rebellion against the seriousness of understanding.
The house itself confirmed what his instincts whispered: this was no Earth. No wires, no lamps of glass, no hum of machines. Instead, rune-carved stones glowed in sconces, a stove shimmered with complex sigils instead of firewood. He once saw his mother fit a dull stone into the hearth and swap it for a new one; the flame roared alive without smoke. Magic was everywhere — not myth, but woven into ordinary life.
Aeon wanted it. Needed it. He watched, plotted, waited. He knew exactly where his mother stored the extra stones — the right-side drawer in her room. His tiny hands itched. He tried to scoot toward it once, only to topple sideways with a soft thump, landing in a pile of stray cloth. A muffled squeak of frustration escaped him. Mischief was not a habit he fought; it was his nature.
But plans never survived Essa.
The door banged open, and before Aeon could even reach for the nearest toy, his older sister stormed in, wooden practice sword still clutched in hand.
"Aeon!" she squealed, throwing herself across the room. "Did you miss me?"
It had been barely an hour since she left for training. Aeon gave her his best flat stare, though his little cheeks puffed in a way that ruined the effect. She ignored it, of course. Essa always ignored resistance.
She dropped the sword, scooped him up, and pressed her face to his with wild abandon. "I missed you so much! I beat everyone in practice just so I could come running back to you."
Aeon squirmed, kicked, and let out a soft squeal of protest, trying every trick he could: dramatic wailing, turning his face to the side, even puffing his cheeks like a tiny balloon. Each attempt only made Essa cling harder. There was a hint of madness in her attachment, something fierce and possessive that scared him just enough to behave. Better to accept the embrace than risk Essa's overzealous affection turning into a stranglehold.
He sighed, resigned, while she rubbed her cheek against his until his face was damp with her sweat and the faint, sweet tang of her hair brushed his nose.
From the kitchen, Aisa's voice floated in, warm and melodic: "Essa, don't crush your brother. He's not a pillow."
Instantly Essa froze, eyes wide. Of all people in the world, only their mother could make the fiery girl yield. Aeon noted this with amusement, his sharp little mind cataloguing family weaknesses.
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The Encounter
Yet beneath the warmth of daily laughter, something darker stirred.
Memory.
It haunted Aeon like a shadow that would not leave. His past clung to him in jagged shards — sterile lights, machines humming, the bitter tang of metal — but never whole. Not even his name remained. And every time he forced himself to grasp more, pain speared behind his eyes until the world swam.
Three months ago, in one such desperate attempt, reality itself had unraveled.
He found himself adrift in a vast expanse where there was no ground, no sky, and yet he stood. Stars wheeled in alien colors, hues no mortal tongue had ever named. At the center of this void, a spiral of shifting glyphs turned, slow and infinite, like a clock with no hands. He knew with an unshakable certainty — this was no dream. This was inside him. Or perhaps beyond him.
And then the voice came.
Not sound. Not thought. A resonance that stamped itself into his very marrow. It was vast, ageless, impossible to name.
"Do not force what is sealed. Your vessel cannot yet endure it."
Aeon's infant body quivered, but the man within remembered how to demand. "Wh… who are you?" His voice was small, breaking with fear.
"[You need not fear me,]" the voice intoned, each syllable layered with eternity. "[We are bound for all your lives. It was I who carried your soul across the veil, who clothed you in this body anew.]"
The words struck like thunder rolling through his bones. Bound. Carried. Eternity. His heart staggered. And then, breaking free from the haze, a single name flared in him like a burning star.
Rosy.
Her smile. Her laugh. A warmth slipping from his grasp no matter how hard he reached. Pain tore through him as the memory dissolved. His chest clenched, panic rising like a tide. "Rosy… where is she? Don't tell me she's—"
"[She is safe.]" The voice was steady, absolute. "[Her soul rests within me.]"
His breath hitched. "Safe…? Can I see her again?"
"[Yes. But not yet. When your strength is worthy, you may summon her back to flesh.]"
Aeon's chest tightened. Hope flickered within him, fragile as glass, yet threaded with impatience and fear. "Then… how strong? How long… before my mind can bear all that I have been, all that I once was?"
The spiral above him slowed, glyphs glowing brighter as if counting the weight of centuries. Each pulse pressed against his thoughts, a reminder of the vast gulf between his infant body and the full expanse of his former self.
"[A decade,]" the voice said, deliberate, as if measuring the burden of eons. "[Perhaps ten years, if your vessel grows at the natural pace. Or sooner — two years — if the river of magic within you awakens swiftly, bending time to your will.]"
A decade. The sentence weighed upon him, but not because he could not see Rosy. He had already felt the strain of his past life pressing against his fragile new vessel — the flashes of memory, the pain behind his eyes, the dizzying moments when thought fractured. The ten years were not a wait for her; they were the time his body would need to fully bear the weight of who he had been.
"No…" His whisper cracked, half defiance, half despair. "That's too long. There must be another way!"
The symbols slowed, pulsing like a heartbeat of the cosmos. "[Yes… and no. You have already been carrying the burden. I can ease it. Most of your memories will be sealed, laid to rest where they cannot overwhelm your vessel. You will retain fragments — the logic of your old world, the instincts that guide — while the rest sleeps. The cost: for roughly one year, your mind may falter. Dreams and waking may intermingle, lucidity waver.]"
Aeon shivered. He had felt this strain already — flashes of past life spilling into the present, sharp pains, moments of confusion that made the world tilt. Even with the seal, for a year, his thoughts might betray him, and he could appear fragile, even broken. The fear pressed on him like an invisible hand, suffocating.
He was truly afraid.
But then Rosy's presence stirred within the haze. Not clear, not whole, but enough. A smile glimpsed through smoke. The warmth of her hand. The ghost of a laugh that once chased away his exhaustion. She was not the reason for the burden — that was his own mind — but she was the weight that tipped the scale.
If sealing his memories was the only way to preserve himself long enough to endure the burden, while keeping her ember alive within him, then he would accept it.
Better madness for a season than oblivion forever.
Aeon drew a shaky breath, tiny fists clenched. "I… accept. Even if it breaks me for a time. I'll endure it."
At once, warmth pressed against his brow — immense, gentle, eternal. The ache in his head dissolved. Memories blurred, folded away into a vault beyond reach. What remained were faint outlines, sketches behind glass. Enough to guide him, not enough to overwhelm him.
The voice lingered one last moment, a whisper like the turning of galaxies:
"[Sleep, until the vessel ripens. What is yours shall return.]"
And then the void was gone.
------
He often remembered how the void had faded — leaving him lighter, emptier, yet steadier. The ache was gone, the burden sealed, and only the faint ember of Rosy remained, tucked safely within.
A voice pulled him back to the present, ordinary and grounding.
"Essa dear, bring Aeon — it's time for dinner."
Aisa's voice carried through the house, light and sing-song, yet edged with that hidden strength only mothers possessed. Essa jolted, then brightened.
"Come on, Aeon!" she chirped, lifting him again.
He laughed — a sound childlike, yet tinged with the sly mischief of a soul who had bargained with eternity.
For now, acceptance meant warm meals, mother's humming, and a sister's suffocating love. For now, that was enough.