Being born is a bit rough. It was snug and warm and all comfy, as I already mentioned, and then bam, not so much. Bright. Cold. Blurry. Moving. Nothing works like I think it should. I have no reference for the other side of the equation, but it’s probably not super fun and easy either. I mean seriously, I didn’t hold still for that eviction. I went kicking and screaming! Ok, it was really mostly kicking and squirming, I hadn’t figured out screaming until I did it by reflex. Honestly, that and the peeing weren’t entirely on purpose, but I'll take credit anyway. The instant karma action did tickle my sophomoric sense of humor.

{Status:

Name: (none)

Age: 0

Learning trait grafted: +1 Acuity, +1 Memory

Mental:

Acuity:

Perception:

Memory:

2

1

2

Psyche:

Wisdom:

Insight:

Willpower:

0

1

0

Physical:

Strength:

Coordination:

Endurance:

2

0

1

}

No additional details, no snarky comments, just the bare minimum. Basic really did mean basic. I kinda missed that.

My stats are… crap. But then what did I expect, I was a baby. I found it a bit odd that I could read my status information while not being able to understand the conversations around me, but I’ll take what I can get. Even if I wasn’t going to complain about that, I was surely going to complain about being hungry. So I did. And I got fed. Yes, pretty much the same way as all babies. No, I'm not sharing the details. Don't make me pee in your general direction!

My parents named me Grintel. Grint for short. Grintel Coddlestahl. I hoped it would grow on me, but I didn't like it much right now.

Physiology seems to be about the same. Fingers, toes, bilateral symmetry. I can’t tell about my face, but it seems like it’s what I would call normal, based on what I can see when I get close enough to my mom.

They took me home, then days passed in feeding, diapers, baths, books, silly faces, grabbed fingers, squished cheeks. Basically the same stuff I remembered doing to my kids, only on the other side. My memory of the other world wasn’t as clear any more. I still had the high concepts, but the details were softer and more remote. Even with the blurring, I wept a lot for the first few months, and it was clear my poor parents didn’t know what the heck was going on. I’m pretty sure they were going nuts wondering why their baby cried so frequently, but didn’t wail much. I was mourning my losses. Even though I had a chance to say goodbye, I still missed my wife. I still loved my kids. I wondered if they had kids of their own yet. I wondered if time was passing the same here as there, or how long I was in the grey-green room. Ultimately, I had to force myself to stop wondering about those things, because they were not helping my situation.

When I wore myself out crying, or trying to control my new body, I would sleep. Good days, I would awaken and be happy for a few moments because the physical pain was gone. Even though it was mostly out of my control, this body was healthy. There was no pain that didn’t have an actual cause (like falling on my face trying to crawl). Bad days? Let’s just say if dealing with grief sucks, dealing with it alone is a black hole.

Time marched on, and as it did, the psychological pain became less sharp, less immediate, and I slowly recovered to an emotional equilibrium. I longed to talk with someone about it, but every time I tried, my tongue was not cooperative. Even if it had worked, how would I tell my new parents that they got a slightly-used baby. Bleh. So, I cried as quietly as I could, vocalized when I had needs, and slept a bunch. At least the sleeping parts gave my parents some relief.

I learned the vocabulary of the new language quickly and the linguistic structures were not as complex as English, with its tendency, as one critic put it, to mug other languages for loose bits. Despite learning quickly to understand, my coordination was less than fantastic. Since coordination was the ability to use my body, it represented my ability to speak (and grasp objects, and move myself). It was low, making it impossible to demonstrate my linguistic or mental prowess. Grip strength on the other hand (or any hand really), that I had. Nobody was taking candy from this baby. If only they’d give me candy.

My teeth came in, and I stopped sleeping as much, because that wasn’t comfy. The upside was that I started getting new flavors. I like the green, orange, and purples ones most of the time. But you really don’t care about my learning to walk, talk, and chew bubblegum.

So… cue the music….

Dumm da dumm da da datda da da daaaaa.

Training montage.

Epic power ballad.

Total 80’s hair-band glam-rock!

No? Just me? Fine.

Sure enough, I learned to walk and talk and chew flavored tree sap.

I learned the basics of time--roughly equivalent seconds/minutes/hours, but then, 22 hour days, ten day “weeks” called inventively tendays, (not that we did any better-- a fortnight was fourteen nights, just slurred together), three tendays a month, three months to a season, and 4 seasons to a cycle, just enough different to be annoying, and some mid-winter festival days that adjusted the calendar. I’ll probably still screw up while writing this and use the wrong terms occasionally, since I’m translating and writing this in my first language.

My early youth was also unexceptional, even though it was not uneventful. Since the events were birthdays and first steps, I’ll omit them. Families might care to hear about these kinds of events, but they really are not all that interesting from the outside. This world didn’t seem to have any major radical differences from my first one, aside being a bit less developed than my first one. I did find out one huge difference shortly after I turned 10. That one radical difference? Magic was real, and I could do it!