It seemed our village was attacked by goblins. I saw a dead one out the window as they were cleaning it off the floor. It might have been the same one to scratch our wall. I didn't look long, just a passing glance; I didn't want to be haunted by goblins innards for the rest of my life. I didn't accompany Mother with her shopping, partly because I was very big now, and partly because the Wave, as the village calls it. This year had been apparently rougher than previous, leading to some goblins making it into the village. I walked out of my crib and all the way into the living room, as I call it. My birthday hadn't been very interesting, and by that I mean everyone forgot about it. I'm guessing its because it happened a bit after the Wave. But I'll accept walking as a late gift. I have been waiting for 1 and a half years, in a crib, sometimes in a basket or on the floor, always relying on others for mobility. But that changed. After the Wave, I began to crawl around. And after that I began to walk. Truly a wonderful gift!

Otto was playing around with his figure, tying some cloths around it, before seeing me and smiling, waving. I walked over to him, in that weird bobbing way babies do where their footsteps are too loud, and sat with him, watching. I could speak, I tested it and I can form basic words, but I chose not to. Back in my previous life, I didn't have any friends, not because of lack of trying, I was just too focused on school and learning, almost obsessed with it. I drove them away because I spoke about it a lot. I chose that in this world I wouldn't do that. And also to make sure that no one learns I'm reincarnated, because for all I know reincarnation might be evil, or someone would want to use it to get all the knowledge out of me. So, no speaking. Mostly.

Otto posed the figure around, to see if the cloths looked good, before nodding. He turned to me.

"What do you think, brother?" he asked.

That reminded me, I don't have a name. Mother never calls me anything but things such as 'cute' and 'precious' and that, while Otto and Olivia just call me brother. I scrutinised my brother's work. The figure was looking pretty dashing, if I say so myself. It had a shirt on, that had a hood, and what seemed to be a scarf around it, it wore trousers that had small patches on it and ended in shoes. Made from just cloth. The shoes looked surprisingly modern, as well as the shirt, and the scarf looked almost like a cape. I wanted to praise him, but remembered if I do that, I might freak out my family as I might have spoken too early. Am I too paranoid? I just smiled and giggled while nodding. My brother smiled at the unspoken compliment to his work, and began to look at it intently, as if to remember it. Meanwhile I took a peek outside.

It was white, blanketed in snow. It was winter. Well, winter had already ended, according to their calendar, which fit ours almost perfectly, just with different names for the months and days. Currently it was March. It seemed it snowed for longer in my village, which sucked for me. The Wave happens in autumn, around October, my birthday being somewhere after that, I haven't really checked, and that marked when I learnt how to make spells. I couldn't use them inside, out of fear of the house blowing up, and I couldn't go outside because of the Wave and then the snow. Therefore, no spell casting until the sun was up. And even then I might be allowed outside without supervision. But this didn't mean I haven't practised my drawings.

I can make a star, that was the easy part, the hard part was the circle connecting the points. I had to practice to actually get all the points connected, then to make it more circular. Until I realised that something was guiding my hand, I just overpowered its weak pull, and when I did use it, the circle was perfect. I couldn't practise writing the actual spell because of 2 reasons, 1. I didn't want the house to explode and 2. I didn't know how to write. Yes I could read, but the letters and words look somewhat complicated to actually write, and unexpected point 3.When I do learn to write, I don't want to stand out. Its almost as if the world doesn't want me to be a mage. Must be this village.

So I did the next best thing, and moved to plan B for Beefy. I would switch classes to warrior, temporarily. Or make it part time. I always see mages be very weak in close range combat according to video games, so if I could negate that, it would be awesome. But how was I gonna get that done if I am too scared to do any demanding physical exercise because I keep thinking my body will break? Well, I would just watch my sister do it. I learnt that she is taking sword fighting lessons, and that she uses a stick to practice. I memorise the moves and then do them again in my crib, with my figure instead of a stick. Speaking of figure...

I turn towards Otto. He was working on the figure again, making a completely new style for it. I focused back on him and began doing the breathing exercise. The more I did it, the more mana I had, but I couldn't do it for too long or I'll end up with a stomach pain, I remember I read about that in my book before, and throw up. Otto went shorter on the leggings, making them more like shorts, and then making a shorter sleeved shirt.

The door swung open, revealing Mother and Olivia clad full of clothes to keep them warm, dragging some snow in that will quickly melt under the fireplace's heat. Mother smiled at us, happy to see us playing together, while Olivia quickly went to change out of her warm clothes. I decided to give it a try. I wobbled towards the door, and put my hand onto it. My message was clear, as I kept trying to reach the handle, I want to go outside.

"Oh no, you can't go outside, its too cold." she said and leaned as if she was about to pick me up, but I then sprang on her the most powerful spell within my arsenal. I tilted my head and pouted in the cutest way possible. I swear I heard Mother's heart get hit by Cupid's arrow or something, because she stopped in her tracks. I kept pouting. She sighed and picked me up.

"Let's get you changed."

We entered her room and she put on me the smallest clothing items she could find, apparently I didn't have my own pair of winter apparel, big surprise. The mittens were made of what seemed to be wool, holding all my fingers nice and cosy, though a little large for me. The coat wrapped around me was also big, so big Mother rolled up the sleeves 3 quarters up so I could actually get my hands out. I didn't realise that shoes in this world weren't very... comfortable. The ones I got were a few sizes too large, and made from thin animal skin. I just hope I can keep some snow out of them.

"Would you like to go as well Otto?"

Otto nodded and went to get dressed.

Finally, I was going outside, walking outside, for the first time in this life

I tripped on the doorstep and fell face first into some snow. Before my family could react, I stood up and ran towards the snow outside, making sure that that memory didn't stick. Olivia and Otto followed, and they lead me to the side of the house. I never realised how much space our house had around it, being at least a hundred meters away from any other house to the left or right. But I realised why quickly. The wall, a wooden structure that stretched out around the entire village, stood behind it. We were right next to the wall. No wonder a goblin got so close, and no wonder there were no houses around! But Olivia and Otto didn't seem to care and immediately began making a snowman. I walked a bit farther from them, and took off my mitten. I crouched down, next to a pile of snow; if anything went wrong, I was plunging my hand in there.

I drew the star.

Then I connected the dots with a circle, and I gulped. Candle. C, A, N, D, L, E. Wait did it have 2 lines here or one? Yeah it had one I'm sure. I wrote in the last letter, feeling my core empty a bit, and looked at it. Now time for the final stretch. I put my hand on it, my fingers all pointing towards the 5 points. And I pushed. My core churned while the thing at the base of my neck, which had been working hard while I drew the spell, seemed to quiet down. The circle, well, circled around and connected onto itself. The spell glowed and changed colour, now red. My core was hungry, and almost empty, but I decided to risk it. I pushed and the spell brightened, activating, before collapsing into itself and in a small flash created a flame at the tip of my finger. I cast my first spell: Candle!

It took all of my strength to do it, but i did do it. Now, how to put it out. Do I take the mana away? Or would that suck the fire within me, and burn me from the inside out? I decided to go with the safe option, while trying something. I moved my finger, just a twitch, as if tapping something, how I remembered Mother doing. The flame moved away but then slowed and dissipated. Maybe it was like how I could follow my instincts to draw a circle, and the candle spell auto aimed and pulled itself towards, well, a candle. I couldn't do it again, my mana core being just around a quarter full, slowly filling up. It would be full in like 10 minutes. And in the mean time...

I joined my siblings in making a snowman, helping them find some arm-like sticks and eye-like rocks. They laughed when the nose, made of a thicker stick, fell off onto my head, and I laughed along with them, they drew a smile on its face and placed the rocks a little misaligned to make it look more derpy. We finished it, and it was beautiful. Standing about Olivia's height, and made of 3 balls of snow, decreasing in volume as they built up, ending with its head, the snowman had a smile, and derpy look, only increased by its nose, which was a snapped stick about the thickness of 3 of my fingers put together. The arms were made to look as if it was waving, welcoming us to its winter wonderland, and welcoming me to this world.

Otto and Olivia walked around to see it from different angles, and I got an idea, a malicious one full of evil intent. I crouched down, and picked up a bit of snow. Olivia shouted in surprise when a snowball hit the back of her head, turning around so fast she seemed to blur. Her eyes narrowed at me, while my smile widened at her. A snowball hit my face.

...

I was stuck between a rock and a hard place. Olivia was hiding by the house, Otto was closer to the wall, hidden by the slight dip it made in the ground as they cleared land to build it. I was hiding behind the snowman feeling cold, wet, melting snow seep into my skin, and I shivered. I couldn't leave the hiding spot, that was for sure; Olivia would snipe me as she did many times. We agreed that if we fell down, we lost, and I was by far the easiest to tip. I looked at my hand and the snowball I made, feeling the cold bite at my fingers, and wondered: Could I make a snowball spell? How were spells even made in the first place? Could I just...

I drew the circle, and then slowly, carefully drew the word: "Snowball" eventough I didn't know how to spell and "Snowball" being a word which I heard just today, but something didn't feel right. I drew very poorly, not being able to once I had to do it upside down, which didn't happen with the candle spell; that one felt easier to write. Looking closer at my writing it didn't feel as... deep as the candle spell. I let go of the mana and it dissipated into a light blue cloud and small motes of brightness. I had just enough mana so I drew up the candle spell, and looked at it. The writing felt deep, but I couldn't put my finger on why. I looked closer and saw it, and made everything click. I dissipated the spell.

What I saw was the 'code' behind a spell, it was very small writing I couldn't really discern making up the writing of the spell, like how 1's and 0's made things work. I wasn't really a computer expert, but that's how I could describe it. It looked difficult, almost impossible, to control mana enough to make such small writing, so how could I do it? Making a spell would be like drawing something, while what I was doing was more like getting a colouring book with that drawing and drawing within the lines. It was like I was filling a mold already made for me. This was why I could write the candle spell so easily! Wait, was this why there were images in the book? Did the things inside my head in this world absorb that knowledge and recreate it perfectly? And could that thing also be attuned to magic so that anything magic related was easy to understa-

A snowball hit me in the face, and I stumbled, making me trip out of my cover. A snowball hit me again, from a different angle this time and did so hard enough that I fell on my face, the back of my head stinging.

"Yay I got brother!" shouted Otto from the dip, standing up and cheering. He got knocked down by a fast snowball that disoriented him and made him trip.

"No, I got him, and I win!" shouted Olivia.

She hits hard! Must be that training she does, which makes me remember that this world isn't like my old one. Women are equal to men here, which breaks the stereotype of medieval, or basically everything before the 1900's, which is absolutely a plus, because this means that society is well developed, and that means a higher rate of survival. Both for me and my family. My family...

We returned into the house, Mother shouting at us that we could get a cold, and placed all of us down next to the fire, before placing 2 bowls of what looked like Pottage stew for Olivia and Otto, and a wooden cup of milk for yours truly. I sipped on it and it tasted like... milk, which I must say isn't good by itself but I was cold and therefore I drank it all. All the fun and warm drink made me kind of sleepy.

"Mom, uhm... brother is getting kind of sleepy." said Otto

"Take him to his room." replied Mother, busy preparing something for later.

Otto helped me put my cup down and grabbed my hand to lead me to my room.

"Mom, when are we getting him named?" asked Olivia.

"On his birthday, Olivia."

"When's that?" It hurt she didn't know but I didn't see her go to the market to see the calendars in the back of the wagons, so I couldn't really blame her for the lack of knowledge regarding dates.

"...Next Wave."

"Oh."

Otto and I reached my room and he picked me up, putting me into the bed.

"Goodnight." he waved goodnight. I waved back. He smiled a bit and left the room closing the door behind him.

I was getting named? Was this important? It seemed so, because people here don't use first names. I thought my Mother's name was Ouned, which didn't really sound like a female name, at least compared to Olivia, but when we went with Otto, people also referred to him as 'little Ouned.' Was this like in Japan where surnames were used commonly instead of first names? Maybe, but I think it might be greater than that, its like your surname is the name every stranger calls you by. You aren't Robert Bob, you are just Bob, or Mr. Bob if they don't know you. Why? I wanted to find out, and I probably will on my birthday, but until then I shall set myself a goal, for a self-presumed Mage like me. Use Magic Breathing, yeah not good at naming things, while I slept. I began to breathe and felt my core wriggle.

I tried to sleep.