The next two weeks Gennach helped me to get back on track. I woke up in the early morning, ate my breakfast after which I took a short nap so I could digest the food better. Although I could feel a change for the better in my body, as I could move more cordially and walk steadier, my body still needed time. In the early afternoon, Gennach came into my chamber and helped me to stretch my body, after which we went to the library.

The library was not far away, just a few minutes of walking and one set of stairs down. But for me, this was parkour and I needed at first about half an hour just to get there on my own, as I had to stop several times to catch my breath. Although I made progress, Gennach told me that a wheelchair would be made for me. The idea was to allow me to move about in the villa I was currently staying at and to get to the gardens around the building to get some fresh air.

As we got to the library, my uncle would answer all my questions about the world and my family. I realized a rule of thumb, that the number of memories I had of a certain person or topic was correlating with how important they were for me/Leonidas.

At first I was very sceptical about my uncle’s offer, so I asked him broad questions about the world, until I ran out of options and threw caution into the wind and asked the riskier questions about why I could not read mital and empyrian or what my relationship with him was.

To my relief and disappointment at once he did answer all my questions to his best ability and even started to teach me how to read and write the two native languages. “Uncle Gennach, why are you so open-minded in answering my question? Should it not be strange that I know some things and others not?”

“Well I know this situation, Leo. If a person has trauma or a strong enough ailment, they can forget some of their memories. I did witness it during my service as a commandant.” He told me with the voice of a knowing general that has seen much during his campaigns.

“I thought you are too young for the Corlantion War, are you not? When did you experience it then?” I asked back.

“Hm, oh yeah totally. Well, I fell down of my horse during practice and could not remember for at least half a year who I was.” he said grinning at me widely. It seems he likes to make things dramatic.

One day as my uncle and me sat in the library and he taught me how to write the annoyingly curvy letters of empyrian, the doors into the room flung open and a young girl at the age of ten with red hair, big blue eyes and a round face scanned us two, noticed me and ran without regard to me. She jumped and landed onto me but put her hands around my head and hang like a sack of potatoes.

“Brother! Why did you not visit me when you came back! I was really bored! Grandma is bullying me the whole time! Can you believe she made me listen to this stupid etiquette and language teachers? And when I did what any sane person would do, running away that is, she even forbids me my sweets! That is tyranny!” my little sister spoke like a waterfall.

“I am also happy to see you, Danita.” I smiled at the young girl, my only sibling, and a person, to whom Leonidas had sworn to protect her at all costs.

“So where were you? Grandma told me you were travelling. Tell me everything!” She asked me with excitement in her eyes and completely ignoring my poor uncle.

“Well, I was just sailing around Corlantia, no big thing. But tell me sunshine, did you not promise me to study hard, so you could visit me in the barony?” I tried to change the topic.

The excited face of the little girl became troubled “Ughh… well I promised. But it is so hard! They just talk and talk, it is much more fun to be in the gardens! But the maids are always looking after me”. She pouted and hugged me closer. “What are you doing brother?”

“Well, I am trying to learn how to read and to write…”

The girl suddenly jumped from me, turned around to face my uncle and pulled at his sleeve and looked with puppy eyes. “Uncle Gennach, please help me to get past the guards into the garden and to play there, I cannot see any book or I will go insane.”

My now truly poor uncle tried to resist her pleadings, but she just pulled at him harder and looked at him with big watery eyes. Finally, he crumbled and the pair of a little girl pulling a bear of a man vanished from the room as fast as Danita arrived. And it seemed to be on time because just a few minutes later a couple of exhausted maids opened the library and pleaded with me to tell them, if I had seen the young mistress. I decided to tell them the truth – my little revenge for my little sister as she decided to abandon me here.