Isolated...

After the magical incident, I was suddenly reverted back to my isolation lifestyle before spending time at the Second Reading Room with my Father. I was just left alone next to the window from dawn to sunset again, like those days with my Father were just a midsummer’s night dream.

How I missed the bed in Miss Clara’s room...

I knew Father was worried that I may get into another incident with magic again, but why must I stop coming to the Second Reading Room! I missed sleeping in the arms of Father; it was certainly not as comfortable as the cradle, but at least I could look over the word-filled documents or yank on his brown hair to pass the time. Now, I only had the clouds to look at and my own fingers and toes to wriggle.

...All toddlers in this world must be bored out of their mind.

Days, or even weeks passed by without me moving a muscle besides the irises of my eyes.

One day, I had enough of it.

I was going to wait until my bones become a little harder to practice with “Magic”, but my own sanity may not take that long to escape from this boredom.

There was no one in the room, as usual.

I raised my two little small hands, then realized that there was no point. I closed my eyes, and tried to remember the feeling when that “something” invisible in the air was moving when the white child cast his spell.

Suddenly, it went dark outside. I opened my eyes. My surrounding was covered by a dark shroud that seemed to extend to every corner that my eyes could reach. But it was not nighttime – it was still sunny outside, I could tell, but it was dark where I could see.

In contract, I could see beautiful clouds of different colours floating in the space where the door, the cradle, the spider web at the edge of the room stood. They were like the space clouds that I read about in those astrology books back in my previous life.

I want to try touching them...

As I was thinking this, I realized that I could pull them towards me, half using my will and half by arm motion. One particular blue cloud seemed to be the most responsive, and it flowed towards me as if there was no resistance at all. It flew straight though the wooden handle of the cradle.

When it reached my hand, I tried to touch it...It was similar to floating water, but there was little to no resistance to my hand. I could divide it into smaller clouds or press multiple clouds into one big bundle. It was like playing clay...with no resistance.

Was this...magic? Or some kind of hallucination? Or was I dreaming? A lucid dream?

As I was pondering the impossibility of this situation, I spin the bundle of blue clouds around my index finger.

It’s getting hotter...it’d be nice if this blue clouds turn into a water vortex instead.

As I was picturing this in my mind, reminiscing over the times i went to water parks back in my previous life, suddenly I felt resistance in the blue clouds that were gathering around my finger.

I blinked, and the room suddenly returned to its original brightness, with the colourful clouds gone from sight. I squinted, slowly getting used to the brightness again. Then I realized something out of place.

A huge water vortex was revolving inches away from my toddler body.

I said huge, but it was a far cry from those legendary typhoons that destroyed buildings. It was as tall as my Father, but twice as large as his width. The water looked impossibly blue and gentle...but seconds later, they were revolving so strongly that its wind actually pushed my body towards the edge of the cradle.

Could...could this be the start of a water disaster?

I panicked for a bit. My Father would definitely not be pleased if a part of the building got blown off because of this. It was how strong the water vortex looked to me.

It, it was just a harmless-looking blue cloud...

I tried to close my eyes and feel the invisible flow again, but the vortex blowing so close to my feet kept distracting me and I could not seem to get back to that world of darkness again.

The cradle was already half broken. The door was still firm in its place, but I had a feeling that it was going to be blown off its hinges if this kept up.

Magic was so dangerous!

Suddenly, there was something, someone fiddling with the door knob.

BANG!

The door got blown off. I was so scared that I could not look in that direction for a moment. What if, what if all that’s left was a headless corpse at the entrance? The door really was blown away with huge impact.

Now Father was sure to come and get me. At least this thought alone made me feel better. Now he would be too worried to leave me alone to my own devices.

I slowly peeked at the entrance. At first I could not see anybody. It seemed like no one was injured...or at least, no injured persons that I had spotted. Maybe someone was being squashed underneath that blown away door...

Then, I saw a head of brown.

Not, not my Father. It was too short to be him (unless that was his head lying on the floor...no!). I pushed aside my irrational annoyance at brown heads and tried to glimpse at the face underneath. It really looked similar to my Father’s hair, but was more choppy and less neatly groomed compared to my Father’s. Although if my Father stopped doing and paperwork and went out practicing his swordsmanship everyday, his hair would look like that in no time at all.

Two round green eyes were wide open underneath the head of brown hair. It seemed like he escaped the fate of being headless thanks to his short stature. The door was blown right over his head.

He was staring impossibly still at the water vortex inside my cradle. I could see his facing morphing into that of horror. Soon enough, his cries would be even louder than the destruction by the vortex, and people could come rushing over and “rescue” me from this water disaster.

I really, really did not mean to create it...

Suddenly, a piece of wood from the cradle flew towards the green-eyed child due to the wind from the vortex.

Time flew impossibly slow. But I did not care about that at all. A child, an innocent child was going to get hurt because of my thoughtless experiment with magic. My concentration level suddenly shot up, and my world was shrouded in the dark cloud again.

I could see clearly. The colourful clouds that were floating harmlessly before were now revolving into a mess around the water vortex. Clouds were being continuously sucked from elsewhere into the rainbow black hole.

I had a hunch. The vortex must be exerting so much power because of the clouds converging. Hence, if the clouds dispersed, or stopped being sucked into the vortex, it would naturally extinguish and stop causing irreversible damage to the building.

I tried to pull all the clouds nearby towards my hand. The force pulling on them by the vortex was strong, but my will was even stronger. Soon, all the clouds were gathering around my hand...like a second vortex.

Hiiiii...

Am, am I not creating a second disaster here?

The water vortex was still going strong...it evidently still had a lot of spare power. However, the dense clouds gathering around me were moving about dangerously. I had a feeling that, whatever I imagined now, just like with the water vortex just now, will materialize out of thin air due to all of this clouds converging. And the scale of power was unimaginable.

I needed something, something that generated a lot of power yet was not damaging to surrounding any more than the destruction by the water vortex.

I looked at my feet. I was less than a meter away from the dangerously swirling vortex. The cradle was swinging unstably left to right. Maybe...it was time for me to change location, albeit forcefully.

I imagined a pair of wings that was attached to my back. There was a brilliant light, and after I blinked a few times, my surrounding became bright again. This time, however, the whole room, even the water vortex, was illuminated by the light coming from my back.

Why...was it so bright...

I imagined them moving upwards. Immediately I felt a force at my back pulling my toddler self upwards.

I hovered dangerously above the ground for a few seconds, but then managed to stabilize myself splendidly. The wind from the vortex was making flight control a bit difficult and risky, but nowhere was as dangerous as being in this cradle right now, point blank from the cause of all this destruction.

Magic was dangerous to handle, but it really could make miracles.

I flew over the broken handle of the cradle. The floor looked quite far from where I was, but it was probably less than one meter in height. However, I did not entertain the thought of falling and being healed/bone-cooked again by Miss Clara.

I kept my concentration. The image of the wings was clear in my head. I dropped my altitude and touched the ground just a small distance from the green-eyed child, who was staring in wide open eyes at my figure landing on the ground.

I forgot to mention, but the piece of wood just now missed the child. He was not injured in any ways, just frozen from fear. But just the threat of him being injured was enough to push me to action.

Well, no longer. I could be consider to be in the safe zone from now. It was time to be a helpless toddler again. Of course, I had absolutely no idea what or who caused that water vortex just now.

I crawled slowly towards the green-eyed child. The child, he had the nerve to back off a bit. I had thought that my figure with glowing wings flying through the air was an awe-inspiring one, but it turned out I was wrong. Maybe flying toddlers were a little bit hard to swallow, even for a young and naive child.

I had come this far, only for him to back away. What was the point then? I felt like crying helplessly a bit, so that he would have no way but to come and console me.

However, this was only a child...He might even be inspired by me and cry even louder...well, either way, everyone would think that he was the one who “rescued” me anyways. No way that a child, no a toddler, could possibly jump over the tall handle of the cradle and run over to the door by herself. The other possibility was me being pushed out of the cradle after it had been broken by the water vortex, but then my lack of bodily injuries would not support that theory. My plan was air-tight!

Concentrating and crawling were tiring. Since he was scared of me anyways, I might as well lie down and rest. The floor was a bit cold from the wind of the water vortex, but everything was better than having to crawl on four now.

I closed my eyes. The vortex was still hard at work, swirling with all its might, but I could hear its power dwindling with time. Hurried footsteps echoed along the hall way – people must have heard the door explosion and were rushing over. Father must be one of them.

Aaaah...I had finally managed to do some “magic” of my own, only to create a disaster instead...

Suddenly, I felt small hands probing at my back. I blinked open my eyes. The green eyes of the child were really round and green up close. He was looking at my back with an expression of curiosity and wonder.

...He must be searching for my “wings”.

Though it felt nice to be touched by a kid, I could not help but feel like this motion might look a bit questionable from outside, especially for people who had not seen my awe-inspiring winged figure. So I tried to avoid his probing hand, and rolled over to keep some distance. Who knew, or should I say expectedly, he followed suit, and even rolled me flat on my stomach so my entire back side was facing him.

He, he was just a curious child, there's no other hidden motives!