Everything went black for Zeverous as her consciousness faded and with it the being… When she found herself again it came with a distinct ringing in her ears. The ground beneath her was soft but hard. She fought her heavy eyelids open to find that she was in a cradle with several other babies her age. As she turned and twisted to look around her she fought off waves of tiredness trying to put Zeverous back to sleep. Through her sleepy mind, she noted that the cradle or ground was rocking side-to-side and bumping up-and-down.

She tried to stand up and peer over the closed walls of the cradle, but the constant movements kept knocking her over. After several minutes she was too tired to continue as her muscles gave out beneath her and she fell back to sleep.

Zeverous’ eyes shot open and she fought to get up on her butt. She was in a rather lavish cradle with mint detailing on the wooden bars around her. She was in a room with at least another twenty cradles that were identical to hers, each with a child the same age or near in them. Each cradle was next to another or across from another. The room had several wide and clear windows that bled the warm morning sun to fill the room with yellow, orange, and green light.

The walls were as colored a faded green and were pleasing to her eyes as she silently contemplated where she was.

‘Why would someone want to kidnap me?’ Zeverous looked around the room again her gaze falling on the many other children in the room.

‘No, why would someone want to kidnap many children?’

‘Was I even kidnapped? Could this not be the church I was going to?’

‘That certainly seems possible. That thing did seem to be as least on some level divine.’

‘Right.’ Zeverous thought, ‘Until I can prove otherwise I will assume that I was picked up by some church people early in the morning’

After convincing herself to hold out some kind of hope Zeverous when on to do some morning routines. It was nothing fancy just pushups, crunches, squats, and a few attempts at doing pull-ups on the smooth crib bars before resigning to save those for another day. She then began her magic routine which currently consisted of forming two-dimensional shapes and images on her skin until the magic inside of her was dispersed to go any further.

The reason for making the shapes and changing their shape was to train how fast she could morph her mana skin. Though Zeverous had only seen some improvement as she could not train for too long without running herself dry, which took about two minutes.

When she was finally done some of the other children had finally awoken and had begun to loudly(and annoyingly) cry. Her ear picked up something or something outside of the door. Zeverous swiftly laid down and pretended to be asleep, after some while the crying stopped and the door was opened. From the opening a flood of other children came inside, they were young… -older than her current body, but no older than nine or ten years.

After the children came inside a lengthy man, he bent underneath the door frame and simply stood by. He was wearing a loose, brown bathrobe like garb with a pair of simple reed sandals. His face was wrinkled and wizened, his hair had been thinned out by age and his hair had long since turned gray.

The kids’ that walked in had formed themselves into a neat line and began to check each cradle one by one. They went from the doors left and went along the inside wall until reaching the end of the room and snaking back along the windowed wall that her cradle was against. As they approached she clamped her eyes shut in some vain attempt that they would not see her. Their eerie quietness and coordination had slightly unnerved her as well as the fact that she was already nervous being away from her mom for so long. The children passed, not making a sound, but Zeverous could not help noticing that she could feel their stares. It was not some social ineptness in the back of her head but rather a real feeling, measurable as pressure, that was applied to her mana skin.

After what felt like ages, the last child passed and put their attention on the baby next to her. The front of the line finished their inspection of the baby in the last crib and left the line spreading out through the room, standing in front of certain cribs before presenting their backs to the babies and facing the open middle lane. More and more children completed their inspection as cribs were cut off by other children. Halfway through a brown-haired boy came and stood in front of her crib even.

After some more waiting the older man looked around the room making sure each child had chosen a crib, he nodded and pulled a stack of sheets from behind his back. He began passing out singular papers to each child as he walked the same path as the children went. As children received their paper, they turned around, picked up the baby in the crib, and left the room. Eventually, the older man reached the boy in front of her crib and gave him a paper. He turned around and gently lifted her into his arms which could barely fit her. Zeverous never saw what happened to the remaining children but she presumed that they were also moved out of the minty room.

The halls the boy carried her through were a chalky white color but the floors were polished wood which blended well with the walls and ceiling. Eventually, Zeverous and the boy carrying her had made a couple of turns and were outside. Cherry blossoms were in full bloom as their petals fell from their branches. She could hear the clangs and clocks of metal hitting metal in the middle distance. They walked over several streams on wonderfully decorated bridges of wood and marble. As they moved farther and farther from the minty rooms building she noted that the structures around had grown increasingly Asian as wooden doors on hinges formed into paper doors that slid. The boy came to a stop in front of one building, to Zeverous it looked the same as the building around it.

The kid took a deep breath and exhaled. He then entered the eastern-styled building.

“Welcome home!” He said it in a refreshing but surprised tone.

Zeverous and the boy, who introduced himself to her as Ribren, then sat down at a low table as Ribren took out the paper given to him and began reading it thoroughly. Once he finished he looked up at her and smiled.

“Hi there Zeverous, I’m your Big Brother!”