Perhaps it was because of his disease in his previous life, but William really appreciated having a healthy body. At four years old, he couldn’t say he was strong yet, but he was beginning to see the rumored power of dem- gevai’s bodies. He felt at least as strong as a seven or eight year old child. He should be as strong as a normal adult human at around ten to twelve years of age. He would still have to train his body if he wanted to really become strong, but William wasn’t sure if he needed to. He might have something to fight, and he might not. If he didn’t… he wasn’t sure he wanted to think about fighting. It would be nice to have a peaceful life.

Still, although his body was healthy, it wasn’t perfect. His eyes weren’t healthy. He wasn’t nearsighted or farsighted, but instead the world looked as if it had static from an old television. Most of the time it wasn’t enough to actually disrupt his vision, but was instead just an annoyance. William thought he had heard about such a condition before… maybe from when he was on Earth. Well, he couldn’t remember any details, so he decided to do his best to just live with it.

-----

At six years old, William found he was capable of helping around the farm. Perhaps if he was less mature and responsible, he would still be told to play nearby while his parents worked, but he was trusted enough to be given tasks he could accomplish. Among them was collecting eggs. The fowl here were about the size of a goose, and thus laid eggs bigger than chicken eggs. There were about a dozen birds and they laid an egg per day on average. William and his parents ate these, since they would spoil before they could be brought to town- or at least it wasn’t worth taking the trip every day for so few eggs.

They would go into the city every few weeks to sell crops and buy tools or get them repaired, as necessary. Though William had the idea of the lands here being desolate wasteland full of monsters… that was only true for the land between the humans and horned people. Though there were monsters or magical beasts around, they were not much more common than in human lands. On the other hand, William was only a day’s travel from the city, so he would be surprised if monsters were allowed to roam the area.

-----

William felt that there was an idea just out of reach. He’d felt that way since he was born, but he couldn’t grasp it. Likely, it had something to do with his memories of previous lives. William thought they were all still there, but he couldn’t be sure if they were whole, and they definitely weren’t all accessible. Much of his time was spent cleaning up his spiritual sea. William felt that it was helping, at least he was pretty sure his memories were better than they had been. However, when he regained memories, as long as there was no occasion to call upon it, he wasn’t aware of it specifically. Thus, there were probably many things that slipped under the radar.

Still, William felt there was something important. He couldn’t figure out how to target the memories around it specifically, since he didn’t know what it was and had no idea about the locations of memories in specific anyway. In fact, they didn’t seem to be in any particular location, but spread out throughout. Then there was the fact of the blobs of black goo still occupying much of the space in his spiritual sea, and William was certain it was at least hindering some memories.

-----

One night, there was a storm- larger than what William had seen near the farm before. The lightning woke him up, and he was briefly startled. Soon after, William’s father Barend came to check on him in his room. “Are you alright, Josef?”

“It’s okay father. I’m not afraid.” The storm raged intensely, and William could understand a six year old child being frightened. The strong winds rattled the house, and lightning created tremendous booms of thunder. It was actually the worst storm William had experienced, but that didn’t mean he would be afraid. After all, it’s not like he was actually six years old.

“Good. I need to go check on the animals in the barn. Some of that lightning got dangerously close, and I’m worried they might break their stalls.”

William walked with his father to the front door, where his mother Anselma was waiting. “Do you need my help?”

His father shook his head. “We should be able to handle it. Just stay inside- and away from the windows.” He turned to the door, but paused before going out. “O’ light, heed my call. Brighten my path, and provide illumination to my steps.” An orb of light appeared next to him, and then he stepped out into the storm. Wind and rain whipped inside for the few moments before he managed to push the door shut, leaving William alone inside.

William didn’t care, though. He knew he would be of little help with his current strength, and small body. Besides, he had something more interesting to do. He found it, the idea he had been looking for, the one that had been forever eluding him. Magic. That was the thing. His parents rarely had occasion to use magic, and when they did it was usually out in the fields. William had only seen them use it a few times before. Something was different this time. Perhaps he was paying attention in just the right way, or his memories were clearer, but this time it became clear. Magic.

William remembered wanting to do magic, but he couldn’t. He couldn’t… but demons- gevai- could. He shouldn’t have been able to be reincarnated as one, unless something was strange. However, William had to admit that there were many things about his reincarnation that were different, even disregarding his memories of previous times. Maybe… William took a deep breath. He looked around him, at the dark room. That was it. He’d held on his breath too long, so he breathed out slowly, and in again. Then, he spoke, as loudly and carefully as he could. “O’ light, heed my call. Brighten my path, and provide illumination to my steps.” Between his outstretched hands appeared a ball of light. This surprised William so much that he pulled his hands away… and though they weren’t needed to keep it there, the light disappeared. It was only a brief moment of light… but William couldn’t help but grin. Then he threw back his head and held his hands up in the air, laughing at the top of his lungs. With the lightning going on in the background, he might have seemed maniacal except for the fact that the storm covered up the sound of his voice.