Chapter 3

My Life in a New World

(that time I was raised by a harem...)

3:21 PM, Still Tuesday. I fell asleep on the ride to Haven.

The wagon Kalla assured me in a sweet comforting voice was actually something known as a transport vehicle. Like a wagon but it wasn’t pulled by drake or horses, it was powered by thousands of small explosions each second. I could hear it rumble louder and louder as we sped up away from the bunker. A Humvee, she had called it. I can still recall her soft voice, speaking in almost a whisper just before I fell asleep against her soft skin and the vibrations. She began telling me all about this new world. The hero, Thomas, who was my father, and my mother Mia, the shaman, a Krsnica, and the strange relationship they all shared with one another. Kalla, Sudra, Cass, Mia, and my father were all one family. They had banded together and gone on many adventures together. Meeting and falling in love with one another along the way.

Kalla, it turned out, was my mother’s mid-wife, father’s second wife, mother’s sister-mid-wife, I don’t know. It was weird at first. I refused to eat, despite seeing the most beautiful bosom in front of me. Still, I was a child, I knew I had to survive. There was no way I was going to starve myself and go back to the void.

We waited for what felt like days before my mother finally arrived. I still had no idea what was going on with this world, why vampires had attacked us, why everyone panicked when a creature called a Kudlak appeared. I still had no idea what a Krsnica was other than she, my mother, was the leader of our tribe, our resistance. I did know, as Kalla explained, that the glass, metal ruins had been called skyscrapers. That there use to be cities, many of them. Each filled with people. That something terrible had happened, that the world as many knew it came to an end.

I listened to everything. Every word anyone said around me. Determined not to lose my memories. Determined to learn everything I can about these people and this world. And most of all determined to find out what happened to Rak. It seemed that if this was my world, I’ve been dead several thousand years maybe longer. There are definitely similarities. The vampires for one, though I’d never seen them as such a threat.

There were also creatures like myself and my mother in my world. Demihumans weren’t uncommon. It seemed, looking at the resistance my mother led, that was also the case here. Cass was a creature called a Vile, a type of fae, she had wings on her back and she was super light on her feet, with every step she practically glided through the air. This made her an excellent swordsman and attacker. Sudra, on the other hand use to be a dark fae, a creature called a Rusalka that lived near the water (and sometimes in it), that would lure men away to their death. My father is the only man she ever found alluring enough to follow away from the water. Kalla, who was the youngest of the group, was human. She had also been my father’s best friend growing up and encouraged all his adventures.

It took three weeks for my father and birth-mother to return to the refuge, the safe place. My father left soon after, smiling at me just before he sheathed his two-hander and left through the gates leaving the rest of us behind. He was a warrior, like I had once been. Fighting to protect the refuge from the monsters on the outside. There were no guilds that I was aware of but this world still had its honor. I admired him more and more for it. Moma-Mia said that he was a vampire hunter just like she had been. That the two of them had met when he came through her woods and together they managed to clear an entire hive and build this refuge.

As days came to pass my past life began to feel more and more like a dream, the adult feelings and maturity I had became like a distant memory as I started to regress into a child. Continuing to hold onto the memories of my past became more and more troubling and so I stayed quiet as I could, crying only when I needed something, trying my best to stare at the things that reminded me of my old life. Smiling at my demihuman moms and others that reminded me of the guild mates I had. There were more and more things I found my world had in common with this especially as the time of my naming ceremony came closer.

I knew I wanted a name that was like my old one. I was born close to the month of Quintilis, now known as Juniper. The fifth month of the year in an ten month calendar. Martius, Aprilis, Maius, Junius, Quintilis, Sextilis, September, October, November, and December had been replaced by Maritas, Mariter, Mai, Junai, Juniper, Argus, Septia, October, Novum, and Dekka. It was strange how the only recognizable month was October but it was also called the Hallowed Month, a month where the border between our world and the spiritual was thinnest.

Everyone was preparing for Midsummer’s Eve, decorating and setting up for a large bonfire in the middle of the refuge. The walls were reinforced and guards doubled as moma-Sudra and moma-Cass came and went helping with make our refuge stronger. Meanwhile,, moma-Kalla and birth-mother-Mia prepared for my naming ceremony while my father continued to disappear night after night. Sometimes, when I lay awake mediating on my old life I could hear my mothers worry, sometimes crying, scared father would never return. Moma-Kalla worried the most, that papa was pushing himself too hard, coming back after days of battle, each time with new scars. And still, no matter how hurt he was he always came to see me. To tell me stories of the old world, warriors of the past.

“Where is the child!” he announced on his return. This time it had been four days since he left the refuge and it was a day before the Midsummer’s Eve Festival and Naming Ceremony.

“Here we are!” Moma-Kalla said holding me. I was still fragile but I was old enough to smile and recognize him. I wanted him to see that.

“My little warrior,” my father said as I wrapped my little hand around his finger. His skin was callous. Years of swinging his sword, living in the ruins had taken a hard toll on him. He was young but carried his experiences across his body.

I tried babbling but nothing came out.

“Tonight I will tell you the story of one of the greatest warriors of our past, a warrior named Kaeya, who together with the help of his friends gave his life to defeat an elder dragon,” he smiled. It couldn’t be. That was me! I smiled as only a baby could. Trying harder and harder to make sounds. Something I knew at three weeks old I shouldn’t be able to do.

“Ka, Ka, Ka,” I managed. Barely.

“That’s right! Kaeya!” my father said proudly. Everyone looked at me in awe, I definitely wasn’t acting my age.

“That’s perfect,” Moma-Mia smiled. I didn’t know until the next day what she meant when our entire tribe gathered and the festival bonfire was lit. My father jumped over it with ease followed by several others while my mother’s stood proudly. Moma-Kalla picked me up and held me in front of the crowd as the fires burned brightly around us and my father told the entire refuge my name was Kai, and that my craft name would be Kaeya BearBorn, son of Thomas Fangslayer, and Mia Krsnica.