LIGHTNOVELONLINE Chapter 4: Babel
Managing to communicate took some time, with most of the hold-up being the fact that we were not able to manage much more than the older kids asking questions while me or my sibling would make positive or negative sounds. Being a newborn really doesn't help my ability to coordinate at all.
I am seriously only days old, I can't even really raise my head unassisted yet, and I am just barely capable of moving my hand in a coordinated manner due to my past life memories.
One more impediment was that the older kids seemed to be unable to see in the dark. I'd actually thought they might be blind at first, but I knew they hadn't given off that impression earlier when I'd seen them during the day. No, rather than them being blind, it's that I seem to have absurdly good night vision, allowing me to see perfectly fine as though it was illuminated by particularly strong moonlight even in total darkness.
This meant that, even though I could see them, they were only able to track me and my sibling by our voices. This added another area of difficulty to our communication.
Despite all these difficulties though, we did manage to communicate a few basic things. By the time the excitement wore off and the two of them were settling down to sleep, we had established that I am indeed from Earth just like them, that my sibling is also from Earth, and the two of them introduced themselves as Levin and Rolwen. Rolwen was the brash one who'd come up with the plan of making us cry to get out of being stuck with us, and Levin was the one who was more hesitant about all of it.
These were apparently names of this world. I found it a little strange, but Rolwen had actually insisted rather strongly on using their new names, and Levin did not even try to make any effort to disagree on the matter. I could pick up a few tells, and I was getting the impression Rolwen's reasons were likely rather furvulous on why he wanted to go by his new name of this world, but I was picking up a few signs of embarrassment in Levin's body language, and it was not toward Rolwen's odd behavior. It seemed as though maybe he had his own reasons for going along with the new name that was not so inane as whatever Rolwen had going on.
They also tried to ask me about the energy vampire theory that both me and Rolwen seem to have arrived at independently of each other.
"Ders no uway se's a bampire!" Levin disagreed. "Hee is uweird wike dat. Is ok."
"Uwow" was the only response I was able to give. I couldn't easily say I thought Rolwen might actually be right and get across all the nuance in that conversation or discuss the issue properly with the inarticulate mouth of a newborn. And besides, I didn't know for certain. All I did know was that the evidence said it was likely.
I was concerned about it when I thought they were normal children, and now that I know they are also fellow former Earthlings, I want to harm them even less. However, somewhat hypocritically, I also didn't want to chase them away. And besides, my fear about the adults potentially harming them is still just as likely if the energy vampire thing does turn out to be true, the safest place for them in that case would be as our companions, whether or not the energy vampire idea is true.
And so, I wound up saying nothing and simply let the conversation die. Eventually, they went to sleep.
The next day saw me turning my babbling of the alphabet from an attempt at communication into a proper speech exercise. I kept reciting the alphabet to the best of my abilities. I was determined to be able to speak, and working the muscles of my mouth and the associated neural connections would be the fastest way to get there. I had some concerns about our caretaker catching on that something was off about me, but I figured she might dismiss it as typical baby babble if I were to just slow down my speech and focus extra hard on pronunciation.
"Asa?" Our caretaker said to me. It seems I did get her attention as I'd feared. "Usen kweh ir? Usen kweh Asa?" She said, speaking the language of this world in a very baby-talk manner of speech. Well, I hope that light and friendly tone indicates she is not too suspicious about my behavior.
The way she used the word "Asa" seemed to have a slightly different intonation to it than the rest of the words she used though. Is it possible that "Asa" might be my name in this world? I will have to start paying closer attention to that word and see if she only used it toward me or in reference to me.
I had hoped to watch her interactions with the four of us for the day in an effort to figure out if this idea might be true, but before we even broke eye contact there was the sound of another person entering the room. A visitor I had not seen before, and our caretaker immediately rushed to meet this person.
"Ah, Eirlathion Uman. Tiikis ud ra ii gi ir. Sigdu ii dinu u mein silu ush," she said to the man who had entered.
"Mmm... Tiikis ud mein sion." The low voice of a man responded to what I presumed was a greeting. "Mein maru susu. Sigdu ii dim ohm, trazen main ilu." At those words he turned and walked straight over to me and knelt down and was looking at my face with an uncomfortably firm look.
"Ipar gen sanmah. Main amar lati la su. Amin ii kesdar, amin ii lati ohm abzum," He said. Some part of that must have been some kind of instruction to our caretaker, because she moved in what seemed to be response to his words and grabbed and pulled a confused and protesting Levin away from where I was sitting.
I watched in mild alarm as she was doing pretty much the opposite of what she always tried to encourage. After my thoughts last night about them potentially hurting those two, it gave me reason for concern. I didn't know what was going on anymore.
But then, my attention was drawn by the man as he started lightly touching my forehead and shoulders a lot. This sudden activity had made me even more uncomfortable, but then I realized there was some pattern to the way he was touching me. His touch never lingered. In fact, it seemed very business-like and went to specific locations on my chest, and then he pressed as though his intention was to examine something beneath my skin using his sense of touch to tell him the information he was after.
It was a medical examination! Perhaps this man is simply the local doctor, and he has come to check up on the newborns' health?
"Ah, ra idagal lati sigdu ma," he said, speaking in a deep and weighty tone that suddenly made me think the thing he might be examining me for might be more serious than a simple health check. "Mein tumbatu silu ush, asu kisad oh raru... hahhh..." he broke off with what sounded like a sigh, and his tone stayed rather heavy. I was suddenly very uncomfortable again for entirely different reasons than I was seconds earlier. Did he find something wrong with me?
"Asu absane tamule. Manaar ii rom lulada. Pas, ra irir ohm mein ii iksu," he suddenly started speaking in a firmer and less grave sounding tone, and then gave me a light touch on the forehead before pushing himself up and moving off in the general direction of where I recall my sister was earlier.
Ok, yeah. I did not like that interaction at all. He really does seem to think like there's something wrong with me. How serious is it though? I really hate not knowing the language now. What could the issue be?
Perhaps... the energy vampire hypothesis was correct, but somehow I've managed to control myself and have not been eating Levin and Rolwen's energy and they're concerned I'm starving myself? That sounds disturbingly plausible. But if that's the case... what then? I don't want to do something to harm those two.
As I was stressing over this, my train of thought was suddenly interrupted by the man from before making a very strange sound of surprise and then falling over flat on his rear.
"Eirlathion Uman, enkweh!" Our caretaker shouted and then rushed to the man's side.
He was regaining his composure as I had managed to turn my accursedly difficult to control newborn body in a way that allowed me to see what was happening, and now he was trying to calm the woman down. "Pas, amar ii tama irtii. Amar ii ilar mark ipar ohm! Endrun ii tamarrin lati ohm ma."
After this exchange, the man said some more things to the woman that seemed like final instructions considering how they glanced to me and my sibling on occasion, but I had stopped paying attention to the foreign words by this point as my thoughts were starting to gravitate back toward whatever it was that might be wrong with me.
Also, I discovered rather soon after that what the instructions were all about anyway when our caretaker brought something over to me and, after digging around in a small bowl for a second, started sticking her finger in my mouth.
Of course it's not going to be pleasant to have people just jam their fingers in your mouth, but after the initial surprise I realized there was something sweet on her fingertip.
Was she feeding me solid food because I was not eating in the normal way for my species? Or perhaps I was off about all that and my race just eats less frequently, or maybe this is some kind of medicine.
Well, whatever the reason, the end result was the same. It meant I was going to have to live with this woman sticking her finger into my mouth from now on. This probably wouldn't bother a regular baby all that much, but something about it just felt profoundly wrong to me.
Well, past life memories or not, I really was a helpless baby right now and they seemed to know what they were doing. Best I could tell, they also had my wellbeing at heart, and also my sister appeared to be getting the exact same treatment as me from the times I managed to see her.
That said, I still had to regain my ability to communicate in order to be less helpless. First, I have to regain the ability to make the sounds of the letters in my own former language. Then I might be able to start repeating back some of the words I hear said in this world's language.
"Aeeei, blblblb...bbb...beeei, zu... gu... zmmm..." Damn, I still can't even get close to making a sound anywhere at all similar to C. I didn't mind it so much when I was so far off the correct pronunciation that no letter sounded even close beyond being just close enough for someone like Levin or Rolwen to just barely recognize, but it was now becoming increasingly frustrating since I'd slowed down and was getting closer.
I guess I just can't make that hissing sound yet, perhaps it's my lack of teeth or something. I hope not, but I have to admit that's probably it.
