The Reincarnation of Alysara. Chapter 1: Life Anew

AN: Sorry this one took so long. For the longest time something bugged me about it even though it was basically done. Eventually, though, I did figure out what was bothering me. The chapter was basically one long exposition of the town. There was very little input or involment from Aly, at least nothing that was shown it was all told.

It's very important to get the "foundations" right since everything else is built on top of that. This is why it's needed to take time to get these first few chapters right since it sets the tone and expectations for the rest of the story.

Don't expect chapter 2 anytime soon. It needs a lot of work and a large part will need to be completely rewritten. It's the chapter that introduces the system, so it is one of the foundational chapters, and introducing the system in a way that doesn't just throw everything at you at once while giving the important details is going to be a hard one to figure out. Thank you all for your patience, and I hope you like this chapter.

AN2: Got some editing suggestions? Suggest it on the Google Docs here:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ZwSqU1t2OsYMIY5vK8DKwKJfjX2FmL613ytEDtaENbY/edit?usp=sharing

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I wake up with darkness wrapped tightly around me. It is a comfortable tightness, warm and soft, but I am in a slightly awkward position. I try moving but quickly tire and fall asleep until I get uncomfortable again. After repeating, the cycle is broken when I feel a smothering constricting from the darkness around me, trying to push me through a cramped tunnel. I feel like I am being crushed when, suddenly, all the pressure is released, and I let out an instinctual cry. 

I open my eyes to see the face of a giant. She’s beautiful, with long, royal-blue hair tied in a ponytail and large, triangular, fluffy ears atop her head. She has blue eyes and what appears to be three short azure lines under the corner of her right eye that look like they’ve been painted on with a round brush. They draw attention to her eyes but aren’t garish enough to distract from her natural features. 

Before I can examine the giant woman further, I’m passed to another woman. Her features are similar to those of the first, with the same royal-blue hair, making me think they are sisters. She smiles with perfect white teeth, her watery blue eyes looking down at me with unmistakably motherly love. She has a heart-shaped face with flawless skin and upturned markings that closely resemble eyeliner. She also has those large ears with fluffy tufts at the top. They look so soft that I try to reach out to them, but they’re too far away.

Squeals of delight echo around me, and more faces appear in my vision: a white-haired woman and more blue-haired women, some older and some younger. I hear even more voices. It seems they are gushing over me, talking in high-pitched voices, cooing at me, and all saying a single word:

“Láhoky”

I refocus on my mother, who appears a little strained, like she overexerted herself.

“Láhoky Alysárá.” She hugs me to her rather expansive bosom. She tries to nurse me, and my instincts take over. After having my fill, sleep quickly takes me.

When I next wake, I notice the room’s dark corners filled with motes of light twinkling like stars. In the bright light coming through the window, colorful transparent orbs float around like jellyfish. Looking down, I see that I am covered with golden orbs that seem to lay on my blanket. They look pretty, but what are they? I hope it’s not something bad, like a pest infestation.

I seem to be in some sort of cage. It’s open at the top, with soft bedding under me and a soft cream-colored blanket over me. There are pinkish decorative drapes at the corners, and the wood has intricate carvings.

The ceiling is a fascinating display of art, with an immense design covering the entirety of it. The intricate composition combines twisting, angular lines with soft curves. The more I look at it, the more patterns reveal themselves. Sometimes, if I stare at one place for long enough, another picture comes into focus in the same spot! It feels as if I am familiar with this phenomenon, a memory buried deep in my soul.

After staring for so long at the beautiful ceiling design, I feel my bowels moving, getting ever closer to a really bad time. With as much breath as I can muster, I wail as loudly as I can.

“WAAAAHHH!” My shout seems to have scared off the glowing orbs as they slowly float away like drifting jellyfish.

Like welcoming thunder, I hear loud footsteps coming closer. Mom storms into the room and picks me up, holding me close to her, shushing me… and bouncing me. 

Oh no, please don’t bounce me; it’s going to make it worse… Too late. 

The smell of a freshly made mess is as good a signal as ever to change my blanket... and my mom’s shirt. 

Mom changes into a skimpy dress made from the same cloth material as everything else. It is embroidered fashionably. The dress has several electric blue parts with sandy yellow trims, a revealing bra with frills and ribbons, armlets with dangling red ribbons on both her upper arms and forearms, and a skirt that doesn’t quite reach her knees. Her flat navel is bare and shows a light tan and healthy skin. Lastly, Mom has an emerald amulet around her neck and several earrings on her large fluffy ears, although one of the earring pairs is mismatched.

After that, Mom carries me around for some time, allowing me to use her height to see better. I get a good look at our house… well, it’s a pretty small house… more of a hut, really… It feels like I am just in a big room with curtains dividing it into sections. It’s round, with a mostly flat ceiling. 

As Mom walks past a curtain, I grab a small handful of the fabric to feel it. The curtains are made of the same soft material as my blanket, with fine embroidery. 

“Bo Alysárá? Guem͍ofdo tl ák,” Mom says in a babying voice.

I have no idea what she means, so I look around. I see a bed next to my crib that I didn’t notice before, which looks like it’s for my parents.

Mom carries me out of the hut, saying some things I can’t understand, holding me so I face the sky. The scene almost takes my breath away! Dancing rainbow auroras are all congregating at a point high in the sky and falling down like a beautiful waterfall onto a nearby island. A massive winged silhouette crosses in front of the brilliant display and past a large, red, ashen moon.

The street is fairly wide and covered with expertly milled planks tightly jointed to each other, leaving no gaps. Decorative etchings are engraved into the walkways, and almost everyone walks around barefoot, with a rare few in loud wooden sandals. The paths are kept clean and in good condition, with an older child actively sweeping up a spilled planting pot. 

Our hut is built next to the edge of the village, and looking down, I can easily see the coral-covered seafloor under the steaming waters. This village appears to be built on the water using piers. 

How warm is that water for it to be steaming like that? I wonder, but my thoughts are broken by someone’s voice.

“Lá Feyán!” A woman waves as she passes before noticing me. She smiles and starts talking in a higher-pitched voice. “P͡y tl ái!”

I can’t even begin to understand all these words. It feels like I have a mountain to climb, and I haven’t even taken the first step. I don’t even know a single word; how am I going to learn the entire language?!

Mom says something to the woman, and they have a short discussion. Throughout the conversation, I hear the name “Myrou” several times. Myrou is a goddess, so maybe they worship her? Actually, the more I think about that, the more it makes sense from what the goddess said about preparing a place for me. 

As we move on, Mom passes by many people who greet her in a friendly manner. They are all gorgeous, with voluptuous endowments and slim figures. A good amount of them have toned muscles, and I don’t see any who can be considered fat. Many have tattoos, but they’re generally limited to faces and shoulders to accentuate features. However, I have seen one woman with a full sleeve tattoo with intricate details, rivaling the complexity of the design on our hut’s ceiling. 

Some women are really tall. Actually, roughly half of the women are easily a head taller than Mom, while the other half are around her height, which I find a little odd. I’m not sure why, but there’s something in my dormant memories that seems to explain this. In any case, the women all wear dresses that are similar in style and show a lot of skin. Their hair is vibrant and colorful, with green, red, orange, violet, pink, blue, and many more colors appearing quite commonly. Also, it seems everyone has long, healthy, and generally well-cared-for hair.

As I take in everything and contemplate the oddities of the height differences, my eyes are drawn to their long, really long, fluffy tails. Seriously, those tails are long—about a head shorter than their height. They have to curl up their tails so as to not drag them on the ground.

Do I also have a long tail and ears like those? I reach up to feel my ears, and a heavenly soft sensation greets my hands. Yup, they’re pretty big. The watching women “daww” as I grab my ears, just like one would dote over a cute kitten.

“P͡y tl ái!”

Hm? I heard that before. Are they calling me cute?

Mom seems to enjoy the attention I and, in turn, she is getting. She proudly boasts about me, or at least that’s what I think she is doing.

After being doted on by the crowd, Mom continues on to her destination.

She stops in front of a huge multi-floor house. There is a signpost with some sort of complex writing on it and a few round and cut gems decorating it. We enter and are greeted with the sight of dozens of women working on shaping gems. Some grind them down, some cut them into workable pieces, and others polish them until they shine. A tall, white-haired, fit-looking woman is inspecting their work, along with a supervisor who seems to be telling the fit woman what to look for.

Mom walks up to the inspector and says something. She hands me to her, entrusting me to the woman. Getting a closer look, the white-haired woman has her hair in a long braid with red gem dust sprinkled over her face and hair, making it look like she has glitter on her. Her beautiful red eyes gaze at me as she holds me close to her generous bosom.

She coos over me, pats my head, and says something in a babying voice that is way too affectionate to be from a stranger. 

“Lá Alysárá Kukym͡á.”

I wonder what my relation is to her? 

Some of the dust falls on me, making me sneeze… which must have been really cute because it elicits an excited squeal from the white-haired woman, but the moment ends when she gives me back to Mom with a word. Mom nods and leaves, taking me to a place where the wooden planks drop below the water the village is built above.

In the center of this place is a naked statue of Myrou that seems to be a little too real, but I am still surprised when it winks at me. Despite my surprise, I realize the statue is a near-opaque image or hologram wrapped around an actual statue of Myrou. The statue may look like how she appeared to me, but it feels… lacking, like it captured her appearance but not her embracing beauty.

I decide not to question god things, but it does make me wonder if Myrou is watching over this place or if it’s just a magic image.

In the water are several women bathing while rubbing oil on their skin and combing it through their long hair… actually not all of them are women; some of them have male genitalia.

I see. So that white-haired woman is my father?

Mom begins stripping off her dress—yup, right in front of everyone—and is somehow juggling me while not jostling me around too much. She puts her dress in a basket next to the bathing area, then unwraps me from my blanket and puts that in her basket as well. Crime must not really be a thing here if you can just trust your possessions to any passersby.

Mom walks into the broiling water, and the other women gather around, babying me and questioning Mom. A few minutes pass, and all but two of the women disperse. Mom sits further down in the bath and gingerly dips me into the hot water, splashing some over me while her hair is being combed by another woman. As the baths are filled with seawater, I expect it to taste salty as some of it gets in my mouth, but it’s actually nice. A sea of fresh water?

Mom and the woman talk as we wash. Another woman brings a clay jug and sits beside Mom. 

“Ho.” Mom says a single syllable word that I presume is her thanking the woman and then pours a small amount of oil into her hand. She rubs some on me. The oil smells fruity and citrusy and…something else? It’s hard to tell. The other woman also oils herself and Mom, combing it into her hair and rubbing it on her legs.

After washing up and oiling down, we soak in the calm water. Mom splashes more water over me as the other woman takes an empty jug, dips it in the bath, and pours it over Mom and herself. 

After rinsing off the oils, Mom begins nursing me while soaking in the water. These people are very open, so I don’t know why I’m surprised by this. Once we finish taking our sweet time in the baths, Mom does… something, and all the water just seems to slide right off us, then she wraps me up in my blanket. 

I realize she just used a spell! I feel my heart beat faster in excitement and hope I’ll be able to use it too!

After some time, we go back to our hut, and now I’m back to staring at the intricately detailed ceiling. 

Welp—boredom time… Boredom sucks… What can I do for fun? Bug Mom for attention? No, I don’t want to be like that. I’m sure she’s busy, and I don’t want to bother her. I’ll make do with my imagination and review what I’ve learned today.

One. We live in a village built upon piers above the water.

Two. The sea is hot fresh water, and these people bathe in the open. 

Three. There are auroras. Hmm. Magic leylines? Oh! That could be it! Or… at least there’s something I am feeling in my memories that I can’t remember. Though, it doesn’t feel like I’ve actually experienced it. Whatever the case, does this mean we’re near a place of power or something?

Four. Magic exists, and Mom can use it. I really hope I can too.

If there’s a place of power nearby, and magic is real, then… If I open myself up to the energies, can I learn how to do magic? Again, I am getting some vague memory of knowledge or something, so hopefully, I am on the right track.

I close my eyes, trying to feel… something. Something I’ve never felt before… Nothing. Well, there’s a tingle in my fingers, but that’s probably because my arm fell asleep. Ah well, worth a shot. But maybe I’m not doing it right? Let’s see… 

I clear my thoughts, banishing all emotions and distractions, washing them away in an imaginary river—there’s nothing except me and the energies of this world... my head’s starting to hurt… is that a good sign? Other than a mild headache, I’m not getting anything. I don’t know how long I’ve been doing this, but it feels like some time has passed. Hmm… If not body and mind, then perhaps soul? I really have no clue how all these things work; I’m just throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks. Here goes nothing!

For the next I-don’t-know-how-long, I lay there, motionless. I may have fallen asleep once or twice during my meditation. I guess being carried around for a few hours is tiring work. I wake up with my tail in my arms. I guess I’m using it as a hug pillow. I try moving it away, but something stops me from removing such a soft and wholesome thing from my embrace. Why does my tail have to be so heavenly soft? Also, is it me, or is my tail proportionally longer than the others I’ve seen?

I figure that I can keep meditating as I lay here, so I refocus on the innermost part of myself: my core, my existence. This! This might just be it! I can feel something, a pressure—no, a wall. I need to get past this wall. 

Just as I make a breakthrough, I feel myself being picked up. I try to squirm in protest, but what can a baby do? I open my eyes to see Mom looking down at me with a smile and warm blue eyes, her face framed by her royal-blue hair. The white-haired lady… man? Probably my father. Anyway, he or she is talking with Mom, and Mom passes me off to her as we leave home again.

Along with my father(?), we return to the town…village… whatever. It’s dusk now, and I’m pretty sure it was morning when we were last out—was I really meditating/sleeping that long? After being stopped many times by people asking to see me, Mom enters a house with a long counter. Mom sets a hefty clay jug on the counter and says something. The clerk lady says something in response and moves behind a door. She comes out with a fairly sizable block of cheese and round, flat rubies. I get more impressions from my memories as if I know what the rubies are, but I can’t really remember whatever it is my memories are trying to tell me. It’s starting to annoy me how I’m getting these memory impressions or whatever, yet I don’t actually know anything!

Anyways, we drop off the groceries and head back out. We enter a large stony area carved out from an offshore rock, where a large bonfire has been lit. People deftly dance around the fire to the beat of drums and other stringed instruments. Mom sways with the music, humming and occasionally patting my head with a smile.

After the dancing comes what I think is story time: everyone gathers around one person while she speaks, sometimes dramatically or humorously. Then, the next person comes up and tells their story. This one speaks like she is delivering a sermon; it must have something to do with the gods, as I hear Myrou’s name many times. Next, someone comes up and sings. Her voice is well-practiced and beautiful.

Then comes the time when Mom steps in front of everyone to show me off, the newest addition to the village. People compliment Mom or me, I’m not sure which, and soon enough Mom leaves the stage with me.

When the events are done, everyone trails to a large communal bathing area, where everyone bathes in the waters, oils down, and soaks. People talk, complain, and congratulate one another. This bathing area has another statue of the goddess, like the first statue I saw. This one is holding a clay jug with water pouring out of it like a fountain. Myrou’s image smiles warmly at me without shifting from her pose. It seems like no one else has noticed the slight twitch of her lips.

After the bonfire party, we return to our home. I am put to bed, tired from the evening activities, and hoping that tomorrow I will be able to figure out something about magic.