The Weight of Legacy

Malwine's newest uncle was born early into The Fields, though the exact date was as lost to her as all others were. Perhaps that was for the best—if she managed to figure the tracking of days out at this point, the fact that she hadn't discovered the exact days before would eat at her.

Consistency was key, or so the saying went.

She'd yet to meet the boy, but his name was Benedikt. It was the type of name Malwine held no strong feelings towards, though she constantly wondered whether she should.

Now that this lifestyle was coming to an end, she wondered if her social interactions so far had grown limited enough to warrant jokes about having engaged in closed-door cultivation. Meals and baths aside, most of Malwine's days until now had gone by in her room, her focus on her core.

That did not stop her from overhearing the occasional comment, and she was not fond of what she heard once, when Bernie clearly believed her asleep.

“If only Adelheid were so amenable.”

While she could understand her guardian's frustration, Malwine almost scoffed at that. Adelheid was a literal kid. As much as she was glad for some of the details of her new life, her illusions of a fun and joyful family were pretty much gone now.

A part of her was growing increasingly annoyed at this seeming incapacity to be considerate, displayed by all her adult relatives. It was only a small part of her recent hesitance to be curious about her mother’s actions. Malwine had to catch herself before she descended down that same slippery slope she had on her first life—the temptation to simply write her living family off and focus on researching the dead was quite strong.

But that wouldn't even be possible, would it?

Resurrection existed, and for all Malwine believed the widow's past anger to be justified, letting her biases get the best of her would do her no good.

This wasn't the widow's family—she could fix this.

I've really committed to the ‘I can fix them’ bit. Malwine tried her hardest to avoid wincing.

But how? Far too many of her half-formed ideas relied on the upcoming The Harvest.

If Malwine could get herself the token she wished for, get a Skill to somehow grant mobility to herself… such as a double, or astral projection… she could work with that.

It was as far-fetched as how she still believed she could eventually get herself a telekinetic all-purpose magical whip, but Malwine would stand by it. She had not gotten this far just to avoid doing things exactly the way she wanted to.

Nevermind that while her ideas and attempts usually worked, she’d yet to really figure out why they did, often enough. She wouldn’t risk making a Skill up on the spot again, but that had worked before…

She imagined a projection of the widow walking up to Kristian, rehearsed speech in mind, to lecture him on all the reasons why he should be nice to the household staff.

Endless disappointment filled Malwine as her brain caught up to her. She couldn't actually do that.

Yet!

Forged Skills had certainly spoiled her, but did she really need that safety net, of using a Token from The Harvest? Malwine most certainly wasn’t secondguessing herself simply because she couldn’t see herself getting harvestables on her own, no. It was a matter of efficiency!

That, and willful denial.

Where’s Adelheid when I need her? Malwine sighed. Was she going to be like the adults in her life, just after complaining about them? No, she had to be better. And unfortunately, that would mean she had to keep herself from seeing her little half-aunt as a means to an end. Especially after deriving an Affinity from her.

Unfortunately, Malwine drew a blank when it came to determining just how to pay her little half-aunt back. None of my abilities outright forbid me from using them on somebody else, right…? In fact, [Purpose] would encourage it…

That was it! She’d get Adelheid new and shiny Affinities. The girl only had 2 to begin with, so Malwine was confident that would be a worthwhile task… for later.

Only a few weeks stood between her and The Harvest of 5802, yet Malwine felt less and less confident with each passing day. She wanted a Skill Creation Token, but was it even realistically possible to get one? Her wishful thinking grew flimsier by the day.

I created Skills on the spot before… Malwine reminding herself of the fact achieved nothing, as no convenient panels took over her vision. She was almost annoyed.

Would using [Imitation Beyond Filiality] again be worth the hassle? Probably not.

She found it highly unlikely that any of her relatives had any Skill worth trying to copy for her purposes, and after how the last trial had gone, she wasn’t even sure the Trait was capable of not going off the rails upon use.

Malwine was stumped. Certainly, she could continue waiting. There was no reason to doubt she’d get what she wanted eventually. But the idea of letting this The Harvest pass her by didn’t sit well with her. Even with many years ahead of her, could she really afford to waste limited-time events like these? She might not need the token, but with how relatively reliable the forged Skills had been, she felt inclined to wish for that sort of certainty in making Skills from now on.

Ugh. Malwine wished she knew of other ways to attain that sort of loot.

As The Fields’s end drew close, Malwine found she had yet to see Adelheid—or her new uncle, for that matter. That last part managed to bother her more. Having a relatively decent frame of reference for what real children were expected to behave like could have proven enlightening, especially now that she was no longer sure she could, in good conscience, consider Adelheid an example of normalcy.

Her resumed quests to go to the library—well, to get somebody to take her to the library—had yet to provide her with the information she actually sought, but on this morning-like moment, Malwine was glad to have found something of use.

Specifically, a parenting book that deigned to give her the answers she hadn’t quite known she wanted this desperately. The earlier sections were beyond dubitable as far as the advice went, but a section caught her eye.

Be mindful not to misinterpret the effects of mana absorption. While a child raised in a mana-rich environment will have a far easier time developing their communicative capabilities, they will still be children. Your child being capable of understanding you—and you, of understanding them in turn—is no guarantee that they will grasp the depth of the words they use.

This extends to knowledge and skills you may wish to impart on them. Keeping lessons age-appropriate is your responsibility, regardless of how skilled your child may grow in terms of their penchant for communication. Subjects such as warfare and the harsher truths of the world should be kept from them. Many ill-equipped parents mistake improved developments for maturity, and compromise their children’s wellbeing as a result.

Unfortunately, specific ages were not mentioned, nor did it elaborate upon what was considered ‘communication’ specifically. It still gave Malwine some peace, however—no wonder she kept getting away with her poor impression of a toddler! Her family must have been guided by these expectations, or something similar.

I can’t tell if that means they’ll assume I’m just a dumb kid with overdeveloped speech capacities, if I ever speak out of turn. Malwine narrowed her eyes. Would they just be accepting how she acted, but assuming it wasn’t worth noting? Did she even want to know?

Not all children benefit as thoroughly from mana exposure, however. Though rare, some may process it in different ways, or not at all. Be aware of any delays in the development of communicative ability. This does not necessarily point to concerns for your child’s growth, but it may be a sign of a mana-related defect.

She couldn’t help but think back to the recent events relating Adelheid. Malwine didn’t believe her little half-aunt had any trouble communicating—she just looked like a regular toddler to Malwine. Probably. She somehow suspected it had more to do with the girl’s Affinities than anything else. Is this why Bernie had been acting so weird around her?

Her guardian’s efforts had stopped with the birth of the newest child, but it was still relatively fresh in Malwine’s memory. Bernie had been insistent on speaking with Adelheid about something, and the girl had clearly refused to cooperate.

Alternatively, she could just be uncooperative because she didn’t want to answer whatever Bernie was asking. Malwine could very well be overthinking the matter. With a ‘hm’, she continued reading—speculation would not benefit her here. Especially when it came to a relative. It’d probably be rude, anyway.

Most of the book’s contents weren’t particularly noteworthy, beyond finally confirming to her that expectations in this world were different. She did try not to read too much into it, though—the widow’s memories prior to retirement were the spottiest of all, and she might fail to describe proper child-rearing even when it came to her Earth’s customs.

Not to mention, thinking of the widow in any depth at all was currently quite the sore spot.

Thankfully, the book soon provided a distraction from that train of thought, in the form of an annoyance.

The final—and most well known—impact of mana in development is the eventual passing over the threshold of necessary accumulation to move on to the Mortal Esse and develop Skills. Most children will reach that point before the tenth anniversary of their birth, given sufficient access to mana. This passive absorption will slow after the Mortal Esse is reached, becoming largely irrelevant to future progress, but it is all but guaranteed that your child’s growth will be smooth at least until that point.

As for guidelines on the subject, unverified statistics show that the Mortal Esse is reached, at earliest, soon after the fifth year. Little to no cases of it occurring after the twelfth year have been recorded. When it comes to mortals, the passive gains from mere mana exposure universally appear to end around fifteen years after reaching the Mortal Esse, regardless of the child’s age at the time of the milestone.

The addition of active cultivation to the equation muddles the waters, as actively monitoring the origins of internalized mana is impossible without resorting to intrusive methods. The general consensus would align with the path of least resistance—it is likely that passive mana absorption remains consistent regardless of whether a child is mortal or not, as the initial progress to the Mortal Esse has never been proven to vary between the groups.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. Seriously? Malwine refused to accept that. How was she supposed to wait until she was five? That was, like, over one more year! Her patience wasn’t boundless. She was so hung up on the matter that it took her a moment to process the remaining contents. Huh. So passive mana absorption is indeed a thing. It just doesn’t really affect me?

Malwine glared at the image of the page within her mind. She wasn’t sure on how to feel about the implication that she could have gotten to where she currently was by merely existing for long enough.

Hold up. Did I absorb 5 years worth of mana in one sitting? What?

That did not sound right. As with so many other things, there had to be something she was missing.

Shaking her head, Malwine dismissed the book. It hadn't been a waste of time, not by far, but her standards on what she would consider earth-shattering information were high nowadays. She'd hardly bat an eye at this sort of ‘discovery’.

She doubted this was the only parenting book possessed by the household—at no point had it advocated for child abandonment, yet these people were clearly fond of paying little attention to the youngest ones for days if not weeks at a time.

Is it because they have this kind of belief? That even if literal toddlers have some advantages, they're still too young to truly understand? Malwine could kind of see it, but she didn't like where any of those implications took her. She was annoyed enough as it was by the sheer randomness of even Bernie only really paying attention to her sometimes. She wasn't yet ready to consider this might be something systematic, and she had absolutely no intentions of letting this get in her way when she eventually fixed things.

Because she would.

Unbidden, another thought came to her. Is this discomfort somehow related to how I've been feeling about Beryl lately?

She liked to assume her mother would be here, if she were well. In fact, she was almost certain her mother was in some kind of trouble—perhaps even in a stasis of her own making. She'd put Malwine in stasis, after all. Maybe…

Dammit. It all circles back to this.

The bizarre sensations {Vestige} had left in its wake, confusion and wrongness. Malwine tried to keep those thoughts away, she really did. But choosing denial was rarely wise.

The Affinity had tried to imply that, somehow, Malwine's timeline was off. It was a vague, wordless warning that she could only interpret in strokes, and her initial reaction had been to completely ignore it.

Her confidence in her meager ‘research’ so far might waver if she found herself having to doubt something as basic as her own age.

But so far, the system had never lied to her. Malwine believed she probably was 38 months old. That, however, did not guarantee the date Bernie told her was the correct one for her birth. No, it did not. To her understanding, even Bernie's calculation was based on her displayed age.

The problem was the stasis. Not only had she been in stasis for an unknown period of time, but she had awoken when she was 18 months old, instead of as a true newborn. That was a small mercy to Malwine, but that newfound—and thoroughly unwanted—knowledge of her current existence left her ill at ease. What {Vestige} brought to her attention was not detailed, but it was enough to plant the seed of doubt.

Namely, Malwine had felt remnants—echoes—of her mother's magic, of the stasis. She also understood at a deeper level than should have made logical sense that it was far more power than two years of stasis should have warranted. Perhaps her awakening threw things off, but she felt the Affinity almost goading her into concluding that some missing information would imply something more accurate.

That the timeline was off.

My life would be so much easier if I knew Beryl’s age… Malwine wasn't sure if she truly believed that, but it would have been a start. All she knew so far was that her mother probably had at least thirty years on her, going off Anselm's age—and that was without accounting for Thekla, if her oldest aunt was indeed the secondborn.

Unknown (Rīsan?) + Unknown (Rīsanin?) - - - - Someone with {Ore}?₁ + Beryl Skrībanin₂

\ . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . /

Kristian Rīsan + Katrina Skrībanin †

|

Beryl Rīsanin

₁Isn't dead???

₂Might have died around The Fields of 5750

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Children born to Kristian Rīsan + Katrina Skrībanin (—The Cold of 5786)

1. Beryl

2. Thekla

3. Anselm (The Fog of 5769—)

4. Kristoffer (The Fog of 57??—)

5. Alaric

Children born to Kristian Rīsan + Bernadette fon Hūdijanin (The Forgetting of 5769—)

1. Matilda (The Snow of 5792—)

2. Paul

3. Adelheid (The Forgetting of 5798—)

4. Benedikt (The Fields of 5802—)

The youngest she could be was… maybe 5767? Anecdotally, Malwine knew people actually having a child per year wasn't that feasible, even in the old days. Kristian's offspring count was certainly past what sounded reasonable to her, but it wasn't the highest she'd seen. He had many kids, but not the most he could have had, and though it was quite the leap in logic, Malwine based her conclusion on that.

5763 to 5768. A wildly speculative number, but she would not have gone as far as to call it baseless. This world had her disregarding her usual methods enough as it was, that even an uncertain guesstimation like this suddenly felt like a memory of long-discarded normalcy.

If she assumed the largest gap between the births of children was 3 years—a number some methods in her past life used to highlight timeframes in which missing or unknown children of a couple could have been potentially born—that left her with a 5766-5769 range between Thekla and Anselm, and as such, a 5763-5766 range between her mother and Thekla.

Kristoffer could have solved this for me in literal minutes if he hadn't been an ass and just told me what everyone’s birthmonths and ages were… Malwine grumbled internally.

Regardless of the specifics of the discrepancy {Vestige} uncovered, Malwine could not be younger than 38 months. For the sake of her calculations, she simplified it to 4 years, and started ignoring the months. Only years would matter here, at least so long as she only sought a rough number.

Malwine could not have been born any later than 5798. That much was certain. Beryl would have been between 32 and 35 at the time. That was 26 and a half to little over 29 of her Earth’s years, but, for simplicity, Malwine chose to focus on this world’s years for now.

So what was the earliest she could have been born? As much as it hurt to admit, the parenting book aided Malwine yet again—in this world, adulthood started in earnest at age 22. They did not refer to it as an age of majority directly, but the specific number had been addressed.

So if Beryl hopefully had Malwine as an adult, that'd mean the earliest she could have been born was 5785 to 5786, accounting for the additional months between conception and birth. That was assuming Beryl had been as old as she could be. The other side of the spectrum would leave her with a 5788 to 5789 range.

Malwine did not like math, but this was not math, no. This was research! Finally, some true research. As much as she was glad for the frankly ridiculous feats the system had pulled off on her behalf, she was still a bit sore about being denied the joy of making discoveries and theories as she went along.

Unfortunately, the urge to be realistic reared its ugly head. Was she jumping through all these hoops simply because she wanted to contribute to her own efforts in truth, or could this actually get her any closer to understanding what {Vestige} had hinted at?

The answer was likely two-fold. She already knew the choices he made among the stars must have had a bigger impact than she initially understood, but some facts seemed set in stone. She would have always become Malwine Rīsanin.

However, be it by nuances beyond her choices or by yet-to-be-determined factors, she had awoken fresh out of stasis and at an age that did not match her expectations. Not only that, but her Affinity came dangerously close to assuring her that the stasis had lasted longer than eighteen months.

Therefore, she had been born further into the past. No more than 13 years, at most, but that wasn't an insignificant period of time, as much as her worldview made her think in scales of centuries even now.

But everything pointed to that—Malwine had to be born earlier than she believed, be it by months or more than a literal decade. It was dreadful in a way she struggled to articulate.

And worst of all, the final implication—whatever happened to Beryl, that led to her daughter being all but dumped into a stasis spell, and potentially started all of Malwine’s problems, might have happened far, far longer ago than a measly four years.