Chapter 10 - Going Outside
Over the last few days since the start of spring, my parents were starting to look very hopeful whenever they looked at me. The thing was that I didn\'t understand why until I practiced a series of movements to see their reaction.
According to the actions of everyone around me except my brothers, I think they are waiting for me to walk.
I had already shown them that I could crawl when I was 3 months old because I got bored of not being allowed to move around. After becoming almost a 5-month-old baby, I started to understand a bit of the language just from the baby talk my sister would do with me whenever she was around.
I decided to walk a small distance In front of them before dropping to the ground because crawling was a lot more convenient.
After I grew teeth and got used to my new pair of vocal cords, I had finally decided to say a series of words to my sister whenever I understood whatever she was saying which made her extremely happy and visibly proud of her achievement of teaching to talk.
I didn\'t speak to anyone other than my sister no matter what. The only time I would speak is when it was In front of my sister or whenever I needed food.
Honestly, I didn\'t care about the rest of the family as much as my sister, and my mother didn\'t fall too much behind her either. From the moment I was born into this world, I didn\'t care about the people around me. I saw them all as untrustworthy strangers... And yet, somehow for a reason unknown to me, developed a soft spot for first my mother and then my sister.
At one point, my love for my sister exceeded that of my mother for again, reasons unknown to me. It might have been because of the unconditional love she showed me even though she was a boy and she didn\'t have to, or it might be that I got bored of my parents and just saw my sister as a more fun person to be around.
One thing was for sure though, I liked her more than any person I had ever met in both my lives other than my original mother. She was truly the first person I had ever seen as trustworthy and the only person I would be happy to be related to.
I slowly started to wait in anticipation for the weekends more than any other day in the week. I would spend most of my time harnessing my mana and trying to manipulate the elements around me.
When the weekend would come, my father wouldn\'t go to what I assume was work due to how best he is when he comes home, but my sister would also come home for 2 days before going back to school.
When people of this world are my sisters (an age that I still don\'t know), people have to go to school for the whole week except for the weekends. This world has the same amount of days in a week as earth and counts its years in seasons rather than months. They do however count their weeks instead from what I can see from the calendar on top of the fireplace.
There are 57 weeks in total which is close enough to earth\'s weeks in a year. While my father would only get a week leave Every season except summer where he would get 2 weeks to leave, my sister would get 4 weeks in the transition between summer and autumn, while getting a week\'s leave in winter and spring.
All this information was simply marked into the calendar and due to me observing everything they did and putting the points together, I was easily able to tell which colors on the calendar indicated which individual.
Anyway, it is spring break and everyone is home right now getting ready for a... picnic?
From the words I could decipher, the ones I knew the meaning of were "friends" "outside" and "food". Normally, from those words alone I would not be able to understand what was happening, but according to the gestures and the actions of bringing a basket full of food, it was my best guess.
Aroura was brimming with joy when she was playing with me, while my parents were getting my brothers changed and packing everything needed hurriedly. We were either on a tight schedule because it would become dark, which I doubted, or people were waiting for us.
After an hour or so of people running around the loud whines of children wanting to stay home, we finally got going.
I think I forgot to mention that my parents probably weren\'t that wealthy, but at the same time, money was not a problem the family had. From the elegance of my sister and to the fact we could afford a doctor to come to our house, I\'d say we were close to being nobles if we weren\'t already minor nobles.
There was an elegant carriage around 100 meters away from our house. It was kind of big, as big as an eight-seater car if you ignored the horses, and was decorated with red curtains on the inside visible from the outside, and also was wood brown with golden engraving on the side and edges of the carriage itself.
It was connected to two horses, both on a leash by a man in a black and white butler suit with the straps going over his shoulder and the bow tie at the bottom of his neck being black. He had gray gelled back hair with a gray mustache and a slightly old wrinkly face. The man stood 5ft 8 tall and looked to be in his mid-thirties.
When we got in, the carriage started to leave immediately. This was my first time outside since I was born, yet even then, I didn\'t look around like everyone expected me to. Rather, I just acted like I\'m sleeping in front of everyone while trying to manipulate the elements around me at the same time.
One thing I did forget to mention was that my grandmother couldn\'t come, and it wasn\'t that she just didn\'t, it was that she left home when spring came around. I\'m guessing she had to go to work since I\'m pretty sure she is a well-renowned mage, and from the hugging and tears, I could tell I\'d probably not see her until at least next autumn.
Anyway, the carriage stopped and we had finally reached our destination.
When we got out, all I could see was huge plains with trees spaced out from each other and a very minimum amount of bushes.
The butler took us to the alleged meeting area. The area had multiple blankets, thin blankets/ sheets on the grass where people would sit, eat or drink tea. There were around 30 people and I wasn\'t the only one shocked by the number of people here for a simple picnic.
My parents were taken aback but quickly regained their composure when a woman in a red dress, 5ft 4 with wavy black and brown hair going down slightly under her shoulders, aligned with her shoulder blades.
She was wearing red lipstick and walking towards us with a wine glass in her right hand which was covered in a red glove. She was clearly in her late 30s and had quite average looks.
Behind her was a boy, who I would guess is her son, who looked to be the same age as Aroura, clearly eyeing my older sister up and down which slightly infuriated me.