6 Names (2/2)

Father opened a sliding door and brought through a chair. He placed it up against the near side of the desk and ushered the man to sit.

”… Adrian,” father said. The man nodded and sat down.

”… Carlo,” the man replied.

I seemed to be able to pick out their names from that exchange. My father's name was Carlo, and the man was called Adrian. They seemed quite familiar chatting across the desk. Adrian made occasional looks in my direction.

At some point, Adrian exhaled a thin, wheezing laugh. He took a small box from his robes, placing it on the table. Father opened it and withdrew a thin card. I remembered seeing something similar last time Adrian visited.

They stood up, and father clasped Adrian's hand with both of his. Father uttered something with a bow, and Adrian nodded. He took one last look at me, and with a shake of his head, he left the study.

Father walked over to me and pinched my nose. He showed me the card, and I could see characters on it. Finally face to face with the first words of my life, I reached out.

Father passed it to me, and I tried to hold it up in front of my face. But my arms were too weak, and I dropped it. He laughed and sat me up, then reached for the card, and held it in front of me.

It seemed to be made of translucent jade with a thinly etched border. The characters weren't printed on it; they looked more like golden crystallisations within. The card was simple but beautiful.

I moved my hand to touch it and was surprised when I did. A pulse of golden light ran from my finger in a circuit-like pattern. When the light reached the border it circled around, and then the whole card blinked.

This card must have been a magic item. It didn't respond like that to father, and there must be a reason he showed it to me. Maybe it was something made specifically for me?

I tried to study the characters on it. They were different from anything I knew, and I couldn't make any sense of them. To my surprise, father started reading, tracing his finger along the words.

I knew that this was helpful, and I made some happy playful noises to encourage him. It felt weird, egging him on like this. But it was working, he was sounding out the characters for me.

I tried my hardest to commit them to memory. This wasn't the boring, useless vocab from my past life. These syllables were the key to learning about this new world.

After a few minutes, father lay me back down. He walked away and sat back at his desk. He was always writing, and I found the scratch of his feathered pen relaxing.

When he finished a page, he placed it in a drawer below his desk and then took out another sheet. Occasionally he made a note in one of the books piled up beside him.

I stopped watching father and thought back to myself. I had the day left to work with and was fully recovered. I knew that it was time to form my soul, so I submerged myself in deep meditation.