Supreme Magus

lways called him like that in his mind.

Every slip of the tongue would cost him a serious scolding, and when he did it while harshly arguing with his parents, even a good spanking.

Orpal blamed Lith for all of his misfortunes, the little runt always giggled when he was having a hard time.

The relationship between Lith and his parents, instead, kept getting better and better.

He had already started saying babble words, making sure to say ”Mama ” when Elina embraced him and ”Dada ” whenever Raaz came near him.

”If this world is even a bit similar to Earth ’s middle age, is better to stay in my old man ’s good book until I am self-sufficient. ” This was Lith ’s reasoning.

He was still very afraid of father figures, and the two of them didn ’t had much a relationship anyway. Raaz would always be busy with something, letting his wife and eldest daughter spend the most time with the baby.

To his defence, he had just wrongly assumed that Lith was too little to notice, and that they would have time catch up later in the future, like he did with his other sons.

Raaz really loved him, and Lith never ceased to amaze him. He couldn ’t remember him crying for no reason, not even when teething.

If someone bumped into his cradle or raised his voice while Lith was asleep, or at least pretending to, he would not make a sound, just look around before going back to sleep.

Lith increasingly grew fond of Eliza, it was more like a loving aunt than a sister to him. He could see himself in her, taking care of her little brother like he did with Carl.

He would have loved to express this love, but all he could do was smile and laugh as soon as he saw her, and call her ”Lala ”. She was in fact the only one, beside his parents, to have a babble name.

It wasn ’t much, but it meant the world to her.

And so, time went by. After six months from his arrival, Lith was put on the ground for the fist time and started to crawl under strict supervision. At the ninth month he started to walk and graduated himself from babble words to real ones.

On the day of his birthday, after discovering they had birthdays in that world too, he allowed himself to use simple phrases and started to make questions to complete his vocabulary.

Knowing nothing about babies, it was very stressful finding the right timing for every little thing. Luckyly, Lith could always resort on cheating to find out the proper time for him to ”learn ” to do something. He was already capable of understanding most of what he could hear, so he would always be open to ”suggestions ”.

If Elina was dying for him to finally say ”Mommy ” instead of ”Mama ”, he would wait a couple of days before making it happen. If Raaz cheered for Lith running to him, he did.

The real problem was paying attention to everything Raaz, Eliza and Elina said while being seemingly completely oblivious about their words.

Another problem was that once they let him roam free in the dining room, they gave him also small wooden toys expecting him to play and explore his surroundings.

Lith already knew the dining room as the bac of his hand, and there was not much to see in the first place. Yet he had to pretend to be curious about it.

That was the hardest thing he had ever done since becoming a baby, and scared him to death. He had no clue how a child would explore such bland environment, and his paranoia about blowing his cover made him sweating bullets.

Seeing the expectation in their eyes, he started from the nearest thing, the fireplace. The fire was not lit, the logs were cold and covered in ashes.

When he got closer, Raaz stopped him.

”This is the fireplace. Now is safe, but fire is bad. Fire hurts. No touching it, never. ”

Lith looked at him, seemingly confused, before trying to put his hand in the ashes. Raaz grabbed his hand, blocking him.

”Fire is bad. No touching it. Never. ” His father repeated.

Lith stared in his eyes like he was deeply in thought, before asking: ”Fire bad? ”

”Yes, very bad. ” Raaz replied while nodding.

”Okay. ” Lith moved away from the fireplace and got close to the table. When he tried climbing up a chair, almost falling down with it, Elina ran to his rescue.

”Good gods, this little one sure likes danger. ” Seeing their increasingly worried expressions, Lith believed to have found a way out that torment.

He would keep putting himself in danger, trying to climb on the table and going into the kitchen rummaging through pots and knives.

Quickly they decided that adventure time was over. They made him sit on an old cloth spreaded over the wooden floor, and gave him toys to play with while they recovered from the stress.

He had a little wooden horse, some kind of cart, and an odd-looking dog thingy. Playing was much easier to him. Lith did not need to create stories or explaining what he was doing.

He could just use playtime to practice spirit magic. Lith would actually never use his hands to move the toys, making them float as close as possible to his fingers.

He really enjoyed those moments. Lith could finally openly rejoice, scream and laugh anytime he made a new discovery or a breakthrough, and all his parents would see was a happy child lost in his fantasies.

”Who would have ever thought that such a quiet little fellow could have such a vivid imagination. ” Raaz said with a big, proud smile on his face. ”Look at him. All he has is just some old toys, yet it looks like he has the whole world in the palm of his hand. ”