Ancient Pasts - Tbate

Awakened

One and a half Years Later

Alice Leywin Pov

Arthur and Cathan had to be the most adorable babies, and I'm not saying this because I'm a doting mother. 

No.

Them and their scruffy little patch of glowing auburn hair and playful eyes, that almost radiate blue light while their gaze, at times, seemed almost... intelligent. 

No no, I told you, I'm not a doting mother. I plan to be a strict and just mother. I can't rely on my husband to teach little Art and Cath any common sense. For God's sake, he tried to teach my babies how to fight when they could barely crawl. 

I know these little rascals would turn out just like his father if I left them be. As soon as they started crawling, I was so proud I was on the verge of shedding tears, but I didn't know how much of a handful he'd be as soon as they became mobile. 

I swear, there's not a single moment where I can take my eyes off of them before they crawl into the study room. How weird. We made sure to buy them lots of stuffed animals and wooden toys to play with, but they always ends up going to the study room. THAT, at least was directly opposite of his father, seeing how Reynolds almost gravitates away from texts longer than the weekly newspaper. Looking at how excited they got when we went out to town, I decided to go shopping for food once every other day instead of twice a week. 

No no, I told you, I'm not a doting mother. This is for their education of the outside world and for fresh food in the house. Yeah haha . . . that's it. 

My sons seemed to be interested in a lot of things. I can't get enough of seeing their heads, which seemed so disproportional to his little body, turning left and right while trying to take everything around him in. They seemed particularly intrigued by their father's practices. 

Art and Cath somehow wound up with both of our redeeming traits, making them that much more adorable. You should see them when I have to change their diapers. I don't know why, but they would start turning red in their cheeks and cover their faces with their tiny little fingers. 

When Reynolds and I were teaching them to say mama and dada they shared a look nodded, Cath said mama while Art said dada, everytime we tried to get them to say "mama" or "dada" they would swap who said which.

To our relief, Little Art and Cath never got sick, but oftentimes, I would find them sitting still on their butt while closing their eyes. At first, I thought they were having trouble relieving themselves, but after checking the first couple of times, that didn't seem to be the case. 

How strange, I didn't know what to make of it. I thought babies their age were supposed to be energetic and flighty, but after their episodes of escaping to the study room, they seemed to spend a lot of time sitting still, almost meditating. 

Arthur Leywin Pov

About one and half years later have passed since Cathan and I made our difficult journey to the study room. 

From then, I had been constantly trying to gather the little bits of mana spread out in my body and focus it in an attempt to form a mana core. Let me tell you, it was a slow and arduous task. I would find myself having an easier time trying to learn how to walk on my hands and eat with my feet in this damnable body than trying to will my mana core to condense. 

I could see why the book said that it'll take until at least the adolescent age for a person to 'awaken. ' If I had let the mana particles in my body move by themselves, it would take at least a decade for them to gravitate towards each other to form anything remotely close to a mana core.