Lament for My First Life

The Child Who Knew Too Much

The library was quiet again that morning.

Sunlight drifted through the tall windows, brushing across the carpet like gold lace. The only sound was the faint tick of the old clock and the scratch of a pencil against paper.

Xylenne sat at the long table, small legs dangling above the floor, eyes fixed on the page in front of her. The book her uncle had left open was dense, symbols, lines, equations she didn't yet fully understand but could sense the rhythm of. She studied the page until she had memorized it all, the formulas, the examples, the strange way each concept linked together. Then she hesitated. Her tiny fingers brushed the edge of the paper.

And she flipped the page.

A quiet sound, soft but sharp enough to break the silence. Across the table, her uncle, Zephyros, looked up from his notes. His gray eyes flickered toward her, then down at the page she'd turned. Without a word, he reached over and flipped it back. The page smacked faintly against the table. Xylenne frowned, then reached out again, carefully flipping it back over.

Zephyros's jaw twitched. "A child shouldn't be messing with my work," he said coolly, not looking up from his notes. His voice was smooth but cold, every word precise. "Go play outside."

"But... you have the book I need," Xylenne said softly, her voice small and shy — the voice of a child, though her mind was far older.

"A child of your age shouldn't even be in this library," he said, tone growing harder. "I said, go away."

The words hit like frost. Still, she stayed seated. Her blue eyes dropped to the messy scrawl in his notebook. Lines of ink and symbols filled the page, but one of them, she saw instantly, was wrong. A single miscalculation. Without thinking, she reached over with her pencil and crossed out the line. Zephyros froze mid-sentence.

"I said quit it, kid. Stop messing with me," he snapped, pulling his notebook back.

"You got that one wrong," Xylenne said simply.

"What?" His tone carried disbelief and irritation. "No, I didn't—"

He looked down. Silence. His eyes flicked from the old equation to the new correction. Then to the previous step. And again. Slowly, his expression changed, irritation melting into confusion, then reluctant acknowledgment.

Before he could speak, Xylenne pointed again. "That one's wrong too." This time, he went still. His grip on the notebook tightened.

Then, suddenly, he stood. The chair legs screeched against the floor. "Quit telling me what to do!" he barked, his voice sharp and loud in the quiet library. "You're only a child, you don't know what any of this is!" The words echoed. Xylenne flinched, eyes wide.

In her first life, she had grown used to adults shouting, Lady Varra's cruelty, Marinel's mockery. Back then, she had learned to hide her feelings, to swallow the sting and stay silent. But now... now she was in the body of a seven-year-old, and her heart didn't understand restraint.

Her lip trembled. Tears blurred her vision.

"I—I'm sorry," she stammered. Then she turned and ran, her little shoes pattering down the long hallway until she reached her room.

The door shut behind her with a thud. She leaned against it, breath shaking, tears streaming freely down her cheeks. She hated how easily she cried now. It felt weak. Useless. Why did I run? she thought angrily, wiping her face with her sleeve. He could've been a candidate... he could adopt me! She banged her small head lightly against the door in frustration. I can't mess this up. I have to be strong.

Taking a shaky breath, she opened the door again, and immediately bumped into something solid. She stumbled backward, rubbing her forehead. When she looked up, she froze. Zephyros stood there, holding a notebook in one hand. His face was as unreadable as ever, but his eyes were calmer.

He raised the notebook slightly. "The notes you corrected," he said. "I've fixed them." She blinked at him, confused. "Are they correct to you now?" he asked coldly, his tone still clipped, but softer around the edges. Xylenne rubbed at her teary eyes and looked up at him. "Yes... they're correct now," she said quietly. He studied her face for a moment, something unreadable flickering in his expression. Then he looked down at the pages again. "How do you understand this?" he asked at last. His brow furrowed. "A child shouldn't know any of this. At your age, you should barely be learning basic arithmetic."

"I studied it myself," Xylenne said.

He narrowed his eyes. "Who taught you?" "Nobody," she said simply. "I'm self-taught." He stared at her, disbelief plain on his face. "That's impossible." He stepped forward suddenly and took her small wrist, not roughly, but firmly enough that she couldn't slip away. "Come with me."

He led her back down the hall, through the tall double doors of the library, and over to the large oak table again.

"Sit."

Xylenne sat, her feet barely brushing the floor.

Zephyros pulled a fresh sheet of paper from his notebook, then began to write, a flurry of numbers, lines, and equations. Each problem more complicated than the last. He slid the notebook across the table toward her. "Solve them," he said, his tone testing, skeptical.

Xylenne didn't hesitate. She picked up the pencil and began to write. Her small hand moved with quick precision, solving one equation, then another, explaining her work as she went. The pencil glided across the page, quiet and steady, her concentration absolute. When she finished, she pushed the notebook back toward him. Zephyros took it, glancing over the work with narrowed eyes. His gaze moved from one solution to the next. He paused. His eyes widened slightly.

They were all correct.

He looked at her again, really looked at her. "Are you... a genius?" he asked, voice low, somewhere between disbelief and awe. Xylenne blinked. "I-I don't know..." she stammered, unsure how to respond. He straightened, running a hand through his messy hair. The irritation from before was gone, replaced by something new. Curiosity. Maybe even admiration. He turned to the shelves, scanning the spines of the books until he found two thick volumes. He pulled them out, dropped them onto the table, and opened them both.

"We'll start with this today," he said shortly, his voice still stern but quieter. He placed clean paper before her, along with another pencil. Then he sat beside her. And, for the first time, he began to teach. His tone was steady, explaining theories and examples, scribbling diagrams, pointing out where she had been right and why. Xylenne listened, wide-eyed, absorbing every word.

She couldn't quite believe it, this cold, distant man, the same one who had shouted at her moments ago, was now guiding her through lessons he clearly thought she was capable of understanding.

Her heart thudded softly in her chest. He's teaching me... The warmth of the fire cast long shadows across the table, their pencils scratching in rhythm. The child prodigy and the grieving scholar, two Winters lost in their own storms, now shared the same quiet light.

And as numbers and notes filled the pages between them, something new began to form, not trust, not yet, but the fragile beginning of connection.