I couldn't actually remember the process of being born, and that much I thanked whatever entity had sent me here for. Being an infant was bad enough. I could hardly concentrate on anything, or see what was around me for that matter. My entire body felt thin and raw, and the indignities of having no control over my bodily functions were best not mentioned. At least, since I had all the mental focus of a particularly dim goldfish, I never managed to think about how traumatizing this all was for more than a few seconds at a time. It was a blessing in disguise that my perception of time was screwed, since it only felt like half an eternity before I was no longer a squalling wreck instead of a full one. Joy. By the time I managed to be sure the people I saw pass and play with me were actually speaking words, I also became sure they weren't speaking any language I'd ever heard of. Or was it just that all language felt like gibberish to babies? A nice woman, probably my mother since I saw her all the time, spoke to me in a soothing voice all the time and saw to it I was fed with a bottle. Liquid diet, huh. Another thing to sort in the 'forget as soon as possible' column.

Actually learning to speak was difficult - my throat was being very difficult about it - but pointing games with images began to establish my vocabulary. Then one day it wasn't a book that was put in front of me but what appeared to be an actual fucking hologram and it sunk in we might not be in Kansas anymore, Toto. Or at least not when I'd died, which I could still remember. Not as well as I thought I had before, though, when everything had been swimming blurs. I remembered a family, but dimly. A house, an apartment and so many things I'd spent my hours on. But I couldn't quite put a name to any of it, no my parents or my school or the first girl I'd kissed. Gods, not even the city I was from much less the country. A vague but lingering sense of loss came over me at that, and I heard voices I could almost understand now speak. Something about being tired? Oh goddamnit not the cradle. The moving shapes over it were nowhere as entertaining as the voices seemed to think they were, either. Looking at them too long kind of gave me a headache, though it was all… wooly.

When I finally understood the words, I learned I was a little before two years old. I also learned that the nice lady, Anabelle, was not my mother but my nurse. She was quite affectionate, though, and that was how I learned my name was Henry, Henry Marigold. My actual mother, who I learned to recognize from short and infrequent visits, wasn't the touchy-feely type apparently. I learned why when I heard servants - there were servants around, yes, so apparently I'd been born pretty rich - gossip about her being in grief. Over my father, apparently, which explained why I'd never caught sight of him. Something about him being lost in a plane crash, though they kept calling that grim for some reason. The context seemed to imply an attack, but they never actually said that outright so maybe some sort of sabotage? Something to sort out when motor functions were fully back under control. Walking was a bit hazardous at the moment, since my legs were basically chubby flesh marshmallows.

Regardless, there'd not been a single mention of a continent or country I could remember. This place was called Atlas, apparently, though we were a little outside the city. Why? Oh, this was called Marigold House. It wasn't just a house, it was an estate. Fancy. I revised the estimate of rich to wealthy because estates weren't things people bought on a mortgage, as a rule. Now that I had a modicum of spatial awareness back I noticed I was moved between my bedroom and a playroom but never really taken anywhere else, and from what I could glimpse over the shoulders of adults carrying me those rooms were in a little-frequented part of the house. I could more than get by on the language, but I was still a useless illiterate ball of chub so I resorted to cuteness and tantrums to get people to read children's books to me. Not exactly the goddamn Odyssey, but if I had to be shown a chicken to know how to spell the word chicken I'd deal with it. The insistence of my nurse to make the noises along the words was appreciate on a theoretical level, but pretty distracting on a practical one. My belly kept giggling when she did, since it was a filthy traitor.

I made a point of learning my mother's name - Bailey Marigold - and calling her mama the next time she visited, and that got her to come a little more often for a month but it didn't stick. She had a demanding job, apparently, CEO of the 'Marigold Company'. A family enterprise, I assumed. She was never around for more than an hour at a time, and visits were often cut short by calls. The device that got those calls, though, got my attention more than Mother. People called it a Scroll, and it seemed similar to a smartphone. Except for the part where it had a translucent extendable screen with image capacity while remaining no larger than an iPhone when put together. An iPhone that could be split in two, on top of it. Technology here in 'Atlas' seemed to be a cut above the Old World - what I'd taken to calling Earth, since I didn't always remember that name on first try. By the age of three I could get around like I wasn't a bumbling drunk, so I began to investigate. It, uh, turned out harder than I thought. A chihuahua could have outrun me if it gave it a good try, and I was never really alone.

I did eventually get a closer look at a lamp, and that was when I got my first large surprise. It didn't run on electricity - it wasn't plugged into a wall at all. Battery? But that would be horribly wasteful. I began digging at the sealed opening in the back when goddamn Anabelle caught me before I could get a proper look. She actually chewed me out, for literally the first time I could remember. Apparently the lamp ran on something called Dust, and messing with it was a Bad Idea. Well, whatever. Thanks for the save, Belle, but I'm not the one who put a lamp running on Powercell Dynamite at child height. A + child-raising there, and I wasn't saying that just because she put me back in the crib and I was bitter about it. I asked question about, making sure not to sound too articulate, and I learned that Dust apparently made everything in Atlas work. It came from the ground, which I figured out meant mining. Some sort of mineral deposit. It was also used for the loud things that made the monsters go away? That sounded like guns. Powered by a universal energy source. What the fuck was this place?

Story time, which was now mandatory tradition, only brought more questions. The protagonists were almost always 'Huntsmen' or 'Huntresses', basically heroes with superpowers, except the servants spoke of them during the day as if they were a fact of daily life. There was even mention of a school where they learned to be Huntsmen, whatever that meant. Those living demigods supposedly used something called Aura, which was an energy field that was also a soul, maybe? It also made them pretty much untouchable until it was 'spent', because apparently the laws of physics had taken one good look at this place and then run away screaming. They also got a special personal soul power called a Semblance, which could be anything. Bullshit. I called bullshit on that one. Look, I'd buy that apparently Dust came in crystals and you could use them to do fucking magic like this was the universe's most lethal LARP session. But people reversing gravity or turning into birds? There was a line of credulity to be drawn.

I needed answers, from an at least semi-trustworthy source. I'd need to get my hands on a Scroll, or one of those minimalistic computer terminals I'd glimpsed. Soon. It was bedtime, and apparently being three years old was a lot more exhausting than it looked because I was basically falling asleep already.