Chapter 4: theresia
She didn't realize what world she was in at first.
She just knew that she was a baby again and life seemed odd. The language here was weird, the people here had animal features and technology was almost non existent. There were swords everywhere.
Her mother was a gentle woman and her father was overprotective of her every movement. At first she didn't consider them her parents until her father saved her from tumbling down the stairs as a toddler. She'd become grateful to them then.
She had two amazing brothers who answered her every desire. She loved them so much.
(In her past life, she'd owned a garden. She cared and tended to it as passed down from her mother. Mother to daughter. It was a family heirloom going back generations. She knew the name of every flower.)
She knew nothing of this world's flowers.
(She knew the pansy. The marigold. The geranium. The lily. The rose. The amaryllis. The petunia. The mysterious Jack in the pulpit. The dandelion. The sunflowers. The black-eyed susans. The hydrangeas. The rhododendrons. The bluebells. The orchids. The irises. The carnations.)
All of that knowledge swirled around in her brain and re-emerged when she was around five years old and started randomly speaking of flowers her parents knew nothing of.
"What's a rose?" Her mother, Tishua, asked.
"It's a really pretty flower that has thorns. It comes in many colors."
Her mother shook her head. "I've never heard of such a thing. Did you make this up?"
After a few minutes of trying to tell her mother about the plants she'd grown back home when she was known as (Theresa, also known as Tessa or Tess), she quickly realized she was in another world.
She had to be.
After trying to draw a picture of a sunflower, her mother hadn't recognized it; then that was when it hit her.
She would never see roses again. That fact made her want to cry. She'd loved the flowers in her mother's garden so much, and now she'd never see a single rose ever again, because this stupid world didn't have them.
"Did you mean this flower?" Her older brother asked, giving her an identical flower. "It's called a russe, because of its color."
Her heart overflowed with joy. It did exist.
Apples were now called appas, lemons were called limons, coffee was called simply coff. Many things had different names from what she remembered.
(She's Theresia now. Theresia. She likes the name, it flows well and is pretty.)
She likes her red hair, it's so bright like a flower. Back then, when she was Tessa, she'd been a blond. Red was so much more exuberant, just like an orchid. It made her feel so much more connected to nature, like the red of the sunrise and sunset.
"You must live up to the Astraea name."
Theresia drops the plant she was tending to in its pot on the ground in sheer shock, and quickly cleans it up. Did he just say what she thought she had heard him say?
Her father had somehow used that strangely familiar name while talking to her older brothers about their inability to use a sword properly.
'Astraea…like the Astraea family from that anime?' Her mind freezes at the thought before she quickly regains her composure enough to try to fix the broken pot and put the plant back in.
Oh dear god, she's Theresia Astraea. And one day, she will die to the White Whale, leaving behind a grief-stricken husband-images of an old man fighting against a whale emerge in her mind and with them, the name Wilhelm. She's supposed to love him, right?
When Theresia dies, she will leave behind an embittered son and a broken-hearted grandson.
She's going to die. She's going to die. Everyone in this goddamn family is going to die at some point because of that stupid sword god and that stupid Dragon Sword.
That night, she hardly touches her dinner. She can't take bites of the food with gusto like she usually does because this time she is too preoccupied with the thoughts of her future.
They wondered what was wrong but they don't know. They don't know what it's like to be marked by death. They're fortunate.
She's going to play the role she wants to play. She's not going to use the sword as the heinous sword god wants her to.
She's not going to play by the rules of this world. Well, she certainly wasn't going to refer to the Witch by name or meet the main character, so for that much she was grateful.
And then, war comes for her family. Her uncle died. She loved him. She hardly knew him and yet she loved him so much. These people she thought were merely fake at first have filled her heart with so much joy.
The little kindnesses they had done for her piled up in her heart, slowly but surely opening it up again after the trauma of death and rebirth. Through them, Theresia had learned to laugh and smile. But life can also be taken away, as can happiness.
The fantasy ends when the sword of Damocles comes falling on her.
"You are the next Sword Saint, Theresia." Her father says. "You must fight this war and win."
There is no god crueler than the sword god. Reincarnation is a bitch like that. But she won't go down gently. She's going to live her life to the fullest.