Ronandt

It's been about two years since that day or night, I'm not really sure anymore.

Sitting on a stool wrapped in a white towel, I was facing a large mirror, looking at my reflection.

It seems that Ronandt was the name that was given to me. My father was the blonde-haired, crimson-eyed man from back then, while my mother was most likely the unconscious black-haired woman. And I, as their son, had inherited from both of their respective eyes colour and hair colour.

I was still small, but I could proudly boast that I had grown steadily over the past two years. I went from being completely helpless, I learned to sit, crawl, stand and now walk on my two legs. If that wasn't a major upgrade then I don't know what is.

Was it all? Or did I forget something?

Oh, well, there was still something I almost forgot to mention.

Assuming that I had once had memories but hadn't yet regained them somehow, I, over the years grew content with the fact that they'll never return.

I mean, I'm a child; being memoryless should've been a norm for me to begin with, yet from the moment I was born, I was born with this feeling that I was missing, longing, forgetting for something I completely ignore the nature of.

Years have passed, and though I admit that there are times when I found myself wondering why or what exactly happened to cause me to be born this way; it was pretty much all, just some fleeting thoughts that surface randomly now and then.

I have finally come to embrace this new lifestyle, to embrace my babyness. I mean, look at this perfect reflection.

Hugging my own reflection in the mirror, I couldn't help but wonder aloud, "Is it really acceptable to be this adorable?"

"What are you doing, Young Lord?" A female voice asked.

The voice came from behind me, and I could see her behind me from the mirror. It was a brown-haired woman in her early fifties, holding a towel. She came from the bathroom, in which she had bathed me a few moments before.

Dressed in a long and plain black skirt with a long-sleeved white blouse, she was wearing what would look like a governess outfit. That woman was Mathilda, or Maa as I’ve grown used to calling her.

She is the governess of the manor and is the one who has been taking care of me as far as I can remember.

I'm not sure about the specifics, but it appears that I'm not allowed to live with my parents for some mysterious reason. I've only met my parents once, it was that time, which would mean that if I were a normal baby, it would have been considered as if I had never met them at all. Maa was the one single handedly looked after me for the first two years after my birth. Yet, I still feel that nothing was lacking in my life. In fact, I felt like I was born with a lot of privileges. I was raised in a massive manor with several maids and even guards, was fed whenever I wanted, slept whenever I felt like, there was literally nothing I could pretend to feel missing.

And though at first, I was embarrassed by the amount of care I was given by Maa, two or three months were enough to bend my will.

Despite having many other domestic servants in the manor, Maa was mostly the only one to interact with me.

Who established this rule? Her, I suppose.

She was there when I first awoke, and she was still here to this day. Even though I'm still not sure of the entire relationship between her and my parents. She, I was certain, must have been tasked with taking good care of me and that she did. From the moment I awoke after being put to sleep that day, she has been zealously supervising me every time, every day, every single minute as if eagerly awaiting me to make a single blunder to terminate my existence, that's what being a baby was like.

Yeah, pretending to be a normal baby was tough. Respect for all my fellow babies out there.

"Ooh nothing... Maa... There was just a stain on the mirror. It bothered me, so I tried to wipe it off myself. "

Oh, one other thing I almost forgot to mention, in my short two years of adventure, that is babyhood, I've managed to catch up with the language.

"It would be bad if you took the habit of wandering around butt-naked. It's almost winter. You’ll catch a cold. Please wear this" She prayed, handing me a peignoir.

Oh yeah, something else I forgot to mention too, I was naked.

Why was I? Would you ask?

Well, the towel I wore fell off without me noticing. I mean, you can't blame me, I'm a baby.

Putting my peignoir on, I went to Maa's side so she could put my clothes on.

Shameless!

Who? Me? I’m just a two-year-old. Besides, Maa, having seen everything in my body that was to see. I had nothing left to hide.

Okay, I admit it was embarrassing at first to be naked and in front of someone who was initially totally a stranger to me. But I've outgrown that phase, have finally accepted myself as a perfect baby, one free of shame or prudishness

For my family jewels and popol, I have no memories off ever having one, but if I ever did, it was undisputedly bigger than this.

"Cute would be the perfect word to describe them now." "Describe what?" asked Maa, with a plastic smile on her face.

That little thing I have pending between my legs.

"Oh-nothing, nothing Maa. I was just talking to myself. "

"What?"

"I said, I was cute, don't you think, Maa?" I said jokingly.

"Yes, indeed, Young Lord, I do think so too, but it would be great if the Young Lord were to refrain from voicing those kinds of comments out loud."

"Why?"

"Because only narcissists praise themself in such fashion.You don't want to look like a narcissist, right Young Lord?"

I had no idea what narcissist meant but from the sound of it didn't sound like something good so I shook my head.

"Understood, this little one won't do it anymore."

"I don't doubt that. After all, this kind of behaviour would be unfit of a young Lord such as yourself, and I wouldn’t want the young lord to embarrass himself when he returns to his family's side." She took a pause then commented, "Still Young Lord, you’ve grown up really fast, even for a noble. Speaking so well at this age shouldn’t be normal. "

"Noble? What’s that? "

When I asked those questions, Maa looked at me with a surprised expression on her face.

Did I say or ask something I shouldn’t have again?

"I guess this is the Young Lord first time hearing the term "noble." Do you recognize the term "commoner"? "

"Euh... Commoner… like the word "common," then I suppose "commoner" would mean something like "a normal person or something along those lines."

"It is more or less that." She said this without commenting any further. Instead, she asked me. " and what do you think nobility could be reffering to?"

"Nobility? Noble.. Maybe it means uncommon people, maybe, I don't know. "

"It is also more or less that. Young lord, "Nobility" refers to a class of people who wield enormous power. They rule over humanity, and we, commoners, must fear and respect them. "

"You, commoner?"

Maa nodded.

"Yes, I am a commoner, as is Syrus, our butler, and everyone else in the manor."

"And me?"

"You, Young Lord, just like your father and your grandparents, are part of the nobility. You are a member of the Aubrecht, the ruling family of our Duchy. "

"..."

"Aaah Sorry, a Duchy is a territory within a kingdom. Just imagine it as a small kingdom within a kingdom. "

I see, a Duchy is it?

If my family is ruling over something like that, I suppose that would explain the opulance I live in.

To possess a manor like this one, and actively have so many servant working in it, I always assumed my parents to be wealthy merchants or something along those lines. I suppose this explains it now.

Wait, something is missing.

And then it dawned on me. There was one person she never mentioned while listing every nobles members of my family..

"What about my mother?"

To my question Maa's face immediately shifted and harbored a strange expression that I couldn't quite put into words.

The woman from that day seemed to be in really bad shape.

Up until now, this was my first time asking anything about her, not that I had forgotten or didn't care about her, but mostly because I was so focused on being your average baby, I never had the chance to ask how she was doing.

At some point, I even braced myself for the possibility that she was no longer alive. After all, I haven't heard anything about her since.

Having not seen my parents since that day, I've spent a lot of time pondering the various scenarios that could have explained their absence and explain what I currently am: an exiled child.

As far as I can tell it is custom of this world for a child to be raised by its parents, for me to be here meant that I was kept away from them.

There were two most likely reasons I could think of that would explain my confinement.

The first one being, that I was an illegitimate child. That would explain everything, right? The only incoherence in this theory was that if this one was true shouldn't an illegitimate child be hidden on his mother's side? If she was alive it didn't make a lot of sense to keep us apart.

The second most likely reason, I couls think was that my father despised me because I had murdered his wife just upon. This one was grim and undeserved but that would explain certain things too. But still, come on, charging someone with murder when all they did was being born was a bit...

With today's information about nobility, I managed to come with yet another plausible theory to add to these two previous ones.

I was here because my mother was, not a noble but rather, a commoner. After all, earlier, Maa didn't mention her when she mentionned my family members being part of the nobility earlier.

This one could be true but there was a lot that it did not explain.

Why was it only Maa taking care of me? Where is my mother? Why none of them in two didn't even visit me? Was it because my mother is no longer alive? Was it because she wasn't a member of the nobility? Was it one or the other? In fact, it could even be both.

"Madam is—Young Lord, get yourself ready, we're going to breakfast. We'll talk about it another time."

She then moved in closer and started combing my freshly washed hair. Not because it had to be done, but rather to avoid answering my question.

In any case, I must insist on it.

"What does she look like? What was her name? "

I knew what she looked like, I remembered it clearly but I was never told what her name was.

"The young Lord's mother name is Barbara."

"Barbara…"

"Yes,, and your father's name is Luke Aubrecht. As far as appearances go, she's simply gorgeous. I don't know much about her because I only met her for the first time not long before she gave birth to the young Lord, so I can't tell much about her." She then stopped combing my hair and began touching it tenderly.

"But reste easy, Young Lord. I'm confident you'll be reunited with your parents one day. All you have to do is be patient. "

I could tell she was being truthful by the tone of her voice. Despite her overzealous nature, I knew very well, with time she taking care of me, that Maa genuinely cares about me and that it was not just her wanting to do very well at the job she was assigned to.

For the time being, let's not bother her with these questions anymore.

For the time being.

"Yes, Maa."