After thoroughly panicking through the night and the annoying “feeding” times, Aeva had run her emotions dry. One could only freak out so much before they reached the point of numb. She had a lot of time to freak out later on. She’d probably be here for a while, after all.

Every time she was bothered to feed, Aeva could tell her new parents were freaking out too. She could see the concern on their faces any time she was brought close enough. She supposed it made sense. She wasn’t crying out like a normal baby. She was quiet. She was disturbingly quiet. She barely ate, though that was mostly just because she felt weird and awkward about it. It only made sense to worry that something was wrong with her.

The older man had checked her over multiple times. He must have been some sort of doctor. His skin was alien, a light teal color. He looked completely different from her parents, and so far removed from anything “human”. His back and arms had patches of scales, a bizarre sight, and when he spoke close enough for her to see it, Aeva swore she could see fangs in his mouth. He had the same ears and eyes as her new parents though… but no hair - he was bald.

His words sounded placating - Aeva was well, just quiet, so she damn well hoped she was okay. The only sounds she was making were when she tried to speak or grumbled about being unable to speak.

Her panic attack earlier must have been strange to see an infant have.

Now Aeva was trying her best to do her own version of a workout, at least when these two frustrations called parents weren’t interfering. Another strange thing to see, she was sure. Aeva couldn’t move well, so that was the first thing she absolutely had to fix. She knew how to move already, but the muscle tone was nonexistent to lift her head or move. First thing first was her head lifting problem.

It probably looked like she kept nodding, bopping along to some invisible song.

She realized how bizarre this must have seemed. Aeva definitely wouldn’t know what the hell to make of a baby doing this. Though, she supposed nothing about this situation was conventional.

This would probably look pretty normal compared to what came later, though. Drawing on what she knew about RPGs, it was usually a good idea to have good mobility, and that meant not having literal weak baby muscles.

Of course, Aeva couldn’t understand them, so the entire scene that would come of it was beyond her understanding. All she could do was focus on improving physical performance.

Meanwhile, her parents seemed to have different thoughts. Their child was acting most bizarre. This strange… bumping behavior wasn’t even the weirdest part of it. It physically was, of course, but there were far more concerning aspects. The child’s lack of vocalizations aside from occasional noises, for instance.

This wasn’t strange for an infant, but… It was usually in a specific order. “Ah,” followed by “buh,” then a noise that changed. It never seemed to be to little Varo’K’s - the name they had chosen for their baby girl - satisfaction, as what sounded like a frustrated grunt followed. Then a “duh”. Other sounds followed it in a specific order, though a few seemed to be like the third noise and couldn’t be done.

The only other thing Varo’K seemed to do aside from more regular infant things was saying “zdaduh,” then would proceed to stare off into space as if processing information. This would typically be followed by a dismayed grunt and more exercises. It reminded her of what someone looked like after pulling up their stat screen and seeing something they didn’t like.

But that didn’t make any sense, did it? The baby couldn’t possibly understand how to pull up her status screen. She could probably understand it if she could, as even the blind from birth could “see” and understand their own stats despite having no written language.

This was usually done after Varo’K seemed to get too dizzy from her head movements. Her father, Mar’Kir, had visited a shaman to inquire about this around three days after it started to inquire about the possibility of some kind of spirit involvement. They were a full orc, so their Inzi community was usually wary, but no one could deny they belonged after all the shaman had done for the community. The shaman seemed to be fine with this arrangement.

They had a name, but few people actually knew what it was. Everyone just referred to them as Shaman, though the more wary members would derisively call them “the orc” or “split lip”. This of course referenced the curious split jaw that orcs possessed, like a snake, with a split in the middle and very flexible skin. Everyone’s best guess was that it was because of some kind of self-modifying magic way back when, but there really was no verification. If any orcs still lived from such a time, they hadn’t come forward and talked about it.

When Mar’Kir visited, the shaman just shook her head, her bright teal scaled browline furrowing. Even for a friend her annoyed expression was intimidating; the woman dwarfed everyone else in the village by a foot at least, and as wide as the strongest of them even without frequent exercise. She wasn’t the strongest person in the village by a long shot, but even without putting in any effort to grow or maintain strength, she was still in the upper echelon of physical power and prowess.

Naturally, being from the side of Inzi heritage that provided the scales everyone in the village had, she has small scales all over her front and larger, tough scales on her back, shoulders, neck and along the bony parts of her face. She had pupils slit like an alligator, with the same reflective properties. It didn’t help that for eating and intimidation purposes, their jaws could disconnect in the front like a snake, allowing them to open their jaws very wide and bare their very large canines that could better be described as tusks and other smaller but still large carnivorous teeth.

The intimidation factor wasn’t helped by the fact that she could literally have an arm lopped off and it would be back in less than a week. Probably only a couple of days with her healing finesse. If an orc didn’t die immediately from their wounds, odds were pretty good they wouldn’t.

“No,” she said. “A spirit may take a body, but will shortly lose its memories when it comes to infants. Signs of possession would not be displayed until young childhood. I have a theory, but do not wish to share it until I have evidence for it.”

Mar’Kir just crossed his arms. He was one of the few in this village that knew her name and kept her company other than when he wanted something, “Vashnoruk. Please. My wife is worried ill about this, and she had just given birth. You know how she was for months after our…” He took a deep breath, still not able to truly talk about her miscarriage two years prior, “She needs assurance. I need assurance.”

This only got a hard stare in response, “I will be observing through the scrying bowl. If I see anything to be concerned about, I will investigate. That is final. But what I suggest is not a light claim.” The look softened as she sighed, “Tell T’Kere her child is not unwell, at least from that description. They are not held by a malevolent spirit and as strange as this… head motion behavior is, there are many explanations. I shall visit when I am finished brewing the potions for Har’Uk’s impotence if I deem it of value.”

This caused a laugh that Mar’Kir managed to turn into a cough. “I see. Unfortunate,” he said, completely caught off guard. Vashnoruk was normally careful about keeping such things confidential. Har’Uk must have done something to make her quite angry. This wouldn’t be too surprising since he was among the biggest of the Inzi here, but not terribly clever. The brute couldn’t stand people thinking he was dumb.

Some stereotypes existed for a reason, but even his brother was of equal size and comparable might yet many times his better in affairs of the mind. This made his lack of intelligence only clearer and more disappointing, leaving him in the shadow of his kin.

The constant comparisons to his brother had given Har’Uk a very poor temperament, and he took it out on anyone he could socially get away with. The mysterious “boat-witch” was easy for that.

Of course Mar’Kir knew why the shaman would tell him this, not just as revenge but also as distraction. To take their minds off of the worry. It certainly worked for him, didn’t it? T’Kere hated Har’Uk more than most others as well, as he was determined to “have” her before she officially bonded to Mar’Kir. Even then he only stopped because it was now the same as picking a fight with Mar’Kir, and he was far more popular.

It would be as distracting for everyone else, of course; if the shaman didn’t want information spread, she kept it to herself. Meaning she was very much suggesting the word spread. She often asked for these unconventional payments in roundabout ways.

Revenge was definitely part of it. He could see it now, the brute roaring threats and challenges at her, to which she’d just tsk and ask how she is supposed to keep her lips shut when she can’t even close her mouth right?