Arin wanted to knock his head onto the wooden surface of the table at which Rin sat, nibbling on some kind of cookie while Sera and Ami talked about... something.
He'd zoned out ages ago.
It had been more than half-a-day since he'd entered the Mirror of Record. Half-a-day of the most mundane, uninformative nonsense in the everyday life of a royal toddler.
This wasn't going to work!
If he was just going to relive every single moment of Rin's life - right from the very the moment he'd first entered his memories - he'd be in the damned mirror for...
...considering that the guy was fully a man in the CE...
...He didn't want to find out!
Arin had tried forcing himself to take control of Rin, hoping that doing so would disrupt the memory somehow. He'd then tried to will his... spirit? Mind? - out of the body. He had even tried blocking out all his senses and meditating; trying to find some sense or semblance of control.
All to no avail.
'- and since I'll be turning twelve, I shall finally learn of what goes on there!' Sera was saying. 'Of course I'll tell you all about it, Ami!'
Ami sighed. 'And I'll reiterate that I'd rather not know, if I don't have to,' she said, leaning over to reach for a teacup.
'Oh, you are such a bore! Rin is younger, and was still brave enough to venture there, all by himself -'
Arin felt Rin raise his head hastily.
'I - I hadn't meant to! Truly, sister, I'd lost my way, and you - you know I was stopped long before I could even -'
'Hush. Hush. It was said in jest. Now look how you've scattered crumbs everywhere -!'
...
...
...Arin felt like he'd go crazy if this went on much longer.
Screw it. Uh...
Fast forward. Skip. 2x speed.
Vroom vroom.
...Vroom vroom?
What the hell was that!?
Doesn't matter.
Escape!
Ctrl-Alt-Del!
C'mon!
He gnashed his metaphorical teeth.
Ok, think.
This was the Mirror of Record.
Record.
He thought back to all those times he'd had to deal with an absurd amount of information at work, with pages upon pages of fluff he had no use for, that had obviously been typed out by some overzealous intern trying to prove their worth.
He'd never had the time to go through it all. And so, he'd... come up with a set of keywords that would cover all the important points. All he had to do was locate them in the documents, and voilà! He'd have everything he needed.
And much like the find feature, the Mirror of Record was also a tool at his disposal, wasn't it?
He just had to tell it to do what he wanted.
...
Arin blocked out the buzz of conversation, and slowly cleared his mind again.
'I do not want this,' he thought. 'Show me...'
What should he start with?
'Show me Rin's real talent.'
The small hand holding the cookie in front of his face suddenly froze. From Rin's peripheral vision, Arin could see the two girls also frozen in the middle of their conversation.
The complete stillness was followed by a moment of action, when the people he could see seemed to start moving again, but in reverse this time. In the very next second, the scene faded into a blur of colors and shapes moving too fast to make any sense of.
It would've been dizzying, except that it barely lasted a second before the view stabilized again.
And Arin found himself lying down in...
...a crib.
Figures.
The white-haired man had once told him that the soulglass - that round glass tool used to test the soul's talent - was used on newborns.
Baby Rin, like most babies, seemed constantly distracted by the novelty of the world around him. Arin found his gaze jumping from the cluster of colorful bells hanging above him, to -
- the soft lights lining the tops of the walls, to -
- the patters on the silken cloth that had been pulled up to his chin, to -
- the beautiful face of the woman smiling down at him, her long, dark curls of hair cascading from the sides, swaying gently, to -
There it was!
In the woman's dainty hand was a small, clear glass sphere, that she slowly lowered towards his forehead.
Rin's eyes crossed as it approached, until there was a cool touch on his skin. The baby then tried to reach up and touch it, only to find himself blocked by the lady's fingers.
'No,' she laughed, her voice like bells.
Undeterred, Rin reached past her hands to grasp at the long, flowing curls of hair instead.
The beautiful lady sighed, still smiling.
Pulling the soulglass away, she lifted an elegant finger and tapped Rin's raised hand with a feather touch. Immediately, Arin felt his arm lose its strength and fall back down.
For something so jarring as losing control of one's limb, it was shocking that there was no sense of discomfort or heaviness. Instead, a pleasant, warm feeling radiated from his arm to the rest of his body.
It was like he'd just gotten very calm, and pleasantly drowsy, and lowering his hand was the best and most incredibly comfortable thing in the world.
There was a soft, rumbling laugh from somewhere beyond his view.
'Good. We most certainly cannot have him tugging out any more of those beautiful locks,' said a deep, teasing voice.
The lady suppressed her own laughter, and glanced up to look at someone standing to her right. 'Yes, well, it will not do for both his parents to be thinning before he is a man.'
'My dearest! I am not, and you know it!' Despite his words, the man didn't sound offended. His voice still carried that pleasant rumble. 'I have at least until the child's a man before my crown leaves me.'
'Oh?' The woman raised a brow. 'I see that you have high hopes for this little one's talent.'
'Not that crown! But, truly. That was how it was for my father, and for his father before him. There shall be no thinning - not any time soon. But pray, let us proceed.'
'Certainly, my love.'
Still smiling, the woman lowered her hand with the soulglass again, and touched it upon Rin's forehead.