The early days were a kaleidoscope of fragmented data.
There was a memory, hazy and overexposed, of a great gathering shortly after his arrival. It remained in his mind not as a sequence of events, but as a sensory collage: the clinking of crystal, the oppressive scent of perfumes masking the smell of roasted meats, and a sea of looming faces. They were giants, leaning over his cradle, offering vibrations of sound that he would later identify as "congratulations."
He remembered the feeling of being a trophy. He was the focal point of a ritual he could not yet comprehend, displayed before a circle of people who radiated a specific, deferential energy toward the two giants who held him. He understood, even then, that he belonged to a pack, and that his pack was at the top of the hierarchy. But the memory was static, devoid of meaning. It was merely the prologue to the true work: the deciphering of the world.
The first year was a war against his own biology.
His mind was a library with infinite shelves, waiting to be filled, but his body was a clumsy, unresponsive machine. He spent months staring at his own hands, willing the fingers to close, analyzing the delay between the synaptic command and the muscular contraction. It was infuriating. It was a prison of soft flesh.
But while his body lagged, his mind devoured.
The primary puzzle was the noise the giants made. They communicated in a stream of complex sounds, varying in pitch and rhythm. He lay in his crib, feigning sleep, while his mind furiously mapped the frequencies.
Sound: "Ah-ree-el." Correlation: The soft one. The Source. Warmth. Food.
Sound: "Darr-an." Correlation: The heavy step. The deep rumble. Authority. The texture of rough fabric.
He broke the code within six months. It wasn't just noise; it was a structured system of symbols. He learned that the soft one was Mother, but her designation was Ariel. She was the constant variable in his equation, the one who explained the names of things as she carried him through the vast, echoing corridors of their dwelling.
The other, the large male with the beard that scratched like dry grass, was Darran. He was the Patriarch. Stars observed the way others bowed when Darran entered a room, the way the air seemed to stiffen around him. This was the "House of Myers." He didn't know what a "House" meant in the grander scheme—whether it was a tribe, a government, or a deity—but he understood that the word Myers carried weight. It was a password that opened doors and commanded silence.
By the twelfth month, the prison of the crib could no longer contain him.
Walking was a physics problem. It required the continuous calculation of the center of gravity relative to the fulcrum of his ankles. He fell often, not because he didn't understand the mechanics, but because the hardware—his legs—was weak.
"Come to me, Stars," Ariel would coo, kneeling on the plush carpet of the nursery.
He would calculate the distance. Three meters. Surface friction: high. Wind resistance: negligible.
He stood, his legs trembling like saplings in a storm. He focused not on the fear of falling, but on the geometry of the step. Shift weight. Engage quadriceps. Pivot.
One step. Two.
He fell into her arms, not out of clumsiness, but because he had calculated that the destination had been reached.
"Look at him, Darran!" Ariel beamed, lifting him high. "He walks with such... purpose. He doesn't toddle.
He marches."
Darran looked up from a stack of parchment, his eyes crinkling. "He is a Myers, Ariel. We do not stumble through life. We stride."
Now, at one year old, his domain had expanded, but the boundaries were still absolute. He had mastered the interior of the manor—the cold stone floors of the great hall, the library with its scent of decaying paper and ink, and the kitchens where the servants whispered and gave him sweet pieces of fruit.
But the world ended at the Iron Gates.
He stood there often, his small hands gripping the cold black metal bars of the estate's perimeter. Beyond the manicured green of the Myers' yard lay... something else. He saw trees that were wilder, untamed. He saw a road that stretched into a gray mist.
He lacked the data to contextualize the outside. He did not know the name of the empire that claimed this land. He did not know if there were other Houses, other boys, or if the world was simply this estate surrounded by void. The servants spoke of "The Capital" and "The Border," words that sparked images of vast structures and lines on a map, but they were abstract concepts.
He was a prisoner in paradise. A genius trapped in a toddler's frame, ruling over a kingdom of grass and stone, with no knowledge of the stars that burned above the daylight sky, or the name of the ground beneath his feet.
He gripped the bars tighter, his grey eyes analyzing the horizon.
He turned back to the house, where Ariel was calling his name. The lesson was over for today. But he would remember the road.