Time rolled on for Bruce in a mostly boring way.
Sometimes he trained. Sometimes he meditated, or at least tried to meditate, which mostly meant floating in the warm dark and focusing very seriously on the little heart of light inside him. He was sure it grew with use, little by little, like a muscle. Not quickly, not dramatically, but slowly, with effort. If he used it too much, it dimmed. If he rested, ate through whatever strange mother-baby connection gave him food, and waited, it came back.
So that became his routine. Train a little. Rest a lot. Listen to Mother work.
And Mother worked constantly. That was what Lili did now. She worked, cursed, growled, and shook her fist at the world as if the world were a rude neighbor. When she cleaned chicken poop out of the cabin and the chickens immediately made more, she muttered dark northern words under her breath. When a rat ran across the floor, she screamed, then got angry at herself for screaming and shook her fist at the rat as if challenging it to return and fight honorably. When rain found a new hole in the roof, she glared up at it from her straw bed and growled like the roof had insulted her family.
Bruce quickly learned that his mother had two main settings: humming and threatening nature.
When she was happy, she hummed old songs in her northern tongue. When she was tired, she mumbled to herself. When she was annoyed, she stopped, stared at whatever had offended her, and growled. A stinging plant pricked her finger while she gathered herbs; Lili shook her fist at the plant. A fish dodged her primitive wooden spear in the lake; Lili splashed, nearly fell over, then shook her fist at the fish. The rooster screamed at dawn as if being murdered; Lili sat up from her straw bed, hair wild, voice hoarse, and yelled at him to be silent in words Bruce did not know but fully understood.
The rooster never obeyed.
In fairness, Mother was tough. She was skillful too, in many things. She knew plants. She knew how to gather berries, roots, herbs, and mushrooms without killing herself, which Bruce considered an important survival skill. She could make bitter drinks that tasted through her blood like grass, dirt, and punishment, but they seemed to strengthen her. She twisted plant fibers into cord, made crude rope, sharpened stones, scraped bark, and shaped little tools out of bone, wood, and stubbornness.
But she was not a master carpenter. That became obvious.
The door she had repaired once nearly fell off again after a night of thunder and heavy rain. A patch in the wall opened into a leak. The roof dripped in three places, then four, then five, while Lili lay awake on her pile of straw, listening to water tap into clay bowls around the room. The chickens huddled in their corner and made soft, offended noises. The rooster, because he was evil, still screamed in the morning as if the sun would not rise unless he personally threatened it.
And yet, somehow, life formed around them.
It was not easy. It was not comfortable. It was nothing like his old apartment, with dim neon lights, takeout boxes, and late-night gaming sessions after undercover work, when he and Frank would log on like a two-man tactical unit and Sarah would sometimes join them, somehow better at everything despite claiming she barely played. Amber usually wanted nothing to do with it. She would sit behind Bruce with a drink, eating from whatever box dinner had come in, asking annoying questions, judging his terrible aim, and making comments whenever he got himself killed.
Compared to that, the cabin was poor, cold, leaky, and full of chickens.
But after the tower, after locked doors and guards and the bad man whose name Bruce still had not properly caught, it was peaceful. And Bruce got used to peaceful.
He also got used to listening. His world after all was limited, so listening became his hobby. He listened to Lili sweep the floor. He listened to her wash herself in the lake, hissing at the cold water. He listened to her go into the forest to do her business, which was not something he wanted to think about too much. He listened to her gather berries, strip reeds, pull roots, hum at nothing, and sit for long stretches by the lakeside while frogs jumped in the reeds and birds moved in the trees.
Sometimes she sat there so quietly that Bruce wondered what she was seeing.
Home, maybe.
The northern sky. Her tribe. Her family. Reindeer in snow. Things Bruce knew only through the ache in her heart when she remembered them. Those were the quiet times.
The better times came when Rob visited.
He did not come often, maybe every few weeks, but Bruce always knew when he was near. The horse came first, slow through the trees. Then Rob's voice, warm and careful, calling out before he came too close so Lili would not be frightened. And Lili's body always changed at the sound of him. Her breath caught, then softened. Her heart lifted. She moved faster, but not in fear.
Bruce noticed.
Rob brought things: bread, cheese, salted meat, cloth, thread, a better knife, an iron pot, a bucket, fishhooks, a coil of rope, sometimes eggs from other hens as if their own chicken kingdom was not already doing enough. Once he brought a little bundle of dried herbs that made Lili laugh because apparently he had picked the wrong thing and was proud of it anyway.
He also taught her things. How to set a fish trap near the reeds. How to brace the door properly. How to stack stones so rainwater ran away from the threshold instead of straight into the cabin. How to smoke fish. How to keep the chickens from destroying every green thing she tried to plant.
At least, Bruce thought that was what he was teaching. It was hard to know, because Rob spoke in that old Albion tongue that sounded almost like English if English had been dropped into a bog and aged for centuries, while Lili answered mostly in her northern language, which sounded like rocks, snow, and angry poetry.
Still, they understood each other more each time.
Rob talked. Lili listened. Lili tried new words. Rob corrected her gently. Sometimes she laughed. Sometimes Rob laughed too. Sometimes the cabin grew quiet in that strange way that made Bruce suspicious, and then Lili's heart would beat softer and warmer than usual.
Bruce did not fully approve of Rob.
But Rob made Mother happy. Rob made her eat better. Rob made her sleep deeper. Once, during a long rain, he stayed by the door all night with a knife across his knees while Lili slept near the fire, truly slept, not half-listening for danger. Bruce felt her body relax in a way it almost never did when she was alone. After that, Rob became acceptable, not family, but acceptable.
The seasons changed.
Summer passed into autumn. The frogs grew quieter. The trees dropped leaves onto the roof and into the lake. The air sharpened, and Lili began staying inside more. Her steps became slower. Her breath grew heavier. She sat near the fire more often, stitching little pieces of cloth together with homemade needles and tools shaped from bone, wood, clay, and patience. She made tiny clothes, little wrappings, and soft things Bruce slowly realized were meant for him.
That was strange.
He still did not feel like someone who needed clothes. He felt like a floating person in a warm dark apartment. A cramped apartment, yes, but not a bad one. There was no cold, no rent, no taxes, no conversations, no school, and no one expecting him to know what to do with his hands. He trained. He slept. He listened. He occasionally sent Mother little sips of warmth when she was cold or sore.
Honestly, Bruce began to think, this was a good arrangement.
Maybe he did not need to leave. Maybe some babies simply stayed in place until conditions outside improved. That seemed sensible. There was snow outside after all, plus no cable TV. So why rush?
Unfortunately, biology did not ask for his opinion.
As winter deepened, Bruce grew. Not huge, not sturdy in the old Bruce way, but definitely human. That was good news. He was not a mole. He had arms, legs, fingers, toes, a small round belly, and even what felt like hair on his head. He could reach his own little feet now, and once, after much effort and personal pride, he managed to find his own butt.
He was making definite progress. He was growing, yes, but into something smaller and nimbler than he had been in his last life. Back then, according to family legend, he had been a big, difficult baby with an unfortunate egg-shaped head and enough mass to nearly kill his mother during birth.
This body was nothing like that. This body felt light. Compact. Flexible. Almost slippery, like a baby penguin built for escaping places no sane person should have to escape from. Bruce did not know what that meant.
Then the day of emergence came.
It was deep winter, near the dark heart of the year. A storm had rolled over the forest during the night and stayed. Wind battered the cabin walls. Snow piled against the door and whispered through every gap Lili had failed to patch. The fire burned low and fierce in the hearth, working hard to keep Mother and the chickens alive. The hens huddled together in their corner, puffed into miserable balls of feathers. Even the rooster sounded nervous, which was how Bruce knew things were serious.
Lili sat on the floor near the fire, sewing something small by the light of the flames. She was heavy now, tired and slow, one hand often resting on the great round curve of her belly. Bruce floated comfortably inside, half-asleep and thinking about nothing important.
Then Mother stiffened, as pain suddenly moved through her body like lightning.
She gasped, and Bruce frowned. The pain passed, and for a moment there was only the storm, the fire, and Lili breathing hard.
Then it came again, harder.
Lili cried out and dropped the little cloth. Her hands clutched her belly. She tried to rise, failed, and sank down onto the straw and blankets she had laid near the hearth. She called a name then. Rob, perhaps. Or her mother. Or some god of the north. Whoever it was, no one answered.
There was only Lili, slightly panicked chickens and a confused Bruce.
The rooster made a loud, alarmed sound, which was not helpful. Then Bruce felt the water leave.
His home changed. Warmth rushed away from him, and the familiar pressure of his little world shifted into something frightening and wrong. The place he had lived for all his second life began to collapse around him, not breaking, exactly, but opening. Ending.
No, Bruce thought.. No, no, wait. I live here, please you can't do this to me.
The walls pushed. He did not like that. Lili groaned, low and fierce, the kind of sound people made when they were carrying a shopping bag by themselves and refusing to admit it was heavy. She rolled onto her knees, then back, then braced herself with one hand against the floor. Her other hand stayed on her belly, fingers spread wide as if she could hold him and push him out at the same time.
The world squeezed again.
Bruce, who knew almost nothing about birth, suddenly understood enough. This was the end. He did not want it to end, because the end of his warm little home seemed cold, loud, plus there were chickens.
But the pressure came again and again, and some ancient part of his new little body knew what to do even if Bruce himself did not. He turned, tucked, shifted. His hands moved upward, above his head, as if he were preparing for the world's worst dive. His legs stretched behind him. His body made itself narrow.
It felt disturbingly like lining up for a water slide.
This is not a proper ride, Bruce thought wildly. There are no safety rules. There is no lifeguard.
The walls pushed harder.
Lili screamed. The winter storm outside screamed back. Then Bruce shot toward the light.
For one terrible moment, everything was pressure, heat, and movement. Then he slipped free, and the universe attacked him.
Cold struck first, it bit every inch of him. Air touched his wet skin like knives. Heat from the fire hit one side of him while a thin draft from the door scratched the other. His tiny fingers found straw and rough wood beneath him as he landed with a soft, awkward thump on the bedding Lili had prepared.
The chickens clucked.
Bruce tried to ask, What is going on? What came out was a thin, furious wail, "Waa—ah!"
He startled himself, because that was not his voice. That was not even a proper sound. That was a squeaky alarm made by a creature with no dignity.
He tried to open his eyes and failed at first. Everything was too bright, too cold, too loud. He tried again out of pure stubbornness, and this time the world cracked open into blurred shapes.
Above him was a ceiling of wood and straw, huge and dark and impossibly far away. Firelight crawled along the beams. Smoke stained the rafters. The cabin, which had sounded small from inside Mother, now seemed enormous. A whole wooden world. A giant's hut.
Then shapes moved near him, it was the chickens, huge chickens. They stood in a half-circle, heads tilting, eyes bright with blunt curiosity. One hen took a step closer, as if deciding whether Bruce was food, friend, miracle, or inconvenience. The rooster stood behind them, large and proud and extremely suspicious, like a red-crowned warlord inspecting a new prisoner.
Bruce tried to lift his head. To his surprise, he almost managed it, almost.
His head rose a tiny bit, wobbled, and immediately became too heavy for the rest of him. As it fell back, his eyes caught something at his belly. It was a tube of flesh, no, a cord. A strange, wet cord attached to him.
Bruce stared, "What the hell is that?"
He tried to reach for it. His arm moved badly, but it moved. His little fingers brushed the cord, and the feel of it made him deeply uncomfortable. It was like being attached to Mother by some weird biological rope. He poked it. Then, because he was Bruce and therefore bad at leaving suspicious objects alone, he tried to tug it.
Pain flashed through his belly, and he wailed again.
At once, hands took him. Soft, shaking hands, mother's hands. Lili gathered him up with a sound that was half sob, half laugh, lifting him as if he weighed nothing at all. Bruce squealed in surprise as the whole world dropped beneath him. Being lifted was horrifying. He had spent his old life being huge. Heavy. Difficult to move. Now Mother picked him up like a bundle of wet laundry.
That was when it struck him fully. He was a baby, a real baby. A tiny, helpless, portable thing.
Then he saw her. The mother who had carried him all this time.
Lili's face hovered above him, pale and flushed from labor, platinum-blonde hair loose and damp around her cheeks, skin shining with sweat, eyes wide and wet and violet in the firelight. She was exhausted, frightened, beautiful, and very young. For a moment, Bruce could only stare.
She looked familiar.
Not exactly like Sarah, Frank's wife, but close enough to make his chest hurt in a place his new body barely understood. The same softness around the face. The same tired kindness. The same look of someone who had been through too much and was still trying to be gentle.
Bruce blinked up at her, while Lili looked down at him.
At first, she did not seem pleased. Not because she hated him. He knew that instantly. It was not hate. It was worry. Fear. The kind of look someone gave when the world handed them something beautiful and fragile in a place where beautiful fragile things were easily taken or broken.
She whispered something in Norse, too quick for him to understand. Then one word came through, clear from months of hearing it, "My Baby Girl."
Bruce went still, no.
Lili brought him closer to her chest, wrapping him in cloth and cloak. Her breasts pressed near his face, enormous from his current point of view, each one practically the size of his whole body. Bruce had no time to process this properly because he was too busy looking at her eyes.
In those astonishing violet eyes, bright with tears and firelight, he saw his reflection.
A tiny face with a little nose, pouty lips, soft cheeks, pale skin, a little fuzz of platinum-blonde hair, long lashes framing big violet eyes. And a overall small, delicate, beautiful baby.
Bruce stared harder. He could hardly believe it, was that truly him?
No egg-shaped head. No swollen red potato face. No early warning signs of growing into a giant awkward bald man. This baby looked like a little angel someone had dropped into a snowstorm, a girl angel.
His mind stumbled, unable to believe his eyes.
He tried to look down again. His neck did not cooperate. He tried to sit up, failed, and flailed instead. His arms and legs kicked in all directions, tiny branches in a storm. Lili misunderstood completely and held him tighter, making soft soothing sounds.
No, Bruce thought. I need to check something important.
He squirmed. His hand found the cord again. He poked it, then pulled at it once more, deeply offended by its existence.
Lili noticed this time.
"No, little one," she murmured, tone gentle but alarmed.
She set him carefully against her thigh, reached for the strips of linen she had prepared, and tied the cord with trembling fingers. Then she took the knife. Her hand slipped once. She hissed a curse, steadied herself, and cut.
The cord resisted, then gave.
Bruce screamed, partly from the sting and partly because it felt final. Something had ended. The last connection to his warm little world was gone. The light inside him stirred, soft and automatic, sealing the hurt at his belly and calming the pain before it could grow.
Lili saw enough to notice.
Her eyes widened.
For a moment she looked at him not with fear, but wonder.
"Not weak," she whispered in her northern tongue, rough and breathless. "My little one is not weak, but special."
Bruce tried to answer, "correct. I am Bruce Redford. Situation currently unclear." What came out was, "Mm—waa."
Lili smiled a tired smile. A broken smile, but it was real. She touched his cheek with her thumb, then kissed his forehead. "My little lily," she whispered.
Bruce froze, and tried to shake his head, "No."
She looked at the snow outside, the water, the fire, the poor cabin, and then back at him, as if the name had arrived from all of it at once.
"My little lilypad," she said softly, this time in the clumsy Albion words Rob had taught her. "Born in water and cold."
Bruce stared, lost for words. For that was not his name.
Then Lili tucked him closer and added, with exhausted tenderness, "My little girl."
There it was, clear, undeniable judgement.
Bruce looked at his tiny hands. Felt his tiny body. Remembered the missing thing he had been trying to check. Remembered the soft face in Lili's eyes. Remembered her worried look when she first saw him.
The truth landed. He was not just reborn as a baby, he was a baby girl.
Bruce's soul prepared a serious objection. His mouth opened, "Waa!"
Lili took this as a sign of hunger, of course she did.
Because to her, he was not a former police officer having an identity crisis. He was a newborn baby in a snowstorm, and newborn babies apparently had very simple hobbies.
She adjusted him with practical gentleness and guided him to her breast.
Bruce's eyes widened. "Wait, just hold on a minute. What are you—"
Instinct destroyed the argument as his mouth found something rosy pink. Then suddenly warm milk filled his mouth, sweet and rich and shockingly good. His thoughts stopped so completely that even the panic had to sit down and wait its turn.
Oh, so that was what those were for, food. He drank. The fire popped in the hearth. Snow whispered against the cabin walls. The chickens settled in their corner, apparently satisfied that the new creature was not immediately edible. Lili sagged back against the floor in exhaustion, one arm curled around Bruce—Lilypad, apparently—and began to hum an old northern song.
Bruce did not understand the words, but he understood the feeling well enough. Warmth, safety, confusion, certainly, but also something softer beneath it. Maybe coming out of his warm little home was not completely terrible after all.
Then again, the whole thing was deeply suspicious.
Had he truly come out of Mother? That seemed impossible. She was not that large. He knew, in theory, that women carried babies, but knowing a thing and personally experiencing the exit process were very different matters. The world was strange. Bodies were strange. Biology was apparently insane.
He had been born in a leaking cabin in a medieval forest, during a snowstorm, surrounded by chickens, into the arms of a mother who had almost nothing and still held him as if he were everything.
He had questions, many of them, but they could wait.
His newborn body did not respect the schedule of a man having an existential crisis. His eyes grew heavy. His tiny fists loosened. The fire blurred into gold. Lili's heartbeat filled his ear, steady and close.
Then his mouth slipped free with a small pop.
Lili looked down, startled, and gave a weak, breathless giggle, as if even after all that pain and fear, the universe had somehow managed to be funny.
Bruce wanted to object to the name Lilypad. He wanted to object to being a baby. He wanted, most urgently, to object to being a girl.
Instead, he yawned.
And Bruce, now Lilypad whether he approved or not, fell asleep in his mother's arms.
Thus, apparently, his new life in a medieval world began.