Day two of being grounded.
I want you to understand something. I have died once already. I have been an infant. I have spent two years unable to communicate in complete sentences while possessing the full memories of a thirty six year old mechanical engineer. I have survived things.
But being locked in a room with nothing to do is genuinely, legitimately, top five worst experiences of both my lives.
I was lying on the floor. Not the bed. The floor. Specifically because lying on the floor felt more dramatically appropriate for my suffering.
Ren was sitting against the wall next to the door. He'd been there since morning. He had a book. He was reading it with the calm energy of a man who had accepted his circumstances and made peace with them.
I hadn't made peace with anything.
"Ren."
"No."
"I didn't even ask anything."
"You were going to ask me to pick the lock again."
"...I was going to ask if you wanted breakfast."
"The kitchens sent a tray two hours ago."
"Right." I stared at the ceiling. "Ren."
"Still no."
I put my arm over my face.
Outside I could hear the castle going about its morning like nothing had happened. Guards changing shifts. Servants in the corridors. Somewhere below, the distant clang of the blacksmith — which, for the record, was the only sound in this entire building that brought me any comfort.
Then, smaller than all of it — tiny footsteps.
Uneven. Hurried. The specific rhythm of someone whose legs were still negotiating the whole walking situation.
I was on my feet before I made the conscious decision to stand up.
The footsteps stopped outside my door.
Silence.
Then — "Nico?"
Lily.
I crossed the room in three steps and sat down against the door.
"Hey bug," I said.
"Why is the door locked?"
"Because mother locked it."
"Why?"
"Because I did something."
A pause. I could picture her on the other side, pigtails, probably still in her morning dress because she always escaped before the maids could finish getting her ready.
"Was it the loud noise?" she asked.
"...Yes."
"Thomas cried."
I winced. "Thomas is fine."
"He cried a lot."
"Thomas is emotionally expressive. It's a strength."
Another pause. Then — "I saved you a roll from breakfast."
Something slid under the door. A bread roll. Slightly squashed from the journey. Still warm.
I picked it up and held it for a second.
In my past life I'd had colleagues, acquaintances, people who respected my work. I hadn't had — this. Whatever this was. This specific kind of uncomplicated, no-agenda, I-just-thought-of-you-so-here-is-a-bread-roll love.
Grogu, I thought. Complete Grogu energy.
"Thanks bug," I said.
"Are you coming to lunch?"
"Working on it."
"Okay." A pause. "Nico?"
"Yeah."
"Don't do the loud noise again. Thomas's face went very funny colors."
"I'll take that under advisement."
The tiny footsteps retreated back down the corridor. I stayed against the door for a second longer than necessary then stood up, cleared my throat, and turned around.
Ren was watching me with the expression of someone trying very hard not to smile.
"Not a word," I said.
"I didn't say anything."
"Your face said something."
"My face is neutral."
"Your face is annoying." I sat back at my desk. "Give me the damage report."
Ren closed his book. This was his briefing posture — straight back, organized expression, the look of someone who had mentally filed everything into neat categories before presenting it.
"Seventeen vases," he said.
"Confirmed."
"One curtain rod. Bent."
"Also confirmed."
"The curtain itself is unsalvageable. It was imported."
I closed my eyes briefly. "Of course it was."
"Thomas has a bruised shoulder and what the physician is calling 'a crisis of confidence.'"
"Thomas will recover."
"The entire castle staff is talking about it. Current theories on what caused the noise range from a gas explosion in the walls to a visitation from a minor deity."
I opened my eyes. "A deity."
"Gerald from the stables is quite convinced."
"Gerald from the stables needs a hobby." I tapped my pencil on the desk. "Mother?"
Ren's expression shifted slightly. The specific shift that meant this is the part you're not going to like.
"Her Majesty," he said carefully, "has not smiled since yesterday morning."
"Define not smiled."
"I brought her afternoon tea and she said 'thank you Ren' in a voice that made me want to apologize for existing."
I nodded slowly. That was bad. That was the full Blue Screen — not just the initial crash but the extended diagnostic mode. I'd seen it once before when I'd accidentally set a tapestry on fire at age six. She hadn't yelled then either. She'd just been — quiet. For three days. Which was somehow infinitely worse.
"And father?"
"King George," Ren said, and here his voice softened slightly because everyone's voice softened slightly when talking about my father, the man was just built that way, "asked if you were alright. Twice. Then spent an hour in his study. Then asked again."
There it was. My opening.
I leaned back in my chair and looked at the ceiling and did what I did best — ran the simulation.
Mother was a locked door right now. Approaching her directly was a zero percent success rate situation. She wasn't angry in the explosive way that burns out fast. She was disappointed in the slow-burn way that required time and demonstrated behavioral change and possibly a formal written apology that she'd keep forever and reference at family dinners for years.
Father though.
Father was the key.
Not because he was weak — he wasn't, not where it mattered. But because King George of Braveheart was fundamentally, constitutionally incapable of staying worried about someone he loved without doing something about it. He'd asked about me twice already. He was going to keep asking.
I just needed to give him a reason to come up here.
"Ren," I said.
"No."
"You don't know what I'm going to say."
"You have the face."
"I have a face. Everyone has a face."
"You have the face. The one that means I'm about to be involved in something."
I pointed at him. "I need you to go tell father I want to talk to him. Tell him I said it's important."
"Is it important?"
"Everything I do is important, Ren, I thought we established this."
He looked at me for a long moment. Then he stood up, straightened his jacket, and headed for the door with the energy of a man who had calculated that compliance was faster than resistance.
"You owe me," he said.
"I'll put it on the tab."
"The tab is very long."
"Then what's one more."
The door opened — from the outside, because again, locked, deeply undignified — and Ren slipped out.
I turned to the desk. Pulled out the flintlock from where I'd hidden it under a loose floorboard — yes I'd found a loose floorboard, I'd found it at age six and never told anyone, basic operational security — and set it on the desk.
Then I looked at it.
Okay, I thought. Lore drop incoming. Let's make this count.
Father knocked before entering which was very him. King of the whole castle, knocked on his eight year old's door like a polite neighbor.
"Nick?" He stepped inside. Looked around — at the blueprints, at the desk, at me, at the flintlock sitting very visibly in the center of the desk like a centerpiece at a dinner party.
His eyes stopped on the flintlock.
"...Is that what made the noise?"
"Sit down, dad."
He sat. On the edge of the bed, elbows on his knees, the posture of a man preparing himself for information he wasn't sure he wanted. He was still in his morning clothes — comfortable, plain, nothing like the formal stuff he wore for court. This was dad mode, not king mode. Good. I needed dad mode.
I picked up the flintlock, checked the chamber — empty, obviously, I wasn't going to pull a loaded weapon in front of my father, I had standards — and held it out to him handle first.
He took it carefully. Turned it over in his hands. He had good hands, my father. Broad, steady. The hands of a man who'd been trained to fight even though he didn't want to.
"It's heavier than it looks," he said.
"Denser materials. The barrel needs to contain a controlled explosion so the walls have to be thick enough to—" I stopped. Recalibrated. "It fires a small metal ball using a chemical reaction. Very fast. Much further and more accurately than an arrow. One person with ten of these is worth fifty archers in terms of effective range and reload — well, reload is still an issue at this stage but that's an iteration problem."
Father was quiet for a moment. Still looking at the flintlock.
"You made this," he said. Not a question.
"Yes."
"You're eight."
"The age is unrelated to the engineering, dad."
He turned it over again. I watched his face — the small furrow between his eyebrows, the way his jaw moved slightly when he was thinking hard. He wasn't a stupid man, my father. People sometimes mistook his gentleness for simplicity. That was their mistake.
"Why?" he asked finally.
And here it was. The moment. The pivot.
I could have said because I love weapons which was true. I could have said because I was bored which was also true. I could have said because my previous life's accumulated expertise demanded an outlet which was the most true of all but also the kind of sentence that gets you a very different kind of locked room.
Instead I said —
"Because of Varantum."
Father went very still.
I kept my voice calm. Measured. Not accusatory — I wasn't attacking him, I was loading the argument the way you load a firearm. Careful. Deliberate. One shot, make it count.
"Our army has swords, dad. Good swords, decent soldiers. But Varantum has ten times our numbers and they know it. Everyone knows it. That's why the treaty exists. That's why the tribute exists." I nodded at the flintlock in his hands. "But numbers don't matter as much when the other side has something you've never seen before. Something you can't train against because you don't know it exists. Something that changes every calculation you've ever made about what a small force can do against a large one."
Father looked at me.
I looked back.
The room was very quiet.
"You're eight years old," he said again. Slower this time. Like he was reminding himself.
"You keep saying that."
"Because I keep finding it difficult to believe." He set the flintlock down carefully on his knee. "Nick. Where did you learn — how do you even know about Varantum's army numbers? About the tribute calculations?"
"I listen," I said simply. "Court is very loud if you pay attention."
He was quiet for a long moment. Outside I could hear the castle. A bird somewhere. The wind.
Then he exhaled. Long and slow. The exhale of a man recalibrating.
"Your mother," he said, "is very upset."
"I know."
"Thomas—"
"I'll apologize to Thomas. Genuinely. I'll mean it."
"The curtain was imported."
"I know. I'm sorry about the curtain."
Another pause. I could see him working through it — the worry, the pride, the alarm, the pride again, the alarm again. My father's face was a very honest face. It never quite managed to hide what was happening behind it.
Finally he stood up. Handed the flintlock back to me. Straightened his jacket.
"I'll talk to your mother," he said.
"Thank you dad."
He paused at the door. Looked back at me — at the blueprints, at the desk, at the eight year old sitting in the middle of all of it like he'd always been there.
"Nick," he said quietly. "Whatever is in your head — whatever all of this is —" he gestured vaguely at the room, the blueprints, all of it "— promise me something."
"Depends on the something."
A small smile. "Promise me you're still in there. My son. Not just — all of this."
I looked at him for a second. This gentle, good, quietly sad man who was king of a kingdom that had forgotten what it felt like to stand up straight.
"I promise," I said. And meant it.
He nodded once. Left.
I listened to his footsteps down the corridor.
Then I picked up my pencil.
Mother came an hour later.
She stood in the doorway. Looked at me. I looked back.
The Blue Screen was still active. Dimmed slightly. But present.
"Apologize to Thomas," she said.
"First thing tomorrow."
"Tonight."
"Tonight," I agreed.
"And the curtain replacement comes from your allowance."
I didn't have strong feelings about my allowance because I didn't have strong feelings about money yet — that would come later, when I fully implemented Phase 2 and turned Braveheart into an economic engine that made Varantum's treasury look like a piggy bank. But right now I nodded seriously.
"Understood."
She looked at me for a long moment. Her eyes — dark, sharp, the eyes she'd passed down to me — moved to the desk. The blueprints. The flintlock.
Something moved across her face that I couldn't fully read.
"George says you're protecting the kingdom," she said.
"I am."
"You're eight."
"I've heard that a lot today."
The ghost of something — not quite a smile, but its distant cousin — crossed her face. Gone in a second. She straightened.
"Dinner," she said. "Don't be late."
She left.
I stared at the empty doorway.
The tactical nuke has been deployed, I thought. We are ungrounded. I repeat — we are ungrounded.
I spun once in my chair purely out of satisfaction.
By evening the room felt like itself again.
Ren was back at the wall with his book. Lily had migrated in sometime after dinner and was sitting on the floor, legs crossed, one of my discarded blueprints on her lap, a crayon in her hand, drawing what appeared to be a horse but could have been anything.
I was at the desk. Fresh paper. Pencil moving.
Phase 1 was taking shape.
Not vague goals — real specifics. Resource mapping. Personnel. Timeline. Production targets. The kind of plan that would look like insanity to anyone in this world and like a basic business strategy to anyone from mine.
It's not much but it's honest work, I thought, looking at Braveheart's resource column. Iron deposits, river route, population numbers, agricultural output. A small kingdom running on stubbornness and hope.
I'd worked with less.
"Ren," I said, not looking up.
"Hm."
"Next time I send you for materials — I need sulfur in larger quantities. And I need to find a source that isn't the market. Too visible."
"I'll ask around." A pause. "Quietly."
"Quietly. Yes. Exactly."
Lily made a sound of satisfaction at her drawing. I glanced over. Definitely not a horse. Possibly a dragon. Hard to tell.
I went back to my blueprint.
The room was warm. Quiet in the good way. The candles were steady. Outside the window the kingdom was settling into night — small, overlooked, sitting under the thumb of an empire that didn't think it was worth worrying about.
Good, I thought. Stay comfortable.
I wrote another line. Crossed it out. Rewrote it better.
Then every candle in the room went out.
Simultaneously. Completely. Like someone had flipped a switch that didn't exist.
Dead black.
Silence.
Then —
Lily giggled.
The candles came back. All of them. Brighter — noticeably, undeniably brighter than before, pushing back the shadows to the very edges of the room like something had turned up a dial on reality.
I looked at the blueprint in Lily's lap.
The ink was moving.
Not smearing. Not bleeding. Moving. My carefully drawn lines — measurements, angles, component labels — sliding slowly across the page like they were being pulled by a current, rearranging into shapes I hadn't drawn, patterns I didn't recognize, and then just as slowly, drifting back. Like breathing.
Lily wasn't looking at it.
She was looking at the crayon in her hand. Holding it up. Watching it with the unbothered curiosity of a five year old who has found something mildly interesting.
The crayon was floating.
Two inches above her palm. Rotating slowly.
"Pretty," she said. And pointed at it with her other hand.
Ren made a sound.
It wasn't a word. It wasn't a scream. It was the specific sound a person makes when their brain receives information it has no folder for and simply — stops processing.
I didn't make a sound.
I was completely still. Pencil in hand. Paper in front of me. Not breathing.
My sister — five years old, pigtails, crayon drawing that was definitely not a horse — had just turned off physics.
Lily yawned.
It was the most casual yawn in the history of existence. The yawn of someone who had done absolutely nothing unusual and was simply tired. She put the crayon down — it dropped the two inches and rolled across the floor, stopping neatly against the wall like it had been placed there — and curled up on the floor on top of the blueprint.
Asleep in approximately four seconds.
The ink stopped moving.
The candles dimmed back to normal.
The room returned to exactly what it had been thirty seconds ago except for the fact that everything was different now and would never be the same again.
I turned to look at Ren.
Ren turned to look at me.
Neither of us spoke. The clock on the mantle ticked. Outside a night bird called once and went quiet.
"Ren."
"Yes."
"Did you just—"
"Yes."
"And she—"
"Yes."
"The crayon—"
"Yes."
"And then she just—"
"Yes."
Silence. Long. Profound.
I looked at my sister. Sleeping on the floor. Completely peaceful. Approximately zero percent aware that she had just made candles detonate and ink develop a personality and a crayon achieve flight. She made a small sound and pulled the blueprint closer like a blanket.
My brain — the same brain that had survived death and reincarnation and the complete restructuring of my understanding of reality twice now — was buffering.
Loading.
Loading.
Error. Unknown variable. No existing framework. Please restart.
Ren's voice came out barely above a whisper. "What do we do?"
I looked at Lily for a long time.
In my past life I'd been a man of science. Materials. Forces. Measurable, reproducible, predictable outcomes. I'd built my whole career — both careers, technically — on the principle that if you understood the components you could understand the system.
Magic had always been the thing I'd filed under deal with it later.
Later had apparently moved up its timeline without consulting me.
I picked up my pencil.
Turned to a fresh page.
Wrote two words at the top in large letters.
LILY. PRIORITY.
Underlined it. Circled it. Drew a box around the circle. Stared at it.
Then I looked up at Ren with an expression that I knew communicated approximately seventeen different things simultaneously — I will burn this world down before anything touches her and I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing and I need more data and I am so far outside my field right now it is genuinely funny.
"Nobody finds out," I said. Voice flat. Final. "Not father. Not mother. Not Gerald from the stables. Nobody."
"Agreed," Ren said immediately.
"We watch her. Closely. Without making it obvious."
"Agreed."
"We document everything. Every incident. Time, conditions, what she was feeling, what happened. We build a picture."
"...Agreed."
"And Ren."
"Yeah."
"If this leaves this room I will personally load you into the first functional cannon I build and aim you at something educational."
A pause.
"Agreed," he said quietly.
I looked back at Lily. She made a tiny sound in her sleep. The crayon against the wall rolled exactly one inch toward her then stopped.
I exhaled very slowly through my nose.
I came into this world, I thought, with thirty six years of weapons engineering, a photographic memory, a five year plan and the collected strategic wisdom of every conquest game ever made.
My five year old sister just made a crayon levitate and went to sleep about it.
I am so unprepared for this.
This is fine.
Everything is fine.
We're completely fine.