'Soooo bored. How can babies even stay sane with so little to do? Wait… am I stupid, no shi babies don't get bored, they don't have the mental age of 40 years old! Getting reincarnated definitely made me dumber.'
Ananta was staring in the distance, seemingly lost in thought. He was currently in his very extravagant bedroom, lying on his custom made, and equally extravagant, bed.
The room and the big were way too big and fancy for a baby's necessities, but as a royal, these things were just a given.
'Well, it's not just my room and bed.'
Ananta tilted his head forward to look at the bed directly across from him. On it, his twin brother, Krish, was sitting upright and his legs crossed, staring intensely at the object in his hands.
He was playing with a toy that was shaped like a cube. It had different engraved symbols on it that were hard to see from where Ananta was sitting. He looked so incredibly focused on it, that he didn't notice Ananta throwing a pillow at his face.
"Owww. That hurt." He looked at Ananta with his cute, chubby face.
"Stop whining, it's just a pillow. What are you even doing?"
But before Krish could respond, someone knocked on their door.
"Your highnesses, may I come in to give you two a shower."
"Yeah, come to Zilla."
Ananta's and Krish's personal maid came into the room with some towels and pairs of clothes they could change into. Zilla was a young woman who looked to be in her early twenties. Her skin was a healthy peach color, pale brown hair, and her face shone with innocent beauty.
She had on a black and white maid costume, and yes, just like the ones in manga and anime back on earth. Ananta didn't know why, but looking at the maid costume, he felt a weird feeling of… contentment?
'Hold up, do I have some weird fetish for maid costumes. Oh hell no, did Aussies weird habits rub off on me.'
Thinking of his old comrade, Ananta's mood dampened. He still thought about his teammates from time to time, especially when he slept. He dreamt of how they died because of his failure, but he also thought of the joyous interactions they had.
Looking back, that felt like just yesterday, however it had been nearly three years since Ananta was reborn into this strange, new world.
At first, like any normal person, he was extremely disoriented and confused by the situation, especially after just witnessing his comrades death. But he recovered surprisingly quickly from the shock of the situation.
He first started observing his surroundings and the people around him. The most obvious clue that indicated that this wasn't Earth, was that everyone around him spoke in a language that was unheard of on Earth.
He was also obviously born in a very well off family based on his surroundings, only later will Ananta find out that he is part of the royal family.
Everything around looked like it cost a fortune and he had servants tending to him constantly. Then, there was his mother.
At first, Ananta didn't feel any love or affection towards her, because why would he?
Just because he was born to her and had a familial bond, didn't mean that they had to instantly feel love towards each other.
But his mother clearly thought differently, she treated him and Krish like deities, with so much love and affection, that it was even starting to get to Ananta a little.
His mother has a very attractive woman, in fact, it would be truthful to say that she was the most beautiful woman he ever saw. Despite that, he didn't feel anything towards her, that would indicate anything other than a mother-son bond.
Another thing about his mother was that she was super talkative. Even though her babies couldn't understand her, she talked about what she did each day, how much she loved them, and gossip, lots and lots of gossip.
Maids and other people who witnessed this probably thought the Queen was a little crazy, but for Ananta, it was perfect.
He had to learn how to understand the local language one way or another, and his mothers rambling was the perfect opportunity to learn.
Learning a new language was never that difficult for Ananta in his previous life, but he struggled a lot to understand this language. Manly because there weren't any teachers to guide him or any translations to reference.
He had to observe carefully what the people around him were looking at or their expressions and the words that they said. Eventually, after he could understand some of the words that his mom and the servants commonly used he was able to say his first word.
"An-Ananta."
His mother was ecstatic, "Oh my god, my baby spoke his first word. You heard that right. What about you?"
She was jumping up and down like a little girl, while pointing at maids as if to make sure they heard what she had heard. Then, she turned back towards Ananta and held him up in the air while spinning in circles.
Ananta was feeling a bit dizzy when she finally put him down, so he was a bit skeptical with what he heard next.
"A-A- Ananta."
Ananta looked next to him, where the voice came from. His twin brother, Krish, had a goofy but cute smile as looked at Ananta with a strange, comforting gaze.
Once again, his mother lifted Krish while squealing in happiness and started acting like a little girl again. But Ananta wasn't distracted by her antics and instead looked at Krish.
His brother was strang, no, he was a complete weirdo. But not a bad weird, Ananta didn't know how to describe it but, whenever he was with Krish, he felt at ease and comfortable.
It was totally illogical and absurd. Why was he feeling comforted by a baby?
While Krish and Ananta were twins, they weren't identical. Ananta had a darker shade of skin that was chocolate brown in color, while Krish was lighter and more of a tan.
In the beginning, after Krish and Ananta were newly born, they were usually separated.
But it was their mother who wanted them to spend more time together, especially since they were twins.
At first, Ananta was ok with this development, but Krish made it hard to not get irritated.
When their mother allowed them to explore their extravagant home, which Ananta later found out was actually a castle.
The annoying thing was that wherever Ananta went, Krish wasn't too far behind.
He followed Ananta everywhere, not letting him be alone for even a moment. He was always on Ananta's tail, going to the same rooms that Ananta went to.
Ananta didn't mind it at first, but having someone never leaving him alone and never letting him have any personal time was getting on his nerves.
Still, he didn't put much thought into it, as Krish was just a baby, he didn't see the use of being suspicious or mad at him. Ananta, would continue to learn about his setting and situation without minding what Krish was doing.
But apparently, as Ananta was slowly learning, Krish was too. Considering Krish was still a little below a year old when he spoke his first word, and he didn't have past knowledge like Ananta, it was very impressive,... and a little strange.
Even after Krish spoke his first words surprising everyone, he continued to show an outstanding level of mental growth and learned stuff at a fast pace that kept up with Ananta.
People like the servants and their mother grew astonished at how fast they were learning new stuff, and at a rate at which normal babies could never achieve.
But Krish being really smart, didn't change the fact that he had a pitiful amount of
energy in him.
Although Ananta didn't know what the energy was or what the priest did that day, he quickly noticed how everyone treated him and Krish differently.
He saw the sad gleam in his mothers eyes sometimes when she looked at Krish. He saw some servants and pitying gazes whenever they stared at Krish, and sometimes he even heard them talking bad about Krish.
Of course they wouldn't gossip, openly, as they would be executed almost immediately for Krish still had royal blood.
As Ananta grew to understand more and more of the language, he heard words like "pity", "low", "energy", and "disappointment" when people talked about Krish. On the other hand people looked at Ananta with gleaming eyes and talked about him as "hope for the Sultanate".
Ananta didn't know if Krish also noticed this difference in views, but if he did then he never showed it.
Krish had a gentle nature and personality. Ananta had never seen him get mad or throw a tantrum like a normal child would do at this age. He looked so pure and innocent, and in a way Ananta wished he could live like this.
Live without any care in the world and free of struggle alas, the world was too cruel.
Even though Ananta never had left the castle, he knew that this world was corrupted too, there was no such thing as a perfect world.
"Prince Ananta, are you ok. You keep spacing out, and also you're drooling."
Snapping back into reality from his inner monologue, his face grew a bit red at the embarrassment. Zilla was looking at him with a concerned look, but he could tell by the shaking of her shoulders, while Krish was openly laughing at him.
They were currently in the bathroom, Zilla was washing the young princes. Once they exited the bath, Zilla started clothing them.
The clothes were slightly loose and baggy, but still had a royal look to them. The fashion that Ananta has seen so far is wearing loose, baggy clothes to let air flow and cool off people.
The climate in the part of the world Ananta was in was hot and without much rainfall.
Whenever he stared out the window, he could see desert conditions but also expanses of olive green grass with specs of yellow here and there.
After Ananta and Krish were finished getting dressed, they were about to head downstairs for breakfast. Their maid, Zilla, held Krish's hand and faced Ananta,
signaling for him to hold hers.
"You go down, Zilla, I'll head down in a bit."
Zilla hesetated a bit, but nodded her head and left the room. After they were gone, Ananta looked down at his clothing. While it looked normal on the outside, he could feel something itchy on his back.
Ananta took off his shirt and started inspecting it carefully. After a few seconds, he found the source of his itch.
"Hmm, interesting, I had my suspicions, but hoped otherwise. I can't trust anyone these days."
Looking at the inside of his shirt for some more moments, Ananta put it back on and was about to leave. However, he stopped when he felt his foot stepping on something.
Under his foot was an object in the shape of a cube. It was the toy that Krish was playing with earlier.
Picking it up, Ananta inspected it closer. It was brown in color, it was made out of some kind of wood. There was engravings on it, they were different shapes and there was sixteen of them on each side.
Suddenly, part of the toy tilted slightly, making Ananta think he accidently broke it. But upon closer inspection, he discovered that the toy was meant to function like this.
'This toy reminds me of something back on earth. Oh yeah, it's like a rubix cube, wait no it basically is a rubix cube.'
The only difference between this and rubix cube, was there were no colors.
Ananta was about to place down the cube, when he noticed something else.
'The runes… they're all aligned. He solved it?'