Chapter 68: Second Birthday (2)
"Lukas! Wake up! Wake up! It’s your birthday today! Two years old! Two whole years!"
She jumped onto the bed with the strength of someone who had already been training with the sword and mana for months. The mattress shook violently, the wooden springs creaked in protest, and Tilbo was launched several centimeters into the air before falling back onto Lukas’s chest.
The ant woke up instantly.
Her front legs rose into a defensive stance. Her mandibles opened, revealing the sharp structures capable of crushing thin wood. She emitted a low metallic hiss, a high-pitched, metallic sound that Lukas had never heard from any insect on Earth, and positioned herself on Lukas’s chest like a fierce guardian.
Her antennae quivered in every direction, searching for the threat. Her metallic body was rigid, ready to attack.
Judite froze in the middle of her jump. Her eyes widened. Her mouth hung slightly open.
"Tilbo! Get out of there! It’s his birthday! I want to wake my brother up!"
Tilbo did not move.
Her antennae remained pointed at Judite. Her low hiss did not cease. She did not recognize Lukas’s sister as a friend; she recognized only someone who had invaded the territory, jumped onto the bed, and threatened her human.
"Judite..." Lukas murmured, his voice hoarse with sleep, though a smile was already forming on his lips.
"Leave her alone. You know how she is."
Judite pouted but stepped back two paces, crossing her arms with an offended expression.
"Tilbo is annoying! I just want to wish him a happy birthday!"
"She doesn’t know that."
"She should!"
Lukas sat up in bed, gently stroking Tilbo’s metallic carapace with his fingers. The ant gradually relaxed, her front legs lowering and the hissing stopping.
She climbed onto his left shoulder, her usual place, and remained there, her antennae still directed toward Judite, though without hostility.
"Happy birthday, Lukas!" Judite jumped again, though this time without leaping onto the bed.
"Get up already and come downstairs to eat! Mom is already preparing everything!"
She ran out of the room shouting down the corridor, her voice echoing through the stone walls:
"Lukas is turning two! Two years old!"
Lukas chuckled softly.
"Thank you for the protection," he whispered to Tilbo.
"But Judite isn’t a danger."
Tilbo moved her antennae, satisfied.
Lukas got out of bed, still sleepy, and walked to the bathroom adjacent to his room.
The bathroom was a recent addition to the mansion. Clavor had built it a few months earlier after Lukas complained that "it was tiring to go all the way down to the garden to wash his face every morning." It was a small room, with a stone basin resting on a wooden stand, a jug of fresh water always available, and a small stool that allowed Lukas to reach the basin.
He climbed onto the wooden stool Clavor had made especially for him, with carved legs and a smooth surface, and washed his face with the cool water from the jug.
The water was icy. His face stung slightly. But the sudden chill fully awakened him.
He looked at himself in the polished metal mirror hanging on the wall.
It wasn’t a glass mirror like those on Earth; the metal reflected the image with a gentle distortion, as though he were seeing himself through a thin layer of water. But it was good enough.
Extremely pale skin, almost translucent, like fine porcelain. The bluish veins on his wrists were visible beneath his fair complexion.
Completely white hair, messy from sleep, falling in soft strands across his forehead. Whenever he brushed it aside with his hand, it returned to place within seconds.
Deep violet eyes, identical to Aurora’s, shining with an intelligence that did not match his apparent age.
Lukas had yet to see anyone in this world as beautiful as himself and his mother. It was an ethereal, almost unreal beauty that drew attention wherever they went.
"This appearance really is something..." he murmured with satisfaction and a touch of childish arrogance, running a hand over his smooth chin.
Then he noticed his clothes.
The tunic he wore, a light-blue linen shirt that had once fallen to his knees, was now short at both the wrists and the hem. The sleeves ended several centimeters above his wrists. The hem barely covered his waist.
His trousers, made of thick, durable cotton, barely reached his ankles. A strip of pale skin was exposed between the end of the pants and his shoes.
He had grown too quickly.
"Two years," he said to his reflection.
"And I already look like I’m three."
"I need new clothes today."
He returned to his bedroom.
Tilbo was on the table beside Prata’s terrarium. The metallic ant moved her antennae slowly, as though conversing with the spider.
"You two are staying here today," Lukas announced.
Tilbo raised her head. Prata moved one leg.
"You’re both too big now." He pointed at Tilbo, who measured nearly thirty centimeters in length, and at Prata, whose body measured twenty-five centimeters across.
"And your personalities are becoming aggressive toward strangers. I don’t want you causing problems in the city."
Tilbo hissed softly in protest, a sharp metallic sound that Lukas had grown quite familiar with.
"I know, I know. You just want to protect me. But not today."
He opened the terrarium and placed a generous portion of fresh insects inside for Prata: beetles, crickets, and a small caterpillar he had found in the garden the previous evening.
For Tilbo, he left a bowl filled with grains and fruit, a mixture he had discovered the ant loved.
"I’ll be back in a few days," he said, carefully closing the bedroom door.
"Behave yourselves."
He went downstairs.
The family was already gathered around the table in the main hall. The smell of fresh bread, scrambled eggs, and fruit filled the air, mixed with the aroma of coffee that Clavor drank every morning, a dark and bitter beverage that Lukas had yet to try in this world.
As soon as he appeared, Aurora stood up.
She hurried toward him, lifting him into her arms with ease despite the fact that he was heavier now, taller, almost a child rather than a baby, and hugged him tightly against her chest.
"Happy birthday, my baby!" She kissed his forehead several times, her warm lips brushing against his skin.
"Two years old... My little genius is already two years old!"
Lukas returned the embrace, feeling the familiar warmth of his mother.
"Thank you, Mom."
