He woke up. He woke up and knew everything was wrong. But his grasp slipped away, and he drifted back to sleep.

The second time he remembered waking up, it was quick but pungent. Smeared all along the walls of his mind.

Two figures stood above him. So much bigger than he thought possible. The hands reaching towards him were made all the more terrifying because of it. But his panicked thoughts were hushed by the overwhelming feelings of love and protection.

He fell asleep in the reaching arms. Aware he was cared for, giants or not.

He couldn't pinpoint the exact moment he became aware full time. He was sure it was a gradual thing, because how else could he explain it.

He actually couldn't explain anything. He was an infant. That was all he knew for certain. It certainly made sense.

Everything was huge. He was fed mashed up food. His eyes failed to focus on anything for too long. He opened his mouth and only babbles came out. He felt the constant need to be held and coddled. He could barely control control his bladder. All factors that pointed towards being an infant or a really, really short old man.

The former was preferred to the latter. He would hate to suddenly wake up older and having forgotten everything that had happened since he turned twenty-three. What a story that would be to tell.

Luckily, (or not, depending on your view) he was right.

"Renata! Look a papà!" He blinked at the man crouched on all fours, eye level with him. He had a few theories. One, Renata was his name, two this man was his father, and three, they lived in Italy. Or at least somewhere that spoke italian.

He reached forward and tried to grab his father's cheek, but missed and grabbed his nose instead. It still had the intended effect of making his father explode with joy, gushing in rapid italian.

His father scooped him up and mashed their cheeks together. Overall an unpleasant experience, his father had a rough five o'clock shadow. He pushed his pudgy hand against his father's cheek and only succeeded in pausing the cheek rubbing.

"La mia bambina! Così indipendente!" He frowned. He may not know a lot of italian, but anything ending in a, in a romance language usually meant it was feminine. And his father was talking about him, he was sure of it. He let his head loll down, he's never seen his lower half unclothed.

He was wearing a golden onesie, neither feminine or masculine. Hm. Next time he took a bath, he'd make sure to stay awake rather than giving into the warm lull of the water.

He had the body of a girl. And wasn't that a weird revelation. One of the easiest so far to accept.

There wasn't anything he could do to change anything yet. He wasn't able to vocalize his thoughts, only able to babble. His vocal cords hadn't developed enough yet, so decided to wait. He took on the name Renata for now, he could always change it legally later, or give himself the nickname Wren.

He was good at waiting after all.

Wren rolled onto his stomach and stared up at his mother. It was certainly odd that he saw his father more than he had his mother.

He found out it was because his mother helped run a bakery with her best friend. He didn't begrudge her, he was well aware of the stresses and responsibilities of adulthood. He was satisfied with the amount of affection he received from his stay-at-home-father, and his mother always held him whenever she could.

Wren's forgiveness was gifting her with his first word.

His mother cried when he stumbled over a quiet mamma. His vocal cords had matured just enough to surprise her. Wren ignored his pouting father. This moment was for mamma.

Wren allowed papà to take pictures of his first steps, aware papà wanted to share it with a busy mamma. The bakery had experienced a boom in customers.

Wren's first sentence was him asking to help mamma bake a cake for papà's birthday. He'll admit, he wasn't much help in the kitchen, but he made a valiant attempt at stirring the batter. (Mamma smeared some icing on his nose. Then attempted to stir the batter without him seeing, and it would've worked if he was a normal toddler. That icing was amazing.)

The cake was great, and mamma let him draw a wobbly smiley face on the cake. And honestly, that day was the best he'd had in so long.

But by asking to help with the cake, he had unknowingly set himself on a one way train heading straight for the mafia.

If Wren wasn't used to wearing feminine clothes, he would've rioted at wearing a frilly, pink dress. But he was, and his only problem with it was that it clashed with his hair and eyes. White hair, brown eyes, and a pink dress wasn't exactly peak fashion.

Mamma said she'd only take him to work with her if he wore the cute dress. Wren really wanted to go with mamma to work, so he caved easily. He really wanted to see mamma's home away from home, the place where she spent the majority of her time. A natural curiosity.

The trip to the bakery was relatively short, only a twenty minute walk from home. It would be shorted it he wasn't so set on walking on his own. Mamma giggling behind him as she shortened her stride. He would've pouted if he wasn't already aware of how adorable he looked.

The shop was about the size he had imagined, big. Maybe he was a little biased because of his height. The second thing he noticed was the smell that wafted out from the kitchens. It was heavenly, and made him never want to leave.

For the first few hours he had sat obediently out of the way, observing and occasionally speaking with the customers. Eventually he'd had his fill of that and slipped off of the counter to go find mamma. She was in the middle of kneading dough, focused on her work. He waited until she got to a stopping point, then tugged on her apron.

Mamma seemed to understand what he wanted and lifted him up onto the counter. He sat off to the side and listened to mamma explain what she was doing and making. Even if he couldn't understand half of what she was saying, he was enraptured.

Wren got his first taste of real baking there, and never let go.

A/N: ahaha so i'm trying to break away from my habit of making my si-ocs blind, all-knowing, or both. this was inspired by a bad skull27 fic. what flame type do you think wren has? oc is not Reborn.

transphobic comments will not be tolerated.

translations:

a papà- at dad

la mia bambina- my little girl

così indipendente- so independent