Though their attempts were not as impressive as Astraea's, they had not lessened the amount of praise they gave as they didn't want them to feel neglected, making them both gleam in happiness.

For the next few hours, they had played an a.s.sortment of games and activities ranging from simple board games, popular party games for children, and had even watched the latest animated movie while eating nachos and popcorn.

After the movie had ended, they had all moved to the dining table they had eaten lunch at and were all seated, waiting for Paela to return from the kitchen as she was currently bringing something out.

They didn't wait long as Paela had exited the kitchen together with a disc-shaped hovering platform that was electronic in appearance and had strange glowing symbols covering it. On the platform was a large pink double-layered birthday cake.

It had hot-pink frosting decorating both layers of the cake, with little pink hearts covering every inch of the sides. On top of the cake was a message that said 'Happy 1st birthday Astraea!' written in cursive with white frosting. Just above the message was a large pink candle in the shape of the number one and was currently lit.

As Paela walked towards the table with the platform following her, Aestreon used his holowatch to slowly dim the lights in the condominium, the lights going fully off when Paela had reached the table. It was not pitch black as the light from the city illuminated the room.

The small flame on the candle was the brightest thing in the room and slowly moved towards the center of the table as the platform started floating to the middle on its own, gently landing and not making a sound.

Everyone including the two young guests turned to look at the most important person in this party, Astraea who had stood up in her seat just to be able to look at the top of the cake, eyes twinkling as she looked at the cake.

Ever since she had started eating sweet food, she had noticed that she had more of an appet.i.te for them and found them more delectable compared to eating sweets in his previous world. She had even found that the sweeter they were, the better they tasted. She didn't know if it something to do with her new body liking sweet food or if the sweet food here was different compared to the ones on earth.

Just thought of eating such a sweet-looking cake such as the one in front of her would not have been appetizing previously, but now she was struggling from drooling just from imagining the taste and texture of the cake made in a futuristic world.

Without any prompt, Paela had started singing 'happy birthday' to Astraea and everyone excluding Astraea had started singing along. Hearing the people around her start to sing, she started to get a little embarra.s.sed as she hasn't had anyone sing 'happy birthday' to her in decades.

She didn't let it show on her face and continued to smile brightly and look at her cake in antic.i.p.ation. The song soon finished and the table fell into silence once again.

"Close your eyes and silently make a wish, then blow out the candle. If you do that, your wish is sure to come true." Aereon quietly spoke towards Astraea. Astraea nodded her head, bringing her hands together infront of her and closing her eyes to make her wish.

She seriously thought about what she wanted to wish for instead of pretending to wish for something, as one year was a significant amount of time to have spent in a totally different world, but in that one year, she had experienced a lot of fun and joy that was almost incomparable to her previous life, only expecting it to get better from here on out.

She recalled the year she had spent with her parents and the amount of care and love they showered her in, and while she didn't want to belittle the love and care her previous grandparents had given her, she had felt that her new parents love and care towards her easily exceeded theirs.

She recalled the past few hours of fun and games she's experienced with her extended family and her parent's close friends. she decided to use her first birthday wish in this world to wish that her family's future will always be bright, and even if it wasn't that she would able to brightening it up herself regardless of the difficulty.

She slowly opened her eyes and blew out the candle, making sure that her wish would truly be granted. The people surrounding her started clapping softly to congratulate her on making her wish and for turning one. They had started wis.h.i.+ng her a happy birthday for the first time since they had arrived and Astraea did feel their wishes felt more genuine than people who said it as part of social etiquette.

After the applause died down, Aereon had switched the lights back on and Paela had started slicing the cake into pieces, making sure to cut a few large pieces for the kids. Astraea had gotten the first piece of the cake and had wasted no time to taste it.

The taste subverted all her expectations as it tasted beyond anything she had ever tasted before, and the texture greatly complemented the taste as it felt as soft as a ball of cotton, melting the moment it entered her mouth.

She couldn't get enough of it and had finished her slice even before anyone else with, immediately asking for another slice.

Though she wanted to eat more, her small body had only been able to handle eating two slices or she would have risked vomiting all over the place, and even if she did, she would have thought that it was worth it.

After everyone had their fill of cake, they all returned to the living area for the activity Astraea had almost forgotten about, Receiving her presents. She had forgotten that receiving presents on your birthday was one of the main things children always looked forward to and she had forgotten about it as she hasn't received a present from anyone in years.

Another reason she had forgotten was due to the guests not having any presents on them when they arrived and even now they just patiently sat in their seats as if their presents will appear out of nowhere.

"Okay, everyone! We'll all take turns to give Astraea her present, just stand up if you want to do so." Paela informed everyone. The first person to stand was Kaelie who excitedly stood up from her seat and approached the birthday girl.

She then started using her holowatch in front of everyone, but no one spoke a word as they just continued to patiently watch her, Astraea was a little confused on what she was doing and was still wondering where everyone's presents were.

Out of nowhere, a blue beam of light exited Kaelie's holowatch and landed on the floor just in front of Astraea and something big started materializing out of existence. It was a large yellow present tied up with a red bow and had 'Happy First Birthday Astraea!' written on a card that came with it.

Astraea was quite surprised from seeing the present appear out of thin air and was more disappointed in herself for not guessing that spatial storage existed in this world.

Though she didn't expect much from presents given to a one-year-old she didn't let it show on her face and put on an excited expression, trying her best to imagine that someone might have gotten her something that was unique to this world and focused on that to make her expressions more genuine. 

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"What are you waiting for? Go on, tear it open!" Kaelie encouraged as Astraea had not moved an inch since the present had materialized.

"Okay!" She responded and stood up from her couch. The present was quite small, being smaller than her head.

She started ripping into the wrapping paper, hoping that it was some sort of electronic or magical device, but kept her expectations low so as not to get dissapointed.

Instead of the packaging of a product or a plain box, underneath the wrapping was a pink and white metallic cube that had a big b.u.t.ton on one of the sides.

Astraea became more excited upon seeing this and internally cheered as the present was already beyond her expectations despite not knowing what it actually was

Without being prompted, she excitedly pressed the b.u.t.ton watched as the cube started to open with the soft whirring of mechanical parts.

Her face fell the moment her eyes laid upon the contents of the cube.

Inside was a simple looking cloth doll, it wore a simple white dress along with white socks. It had brown pigtails that were held up by two pink bows and had big black b.u.t.tons sewn on for eyes. It also had a small smile that was also sewn on.

Though it looked superior in quality and craftmans.h.i.+p compared to cloth dolls she'd seen on earth, it was still just a cloth doll and had made her vey disappointed seeing as how it was stored in a cool metallic cube.

She quickly masked her dissapointment but there had been a split second where her expression had dropped that someone could have seen, she could only hope no one had seen it.

Unfortunately, Kaelie had caught that drop in expression as she had beem focused on Astraea's expression from the moment she started tearing the wrappong.

"Hey now, you don't have to hide how you actually feel Astraea. I saw your face of dissapointment." Kaelie said with a teasing tone.

Astraea blushed at having been caught and fidgetted in place, not knowing what else to do.

"And even if I didn't see your face, don't think that I don't know the contents of your room little lady~" Kaelie chuckled as she continued, making Astraea's parents smile wryly as they knew exactly what Kaelie meant.

The two had been regularly sending pictures of Astraea to their family members and Aereon had nearly forgotten that he had sent a picture of Astraea in her room filled with stuffed toys.

Astraea's blush deepened and she couldn't speak a word, unable to to think of anything to say.

"That being said, it's a good thing this isn't a normal doll, now, isn't it?" Kaelie said while smiling cheekily.

Astraea looked at her in confusion and a little bit of hope, wis.h.i.+ng greatly that the cloth doll wasn't all that it seems.

"I was originally supposed to do this for you, but i'm convinced that you're able to do it, so let you have the honor of doing it. Now say this phrase loud and clear..." Kaelie went down on one knee and whispered into Astraea's ear.

Astraea's embarra.s.sed face lit up with excitement and repeated the phrase only she had heard loud and clear.

"Epsilon-Six-Seven-Zero-Zero-KappMu-Five-Eight, Activate 'Cloth Doll' Version 1.0!"

The moment Astraea had finished speaking, the cloth doll that was sat down suddenly stood up and looked straight at Astraea.

Astraea squealed in excitement as she looked at her amazing present. Oh how much fun she'll have!