A friend of mine once asked me to entertain a hypothetical: What would I do if I died and was reborn on an alien world. It depends, I said. Naturally, this didn't receive the brightest reception. He bombarded me with: 'stop thinking so much', 'just answer the question with your gut' and my personal favorite: 'What could it possibly depend on?'. Well... hypothetically speaking... it would depend on magic. Obviously.

  - Memoirs of Silas Norgard, volume II

  I lay on my new father's sleeping chest contemplating my new existence. Three weeks had passed and I was slowly getting a hang of not being human. It wasn't easy to view my new parents as parents, and the regression to an infant's body was hard on my mind. Mostly due to boredom.

  Over the last few weeks, I had considered trying to act baby-like, but immediately ran into snags. I wasn't under any delusions that I could successfully mimic the behavior of a baby. Not least of which because I wasn't so arrogant as to assume that my new species followed the same development cycle as humans. Still, I tried. If not for me, then for my new parents.

  I turned my head over; one of my greatest physical feats to date. My new mother's sleeping face looked upon me. Her face was flat and covered with soft scales, with a thin slitted nose that made her look like a reptile. She was entirely bald, with the blue-gray skin I was slowly growing accustomed to. Her eyes were enormous—easily taking up half of the real estate on her face—and like mine, they probably granted her a level of visual acuity that would have made eagles jealous.

  Her mouth was thin. No lips. Just a horizontal slit, behind which I knew I would find needle sharp teeth. Like a snake. It wasn't at all creepy. Really, it was probably very beautiful. Yeah... Beautiful. That's my final answer. To resume the trend of weirdness, her ears were missing, replaced by two dark holes high on her temples which enabled hearing.

  The most interesting part of her—and this new species I seemed to be a part of—was two fold.

  The first was the thick braid growing out of the base of her skull. Four sinuous, fleshy ropes coiled in a braid extended to her mid back. The appendage was prehensile, freakishly flexible and was currently draped across my back to touch my dorsal braid.

  I was momentarily distracted as I flexed my dorsal braid and tasted my mom. Oh yeah. My little braid—no more than a single thin rope—was packed with nerves. It felt sort of like I was licking her, if my current tongue wasn't a sad, wilted, thin thing that was barely fit for shifting food around. My fingers were likewise painfully numb compared to the vibrancy of texture and taste coming from my dorsal braid.

  I swished my tail for the hell of it. This second prehensile appendage sprouted from my ass, and was significantly less functional than my dorsal braid. It served to help balance the adults but for me who was still entirely incapable of locomotion, it was a fancy pointing device.

  And why was I incapable of locomotion? Well, I'm glad you asked. Even ignoring my clumsy, physically weak and less than responsive body, I doubted I would have been able to walk in this new body because of my new knees. They bent backwards. Not like a cat. My parents still walked on the soles of their feet. No, my knees were actually backwards. Like a grasshopper.

  It was weird, and I dreaded relearning how to walk on them.

  My eyes returned to my mother's face. She looked serene, breathing slowly with her large eyes closed. A glimmer of lustrous scales glimmered faintly beneath her chin. An organ I had dubbed, an Arcane Eye.

  I had one too, to my absolute delight.

  I couldn't help myself, I lifted my chin and beheld my mother in her true glory.

  Scintillating colors overlaid my vision as I opened my arcane eye. I saw my mother in her entirety. The creepy scales and teeth and blue skin vanished beneath a gorgeous tapestry of throbbing energies. They flowed through her body like a cardiovascular system of infinite complexity. Each pulse of her heartbeat rippled through the vibrant mesh, leaving me once again bedazzled by the sight I couldn't get enough of.

  Oh yeah. This world had magic.

  That fact was probably single handedly responsible for my good cheer and relatively speedy integration. I was currently trapped in an unresponsive, unfamiliar body surrounded by a people I found freaky who spoke a language I didn't understand. And yet. And yet, there was an excitement burbling inside of me that almost made me forget about my wi—

  Nope!

  Bad. Not going there. Distraction time.

  As had become the norm over the last few weeks, I turned to trolling my parents to settle my mind. With laborious focus, I manhandled my right arm under me to prop myself up, then with my left, I reached for my father's dorsal braid.

  My hand was another alien aspect I was coming to terms with. I had four fingers; two thumbs and two index fingers. They pointed toward each other like the gripper of a robotic arm, but had extra wide pads like a gecko.

  I wrapped my four fingers around my father's dorsal braid and squeezed.

  Dad's reaction was instant and violent. He jolted awake, arms tightening around me as he gasped like a beached whale. He looked frantically around the room, saying something unintelligible as I felt his heartbeat spike.

  Naturally, I giggled like a loon.

  Hey don't judge me. I was bored, and besides. It was almost their normal wake up time anyway.

  My mother shifted, rubbing her eyes and sitting up as my dad tried scolding me. Jokes on him, I didn't understand his language. In response, I reached up and grabbed his lower lip with my weird grippy fingers. That sparked a laugh from mom, and dad relented, allowing me to poke and prod at him.

  My arcane eye didn't really close. It didn't have an 'eyelid' so to speak, so as had become the norm, I noticed the shift in my parent's auras. It was subtle, but I had been staring at the two of them for a while now, and was deeply motivated to learn.

  Mom's aura was simple. The rippling glowing mesh of light visible to my arcane senses was coiled in a manner I was extrapolating as happiness. Dad's was similar, though there was an undercurrent that I hesitantly labelled as annoyance.

  I wasn't positive what I was seeing were emotions, but it seemed right. Also, today I wanted to try and see if I could replicate them.

  I reached deep inside of myself, imagining the network of channels and reached for it. I found the node of energy easily enough. Perhaps because of my human heritage, the node felt foreign and easily identifiable. I didn't question too much why it felt the way it did, and simply grabbed it.

  Then, I bent my will to try and mimic my mother's joyful aura.

  Mom and dad stiffened, with both of their chins doing a weird inverted bobbing to reveal their throats to me. I dropped the effect, worried I had made a mistake. That cleared them of their paralysis, and mom lunged at me. I screamed, only to get smothered as two freaky snake tails wrapped around me in what I later interpreted as an expression of love.

  The next several minutes were very stressful. They said a lot of words—none of them intelligible—and fluttered around me while waving their hands. Mom blasted me with her aura, then looking at me expectantly while tilting my chin up with her finger. Hesitantly, I repeated the previous trick and the two went berserk again.

  I felt like a puppy in training.

  Clearly I had made the two happy with whatever I had done, so I repeated the effect while acting as much like a baby as I could from my spot on the bed.

  A sensation of contented warmth filled my heart as I watched my parents enter a heated discussion. They spoke softly, to each other and to me. I didn't understand a word, but the tone was crystal clear.

  Mom was caressing me with her dorsal braid, which was a little creepy, so I grabbed at it. She laughed as I squeezed her braid, easily curling the muscular cord around my little fist and tickling my belly. Oh no. My weakness.

  I looked up at her and repeated my aura manipulation.

  She squealed, picking me up and making me a little dizzy.

  Alright, enough. I dropped the 'happy' manipulation and tried my best to recreate the 'annoyed' expression my dad had been projecting early.

  Mom's reaction was instantaneous. She set me down onto the bed, her tone dropping into something even I recognized as worried, and started probing me with her dorsal braid. I was suddenly vividly reminded of how ants probe things with their antennae.

  I dropped the annoyed aura, and mom calmed.

  I was right, the aura shapes were emotions, or rather served the same function as facial expressions in humans. It explained why both mom and dad looked stone-faced and serene all the time. The 'happiness' and 'annoyed' manipulations I discovered were likely equivalent to smiles and frowns respectively. I wondered how much I had worried my parents by only starting to use them now. I giggled quietly at the thought of a stone faced baby who didn't smile until his third week.

  Looking again at my parents, I spotted the both were smiling with their auras, though mom was doing so with her mouth as well. It was weirdly gratifying being able to understand their emotions in such vivid detail.

  Suddenly I was hungry. Starving really, and I had to mentally pummel the emotion lest it bring tears to my eyes. I succeeded, and turned to mom with as much dignity as I could.

  "AaaaAmmeeea???" I asked, making little grabby hands towards mom.

  Don't judge me. Let me elucidate the actual catastrophe that are my vocal cords. First of all, my species don't use their lips for talking at all. They are too thin and inflexible for that anyway. I'm still trying because by golly I don't understand how the three vocal cords lodged down my throat work. I can sort of flex them to make sounds, but the complexity is beyond me. It was one of those subtle differences that completely derailed my ability to interact with the world like a functioning adult.

  Thankfully, mom intuited my intentions easily enough and brought me to her breast.

  I manifested a frankly impressive amount of self control, and didn't immediately latch on. Instead, I looked up at mom, and made my best begging expression while tilting my chin up repeatedly. Mom sighed, her aura rippling through a whole host of unfamiliar expressions, but dutifully summoned a flame above her palm before jamming her nipple into my mouth. I didn't mind, simply closing my eyes and drinking as I studied the arcane fire.

  I watched in rapt fascination as pulses of light thrummed down my mother's arm and into a complicated knot of magic on three of her four fingers. There was a rhythm involved, a steady, one, two... one, two, three that fed the flame a steady stream of energy. Her core was flexing to feed the flame. I didn't understand it, but that didn't stop me from trying to memorize every single aspect of the spell.

  By the time that I finished breakfast and opened my eyes, dad had gone. Where? I had no idea. It seemed like there was a lot of this involved in being a newborn.

  My mom set me down to get dressed and I got a good look at her full body. Her upper body was fairly familiar—if I ignored the strange hands, and weird facial structure. Everything lower however was a different story. Her knees were bent slightly backwards as she tugged on a sweater, giving a noticeable recurve lower limb silhouette. Even more amusingly, her 'butt' was in front of her hips, offering a tantalizing shelf I had more than once been sat upon.

  I giggled, drawing her attention back to me.

  Mom dressed me in knitted wool with strategic holes for my tail. Two more layers went on top, and by the end I was feeling more like a bundled up burrito than a child. Even my four toed feet—stiffer than my hands, but in a similar arrangement—were bundled into moccasin-like socks.

  I studied her aura as she took me through the curtain separating the bedroom from the rest of the house. The rustic room that probably wouldn't have looked out of place in the middle ages was dominated by a large white-stone fireplace. A copper pan hung on the chimney which was already being filled by a steady stream of smoke. Dad's work, most likely.

  Mom set me down and tucked the pan into the fire. Then she bustled around the kitchen and her aura calmed into what I was interpreting as thoughtfulness. Or maybe introspection. She returned with food; a large marbled steak and several slightly orange tuber-like vegetables.

  The tubers went into the pan with some water and left to cook. She then sat at the table with me on her hip. Like a lot of the things here, the chair was fit for our unique biology. It was more akin to a saddle with a chest rest. Like a massage chair. Her legs extended behind her, and despite it not causing her any distress it still looked profoundly wrong to my fragile human sensibilities.

  Mom was talking to me, and while I couldn't understand what she was saying, her tone made a slow sense of foreboding rise in my gut. She took a small bite of the raw steak, her carnivore teeth shredding through it with ease and chewed.

  Why was she looking at me like that?

  Mom leaned down and kissed me. Before I knew what was happening, her tongue shoved the half masticated raw meat into my mouth and she pulled away. Then she looked down at me, her aura oozing an excited eagerness.

  Uh...

  I opened and closed my mouth in a halfhearted attempt at chewing, then let my mouth fall open to release the weird, raw meat. Mom's aura got a distinct twist that I intuitively understood as amusement. She thought I was funny. Unbelievable.

  Her dorsal braid snaked under my chin, scooping up the slimy mouthful and pushed it back in my mouth. I valiantly ejected the unwelcome morsel, only for her to repeat the action. She cooed at me, making encouraging baby sounds as if she wasn't trying to give me food poisoning.

  By the fifth failure, mom decided to switch up her strategy. She grabbed my dorsal braid—which was a deeply uncomfortable experience, like someone sticking a wet finger in your ear—and stuck it into my mouth.

  Oh... huh.

  I sucked on my dorsal braid, pushing the meat around it. I was mildly impressed by the rich flavor. Even the slimy, half masticated texture didn't seem so bad when I was feeling it with my braid. I sucked on the meat for a bit, then against my better judgement, I swallowed.

  Mom cheered, squeezing me and curling her dorsal braid around my throat like a noose. It was that type of excessive excitement adults tended to fall back on when dealing with toddlers. To be honest, I was glad for it considering I would have likely missed a more subtle sign of approval.

  Then, much to my growing chagrin, she repeated the whole procedure three more times.

  By the time I was well and truly stuffed with the meat, the vegetables had boiled and mom mashed them down into a paste. To my surprise, she didn't even try to feed me the mashed vegetables, finishing the portion herself before washing away the flavor with the rest of the steak.

  To my consternation, I got the distinct impression that she vastly preferred the raw meat to the cooked vegetables.

  Before I could consider the ramifications of my new species being obligate carnivores, my mom switched up the routine. Normally, she bustled around the house—cleaning, sewing or doing other various chores—with me strapped to her chest with a tight scarf. The chest scarf still happened, but instead of staying inside of the house, mom opened the front door.

  I nearly cried at the sight. A golden sun bathed the snow covered ground with sparkles. Epic trees erupted from the earth in the distance, clinging onto the rocky terrain with a stubbornness only the truly ancient could exhibit. The frigid air hung deathly quiet in the air, worming its way under my layers with a vicious promise.

  Mom walked along a narrow path leading toward a cluster of squat homes hiding in the snow. She entered a larger building, greeting a group of a dozen other people working inside. There was some fawning over me, but before too long, mom sat down on another one of those saddle benches and started... weaving.

  Another adult handed her a wooly hide of a creature that must have been the size of a grizzly when it lived. Mom straightened the heavy material on the floor and used a white-bone knife to start separating the fur from the hide.

  I was immediately fascinated. Strapped to my mother's chest, I got a front row view as she channeled magic into the bone implement. There was no visible effect, but by directing my arcane eye, I could see a razor thin concentration of mana along the edge of the knife.

  What followed was what I could only refer to as magic crafting.

  Mom handed off the hide to another adult before she gathered all the wool and started spinning it into a thin, strong yarn. I barely noticed the three other women joining us in the activity as every action my mother took involved her mana in some way.

  Every twist of her wrist imbued the animal fiber with her mana. While her fingers twisted the wool into yarn, her mana formed a reverse helix that settled within the fibers. I didn't precisely understand, but I could intuit. And so, I watched. Watched and memorized.

  At some point I noticed a play area for children off to the side. It was a small fenced off thing where three other young children were playing with brightly colored toys. All the children looked older than myself, but still young enough to have trouble running, if not walking. I almost dismissed it before I spotted the scintillating magic imbued into each of the toys.

  Suddenly, I felt the urge to go over and take a closer look at the toys. Then I was hit by a strange disconnect as I realized that I, a thirty four year old adult, wanted to go play with colored blocks. The thought made me chuckle, briefly drawing the attention of the adults working around me.

  Their conversation washed over me as I suddenly came to a realization. Everyone in the building was doing the aura expression thing I had discovered that morning. Even the three kids, though their efforts looked clumsy even to my inexperienced eyes. The toddlers didn't cast any spells. No external manipulations at all. Not even to try and replicate the colorful shapes within their toys.

  Should I mimic them and refrain from trying to manipulate mana until I grew older?

  Well, the answer to that was clearly no. I didn't have the patience for that. Not even close. So as I fell asleep to the repetitive motion of my mother's work, I started devising my plan.

  First and foremost, I needed to define terms. Set a baseline, so to speak. I didn't know the language, and at the pace things were going, it would be months if not years before I could ask my parents for the proper names of things.

  So I kept things simple. The light I saw with my arcane eye would henceforth be called 'mana'. It was controlled and manipulated by the metaphysical muscle I would refer to as the 'will'. People projected 'auras' which were bundles of mana that were most dense somewhere around their chest, but extended feelers across their whole body.

  Internal manipulation of the aura required an effort of will and appeared to be done automatically by all members of my community. In fact, their mostly reticent and absent facial expressions were largely replaced by the more preternatural expressions. The only expression that seemed to be shared with humans were small smiles and frowns. If someone bothered with those two expressions, they were always coupled with a powerful aura expression.

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  Spells were physical effects created and supported by the will and powered by a person's internal mana reservoir. I didn't know what happened should someone run out of mana, but I figured it couldn't be great. The interesting thing was, spells themselves were physical. It seemed that organizing mana in specific arrangements resulted in specific and deterministic results. Form beget function, so to speak.

  So over the next two weeks, I watched my mother work with wool and yarn and hide with an eagle eye. I learned my arcane eye had limits. While I could see through thin walls—vague silhouettes approaching the building from outside for example—any sort of mana blocked my vision as effectively as a concrete wall.

  The result was if someone walked in between me and someone else casting a spell, the spell was completely obscured from my sight. My species had such powerful auras that even a hand completely obscured my preternatural sight.

  Despite that, I learned a tremendous amount about spellcasting. Namely, that all spells were constructed from strings of mana tied into specific knots or patterns. The act itself seemed draining on the adults, with a proportional drain relative to the thickness of the threads they were manipulating.

  I identified several unique operations the adults were conducting in their work.

  The first, 'drawing', was the act of pulling mana from their core. It was a relatively slow process and the one I was least familiar with. People's auras obscured the process from my sight, so I couldn't see what their wills were doing inside to pull the threads out. I could guess though. I doubted it was that complicated.

  The second I dubbed 'translation'. Once the thread of mana was held by the will, I watched repeatedly as people moved it around in three dimensions. The most fascinating observation was that people were oftentimes better at moving the threads in specific direction—ie. Away from themselves. They even physically stood up and rotated around their spell to complete their casting from the 'correct' orientation. It made me mentally label the operation as six unique movements along the three axes.

  Forward and back. Left and right. Up and down.

  Then there was the twisting motion used extensively when spinning yarn. This 'rotation' was only used along the primary axis of the thread, though some preferred to look down at the thread, while others did it while looking forward. The 'x' and 'y' axes respectively. Thinking about it, I didn't see any reason you couldn't twist a mana thread along its length, though I imagined it might be more difficult since you couldn't see both start and end of the thread at once. Though, I admit my conjecture on its difficulty was primarily based on the method's absence.

  All that was to say that, just like translation, I mentally categorized rotation as having six unique movements along three axes.

  By extension, 'scaling' was the last dimensional operation, but I didn't witness it over my two week observation. Technically, I wondered if the pulling operation the adults were using to extend a long length of mana from their core constituted scaling. Or perhaps it was just a specific form of extrusion. I didn't know, and at some point my musings descended into philosophical pedantry, so I left the subject there.

  Lastly was the most complicated operation by far: 'imbuing'. It was the tying off operation that anchored a spell to the physical world. Not all spells did this, and in fact most of the people I watched chose to leave their spells anchored to their will. It was probably easier to hold onto the mana for short spells rather than deal with the complicated, multidimensional knots required to keep a knife sharp even after you walked away.

  People definitely had a range to the will. Mom could extend her will several feet away from her skin, but I never witnessed her push it farther. Even when it would have been convenient, she chose to lean over or cross the distance somehow before casting her spells.

  So I supposed that was that. The long list of things I wanted to master to be able to cast spells. Drawing and extension were the projection of core mana. Translation, rotation, and scaling were the manipulation of external mana. And imbuing was the act of cementing a spell into an enchantment upon an item.

  So how did one train these things?

  It all boiled down to the will. The will was the basis of all spellcraft. From watching the adults and my own cautious experimentation, I was increasingly convinced that the will shared many characteristics with muscles. It was capable of low effort work for hours, but overworking it for even a moment could cause lasting exhaustion that extended until the next day or beyond.

  If that was the case, then the will also likely grew like muscles did. And I knew how muscles grew.

  Once I finished identifying my short term goals, I immediately set out to develop a training plan. It was likely unnecessary in this early stage, considering how quickly noobs got stronger, but I was determined to do this right. Back on Earth, I had started my fitness journey overeager and suffered temporary—and a few chronic—injuries because of it.

  Rest days were mandatory, and with the way I trained, I squeezed two of them per week. I didn't know if they had seven day weeks here, but I would adjust if necessary.

  The first, third, and fifth day of the routine would be dedicated to dimensionalism. Yes, yes. I know. A ridiculous name for what essentially amounts to moving mana around, but it sounded cool and made me feel slightly less incompetent.

  This involved forming threads of mana of reasonable thickness and moving them back and forth eight times until I couldn't handle it anymore. My goal was hypertrophy, or whatever the equivalent was with regards to the will. The first day was focused on translation, the third on rotation, and the final on scaling.

  What constituted reasonable thickness? I devised an ingenious new unit of measure I called a 'thaum'. One thaum of mana was a thread roughly the diameter of a human hair. Which, yeah, wasn't the most accurate measure. Especially since I was currently lacking any such hairs to compare to. Still, it was better than nothing. I could manipulate something like two and a half thaums at my absolute maximum. My actual working weight was roughly 70% of that.

  On the intervening days I worked on projection. Drawing was as simple as I figured it would be, but I was continuously amazed at how shallow my reserves were. Extension turned out to be dramatically harder, and I spent most of my time struggling with mana barely a hairsbreadth above my skin.

  It all worked out well. In reality, working out takes a remarkably little amount of time. Especially when your body has the endurance of a mayfly. Most of getting stronger happens in the in between times. When my body went on strike and all I could do was stare silently at the ceiling as I imagined my core slowly reconfigure itself into a more favorable arrangement.

  Of course, it was painful, but I had been expecting that. The body doesn't really change unless you force it to, and improving my will fell under the same purview. It hurt, but it also felt good. The way the ache slowly faded, and how day by day, week by week, I felt myself get stronger.

  Lira lay on her side stuck in that horrible limbo of being too tired to sleep but being unable to. Little Silas lay in front of her, blissfully asleep as if mocking her lack of ability. His perfectly smooth spirit glittered in her perception. Like a mirror-polished pond that denied even the faintest ripple to pass through it. He was so stoic, choosing to make subtle facial expressions that Lira found difficult to read instead of expressing himself openly.

  The first few weeks he had cried so much. Especially at night. Sometimes it even felt like her touch was what set him off. The crying had grown less common as the weeks had gone by, but it never truly went away. Even while crying his little heart out, Silas locked his spirit in a perfectly tranquil pool. Not allowing a shred of emotion through.

  Did his guarded nature stem from something she had done? Or failed to do?

  Lira sighed, rubbing her eyes as she rolled onto her stomach and sat up. She leaned back against her knees, mind blank as she prepared to face the day. She sighed again, and focused her will inward in the way the midwife taught her would stimulate milk production. Her chest ached as she performed the arduous cycling of the self empowerment technique. Over twenty minutes later, she finally released her will and opened her eyes, feeling even more sore and grumpy than before.

  She sighed again.

  "How are you doing my love?" Medlas murmured, his voice tinged with sleep.

  "Tired." Lira grunted, then sighed and shook her head. "My boobs hurt."

  Medlas' eyes flicked lower. "How many times did he wake you this night?"

  "Four. Four times, Medlas, and it seems he is even hungrier each time." Lira swallowed thickly, forcefully squashing the budding tears. "He is draining me dry each time. Is there something wrong with my milk?"

  "No," Medlas wrapped her in a comforting hug. His dorsal braid curled around hers, allowing her to feel him in his entirety. "No, definitely not. There is nothing wrong with you. Look, he is sleeping happily. Whatever you are doing, it is exactly what Silas needs. I only wish I could help you in some way."

  "If only." Lira barked out a quiet laugh, a small tear escaping despite her efforts. "Look at him, Medlas. He is so quiet. That can't be normal."

  "Hush, my love. Some things are not good or bad, they just are. And he can express himself just fine when he needs to."

  "I suppose," Lira mumbled, squeezing her husband before pulling away. She caressed Silas' cheek, then gently picked him up. He stirred, making mumbling cooing sounds before his little eyes focused on her.

  A vividly brilliant smile split his expression, so bright Lira felt her myliria tense with the pure innocent happiness radiating off of her son.

  "See?" Medlas whispered, his chin tucked as if embarrassed to look directly on such a pure expression of joy. "Everything is alright."

  Lira hummed in response as her son's blinding smile faded away. Medlas was right. Probably right, except Lira couldn't help but eye the disturbing calm of Silas' expression after his joy faded away with suspicion. Despite the brief ray of sunshine, Silas' spirit looked worn. It was subtle, and she doubted others would notice it, but it was there. His core was just a touch duller, with the edges of his will a little frayed.

  Something was wrong. She was sure of it.

  "I'm going to take him to Selendara before work," Lira told her husband, ignoring the ache as Silas drank his breakfast hungrily from her abused chest. Medlas eyed her, then nodded amicably.

  Lira ambled into the kitchen without a particular aim while gently rocking Silas. A small flame danced in her free hand, an expression of will that had become amazingly easy for her over the last few weeks. She played with the fire idly, shifting the licks of flame to and fro and causing Silas' little myliria to ripple and tense in excitement as he watched her display. It brought a soft smile to her lips.

  A disturbance of mana through the wall caught her eye and she paused.

  "Medlas?"

  "Hmm?" He grunted from the bedroom, the sound of rustling cloth coming from behind the curtain.

  "There is a spawn happening just outside."

  Medlas poked his head out of the bedroom, his shirt only half on his body. His gaze drifted over the rear wall, instantly latching onto the disturbance. "Looks fresh. Would you like me to dismiss it?"

  "We don't need the meat?"

  "No, it's been a bountiful harvest. Here, give me a moment and I'll—"

  "No," Lira said, surprising herself a little. "Let me, the cold air will do me some good. And I think Silas might enjoy watching."

  Medlas disappeared back into the bedroom with a shrug as Lira exited the house. The cold struck her like a fist, causing her to suck in a bracing breath. Silas gasped, eyes going wide as saucers as his little fists grabbed at empty air.

  "Do you like the cold, little Silas," Lira murmured softly, hugging Silas tightly to keep his little body warm. She pushed through the snow, enjoying the stinging bite of snow on her bare feet. As she had predicted, Silas watched slack jawed as she approached the collection of wild mana, and he flashed joy and wonder repeatedly as she sent a spear of will into the hostile collection to disperse it.

  The rest of the morning passed swiftly and Silas had dozed off in her arms by the time she made it to Selendara's home. She explained her problems with Silas in as much detail as she could. How Silas was constantly hungry and draining her dry each night. Or how his spirit looked sore, and how it was growing extremely quickly. And how it seemed that Silas was sleeping more and more each day rather than less.

  The wise woman listened quietly then bluntly told her that she was being a worrywart. Children all grew up differently, and infants slept a lot. That was a fact, and being stressed about it was unhealthy for her and her baby. Regarding the food situation, if she couldn't produce enough milk, then it should be fine to feed Silas a little more chewed meat in the mornings. If he threw up, then she should come back and they would come up with another solution.

  Lira was summarily tossed out of the grumpy woman's house, feeling not at all better about the whole situation, but not feeling the same fire with Silas sleeping peacefully in her arms. She went to work, greeting the other townsfolk with a tired smile.

  Before she had completed processing even a single pelt, the woman to her right—Mariera—put a hand on her wrist.

  "Lira?"

  "Yes, Mariera?"

  "You look tired, maybe you should go watch the kids for today?"

  Lira paused, looking around and seeing compassionate eyes all around. Watching the kids was the equivalent of 'you are allowed to do nothing today'. "You sure?"

  "Don't worry about us," Mariera laughed. "Your Silas is still young. I'm sure you could use the break."

  "Thanks," Lira blushed, slowly rising and moving over to the kids area. She untied Silas, bouncing him in her arms as she leaned back on her knees to watch over the youngsters.

  "Aaarroooo??" Silas cooed, eyeing her, then at a bright red wooden block a few feet away. It had a scintillating icosahedron inset into a dodecahedron imbued into it. The two shapes weren't proper spells, but they did look pretty. Especially since whoever had made the toy had anchored the two shapes separately which caused them to shift out of sync with each other.

  "Do you want the block?" Lira asked, mostly rhetorically. She started to reach for it, only to pause as an idea came to her. "Here, go get it!"

  Lira lay Silas down, making sure he didn't bump his chin, then urged him forward. He wriggled on the floor, his spirit entirely emotionless and the only sign of his feelings was a slight crease in his brows. Frustration? Or was that interest.

  "Come on, like this. Bend your knees and plant your feet on the floor. Make sure to spread your toes and push! push!"

  Lira demonstrated, pressing his feet into the ground and gently pushed forward such that his chest slid on the smooth floor. He gave her a long-suffering look, and bent his knees again, but it didn't seem like he had the core strength to actually push himself. Lira helped him, sliding him forward in little bursts and starts until he made it over to the block and grabbed it with his chubby little fingers.

  He immediately jammed the thing into his throat and let out satisfied coo and a flash of blinding happiness.

  Lira laughed and grabbed her son. He hurked at the sudden motion, but didn't let go of his prize. She hugged him tight, nuzzling his dorsal braid as he gleefully explored the wooden block with his lustrous myliria.

  "You are such a smart boy!"

  Lira sighed, leaning back onto her knees, though this time with a sort of resigned contentment. Sleep itched at the back of her eyes, and she allowed her eyelids to droop as Silas wiggled in her hands.

  The other children had formed a small clique around a tower of blocks seven high. They were playing with carved wooden figurines of monsters and knights in a pretend battle. She used her myliria to track their movements, but by the steady stream of giggles coming from their direction, there was little that required her attention.

  It was nice to be able to teach Silas something. With how often he spent asleep, it sometimes felt like all he did was watch her work, or eat. Which wasn't exactly incorrect, but the midwife has explained at length the importance of tummy time to allow him to cultivate a curiosity for the world.

  His utterly blank expression as he examined the red block caught in Lira's mind. It seemed like the only thing her boy was interested in was spellwork. Even if he didn't exactly share his emotions with his mother.

  Suddenly an idea came to her.

  "Hey Silas?" Lira asked, jostling him to get his attention. He dropped the block, looking up at her and making a burbling questioning sound. She picked it up and handed it back to him. "Want to try something fun?"

  Silas waved the block around, then put it back against his throat.

  "Here, look at my heart," Lira gently took Silas' block and tilted his chin toward her chest. She carefully pulled out a single thin strand of mana, moving in exaggerated slow motion, before extending the strand toward Silas. "Can you do that? Reach inside, and pull. Can you do that?"

  Lira repeated the motion several more times but it was hard to tell if Silas understood her. He watched her, expressionless, his little brows pulled slightly toward each other as he looked down from her chest to her face and over to the other adults. Lira recentered his attention and repeated the act of drawing a thread of mana out, gently encouraging Silas with words and caresses.

  She picked up the cube again, this time drawing out the icosahedron with her mana thread before letting the whole construct dissipate. That seemed to do it. As if something had clicked for him, Silas reached inside of himself and clumsy pulled out a strand. It was of uneven thickness, but he manipulated it to the surface of his skin before abruptly losing control in a puff of mana.

  "Wow!" Lira beamed. She hadn't exactly been expecting him to succeed. Not with how much trouble he had with crawling. "You did it! Can you do it again? Like this..."

  Silas repeated his feat, and if anything this time he was even more proficient. The puff of mana washed over Lira's myliria and she couldn't help but grab Silas and hold him up in the air in victory.

  Silas burst into giggles, his aura screaming with happiness, as Lira twirled him around. Everyone else in the room, including the small children, paused their activities and looked over. With how loud Silas was being, it wasn't a surprise. Mariera came over, smiling as she crouched down at her side.

  "What's got you two so happy?" she asked.

  "Silas just drew out his first thread," Lira grinned, breathless. "Go on, Silas. Show Mariera what you can do. Like this..."

  Silas looked blankly between them, ignoring Lira's demonstration, then jutted his hands out toward Lira and grumbled in distress.

  "Aww," Lira laughed, pulling Silas in close. "He's shy. But he managed to pull a thread. Almost to the surface of his skin. On the first try no less."

  "Congratulations, Lira. And little Silas. I don't think anyone in town has managed that so young," Mariera said, giving Silas a curious look. "Is he always so loud? I thought he was really quiet."

  "Both, I suppose," Lira hummed, rocking Silas on her shoulder. "He can be loud when he wants to be."

  "He would make a fine mage one day." Mariera paused, tapping her chin dramatically. "Not nearly as good as my Akira, of course, but we can't all be prodigies."

  "Oh please," Lira scoffed.

  "I'm just calling it like I see it."

  "We'll see about that," Lira grinned, her worries from earlier in the day dissipating at last.

  Lady Sakra Krii-ari ka Norgard sprinted up the rope ladder two rungs at a time to behold a nightmare. The boughs of the centenarian pine creaked and shifted beneath her feet as the monster horde came into view. They flowed through the frozen northern forest like a great flood. Their silver-white fur glittering with ice and marred by splotches of blood and bark.

  "Report." Sakra bit out, her aura tightly controlled through sheer force of will.

  The scout snapped out a smart salute. The gesture only slightly undermined by how the girl was clinging to the thin boughs of the tree by the skin of her teeth.

  "Two hundred silver-backed dreadnaughts identified around the spawner, my lady. They are patrolling in spirals, packs of seven to twelve. At least fifteen elites spotted as well."

  "Any ancients?"

  The girl hesitated. "Perhaps one? The elites aren't showing themselves."

  Sakra forced her aura to remain calm as she met the scout's gaze. "How accurate are those numbers?"

  "Very, my lady," the scout said, a little steel returning to her spine. Good. "There might be as many as two hundred and ten."

  "And the spawner?"

  "Over there, in the gully, about a quarter of the way up the western side. It's a confirmed class three."

  Sakra's eyes narrowed as she gave the vista one last scan, then nodded firmly. "As you were. Report in case of anomaly."

  "My lady," the scout nodded, but Sakra was already sliding down the ladder without bothering to slow down.

  She impacted the ground with enough force to break the ankles of a lesser mage. Her will was iron, and she simply stepped out of the two indentations in the ground to walk briskly beside her advisor. As per usual, Milo's large nose, fuzzy eyebrows and strangely puffy lips did its usual strange dance as she relayed the news.

  "We attack in fifteen. Ready the troops. I will vanguard," Sakra ignored the drider's discomfort.

  "You cannot risk yourself, my lady. Let the soldiers do their duty."

  "And watch them break against an ancient? I think not, Milo."

  "There might not be an ancient—" Sakra scoffed, increasing her pace. Milo scrambled to catch up, in his case literally as his eight carapaced legs skittered over the frozen earth. "My lady! You cannot risk yourself! The north still needs an heir!"

  "The north as we know it won't exist if we allow this horde to grow." Sakra snapped, allowing just a faint sliver of her frustration to slip past her impeccable aura control. "We attack, Milo. Prepare my armor. And ready the troops."

  Despite his reticence, Milo made sure the troops were prepared and ready in record time. Sakra stood at their head, eyeing her loyal followers with a keen eye. She didn't bother with a fancy speech, simply drawing her sword and raising it high.

  "For our home!" Sakra declared, her blade igniting with her will.

  They charged into the gully. Her soldiers fanned out through the ancient trees, kill squads of seven veering into the wilderness with perfect coordination. The first silver-backed dreadnaughts died before they even realized what hit them, though the scent of blood in the air revealed their presence before too long.

  Sakra tore through a pair of elites, their scythe-like claws kissing her burnished armor in a spray of sparks and ablated will. She snarled, lunging off the ground hard enough to crack the frost covered earth, and impaled the larger of the two. It shrieked, twisting violently only for Sakra's raised palm to blind it with a torrent of arcane fire. The second lasted barely a few more moments as a nearby squad fell on it with lethal intent.

  A shrieker ripped through the early morning light and Sakra's gaze snapped toward the source. A massive dreadnaught, its fur woven and glistening with a rime covered oil smashed into a flanking squad and sent alten flying.

  Sakra cursed, dashing into the fray and reigniting her will. Her body shone with leakage as she lunged the last thirty feet onto the monster's back. Her blade slammed into its woven hide, the carbon steel creaking as a flare of the ancient's mana rebuffed the strike. It roared, smashing into a nearby tree hard enough to crack the trunk and send her flying.

  She landed on her toes, sword still gripped tight as she met the ancient's beady little eyes. It roared again, charging mindlessly at her as if blood crazed. Sakra jumped, dumping her will into the mass drivers in the hilt of her blade.

  The ancient dreadnaught slammed its foot long claws into the earth, slowing its momentum as its stupid little eyes glittered with sly intelligence. Sakra's eyes widened as her momentum carried her into the jaws of death.

  She adjusted, raw mana manipulation clawing at the air to slow her just enough for her to land and leap again. She lunged into the beast's maw, sword first as the mass drivers in her sword ignited. The blade ripped from her grip, piercing through woven hair, flesh and bone with equal ease.

  Then the ancient dreadnaught's claw whipped into her abdomen with the force of a fallen moon. She heard her armor buckle distantly, as red hot agony seared the back of her eyelids. The next thing she knew she was slumped against a boulder gasping for air as a blurry pair of soldiers did something to her stomach.

  Sakra drifted.

  She dreamed of agony and waking in a rush. Of Milo's face leaning over her and assuring her that the spawner was destroyed and the campaign a success. Of a bumpy journey of endless forest. And then darkness.

  "The claws shredded your lower intestines my lady. You will recover, but you may have difficulty in the bathroom, and..." the doctor hesitated, her aura flickering with sympathy and a touch of fear as her eyes flickered to Sakra's bandaged stomach.

  "Continue, doctor," Sakra clipped out. It had not been a good day, week, or month. She had little patience for timidity.

  "You will most likely not be able to bear a child." The doctor paused, then bowed her head softly. "I am sorry."

  Sakra eyed the doctor carefully, some part of her judging the older woman for her shoddy emotional control. She dismissed the errant thought, turning to look out of her room's window.

  "Thank you doctor, Ahslanra. That is all."

  The doctor hesitated, seemingly wondering if she should say anything else. She shouldn't have, and she didn't, leaving a moment later. Before the latch could click, a handsome alten man stepped into the room.

  "My lord Norgard," Sakra said calmly.

  "My lady Norgard," Lord Domas Norgard ka Krii-ari replied with a relieved smile. "I am glad you're awake."

  "Have you begun plans on finding another wife?" Sakra asked, still looking out of the window.

  Lord Domas paused, choosing silence for the moment. Then he sat at her bedside, touching his dorsal braid to her shoulder. An invitation. Sakra ignored it.

  "I have made no such plans, no," Lord Domas said slowly, as if each word carried an immense weight. "And I do not plan to."

  "Do not pretend you did not listen in on the doctor's words."

  "I make no such prevarications."

  "Then you are a fool."

  "So fool I am. I stand by this decision."

  Sakra barked out a bitter laugh, angrily wiping away the tears blurring her vision. "Milo, come in please."

  A beat of silence, then the rapid click-clicking of the drider's many footsteps marched into the room.

  "Tell my Lord Domas what you so often tell me," Sakra said bitterly, returning her gaze to the window. A cold sunrise illuminated a cold and barren land.

  "... The north needs an heir." Milo said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet.

  "So?" Sakra challenged her husband, for once allowing her aura to reign free.

  "Then we will adopt," Domas said calmly, curling his dorsal braid around hers with a quiet confidence.

  "You are a fool," Sakra repeated, this time in a hoarse whisper. She curled her dorsal braid around her husband's despite herself, a steady stream of tears blinding her. Desperately, she tried to change the subject. "What will we do about the increase in spawns? We cannot field the number of soldiers necessary to keep our lands safe."

  "What us nobles always do when we are in trouble," Lord Domas smirked, the expression somehow at once mocking and self-deprecating. "Draft more soldiers and raise taxes on the village folk."