Once the emergency was dealt with, Miliam checked in on Tessa and Engineer to see how they’d handled it. Engineer essentially lived in the engineering room, so it was debatable whether they’d even realized anything was out of the ordinary. Especially with how limited their willingness to speak was. Tessa, surprisingly, had actually managed to stay on task by running drills continuously the entire time. Though Miliam had questioned it at first, she supposed it made a certain amount of sense. Given the woman’s inability to focus outside of her job, she would be more ready to react to an actual attack if she’d been doing nothing but reacting to simulated attacks for an hour.

With that dealt with, Miliam eventually found herself in the lounge speaking to Abigail, who had a number of questions she wanted to ask about 21st century Earth now that things had settled down. They spent quite some time talking about it; the scholar seemed to be particularly interested in the sect of Christianity Miliam had grown up in, much to her confusion.

“I do believe that I have asked all that I wished to know, but I may come to you should further questions occur to me, if it is not too great an inconvenience. I thank you profusely for the time, as I know you have been quite occupied with studying our modern world,” Abigail said between sips of tea. She was sat across a table from Miliam looking as put-together as always.

“Sure…but I had to look some things up from my time and it seemed pretty well-documented, so I’m not sure why anything I know was of any value,” the time-traveler replied with her head cocked to the side.

“Indeed. However, I do not believe you fully comprehend the significance of the group your family belonged to. Your relations were deeply entrenched in a movement that abhorred that which they believed unnatural. Even prior to the rediscovery of magic, it was not uncommon for members to perform burning of paraphernalia perceived as occult. Might you have a guess as to how they would have reacted to the resurgence of magic?” Abigail lifted on eyebrow as she asked the question, indicating to Miliam that it wasn’t a rhetorical question. It wasn’t a terribly hard one to answer, either.

“…badly. Maybe even violently. They’d definitely have held mass protests and tried to convince everyone that whoever discovered it was the Anti-Christ and bringing about the end-times,” Miliam answered slowly. She knew though that for despite being incensed, the people she’d grown up around would also have been euphoric in their belief that they were witnessing the fulfillment of their covenant.

“That is precisely what happened,” Abigail confirmed with a nod. “But such resistance could not last forever. Although that movement had significant support at home, they had only sparse connections internationally, limited to minor countries with little power. Despite their success at stymying the development of magic in the United States, the rest of the world continued to progress apace, and it soon became obvious how behind the country had fallen.”

“So they saw the error of their ways and changed tack?” Miliam asked sarcastically. She knew that never would have happened; her family and those like them were far too stubborn and unwilling to entertain opposing viewpoints. Abigail smiled at the implied jab and shrugged.

“They did not. But their support gradually collapsed. The crux of it is that after long and arduous struggle the anti-magic bloc was ousted and the winners wrote history from then on. Given that my field of study is ancient and often lost systems of magic, you might understand how I would find it interesting to know the perspective of someone that lived among precisely the type of people that make my research difficult,” Abigail explained. She set down her teacup but her back remained straight.

“Which means…even though that period was otherwise well documented, the records were too biased to be useful?” Miliam posited as she tried to follow Abigail’s line of reasoning.

“Correct…but also not. When a paradigm shift that drastic occurs it can be difficult to determine how much information has been passed down faithfully and how much was altered or written with a slant. Your testimony is most helpful because it allows me to ascertain with greater certainty wherein lies the truth.” The albino scholar sighed, shaking her head. “Sadly, it would be far too difficult to prove the veracity of any information I acquire from you for it to be of any use academically, but I am pleased to at least sate my own curiosity.”

“Yeah, I guess no one would just believe you heard it from a literal time-traveler.” Miliam laughed awkwardly and scratched her cheek. “Not to mention that I didn’t even get here using an actual time-travel spell…”

“Indeed. The contents of your family grimoire will of course be published, but nothing within it conclusively points to time-travel. As they say, reality is often stranger than fiction.”

“Wouldn’t it be easy to prove how it could be done with the spell I used, though? If I’d set the parameters right it should be possible to get stuck the same way even on Earth,” Miliam asked.

Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author's consent. Report any sightings.

“Perhaps. That spell would prove an excellent base for a stasis spell, in fact. Had you emerged on Earth there may well have been sufficient evidence to prove your claim. But anyone could assert that they cast a spell and somehow wound up on a derelict vessel in deep space. As the claim cannot in any way be falsified and its likelihood of happening is miniscule, however, there is little we can do.” Abigail gave a helpless shrug and Miliam was forced to accept it really was a far-fetched story. She latched onto something else Abigail had said, though.

“A stasis spell, huh? Do you happen to have a copy of that spell with you? I kind of want to try rewriting it. I was a programmer in my past life and spell writing is really similar. If I can learn enough ideograms I think I could write my own spells, or even enchantments,” Miliam said with an undercurrent of excitement.

“That would certainly be a useful skill to possess. I do retain scans of the grimoire’s contents, but I would require some amount of time to translate the spell into modern language,” Abigail replied thoughtfully. “Mm, I believe I can have it ready by tomorrow. There is little else for me to do currently besides study those spells regardless.”

“Great, thanks! I’ve gone through all the spells my new grimoire came with already, so it would be nice to have a new project to work on.” Of course, it wasn’t like Miliam had completely finished her studies- she had hundreds of years of history to catch up on if nothing else- but it was good to be able to shift focus when one topic began to get tiresome. Writing a spell would be like reclaiming a part of her old life, as well.

“I hesitate to overstep, but do be sure not to test any spells on yourself until they have been proofread by another. An incorrectly written spell may simply do nothing at all, but one crafted nearly correct may prove dangerous,” Abigail cautioned, a concerned look on her face.

“Believe me, I learned not to cast anything I’m not completely sure about the last time I tried an unknown spell.” Well, the spell she’d intended to cast worked almost exactly as expected; Miliam couldn’t really blame herself for failing to anticipate that she could accidentally dual cast spells. “Plus, now that I know about burnout I’m a lot more scared of casting anything complex…I didn’t even know why I was in pain after activating the ship’s mana furnace until I read about that.”

“You do likely possess a greater than average natural capacity for channeling mana, but prudence would not be amiss. It is difficult to quantify one’s limits, but as a general rule, you can approximate them by working your way up- the number of rings a spell circle is composed of roughly correlates with the amount of mana needed to cast it. If you are able to cast a spell from rest without feeling strained, then adding another ring is within your capabilities,” Abigail explained. Miliam perked up hearing that first sentence.

“Wait, does that mean I’m like, some kind of natural mage?” she asked, almost immediately letting the implication go to her head. Sadly, she’d gotten a bit ahead of herself.

“No. It merely provides you a slight advantage in your initial conditioning. An average person could reach the same level in a matter of weeks or months,” the scholar corrected with an amused smirk. Miliam pouted a bit at that.

“Well, that’s a concerning duo to stumble upon,” Aoibhe observed as she walked into the lounge. “Should I give you some space?”

Miliam rolled her eyes. “What are you, a child? We were talking about magic,” she responded, slightly annoyed at the implication. Aoibhe had been oddly concerned about any potential relationship developing between Miliam and Abigail since before they’d even met, but the latter hadn’t even made any advances after the first.

“Aye, and a certain type of magic in particular, I’m sure,” the fay retorted with a quirked brow and crossed arms. Was Aoibhe not over Abigail and being unnecessarily jealous? At any rate, it was getting annoying, and the last thing they needed was a high-school conflict on a space ship. Miliam didn’t really want to get into it with Aoibhe in front of Abigail given she wasn’t a member of their crew. Not that she was eager about the idea. She didn’t really feel like she had any authority over the pilot, who’d been something of a guide to Miliam since she’d arrived and tended to act more like a partner than a subordinate.

“The conversation was indeed purely academic, I am afraid,” corrected Abigail in return. “However, Aoibhe, I have a question for you now that you are present. Have you given Miliam no instruction in magic whatsoever? It seems she is still barely aware of her own conductivity, or even the symptoms of burnout for that matter.”

“Nay, I’m not much of an instructor. Bought her some textbooks and figured she’d probably read about it a long while before she worked out how to load new spells into her grimoire,” the fay answered with a shrug.

“You were not at all concerned when she nearly burned herself out activating the ship?” Abigail pressed further, not letting go of the point.

“Hey, I’d only just survived the destruction of the Kiznessa myself at the time. I’d say I did pretty damn well getting us both back to West Gate alive at all,” Aoibhe shot back. There was a moment of tense silence as the two stared at each other before Abigail backed down, looking away.

“I must apologize for my insensitivity. You are correct, the situation was difficult for the both of you. I will not pursue this further.” After sending a contrite look Aoibhe’s way, Abigail turned back to Miliam. “Nonetheless, I believe it would be prudent for us to have a longer discussion about this topic before you begin work on spell writing. We have talked long enough for one day, so perhaps we may revisit this anon when I have the translation ready for you.”

“Sure, I’d like to get your thoughts on some things I wanted to try anyway, and I’ll probably need some help with the new ideograms used in the base spell,” Miliam agreed before noticing Aoibhe was still just standing there at the door, neither leaving nor settling down in the lounge. “Oh, did you need me for some thing or…?”

“What did I come here for…ah, right. Engineer needs access to your quarters. Something about a reverse pressure issue in the sewage line to your private bathroom.”

“I have a private bathroom?” Miliam asked in confusion before realizing what Aoibhe meant. “Wait, what? You should have led with that!”