Belladonna could feel pangs of guilt coming from her twin. It wasn’t fair; whatever that third condition was that the god had talked about, Liandan hadn’t done anything with it. It wasn’t her fault the system was gone, whatever that was.

All the grown-ups must have thought it was really important. She couldn’t feel their hearts like she could Liandan’s, but they all looked really worried, and the more Liandan noticed it, the worse her feelings got. That wasn’t her fault, it was Tri’s!

It frustrated Belladonna to watch her sister blame herself for it, but she couldn’t talk like her sister could; she couldn’t put her feelings into words for her. She wasn’t amazing like Liandan was.

Oh, the colorful twin was well aware that the grey was far from perfect; even the simple act of flying perplexed her, after all. She couldn’t recall all the details of their meeting with the Force of Order, which ought to have been seared into her memory forever. She felt fear just as much as Belladonna did, and she’s seen her bravery falter.

But Liandan could come up with ideas so swiftly that even the grown-ups seemed impressed. In the short time they’d been alive, she’d already escaped a fire, spoken with a god, and gotten the attention of the Fairy King. She kept going every time she felt scared or overwhelmed or guilty. The Third said he was mostly here for Liandan, and Belladonna could see why, even if she herself couldn’t.

Which is why Belladonna felt so vexed by her limitations. They were sisters, twins, she wanted more than anything to help her sibling. They were meant to be there for each other, to help each other; she knew it.

What do we do now? she wrote as her twin peeked over her shoulder.

This prompted a loud sigh from her sister, and the sense of guilt only seemed to get worse. “Honestly, what can we do?” she asked with a paper-thin smile. “Even if we did spring from our parent fully formed like a pair of preteen Athenas, we’re still just kids. Our job is to learn and have fun.”

Another strange simile, but easy enough to understand from context.

Rocket nodded her head. “Yes, it’s easy to forget with you two, but you are newblooms, and it’s getting late. The other newblooms and their caretakers should be back the day after tomorrow, so I’ll tuck you in for the night. I have to report to the king. I don’t have a medicinal mother plant, but I should still see if the healers need any help with medical aid. With the system gone, they probably need help.”

Liandan looked to Belladonna for a moment, and then turned to the adult. “Okay,” she said simply. Rocket flew straight up with a flick of her wings, with Liandan following behind. Belladonna grabbed her pen and paper and followed suit.

As they floated up, Belladonna noticed another bout of curiosity from her sister. Always curious, that sister of hers. Would only that she could read her mind as well as her heart.

“I know you’re not a healer, Miss Rocket, but how does healing magic work?” the grey fairy asked.

“Well, I don’t know how a ritual spell would do it, but through the Tri System you would aim at or touch your target and say the name of the spell. Then, if you had the spell unlocked, it would activate and and heal the given target.”

“Okay, but how does it work?” Liandan insisted.

“I don’t know what you mean, ‘how’? It replenishes missing HP and starts healing wounds or stopping bleeding or curing poison, depending on the spell.”

Belladonna felt a shiver of dread and relief running down her sister’s spine, but it was swiftly overtaken by a growing sense of frustration. After a moment, Liandan shook her head, saying “No, like, how does it do that? To knit wounds, does it create artificial platelets, or increase cell division? Accelerate scarring? Oh! Maybe a combination of those, accelerating the scar tissues but converting them into stem cells? No, the other way around would probably be easier.

“To stop bleeding, does it constrict the blood vessels? Apply an intangible plaster to it? Maybe affect the wounded area like an invisible tourniquet? Do the antidote spells break the toxins down into its constituent parts? Or alchemize the poisons, like turning hydrogen peroxide into oxygen and water? Maybe magically increase the LD50 of an identified substance?”

Rocket and Belladonna exchanged looks. Belladonna understood most of those words, but the way they were used flew over her head, and it looked to her like Rocket was nearly as out of the loop.

“Erm, well, poison is in my area of expertise,” she explained, “so I can tell that antidote spells just kind of… remove the poison from an exit in the body. A cut, or the mouth or… other places, and you can collect the poison in a vial afterward. High-level poison needs a high-level healing spell, which just kind of erases it.”

“Oh, fascinating! I hadn’t thought of that! You must know your stuff!” Liandan babbled.

“Yes, well, the mortals call me Wolfsbane for a reason,” Rocket admitted.

High level? Poison had levels? Antidotes too? Was that system stuff? Belladonna couldn’t understand it; it’s not like she’d ever used or would ever use it, so it’s not like it bothered her, but the conversation was beyond her.

But whatever they were talking about wasn’t important. No, this was the first time she’d felt her sister… happy. To be sure, she’d felt a number of things emotions from her ash-colored sibling. Curiosity, fascination, relief, excitement, fear, terror, dread, frustration, hesitancy, annoyance, guilt, sheepishness, respect, pity, awe, adoration, love.

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Happiness? Not once. Not until now.

“Wait, like the Queen of Poisons? Oh, ‘Blue Rocket’! You’re named like Bella! I just have so many questions!” Liandan excitedly exclaimed. “So, poison recovery: does that just happen automatically when it’s cured, or do you need to repair affected tissues with a separate spell?”

That settled it. If her sister was passionate enough about this to stop thinking about things that weren’t her fault, then they weren’t going to go to sleep just yet if Belladonna could help it. She wasn’t tired anyway. She was going to keep this conversation going, for Lia’s sake. She floated over to the nearest wall and started writing.

Do you know how to use magic without the system? She showed the paper to the other two.

“Well, there are ritual spells, but those require a lot of training,” Rocket answered, “and even then, the preparation is usually system-aided. Other than that, no, nothing. Magic has always been controlled through the system.”

“Huh?” Liandan asked. “But… you’re using magic now.”

“What?”

“Right there. We’re flying, right now. That’s magic, and clearly the system isn’t in place.”

Yes, good! Okay, she just had to think more. Maybe something Tri said. Oh! She started writing while her sister debated her elder.

“That’s different. That’s not spellcasting, that’s just normal.”

“We’re not obeying physics, that’s not normal. Okay, maybe it’s normal, but it’s not how things should work without magic. Forget conservation of energy, we’re hovering and our wings are still. We’re literally flying in the face of… gravity. Hmm…”

Well, it looked like Lia was lost in thought again. Plenty of time to write the note.

Tri said “It could grant a modicum of power, sure, but it was mostly a way to catalogue things. Simplify spellcasting. ‘Training wheels,’ like you’d call it. A roadmap to abilities, a simple way to bind them to specific gestures and parameters, and a warning of them.”

Liandan came over to read the note, and a moment later she gave off a feeling of pride. “Oh, you are awesome, sis! See, Miss Rocket? Even the god who made the system agreed!” she said with a grin. “He didn’t create the magic the system activated, he just made a file cabinet full of cheat sheets for it. The magic is still valid, we can still get the same results. So, we just have to expand the equation. Show our work, figuratively speaking.”

Rocket floated over to the wall, then leaned against it, her arms folded, and her eyes shut. “Hm… that makes sense. Assuming this is all true in the first place and you’re not just pranking the grown-ups with a very clever game of pretend.

“We all love a good trick or two, or twenty, but try to keep most mischief for outsiders, okay?”

Pranking outsiders? Belladonna had to think about that. The only person Belladonna had met that wasn’t a fairy was Tri. That man was no one to mess with. Still, the thought of putting stuff in his suit to make him itchy was very appealing.

Yeah, that sounded like a lot of fun if she could get away with it. He messed with a lot of people, including her sister; it was only fair to get back at him if she ever saw him again, assuming she ever could.

“So, what was that other stuff you were talking about, Liandan?” Rocket asked. “I know what hydrogen peroxide is, but how does that relate to water? And what’s a ‘stem cell’?”

Bella looked over to her twin. Widened eyes. Mortification and nervousness. “Oh, uh, cells? Right, cell theory. Just a theory! I mean, I don’t know if it’s true or not, especially about… uh, people and creatures born from magic, but I imagine animals are made up of countless teeny-tiny living blobs all working together to make up the different parts of them. Muscle cells, brain cells, skin cells, blood cells, stuff like that. And a stem cell can change to be any kind of cell it's next to, I think.”

“That’s… quite the imagination, kid.”

“I guess…”

“Oh, and the word you were looking for is ‘spirits,’ or ‘elementals’ if the creature was born from just one type of elemental magic. Right, let’s get you two to bed,” she said.

Belladonna nodded. She and her sister each slipped into their own hammock. She laid on her stomach and gently pulled the rose petal over her wings, tucking in for the night. The hammock was oversized, meant to accommodate fairies as they grew.

“You two stay in bed. Get some sleep,” Rocket ordered. “I have to go help with the recovery efforts and give my report to the king, but I’ll send someone to check on you two in the morning. Good night.”

“Night, Miss Rocket,” Liandan replied.

Rocket flew off and away, leaving the sisters in total silence.

” So, this is life,” Belladonna thought, mind racing. She wondered if it was always this… hectic? All the grownups seemed to think it was unusual, but this was her first day living. All she’s ever known. It wasn’t bad. In fact, it was… nice.

She’d had such an exciting first day in the world. She’d found her sister, escaped a fire, met a god, seen the Fairy King, met Miss Rocket, tried her first fried mushroom, learned about magic, and even heard her sister’s funny ideas.

Miss Rocket hadn’t seemed very convinced about them. Animals made of little creatures sounded a little weird, but if it was true… could it work? Could magic just grow more “cells” to heal injuries?

She looked to her twin. She looked uncomfortable, tossing and turning, trying to sleep in weird positions that pushed on her wings. Belladonna could feel a small bit of frustration coming from her sibling.

Well, if neither of them could sleep, she may as well ask a question. Belladonna grabbed her pencil and her paper, then pushed the rose petal off her hammock and flew to her sister.

“Hm? Bella? Can’t sleep either?”

She shook her head.

“Is it the wings? It’s the wings, isn’t it? I just can’t seem find a comfortable- “

She shook her head again.

“Just me then,” Liandan noted with a click of the tongue as she sat up. “Oh well. Did you need something, sis?”

Belladonna nodded. She took out her paper and wrote against the beam.

Was that cell stuff really true?

“Hmm… well, I wasn’t making it up exactly, but it is just an idea. It is true, though! Well… probably, but I’m not sure. I have an idea to check later! I just need some pure water and some good glass to make some simple lenses. We’re already pretty small, so we should be able to fiddle around with stuff to make something to help us look at even smaller things.”

Well, okay. Weird ideas or not, Belladonna trusted her twin. She was almost out of room on her paper, but she had enough room to write one last question.

Do you think we can heal with it?

“I hope so, but there’s only one way to find out, and that’s to figure it out ourselves. You’ll see! We’ll learn and have fun like we’re supposed to. You’ll help, right Bella?”

Belladonna couldn’t help but smile. She nodded, earning a beaming smile from her counterpart.

“Thanks, sis!” Lia exclaimed and started toward her twin but stopped herself.

Puppy-dog eyes, adoration, a hint of guilt. Belladonna sighed. Okay, fine, if it was that important to her. “Addeh,” she relented, failing to say “Okay” as she held her arms out.

This earned a squeal from Liandan, who instantly zipped to her sibling and gave her a bear hug. “Oh, I have the best sister,” she said.

Belladonna didn’t need her bond with her twin to tell she was happy as she hugged her back.

Even with all that happened, she couldn’t wait to learn more about the world, and to have someone she cared about to explore it with. Whatever else life had in store for her, she was lucky to have Lia by her side.