Chapter 2:

“Arcadia, it’s time to get up!” a high pitched and energetic voice pierced my sensitive ears and the wonderful dream I was experiencing. It caused my brow to furrow, and i wanted to turn over and burrow into the sheets on the bed - but i wasn’t given a chance, as directly following the voice was the sudden and fully unnecessary impact of a pillow coming down with all the force of a violent five year old wielding it with reckless abandon. I shot awake and sat up, blinking awake and already racing toward incensed, as I screamed: “Mia, you Turd! I’m going to hang you from the rafters when you're not looking!”

I threw the pillow after the retreating, giggling girl, and paused to yawn, so wide and loud that I felt as though my face would split in two. I tucked my legs in and sat up properly, rubbed my eyes with the backs of my hands, and waited patiently for actual wakefulness to settle in. Long, straight, pink hair swallowed me on all sides, messy and tangled from sleep where I had…forgotten…to tie it up first, and I scratched at a persistent itch behind one ear. I was four years old, but felt somewhere closer to forty this morning.

When Kintsuji had sent me down to this world during a sandstorm worse than the coast of the Great Divide had seen in nearly a hundred years, she had put me into this body; the body of a newborn girl, with the pink hair, bright green eyes, and tanned complexion inherited from my mother, and as it would turn out, the rangy height and slim physique of my father. Natural Pink hair, as it turned out, was not uncommon in this world - a world called Axis - where strange energies left their mark on nearly everyone, and much stranger expressions of it could be found than a simple hair colouration. The fact that my eyes were the colour of emeralds was a much more startling impression when folk first met me.

It had been extremely strange to be perfectly awake and aware as three people - four if you included my one year old half-sister, Mia, who had been sleeping in the Carriage wagon we shared as a family - treated me like a newborn as i gazed back at them with a mind that i felt was closer to an adult. They named me Arcadia, after a dream of a green Utopia that they hoped to see one day, before they had all - even my mother - went back to trying to keep our family alive through the sandstorm.

I had slept through that night, blissfully peaceful as the storm raged, and had been dealing with being a child again ever since, along with…other things…that were unique to this world and this experience. With a thought, i opened my Soul Card, which projected hanging in my vision so that only i could see it, and went over my details - a ritual that i had done daily ever since i had figured out how to do it in the travel crib my Papa Ryn had built for me in the Wagon as we travelled:

Name: Arcadia

Age: 5

Race: Elan (human born)

Class: N/A

Health: 96/100

Body : wood 1 (0/3)

Mind : wood 1 (0/3)

Perception : wood 1 (0/3)

Will: wood 1 (0/3)

Status: Locked (0/4 constellations unlocked)

Inborn Talents:

* Soul Companion

* Travelers Bag

* Repletion

* Resilience

The sheet displayed as though the words were written on a thick sheet of Papyrus, with rich golden ink, but the page had much more space on it than the sixteen lines that were currently there, and I mostly used the sheet to check my health, and whether anything was affecting me that shouldn't be. There was magic and essence in this world, and many things could change or hurt a person for no rhyme or reason other than magic. I only really knew about them in an academic way, and from the displays of it my parents showed me and tried to teach me as we travelled and worked. I couldn't use any of it myself yet, and wouldn't be able to till I could gather essence to my core when I managed to unlock it. But that would require Constellation Stones, and not only were they rare and expensive, it would not be safe for me to use them until I was older - the body had to develop to a certain degree before being changed under the magic of essence.

The one thing I did have that, as far as I could tell without spilling the beans to my family, were unique to me - were my talents. Boone said it was a final gift from his Mother, Kintsuji, which wouldn't normally unlock until I had unlocked my Attributes - one for each attribute unlocked. But I had all four of the things - and different to the ones that full humans received - all unlocked and usable.

With a flicker of thought, I brought to mind the souls cards for the talents:

Soul companion. Level: Wood 1

* You have been graced with a spiritual adviser to your new world. Boone acts as a companion to help you train, a connection to your patron deity, and as a motivational aid in becoming the best you can be.

Travelers Bag. Level: Wood 1

* A 1m x 1m x 1m extra dimensional storage space that may be accessed with a thought. Items stored within do not perish, and are held in the exact state in which they entered. Weight of stored items is reduced by 50%.

Repletion. level: Wood 1

* Ingested food may be converted directly to positive healing energy, vastly speeding healing rates. Food used in this manner does not count against your required calorie intake for the day.

Resilience. Level: Wood 1

* 10% of each instance of unique received damage is resisted and converted to a Boon, granting an instance of [steadfast].

* [Steadfast] (Boon, Holy, stacking) each instance of [Steadfast] grants a 10% bonus to all attributes. May accrue one stack for each level of the body attribute (current stack maximum: 1) Boons fade swiftly once damage ceases or when healing is applied.

My family and those adults we talked with when we passed through towns were notoriously tight lipped about anything to do with Awakening talents and essences, and the classes that grew from them, saying only that it would be best to do it in a Temple, when I was ten or older, and that it would be eye opening. I had gathered that it was a social stigma to talk about it until I could access it - something to do with colouring my perceptions and how that might limit me in the future. Luckily, Boone was able to tell me things that he knew quite freely, and so I had learned many things in the last four years. I knew that constellation stones were rare magic items that either formed in the world naturally, were sometimes found as treasure in ancient ruins or dungeons, or else came from monsters. A mundane, or wood level mortal could absorb four such stones using a special ritual by a priest - or so I assumed. Why else would a temple and a priest be needed unless they were necessary? Each one would bond to one of the four attributes - Body, Mind, Perception, and Will - and would produce abilities based on the soul of the person. There were hundreds of thousands of different types of stones out there, a representation of concepts, elements or creatures, and by the combination of four different stones, they would combine to form a Class that was often unique to the individual.

Of course, each Ability also had four Powers that needed to be unlocked individually, either with hard-won essence or with rare and expensive alchemical compounds, exacerbating the problem even further. According to Boone, it could take years - even decades - to get out of the wood ranks, unless you were lucky or rich. Not that that mattered to me right now. I was impatient and desperately curious, but I was also only four, and my Awakening ceremony seemed a lifetime away right now.

I would have to wait till I was at least ten to unlock an attribute, according to my parents and Boone both, so for now I had put all of that out of my mind.

The core, though, was I wasn’t supposed to have Talents until I had a class - they were a magical representation of my race, and each race had abilities along similar lines.

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Humans were supposed to have Talents that leaned toward enhancing attack abilities and energy. But then, looking at my sheet, according to it I wasn't exactly human.

Elan (humanborn):

* A powerful soul infused into a natural born human, has caused the body to be suffused with essence from beyond Axis, altering it at a fundamental level. A creature destined for greatness.

It wasn't something I liked to dwell on. Honestly I genuinely feared what would happen if people found out that I wasn’t a human like my parents. It was one of the reasons I kept all this to myself. That, and I didn't want my parents to think of me as anything other than their daughter. Distant and vague memories of ostracization for being different left my throat dry and my anxiety high whenever I let myself dwell on those sealed and half remembered visions of a life I had lived before.

Something on the card caught my sleepy brain, though, and I read it over again, sleep addled and yawning. Then it hit me. My age didn't say four any more. I was five - it was my birthday! How did I forget that!?

That, far more than the pillow to the face, shot me to full wakefulness and i climbed out of the hanging pallet i shared with Mia - a mattress on a wide set of planks suspended by four ropes from the ceiling of the sleeping room, and dropped the few extra inches to the slat wood floor where my parents would sleep if they hadn't already have packed their sleep mat and blankets away into the chests to the side of the room.

I went to rush from the room, but skidded to a halt as I passed the winch, knowing I was the last up and so duties went to me, despite me being smaller and more feeble than anyone else in the family. I grabbed the winch to raise our bed and spent a long minute straining to crank the iron and wood wheel to pull the ropes up to the ceiling and give us space to walk around what was essentially our workroom, school room, armoury and workshop during the day. The main room by the kitchen was, admittedly, comfier, but that was also the reason my family kept crafts out of it - so that whoever wasn't driving the wagon could relax and enjoy the view. Because it was still early morning - and probably because it was my birthday - the work tables and desks that we each used as we needed them were still folded and secured against the walls, along with our few books and tools.

I should really have cleared the bedding from mine and Mias’ pallet and folded and put away the mattress before I winched up the hanging platform that we slept on together, but it was my Birthday and I could always come back and do it later. My feet slapped against the wooden boards, and I held my long, cotton night shirt to stop it from flying up as I left the bedroom at a pace, passed by the privy and the tiny shower room, and burst into the main room and kitchen of our caravan.

The place where I spent most of my day, while we travelled, when not studying with Mia or one of my Parents as they worked, could be described as neat, rustic, and utilitarian all at the same time.

A wooden room about twelve feet by twenty two feet, with a high, beamed ceiling from which hung tightly tied bundles of all our supplies, as well as drying herbs and rune papers, bags of onions and garlic, and the occasional decorative trinket. There was a small living space with cushions and a low table, shuttered windows that were currently thrown open to admit the morning light, and near where i was standing was a neat, well kept wood and granite kitchen, where my mother - a beastkin named Mariella - was currently leaning over a wide pan that smelled wonderfully of eggs and sausage - a rare treat on the road. Her long, pastel pink hair, the same exact shade as mine, was tightly bound and hung to the back of her knees, and her mobile ears flicked to me before she turned the green eyes we also shared to meet mine. A long, pink furred fox tail emerged from her off white cotton dress, which began to wag softly as she smiled. “Ah, my little Forest Sprite finally comes up for air! We all thought you might actually manage to sleep through the whole day! I was looking forward to the extra sausage as well!” She mock-pouted and I charged into her legs, hugging her roughly around the waist.

“Never! You can’t have my food on my birthday! That’s a crime!” she folded double over me and hugged me back, and I giggled as she tickled behind my ear.

“Your birthday, you say? I don’t believe it. It can’t have been a year already! Well, then i guess this breakfast must be to honour it! I wondered why I was inspired to cook sausage today!” she straightened and turned me around, with a gentle push toward the door. “I have a feeling your father and your Papa are up to something outside. Why not go and see what it is?”

The fact that my soul card showed me as humanborn, when my Mother classified as a Beastkin, was something I had asked about many times, on late nights when her lips were a little looser and I could gather a little bit from stories. It was something to do with unlocking a class, and the choices I would make. Something about the magic of the ceremony could fundamentally change a person, and sometimes that included your race. Beastkin were still descended from a base race, and my mother had started life as a human, just like my father - which is why I was ‘human’ - or at least looked it. Beastkin never bred true unless both parents were Beastkin themselves.

As I passed by the rune-carved ice chest that stood between the kitchen and the dining area, a blue fox spirit raised its head from where it had been napping in a stray beam of sunlight. Boone yawned and shook out his fur, before leaping across and climbing onto my shoulders, where he promptly tucked himself in and got comfortable. “I hope you aren’t planning on keeping the eggs all to yourself, Arcadia. I’ll simply waste away if I don't eat.” He whined into my ear, despite there being no sound and his voice appearing in my head. He had a mischievous voice, and though he couldn’t be seen or heard by others unless he wanted to be - which he very rarely did - Boone was still a warm and friendly presence around my neck. But I snorted and thought back at him: “You don’t need to eat at all - you’re just a lazy glutton!”

“Hey now, it’s my birthday too you know!” He pouted, trying to sound upset, but I raised a hand and began to scratch between his ears, eliciting a whine of pleasure and a thump of his tail beating against my chest, putting lie to his hurt voice. To the rest of the caravan it probably looked like I was playing with my hair or scratching my neck. More than just being invisible, something about Boone made it so that no one but me could even perceive his presence, and even with the warm weight of him around my neck, they would never be able to touch or sense him. Even my mother, who while not a devout follower of Trickery, was still a vulpine Beastkin, and gave offerings at temples and shrines if we passed them, could not sense whatever trick the fox used to stay hidden. It meant he could get up to a lot of things without being noticed, and I had learned, well, the Boons of having Boone attached to my soul.

Though, conversely, he couldn't travel any real distance away from me without causing us both extreme pain. The most we had been able to attempt was about half a mile, at which point it grew so painful that I had collapsed in the carriage, and my parents thought I was having a fit.

I hadn't thought it good to say that it was because my invisible fox spirit that a god no one knew about gave me was too far away from me. Maybe that kind of thing was common for adults with magic and mystery and a fully working class and soul card. But it certainly wasn't right for a 4 year old - now 5, I thought to myself - in any respect.

Still, Boone was a friendly, if lazy sort, and we had come to terms when I was still a baby and couldn't even move my body on my own, that he needed me, I needed him, and we might as well get along. It wasn't as though there was much getting away from each other.

With Boone safely wrapped around my neck and content, I headed toward the caravan door, stood on tiptoes to get a look outside, and grinned before I pulled the latch and threw the door open into the morning sun.

“Happy Birthday, Sprout!” three voices called out in unison as I stood in my pyjamas and looked out at the rest of my family gathered around the shore of a tiny desert oasis. It was not where we had stopped to rest yesterday evening, and I realised either my father or papa must have pushed the Mutocks - great, eight foot tall desert lizards that pulled our wagon in a team of four - through the night to get to a beautiful spot, just for this. I loved the unnamed lizards dearly. They were the deserts’ pack animal, a replacement for both cows and mules, and were used by the tribes and cities of the Divide as both beasts of Burden and for their meat and leather. They were unnamed because the desert was dangerous enough that we lost one or more most years. But I felt a lot of love for the beasts even so. I made a quick reminder to myself to give them each a scratch in the scale folds around their necks and eye ridges later, and to find a tasty snack for them if I could. But now was not the time for that.

A banner made from a Painted sheet had been strung between two small palm trees, and framed a small lake of shimmering sapphire water in the white sand and tough grasses of the oasis. And my family had gathered on a small picnic blanket with a low table, to welcome me and wish me well.

My father, Milos, was a tall and rangy man, with a shaved bald head and a long blonde moustache. He was built of corded muscle and sun drenched skin, deep laugh lines, and callused hands. He stood in a freshly cleaned leather harness, armour and soft, canvas trousers and a shirt. I saw that the great recurve longbow that he specialised in was leaning nearby, with a quiver of arrows almost as long as I was tall. He grinned at me and held his arms open for welcome.

My Papa, Davis, - Mias’ Father - was a much smaller man than my father, with short cropped bone white hair and wire rimmed glasses. He wore a much more comfortable seeming outfit of a light linen jacket covered in pockets, a vest beneath, and cotton trousers that cut off beneath his knees. He had an arm draped over my big sisters’ shoulder, both of who stood in the shadow of my overly tall father.

My big sister looked up at me, with a smirk on her face as she stood there with her morning best on, and a bright, decorated paper bag clutched in her hands. With short cropped white hair, pale skin, and yellow eyes, we couldn’t look less like sisters, especially considering she was nearly a year older and a foot shorter than me - something I would never get tired of holding against her to watch her try, very hard, not to let it get to her. There was no doubt in our hearts that we were sisters, though, and we loved one another fiercely when push came to shove.

I rushed into my Fathers’ arms, and was engulfed in a hug that swept my Papa and Mia up as well, and I squirmed as someone tried to tickle me. Over mine and Mias’ head, my dads shared a kiss - to which we both made mocking gagging sounds, as my Mother followed me from the caravan and joined us after placing a hot skillet of breakfast items on the low table.

I knew in my heart that the me who remembered dying, whoever they had been, had had another family before their death. Whether it had been a happy relationship or not, I was often thankful that the memory of them had been taken from me. As it allowed me to love this family with my whole heart. I tucked myself tighter into the family embrace, before we separated to get a hearty breakfast before it got cold. “Thank you, Kintsuji. for giving me this chance,” I spoke quietly, but earnestly, under my breath. Hoping that if they cared at all, they were watching and would hear.