As I had no chair, he had to sit on the blankets with a pillow on his back. I sat beside him on my legs. He waited patiently for my first question.

"Could you making I smaller?"

"Why?" He was genuinely surprised. "You're faster than a horse and surely you can fight better than one."

"I no fighter." I pointed at my head. "I is more squirrel. I climbing trees really good."

He looked at me. " That is unexpected. Perhaps a side effect of the squirrels souls. If I had called you and thereby murdered your personality, you would have been a fighter like Larina. But I must say that you have indeed changed a lot."

"How?"

"Please, lie on your side."

I threw myself onto the mattress at his feet.

He stood up and walked around, poking me from head to paws and even to the tip of my tail. "You've grown taller, wider and even longer. More than I would have expected. Your paws are much bigger. Can you show me your claws?"

I put my left forepaw on his lap, inside up, claws out.

"Hmm, these are much thicker and stronger. This is new, before I only saw subtle changes when" He stopped. "But that means you have modified the body to suit your soul. Well, that would explain the"

Most of his ramblings made little sense to me. But I let him finish his thoughts. "Yes?"

"A fellow student gave his girlfriend bigger breasts by merging her with the soul of a cow. Almost the full soul. I only saw her the next day, and I got a letter from him saying that she had changed a lot afterwards."

"And me? Can you shrinking I?"

"Yes, I can shrink your muscles. Shrinking bones does not work well. I can bend your ribs inwards and bend bones, but shrinking and major changes only work when merging." He added "Sorry" when he saw my disappointed look. "Tell me, Lady Kiara, can you write with your paws?"

"I noting write Kren. Not reading Kren. But writing Earth."

"Oh, you will have to show me. But first, can you hold something in your paws?"

I took the knife out of the saddlebag with my left forepaw. Then I stood up on my hind legs and passed it to my right paw. "Ok?"

He was visibly excited. "Yes, great. I had spent so much time on the paws, I..." He became serious again. "Sorry, I shouldn't talk about you like that."

"No, please, I wanting learning."

"Then, dear lady, would you mind going to my room, or at least getting my bag?"

"Going your room. No spiral staircases, please."

* * *

The final access was a spiral staircase, of course. His room was on the top level of a tower. It had a landing and a door, giving the room a semicircular shape, with the outer round part already too low for me due to the roof. Two large gabled windows facing east and west made it either a bright study or an easily guarded VIP cell, too high to escape through the windows.

But climbing four turns up a spiral staircase meant that after the third turn almost every free surface was covered with cobwebs and pieces of plaster, from my ear tufts to the tip of my tail speckled with whitish grey and cobweb, like a Kiara statue in a museum.

The mage apologised a thousand times, even though he did not choose his room. But apart from the access, it was a nice room. The windows overlooked the town of Krenburg and the plains. And this high up, a nice, clean breeze blew from the open windows.

Tarik produced a comb. Well, I removed the worst of it with unfortunately well-trained movements, using my claws as a coarse brush. But then I enjoyed his tiny comb. It even made me purr, which somehow made me blush like a naughty schoolgirl in front of her teacher.

He made no comment. Instead, he put all the debris, fur and plaster into a bucket. Then he came to the table. "Dear lady, can you move it in front of the window?"

This had to be a test. The table was heavy, but he should be able to drag it himself. Soon the table was in front of the eastern window. "Ok?"

"Can you lift me?"

This was getting a bit ridiculous. So I lifted him under his shoulders.

"How much heavier was the table?"

"Sitting hand, please." I could barely lift the table with my other arm. "Three or four you is one table? When teaching?"

"Sorry, you're distracting me, sorry, I mean, ah. Yes, writing", he mumbled while he took a quill and inkwell from a sideboard. Then he laid out a sheet of yellow paper, almost entirely covered with lines of varying thickness, like a mixture of Arabic and Chinese calligraphy. "Write your name with your paws, please."

Uh. "Never writing with a quill. Can trying hand? And no, um" The inkwell was dry.

"Of course." He took a small nail-like thing from the wall, added some water from a flask and scratched and stirred the dried ink until it was a black liquid again. Then he stepped to the side of the table.

With my right hand, I carefully dipped the quill into the inkwell and waited for most of the ink to drop down. Then I drew a few dots and lines. "Just trying," I said. The ink ran out very quickly and still there were droplets. But it was enough to write my name in cursive, ugly, uneven letters: Kiara. But something was missing. My hand moved by itself and I read the result. KIARA JORTIG. I had written my surname too, it was Jortig! Yes, I was Kiara Jortig, how could I have forgotten? I hugged the completely confused mage and kissed him on the cheek. Then I pointed at the paper. "I remembering all name. Kiara Jortig. Thank you."

This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

"Very good. Please write more," said the overwhelmed mage.

I tried to write an address. Starting with EARTH. The mage looked closely over my shoulders, enough of his breath to hit the inner fur of my ears. It was very distracting.

"What did you write?"

"Earth. No wind making in ears, please?"

The mage turned redder. "Oh, sorry." Then he sniffed.

"But you do smell nice, like cinnamon."

"You not making?"

"No, I have no idea how to define a smell, so I could not choose this. That must be your doing."

I looked at him suspiciously. I had no idea how to change my smell either. And why on earth cinnamon?

"Well, can you also write with your paw?"

That was an interesting question. The quill half disappeared into my large right front paw. As carefully as I could, I dipped the quill into the inkwell and wrote KIARA with very slow movements and very uneven lines, and lot of blotches when I applied too much force and the quill jumped. Now the mage was jumping up and down like an excited child. "I knew you could do it. Would you like to write your full name in Kren?"

I nodded eagerly. So Tarik wrote Kiara from Earth and Litra. At least it was a letter language, although most of the letters resembled nothing I had ever seen before. The R, for example, was like two R's facing each other. The EA was a single letter, as were the TH and TR. But letters! I wanted more.

So he took me through the Kren alphabet. Not ABC, of course, it started with R,E,TR,A,G, and one letter was called retrag, like the whole alphabet. Luckily there were no capital letters, but the R and the E were written differently at the beginning and in the middle of a word. The R at the beginning looked very much like a Roman capital R, except that it was written backwards.

I copied his letters until the paper was completely black. When my hand needed a break, I switched to my paws. As well as the paper, a good part of my right hand and both front paws were black with ink. The noon trumpet had sounded long ago and we had both ignored the rumbling in my stomach. But now the adrenaline was gone, I had cramps in my hand and both front paws. Time for a break. Well, there was still a dreaded spiral of cobwebs to endure.

* * *

The Healer's Refectory was deserted at the time, as was the Nobility's Hall. So I went straight to the kitchen and asked for a table for two in the shade of the wall next to my room.

Larina came along and tried some of the spicy cabbage salad. But today it had to be just oats and grains, the healer's orders. I told her my family name and while she congratulated me, she was deeply confused. Which confused me, so she explained. Hadn't I said that I had been a commoner in my world? Then why should I have two names? You could earn a second name, of course, but you weren't born with a family name unless you were a noble.

This did not dampen my enthusiasm for telling Freya as soon as I had finished lunch, which took some time. Larina told me also about Freya. She was with the healers and took every opportunity to practise. Everyone who came to the healer's room today had been treated by her, or at least with her watching closely.

Still so happy about my newfound knowledge, still bursting with pride, I bounced more than I walked to the third courtyard, undulating like a Chinese dragon, overflowing with joy.

Freya looked just as tired as in Litra. With one difference: she smiled. "Kiara, er, my lady, oh, spiral staircases again? And what about your right hand?"

I had completely ignored the ink stains. I still took her hand for mindspeak. "Oh, ink. I went to Tarik's, I mean the mage's room. He taught me the letters and how to write Kren. And then I wrote my name in Earth, and you know I have a family name. It is Jortig, I am Kiara Jortig."

Well, Freya looked happy for me, but also confused.

"I told you," I said, although I wasn't sure if I had really told her, "Everyone has two names where I come from. And we are all commoners."

"Interesting." But she gave me the Earth-must-be-weird look. But she had also to share. "I've learnt so much today. I am still bad at holding back my mana. But slowly I will earn my Healer title. That will be great, then I can help the Litra people as I should. I am so looking forward to going back there after that."

"And writing again feels so good, there is so much to learn," I said almost immediately, before her words reached me. We both laughed.

"Sorry, no beer," Freya said, "otherwise we should toast to learning."

Oh Freya, still the young drunkard!

* * *

A good part of the next three days I spent in Tarik's room, working on my reading and quill-writing skills. I also deliberately practised writing with my two front paws to keep them nimble, or rather to make them nimbler. Even after more than 20 days of walking and climbing, the fine coordination of a second set of hands was new; it was most noticeable when I wrote the occasional word in Earth for Tarik. I was lucky that he had brought his whole stack of rune sheets, even the used ones. Paper was scarce even in the castle.

Apart from the quill, the paper was another challenge. It was not flat, and the quill often stuck to irregularities. Now I admired Tarik's fine magical calligraphic runes even more.

In the afternoons, I visited Kendrick for a countess special beauty treatment to get rid of all the staircase debris (although it was getting less and less with each passing day).

He was also a good source of gossip, probably because of his close relationship with the chef. I think some of my preferential treatment with extra tables in the courtyard must have been due to her.

I could not contribute much to the gossip. Only that the Nuncipal's emissary was also often with Tarik. He always left as soon as I arrived, even though he outranked me. But he was the only cleric who visited him regularly, Tarik had told me. He was very interested in soul magic. The other clerics rarely came, the only exception being Brother Ford. But he mostly asked about the magic of the Soul Wars, which was not Tarik's favourite subject. He wanted to do good, not wage war. The emissary supported Tarik in demonstrating a full soul transfer to give Larina a full soul, something he would also like to do. And he could then also give two accident victims new legs, even if they have hooves. But the other clerics were not keen on having any more soul magic performed. Especially not before the New Year, when the clerics would be most busy giving blessings.

Kendrik nodded, it was also a busy time at the stable preparing so many horses for the returning carriages. Every day, groups of clerics and soldiers left, along with many of the nobles' carriages and even a good part of the staff. But he would always find time for me.

At the fourth day, I think only half the people were still in the castle. All the others had taken leave to be with their families or were on their way to a new assignment. Not wanting to be an extra burden on the remaining kitchen staff (especially with New Year coming up), I took my breakfasts in the Nobility's Hall, which was also very empty. Most of the older nobles stayed to avoid the stress of travel. Count Radel was an exception, the only younger one to stay. He, like me, was an early riser so we often met at breakfast. And I was now somewhat more interested in what was going on in the nobility. In particular, the affairs of the Karenburg domain were probably of great interest to Litra, given its proximity. I still did not understand the finer meanings, but my vocabulary was slowly expanding. The count would stay for the New Year, as his family was quite dysfunctional. And this time he was looking forward to having me and not just noble dotards, his words. His enthusiastic talk about the Krenburg New Year's Procession really piqued my interest.

Tomorrow would be the New Year, five days of freedom for the servants. Four days in which no one would work, because on the evening of the first day, there would be a great feast, with tons of cakes and cookies and pastries to be baked for the next four days. The time when the nobility served the servants, at least in spirit.