Walking along the edge of the water Taylor noticed Gaia wave him goodbye as he deactivated mana synchronization. He took this time to really just take in the surroundings. He had been so busy focusing almost solely on magic that he hadn’t even thought to observe his surroundings. Maybe Gaia just made him feels safe.
Looking in the lake he noticed fish that seemed naturally bioluminescent that glowed blue and gold. Some of them were one color and a few were a mix. He thought he saw the shadow of something larger but it was so obscure he wasn’t sure if he was just seeing things or not.
Looking across the water he noticed something he had felt while hunting before. The trees moved along with the animals. One of those squirrel mole hybrids seemed to be stuck on one branch of a tree trying to reach for another, so the branch moved closer to the other to help it reach. Another tree simply pulled its roots out and began to use them to move somewhere else’s entirely.
He shook his head, it hadn’t really sunk in yet oddly. Almost a year and he still didn’t realize he wasn’t on earth. He held his palm open and tried to open a portal back to where he spent most of his time by Gaia but nothing happened. It never works.
Turning to Melody he took a proper look at her, her horns curling back like a goats, her face angular like a lizard folk from many fantasy novels. Her eyes were a natural green and her scales a yellow, not quite gold but close. She seemed to have no hang ups on him seeing her naked or being the one that clothes her, or if she did she hadn’t mentioned it yet. Maybe she has no shame? It could be worse.
Her hands were similar to his but she had only three fingers and a thumb each with a claw protruding from the end, her feet were much the same. The oddest part of her was he knees bent backwards instead of forwards. Possibly so it kept consistent with when she was in full dragon mode.
“So Melody,” he started, “what’s your plans from here? Like do you plan to leave? Or stay? Or what? I’m fine with whatever but I’d like to know what you want to do. I’m sure Gaia agrees but you’re welcome to stay with us for as long as you want.”
Putting her hands behind her head she seemed to ponder this for a minute in silence and replied, “well first tell me how you know my name. We haven’t exchanged greetings proper yet.”
With a chuckle Taylor replied, “it was on your bag, also Gaia told me. And you’re right, my name is Taylor. I’m a human turned elf.”
“Human,” she growled, “you saved me so I’ll trust you for Gaia’s sake. But I don’t fully trust you.”
“Then allow me to gain that trust,” he said sounding much more serious, “I’m not from this world. I was from a place called earth. I have a wife and two young daughters and I went out one day and was summoned here by some kingdom. I don’t know which one as the only identifying thing I know is the princess’s name is Alice Evergold.”
Melody kept facing forward but her eyes were looking at him, “they had me test my potential and during that changed me into an elf to better fit my proclivity toward magic. They tried to put slavery bracelets on me and I escaped by blowing a hole in the wall and running here. Gaia knows why I’m here and my ultimate goal is to find a way to either go home or bring my family here.”
He let a few tears run down his cheek and just pretended they weren’t there. Upon seeing this Melody put her arms down beside her and looked directly at him.
“Gaia says it will be fifty years before I can properly start working toward getting them here, but they’re humans. We live only about a hundred years or so and I’ll miss everything by the time I can see them again. My only hope now is that time flows different and hope I don’t miss too much.” He finished, turning to his left approaching his rock family.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
“The tall one is my wife, Virginia. The taller of the other two is my oldest daughter Alice and the youngest is Alana.” He explained, “this is as close as introducing you to them as I can get right now but they are the sole reason for my fervent study in magic right now.”
Melody approached the statues slowly and crouched down and touched the smaller two on their noses with a claw, as if to boop their nose. It caused the noses to break off and Taylor simply waved his hand and weaved his mana to fix it as she sprung the her feet.
“I’m so sorry!” She sputtered, “I didn’t mean to-“
“It’s fine melody, they’re simply statues I can remake as many times as I want. Besides I know you didn’t do it on purpose.” He said with a chuckle, “so any ideas on what you want to do?”
“I’ll stay,” she said looking him in the eyes, her green orbs seeming to pierce his brown ones, “at least for the time being. It’s unsafe where I was staying so I’d rather be here for now.” As she said that last part she looked away.
“Then let’s go back and practice mana synchronization some more eh?” Taylor asked holing out his hand.
She took his hand in hers, “let’s” she said with a smile and joined him for the short trip back.
•••
It had been almost two years since he had started living with Gaia now and something was really bothering him but he couldn’t quite figure it out. His studies with magic have slowed to a crawl as any movement forward required some intense mental gymnastics to make. But it wasn’t just that.
Looking around him in mana synch, he could see almost a solid fifty mile radius around Gaia. All was the same as usual, Melody was out hunting the faux deer. The fish and the unknown thing were still in the lake. Gaia was looking to be in his late thirties now and was relaxing by the water. The trees still did their own thing, green leaves and all.
Green leaves, that was it, not once had it snowed. “Hey Gaia, why hasn’t it snowed yet?”
“It doesn’t snow here,” Gaia called out not even looking his way or opening his eyes, “I have complete control of the weather around me, and I prefer the way this feels.”
So a perpetual spring, can’t really complain. It was his favorite time of year too. He could feel Melody coming back with her catch and more than likely some herbs he showed her. He stood and readied the spit for the coming meal and as he finished setting it up melody crossed the water in the same way he used to with the small waves.
She tossed the deer to the side and gave him a hug. “I got some food! Can you make it?” She requested.
He hugged her back and said, “didn’t I teach you how to do that?”
“Yeah,” she admitted, “but it tastes better when you do it.” Shame nowhere in sight as usual.
A small chuckle escaped his lips as he lifted the deer up with one arm and suspended it upside down with magic while making a slit in its throat. He needed to drain the blood or it would taste horrible.
Over the past year or so he began working out more, using Melody as a weight for things like push-ups and creating some free weights with magic from stone. When he hit a wall with magic he would spend a few days focusing on exercise without sleep. He would constantly cast healing magic on himself to speed up the process and now resembled someone just under the physique of the rock from earth, just with long ears.
Looking at his own arm he realized how ran he had gotten. He fell into his old habit of spending f most of his time in his boxers so he was getting a nice almost full body tan and he looked almost like a dark elf more than whatever he was supposed to be. What was he supposed to be anyway?
He walked to the waters edge and looked at himself, this would be the first time he checked his status since the kingdom incident. “Analyze”
Name
Taylor Longoria
Race
Human (Pure Elf)
Level
5
Mana
52,863 (+30 from elven blood)
Alignment
Chaotic good
Vitality 5030 Strength 55 Intelligence 208 Dexterity 73 Charisma 47 (+30 from elven blood) Faith 5 Luck 60
Skills
Mana synchronization
Beginner magic (mastered)
Apprentice magic (mastered)
Intermediate magic
Advanced magic
Mana manipulation
Resurrection magic
Quite the growth spurt if he did say so himself. The only stay that didn’t move was fair, which he’s never really been all that religious so it made sense. This wasn’t the work of a god, just the work of a greedy noble.
He eyed the resurrection magic a bit sad. He tested a hypothesis out on a deer and made a few discoveries about it. You first need to reverse the time on the injured body parts allowing them to close the wound and then if all the necessary parts to live are intact you can resurrect them. If you had lost your head I’m an explosion or it was vaporized or something there would be no coming back. Same to any other major organs.
He turned to see Melody meditating. He taught her how to do that to help her train mama synch and she was doing pretty well. I’m through the nose out through the mouth. He chuckled very quietly as to not bother her. Every time she breathed out a small spurt of fire would come with, seemed to be involuntary but it was both cool and kinda funny.
Their dynamic had become one more akin to father and daughter than much anything else. He taught her things and she looked to him for comfort. The thing that kept it from being a proper father daughter situation was her insistence on cuddling for sleep and well, she was a fully matured woman. So he had some feelings to contend with.
He ignored that issue and decided to focus on the deer that had finished draining. He moved over and skinned the deer and added the pelt to the pile he had been collecting. He really needed to find something to do with them.
He stuck the deer and put it on the fire, stuffing a few herbs in its stomach and keeping some away to season the rest later. Life wasn’t so bad here honesty. He just wished his family could experience this too.
He entered mana synch and spread out as far as he could go again. And at the edge of his field of view he sensed something that he hadn’t sensed before. It felt like a person. He pulled in some mana and pushed it out further in that direction and felt a person, a male, young too. Maybe twelve years old if he had to guess, and he was all alone.