***

I stare out idly at the white snow covered trees. My small form is bundled up tightly, the heat contained by the multitude of blankets.

The snow crunching under Cal’s boots is rhythmic, a pattern of one two, one two.

I can see where we are headed. Having walked from the village up the gentle slope of the mountain, we have arrived.

The mountain to the back of the village acts as a sort of natural defense, so there are only two entrance into the village. One going down the mountain, and another following the trail further up it and into the Jagged Maw.

A cabin coated in a layer of snow rests up against the rocky surface of the mountain, nestled in a grove of pine trees. It’s hidden from the sight of the village, out of the way and private.

It isn’t a big thing, a section protruding from the left side, adding on a room. The dark, aged and weather worn wood stands out against the harsh white of the snow that covers the roof and surrounds it. Two shuttered windows flank the door, a roofed porch jutting out over the front with two wooden steps.

Cal’s breath comes in plumes of white fog, his bad arm clutched to hsi side and my wrapped form cradled in his other. I would move my arms about a bit, but currently, they are pinned to my body.

Whoever thought it would be a good idea to bundle a child so tight that they can’t move an inch?

I can’t help but feel sympathy for all those babies that have gone through this. It’s already bad enough being stuck in a uncooperative body, it’s not like being pinned helps much.

I need to learn to walk. Now.

Cal reaches the cabin, a trails plowed through the snow behind him. Walking up the steps of the porch, they creak in complaint.

Fumbling around in his cloak, Cal eventually pulls out a blemished metal key. With numb hands, he turns it in the lock, and with a click, the door pops open.

Musty air drafts out as he opens the door to the old cabin.

This cabin used to belong to the late Old Gert, the miner who got his brain liquified. Doesn’t make me feel any better.

If he was found with his brain melted, or whatever, and that bracelet was on his wrist, it makes me even more wary of it. When I had looked at it, all I wanted was it.

I ain’t becoming some kind of gollum creature. Whatever that thing is, it isn’t good.

Yet no matter how much I tell myself that, there is a nagging feeling in the back of my mind, and that hollowness in my chest longing to be filled. It’s been a day since that conversation Cal had with the chief.

When I’d fallen asleep, I’d dreamed of my family. Of my mother and my friends back on earth. And of the longing I feel for my Djinn, which was given to me then immediately ripped away.

And then I had felt that want for the bracelet.

Some evil, cursed object. This is a fantasy medieval world, right? So I suppose it stands that it would have cursed objects.

When Cal steps into the cabin, I can’t help but wrinkle my button sized nose up at the smell of alcohol and musty wood.

A fireplace rests cold against the back wall, a fur rug draped in front of it. Two old, beat up, padded leather chairs sit around the fireplace. A table rests off to the right, next to a old bookshelf half full.

Off to the left stands a door leading into what I can guess is the bedroom. A elk’s head is mounted up above the fireplace, its giant horns branching out.

Cal closes the door behind him, shuffling over to the fireplace. He looks down at me, rocking me back and forth a little, “We made it, girlie. Might not be an Everstar mansion, but it sure beats living in an inn.”

He sits down in one of the arm chairs, looking at the cold fireplace. He glances over to the left, where a small table sits. An empty glass bottle sits on it.

He picks it up, looking at it with longing. Sighing, he sets it back down, “This’ll take some getting used to. Smells like old man in here.”

That, I can agree with. Now, free my arms or I’ll bite you.

I look at Cal, the dim light making the lines on his face look even more pronounced. He looks tired and aged.

Not for the first time, I can’t help but wonder why exactly he is doing this. While I know dear old daddy wanted me gone, it would have made more sense to send me off to some orphanage, instead of sending me all the way out here with a strange, weary man.

Though, I suppose Everstar didn’t specify how to get rid of me. Just that he wanted me gone.

Cal looks at me, loosening the blankets bundled up around me. Standing up, he sets me down in the old, battered armchair. He walks over to the fire, setting his backpack down.

I close my eyes, deciding that while he picks up the cabin, I might as well practice my strange awareness.

Coiling up a rope of will in my mind, I string it around an imagery hand. Bringing that hand up, I try to push it outwards, from my body.

I hit a wall approximately where my skin is, but I continue to push at it. I can feel the pressure on my body as I try and push through, a headache starting to blossom in between my eyes.

I push harder, feeling my will slowly unraveling. My mental hand is shaking from the effort, and I can feel it reach barely a centimeter from my body.

Then I have to let go, my will dispersing and mental hand dissolving.

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I sigh, gurgling in frustration, and wishing I had the ability to speak so I could shout curses all the way to heaven.

Actually, is there a heaven? The way Cereus was talking, it sounded like there wasn’t one.

I decide to leave theological questions to the side for now, I was never much of a religious person or anything. Not an atheist exactly, but close. I suppose I kind of would have to be to agree to be reborn as some sort of lab rat. It doesn’t seem much like the thing God would be okay with.

Then again, I hadn’t exactly been myself when asked the question. If anything, I would say that I was stripped down, my soul bare for all to see. Though, as I look back, I wasn’t disconnected from my emotions, only that I was numbed to them, letting me think logically.

Ain’t that strange? Maybe I need to think more logically.

If I’m trapped in the body of a baby till it grows up, and can’t do much with it, then I might as well train my mind. I need to think more logically. Approach the problem from a different viewpoint.

I take a few deep breaths, my tiny chest expanding with them. Releasing them slowly, I calm my mind.

Turning back to trying to push my mind out of my body, I feel along the barrier that keeps it in place. It feels much like a thin membrane, made of something incredibly hard.

If I can’t push my way through, maybe I have to drill?

I gather muster up my will like before, only now I imagine it weaving together to form a thin, tough and impossibly sharp drill.

Taking a deep breath, I shove it against the wall, slowly spinning it with my mind. I imagine it picking up pace, drilling faster and faster.

The headache start back up, only now it is a sharp pain between my eyes.

I scrunch my brow. No, I need to keep going.

My will start fraying, but I continue to drill into the membrane, trying to break through it.

The headache blossoms into a full blown migraine, electric bolts of pain lashing out.

My concentration falters.

The drill snaps, the tips spinning away and dissolving along with the rest of it.

I gasp for breath, pushing my tiny hands against my head and wailing my pain.

It hurts! It hurts to think! Stop thinking! Why am I still thinking about not thinking? AHHH!

Cal comes over, shushing me. He picks me up, rocking me back and forth in his arms. I clock him in the jaw, for all the good it does.

The rocking is not helping in the least!

He eventually puts me down as I stop screaming my pain, the migraine fading into a dull, throbbing pain in the back of my mind.

The fire crackles and pops, the fire light throwing shadows over the walls. The elk head’s antlers toss shadows about, crawling along the walls.

Cal moves about, putting things away and cleaning up various things left out by the cabin’s previous owner.

I close my eyes, moving my focus back inwards and to the place I had tried to drill a hole in, right above my heart.

Brushing imaginary fingers over it, I can feel a small indent, barely anything.

But it did work, I just need to practice more.

I open my eyes again, deciding to wait till my headache is completely gone. I watch Cal idly, pondering what to do.

My eyes are drawn back to the bag, which resides now on the table against the wall. It is where Cal stored the bracelet.

There is a tingling at the back of my mind, a barely heard whisper on the wind. It wants me to come, to pick it up, to accept it.

I shake my head, clamping my hands down on my ears. No! I won’t! If I’ve learned anything from watching all those horror movies, it’s that the guy who accepts whatever always becomes evil or die first!

Blinking, my small hands feel my ears. They are rounded into a cone like shape, ending in nubby points. I play with them, finding the sensation odd. This is so strange, but I suppose I need to get used to that.

Cal opens his bag, pulling out a half empty pouch of goat milk. I give him a glare as he starts heating it up.

Closing my eyes, I shift my mind back to the little indent I left in the wall.

I start gathering my will, touching the spot.

What the? It’s gone?

I check the rest of the barrier and can’t find it. Well, great.

Sighing mentally, I move my awareness back to that empty hole in my chest. Brushing the strange, complex lock that sits in the center.

I move away from the lock, looking at the strands that it holds together, and the hollowness around it. I get the feeling of longing, of needing something that has been taken away from me.

And the bracelet can give it to me.

I shake my head. No, no way. Not that creepy thing.

I look at the emptiness surrounding the lock, and ponder on its nature. Maybe I can fill it with something other than a Djinn?

Djinn can’t be the only things that give classes. There have to be other types of spirits. But I’m pretty sure I can’t do anything till that lock is opened.

I feel Cal picking me up, and my eyes snap open. I glare at him. Don’t you dare.

He brings the pouch up, stuffing the nozzle into my mouth and dribbling milk through. I glare at him, but gulp it down.

I push the push away as I feel my small stomach fill up, Cal crocks it and sets it on the table next to the armchair. He moves me into the crook of his arm, bringing the backpack up onto his lap.

Rummaging around for a moment, he pulls out the bracelet.

My eyes immediately lock onto it, the gem embedded in the silvery iron pulsing with power.

Cal twirls it in his fingers, and I wonder if he hears the call too.

He brings it up, inspecting its surface more closely. He mutters under his breath, “Containment runes… Very powerful, at least pre Fracture… But…”

He flips it over to one side of the wrist band, a complex runic spiral on it. He flips it to the other side, where a similar rune is etched in silver on the surface of the metal.

“Direction runes, pointed towards the wearer. To direct what? Mana?” He fingers the rune, turning the bracelet every which way, it’s surface catching the firelight.

He taps the gem, and I watch as something inside shifts. Just a brief flicker of movement, and I can’t be exactly sure if I saw it right.

“A mana gem? Perhaps some kind of mana booster device?”

At this point I can only understand half of what he is saying.

Cal brings up his left hand, lowering the bracelet down.

You don’t want to do that!

I watch as inch by inch, the bracelet gets closer to his wrist. I don’t like Cal, but I’m not sure what I would do without him. I’d be left here with no one to take care of me, and would probably die from hunger, or the cold or anything even a little deadly!

I flail my arms, but Cal just repositions me. The Bracelet is but an inch away from the skin of his wrist.

My eyes widen in horror as I desperately try and reach for the bracelet, but my short, uncoordinated arms are useless.

Then he stops, the bracelet hover a mere centimeters above his wrist. He sets it in his lap, shrugging.

I blink in surprise, sure that he was going to put it on.

Doesn’t he feel compelled to wear it?

Cal sits his head back and sighs, rubbing his eyes. “By the Black Gate, I wish Bolgor was here. He’d know what this thing is.”

I just stare at Cal, he eventually looks down at me. I gurgle at him, trying to tell him he’s a idiot. He bounces me a little, “Well, welcome to your new home, girlie. It could use a little fixin’ upin’, but I’m sure we’ll get it done.”

I sock Cal in the nose. Don’t call me girlie!