Stretching my arms up I yawned, eyes fluttering open. I closed them again, curling up like a cat, feeling the weight of a heavy blanket wrapping around me. I started lacing my fingers through the soft fabric, I didn’t remember falling asleep with a blanket. Opening one eye I started looking around. I was still on the chair; the light of a purple dawn, tipping above distant mountains outside. I wrapped my fingers and cracked them while rolling off onto the ground. Stopping for a moment I started wavering. A flood of emotions slugging me in the face. The blanket flapped softly onto the floor.
Under the dim, uncertain glow of the room's feeble light, I found myself grappling with a startling revelation. "Oh, yeah... I'm a girl now," I uttered, my voice quivering like a fragile candle flame in a draft. My gaze, heavy with uncertainty, fell upon the unfamiliar contours of my new form, and I couldn't help but reach out with hesitant fingers as if to affirm the reality of this bewildering transformation.
A tempest of panic surged within, threatening to engulf my thoughts and drown me in a sea of questions. The hunger for answers gnawed at me relentlessly, yet the unknown stretched before me, vast and inscrutable.
In a desperate bid to conceal my mounting unease, my laughter bubbled up, its fragility akin to the thin ice over a hidden abyss. I lowered myself to the ground, drawing my arms tightly around my legs, as if they were my sole anchor in this strange new reality. The alien sensation of the cold ground beneath only accentuated the profound disconnection I felt, underscoring the eerie nature of my existence in this unfamiliar realm.
I wiped away some tears. Best not to focus on it. Not now. Later, when I had more time. At the moment I had to focus on something more important, something that I could wrap my mind around. Knowledge, I needed knowledge. I clung onto that notion while struggling to my feet.
Physically I felt great, compared to the dull ache of brain damage the day before. Though maybe that brain damage had saved me from having a breakdown the day before. My stomach started grumbling…Loudly, food always helps beat existential crisis. Stalking I walked up to a closet. In it there were more than a few dresses. I picked one similar to what I had when I first came to the world. Although far cleaner. I wanted boots, long sleeves, and pants. Maybe a sweater or two. But the only thing I found in there was some hats that I’d like. Weirdly enough a few pageboy caps. A bit dated back on Earth, but a classic.
It took a bit of finagling, but I managed to get it all on. The light shining higher, doing its best to make everything purply. I looked into the large standing mirror. My hair flowed down my shoulders, the cap hiding some of the bedhead. I pulled a few strands back behind my ears. Taking a deep breath, I twirled a bit. I didn’t really know if it looked good, It was fine, I’d gone out looking far worse in my other life.
I looked around. There was a pair of slippers near the door, none of the servants were awake at the moment, at least the daytime ones. Maybe there was skeleton crew running around cleaning up after the party. A party I realized was for the most part about me, though probably also an excuse for the duke and my “father” to have a meeting. That and some rung of politics I just didn’t understand.
Still…seeing as I left right after getting there, Someone, somewhere-Likely Miranda-was going to rip me a new one. Making a face I skipped out of the room, avoidance is key.
In the hallway I looked left and right, slipping down to the stairs that went to the kitchen. Inside I found a few people I hadn’t seen before. One person squished balls of dough, two others were prepping vegetables. There were a few biscuits and a pile of fruit that looked like mangos laid out on a side table, as well as a pot of tea. I trotted up picking one of both. A servant noticed me and walked up giving a slight bow, Eyes a bright shattering blue. He motioned to a stack of plates and other cutlery. My eyes flicked to the hood hiding his forehead, there lay a symbol just dead and lifeless. I grunted; the man looked confused as I tottered off with the food still in my hands. I chuckled inwardly at the look. I had to find some levity in this situation.
I stopped, a thought flickering through my head, turning back I raised my hands and started moving them against each other evilly. Which must’ve looked odd considering the food in them. Juicy biscuits.
The look of relief when I asked where a library might be was hilarious. He grabbed a plate and again offered it.
I didn’t actually see it, but in my imagination, he looked like he’d slumped down, almost like a helpless bird that had been pinned down, I shrugged it off and walked away, paying him no more mind.
I didn’t go back up the stairs; The most accessible library entrance was on the ground floor. I started skipping again, still sidling up to the wall. Down a hallway, two rights, straight, a left and straight again.
A whooshing air berated me as I walked past a courtyard, I breathed in. The morning air passed down to my lungs, I circled the energy of the world, it seemed thicker than before. I let it rush out of my mouth, then back in again. It was hard to do while walking, but I managed. I lost concentration every few steps. I made a game of it, seeing how far I could go. I had to find a way to avoid my emotions, restrain them, find ways to find myself without breaking down. I had to avoid it all. So I continued this game, adding things here and there. Trying to have something to focus on.
In between breaths, I munched down my food. As I thought before, almost no one was awake. Though a strange pair stood out to me in the courtyard, a man and woman sparred. I didn’t think much of it at first until I saw their blades. Flickering things lighting up with vivid glows of gold and silver.
The man struck with a gold so rich it would make kings weep, and the woman a silver so sharp it could carve through stone. Simple colors but with the presence of titans.
I stopped, mouth inches away from my food mesmerized. I marveled at the utter speed and magic of what I was seeing, every hit and the world shimmered. One moment the sliver blotted out the other, a monochromatic world bleeding into everything and anything. Then the world popped, and the golden glow returned. The struggle continued.
There was a smell too, two smells in fact. When the silver reigned the lingering scent of vanilla and blood. When the gold broke through everything smelled like rain mixed with dirt and woodsmoke.
I sat down to watch for a while, at some point the man seemed to distort and pop out of reality, perhaps it was just an illusion, but it didn’t look like it. The gold power inverted; the smell disappeared completely. He popped back into reality moments later behind the woman. She noticed and struck.
I took note of the armor they wore, they looked like twin sets, streamlined and slick, shined to a polish. Short black half-capes fluttered at their backs, a white emblem down the center. It brought a memory back. During the dinner, this same emblem had been on a flag, a flag behind the duke.
Eventually, the fighting came to a close, the woman leaned on her sword her aura sputtering breathing heavily, the man hopped back and forth as if just warming up. While his presence had been less overpowering, it had more longevity than the woman’s.
They had a few words before they marched over to a corner of the courtyard. The woman slurped down water from a water barrel. Splashing it a bit across her face. The man leaned down picking up a set of wristbands. He flicked them up and they melted against his wrists. They were half as large as my father's, surprising. When they fully melded against the skin, the world dampened.
An aura I hadn’t noticed disappeared. Black and white starbursts lit up my field of vision, and I lost track of where I was sitting. My face bounced against the hard ground and smudged my cheek.
When my eyes cleared, I knelt on the ground gasping. How did I not notice the pressure? My eyes wavered as I looked at the monsters in uniforms, the simple thought of staying any longer terrified me. No wonder they wore those things, just being around them could kill someone weak.
The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
When I stepped into the hall, the auras completely disappeared. Like a submarine depressurizing.
I ran off, dress fluttering around me, the library wasn’t far.
--
Darlin looked at the young guardswoman, she was heaving up breaths over the water barrel. He cracked a smile. He wanted to be rude, just to see her reaction. He stopped himself, he was her commanding officer after all. Instead, he patted Marly’s shoulder, “It was a good fight”.
Whirling on him she grumbled, “Liar”. He stepped back placating, “No that was a good fight Marly, you did well...”. She kicked at him; the energy-infused blow sending him flying across the courtyard. His ribs creaked as he tumbled across the grass. When he stopped, he was leaning up against a stone pillar. He gasped out, “I have my damned cuffs…*COUgh*…on”.
“Stop whining, “Captainnn”.
He winced and gave her a rude gesture sitting back up, He leaned his hands against the ground and found something soft. He blinked gazing down. In his hands was a hat. He wondered where it had come from. Looking up and around he twirled the hat around his fist, stepping up and leaning his head into the side hall. No one was there. It made sense though, no one was stupid enough to walk out into an obviously reserved training courtyard, especially with people as powerful as them. The thought made him laugh.
Juggling the hat, he slapped it on his head, it was too small. The mystery surrounding it for another day. free hats were free hats after all.
Marly paused as he walked back, “The hell is that.”
--
Stopping at the end of the hallway I peered up at a metal plate stamped on the wall, it was above a large pair of doors, simply saying library. Seems knowing the language extended to reading it as well, I could only imagine my problems if it didn’t.
Finishing the food, I licked my fingers for a moment. I gripped the handles with my sticky hands and wrenched them open. Light, not purple in nature, and not gas lantern flowed out, it was almost a creamy white.
The doors creaked behind me as I walked in. Besides the light, it seemed like the type of library you’d see or read about in any fantasy. Long heavy bookcases, leaning off into the distance.
I looked around, head up in the clouds before I heard a cough, then another two coughs. Eyeing to my right I noticed a man, he sat behind a desk, a stack of books sitting next to him, one opened up in front. Just looking at him I could tell he was powerful. The weight of his being almost if not as strong as my father’s. Something about his aura had a spice that neither the guardsmen had. Something that set him apart besides the raw power.
He looked young, maybe twenty-five to thirty. And like my betrothed the man stunned with the looks. He had bright red hair, streaked with an orange accent. His pupils were slit like a cat. Besides that, there was nothing else remotely animalistic about him. He wore comfy clothing, something akin to a kimono, just with a fuzzy exterior. More like a bathrobe if I was being honest. His eyes were kind…but like his hair, they were violently red.
He spoke out in a relatively young but measured voice, peering with a crinkled nose, “It’s been a while dear mistress”. I cocked my head and snorted, “Mistress?”. He chuckled, “Miss Lin…how are you this fine”. He stopped and pulled out a pocket watch, “Very early morning, huh…you Must have fallen asleep early?”. I just shrugged and he spoke again, “It’s been a while since I've last seen you now hasn’t it, what could’ve pushed you to come here this morning”.
I sniffed, the girl had a wealth of knowledge at her fingertips but never used it, how incredibly…wasteful, “I was thinking that since I’m leaving to go to the academy soon, I should read up on related topics. Do you have anything specific that I can look at, as well as some basic knowledge so that I might be able to fill any gaps within education”?
A bright glowing smile on my face, his lips crept up slightly, “I’ll see what I can do if you could wait a few minutes here” I nodded. He walked off into the shelves, the kimono swishing behind him like a tail. A pair of wristbands outlining under his long sleeves.
Rapidly I crept over to the desk excited at the thought of learning anything...I didn’t want to wait, turning the open book around I looked and read out the cover, “Intrinsic resonance of bonded rings, advanced Rune smithing”. It wasn’t the thickest volume ever, but it looked interesting.
I slipped a small piece of paper as a marker on the man’s last page and turned to the first page of the volume. I poured over the words, my mind milking the ink out of the book and into my cranium. Even if I didn’t understand now. I had a good memory, and anything could be useful in the future.
I fell into a fugue as pages passed, my eyes were strained, and I almost never blinked. Eventually, a light tapping on my shoulder brought me out of it.
I’d like to say I didn’t jump, but like a scared rabbit, I did. The sound of my knee smacking against the desk cracked around the room. Groaning, I set the book down clutching my leg. I hopped back and swung the leg around for a moment, the pain receding into a numbing coolness.
A small laugh popped up, it turned into another cough right after. The sound of a set of books slapping down on a table behind me. I turned, the librarian had a hand around his chin, obviously trying to hide a smile, “The books you ordered you-ng miss”. His voice cracked as he laughed, I crossed my arms looking at him…this dude, “It’s not that funny…Pain isn’t funny”, I sulked.
He looked at me, eyes of ruby, a smirk on his lips, “Of course not young miss”. He walked back behind his desk schooling his features. He tilted his head and turned his book back around, finding the page he was on. I watched him with a frown ready to turn back, though that was after a long lingering moment, noticing odd fluctuations in his aura.
I noticed him doing something interesting as time passed. After finishing a single page, he grabbed a monocle and put it to his right eye. The monocle glowed white, and I heard the whispers, he started reading the same page over again.
Finishing he brought up a writing utensil and started marking spots on the page. I had noticed them earlier in the book and found them odd. “What are you doing”, I asked, just a tad bit curious. His fingers paused and I gestured to the monocle.
He straightened up and rolled his shoulders, “I’m separating the truths from the lies, as I’ve done for many of the books in this library this last hmm..decade-It’s…slow work and it takes care and dedication, I’m still not done with half of all these…”, He said gesturing around, arms lacking restraint. “And more just seem to come in every time I look away”. He straightened his back,” I eventually get around to rewriting, but it just takes so much time, plus researching every topic I need to know to rewrite is awful, almost torturous my dearest little Lin”. My eyelid twitched; he must be far older than I had thought.
He raised his fingers and took the monocle off, holding it up as if offering me to take it, “I’ve heard you reached the high end of the partial mortality stage, that’s just enough to use this even if in a weakened state, I have another around here anyways”, His eyes twinkled. I gently pulled it from his grasp and peered through it.
Nothing happened at first, but when I started to channel my energy, it started to shine. That’s not to say it wasn’t hard, it was, I had to focus on a very small portion of my face where the energy should go. The first few times the energy simply winked out. It wasn’t that I didn’t have enough energy per se, though it was close. It was control over the energy that was the problem. I tried thinning the energy instead of globbing it all over my face, spreading it out evenly. After that, I had to actively keep it that way.
How the Librarian was able to not only read but annotate sections of the books was beyond me. I looked back at him, head pounding. He smiled and gestured back to the books he left for me.
I took the little monocle off and sat in a comfy chair. I placed the monocle on the table, being careful not to scratch it. My eyes scrolled over the top of the little stack. The Librarian coughed again, annoying little redhead, “Bottom to top Miss Lin, sorry”. Grumbling and giving him a look, I slipped the bottom one out. It read, Basics of Modern Cultivation, by Zecrich Salvador. Perfect. I moved the stack of books in between me and the librarian hiding my face.
I tried to open the cover of the first book, but it didn’t budge. I moved a long fingernail and felt at the pages. They felt like normal pages. I shook the thing a few times, but nothing ended up happening. I looked back over to the man, but he was ignoring me, his extra monocle showering its light. I flipped back to looking at the cover and inspected it. There was one odd thing about it.
At its center was a dead symbol, it wasn’t complex or as advanced as the one I’d seen the servants use. I pulled a bit of energy away from myself, it was as hard if not harder than using the monocle. I made It a fourth of the way around the symbol before my concentration broke. I guess I didn’t inherit the girl's energy control whatsoever.
I tried again, and again. After the tenth try, my head froze in pain, and I rested my face against the table. I was up again a minute later trying again, after circling the energy inside me. It took nearly thirty minutes to fully infuse the symbol. When it was done it glowed something in between red and gold, is that what my energy looked like? After a moment the symbol dulled, and I heard a small click. The book finally swung open.
On the left side of the inner cover was a panel showing a list of names, there was an empty spot at the top, it glowed red-gold. I touched it and my name magically filtered in as the most recent borrower to the book. Another list near my name counted out the amount of time each respective person had reserved the book, a handy feature. What was scary though was the name it had put on the paper.
Linnetha Jameson, it had used my Last Name from the Earth.