"Good morning, Alex!" Naya said with a bright smile as she entered my room.

"Good morning, Naya!" I said back, giving her my best smile. I'd been learning the language from Tristan over the last month, and while my moves didn't seem to have any effect on the girl, they were totally working. I could feel it.

"Feel good, hodiaŭ?" She asked, sitting down and inspecting my arm. Today, that meant today. We'd been able to communicate simple sentences for a week or so once I learned the basics, but I still forgot words all the time. Tristan insisted we only speak Common for a while so I would acclimate quickly, so we spent an hour a night practicing before switching to English on the nights he was at the temple. Tristan was a surprisingly good teacher. I figured he'd picked up a few tricks since he'd been getting privately tutored by Arden since he was a boy.

"Yeah, I feel good." I felt my cheeks grow warm when she migrated down to my leg. It hadn't gotten easier watching her do that. "So, how are things?" I asked in my best Common, hoping I got the words right.

She smiled brightly at what was my best Commlish. "Good! You are learning fast!"

I was just that good. "Yeah, Tristan teaches well."

"You heal fast!"

Like the goddamn Wolverine. You've never seen anything like me, baby. "Yeah!"

That was about the extent of my conversation skills, but I wanted to know more. I was crushing on her so hard. "Sooooo... What... What do you eating?"

She looked at me like I said something funny. "Eitel and eilza are miaj plej ŝatataj manĝaĵoj."

Damn my kindergartener's! "Mmm, sounds great."

She laughed and rolled her eyes. "Come. Stand. You need to walk."

I hated this part.

I creaked out of the covers like my grandpa used to, groaning and cracking all over as I did. Once I was able to swing my feet off the bed, I spent a few minutes limbering up, then reached out to my walking stick and stood up. She reached out to catch me when I teetered, but I held her off. I had this. I was a big boy. I could stand on my own. Look out world, Alex is back and ready to kick some ass!

No...

Wait...

I didn't have this.

Shit.

I fell back on the bed.

"Stubborn man..." I'd learned those words early. She said them often.

"Sorry." I grinned.

She wrapped her arms around my waist and helped me stand. She smelled good... Like berries and flowers, with a hint of horse. But everything smelled like horse, so that was expected.

"Good. Walk now." She helped me take my first few steps, then I got the hang of it. Before long, she opened the door, and I was hobbling out of my room like a track star. A track star who'd been severely injured after being struck by lightning twice and getting exploded by a tree, then ending up in a foreign world with pretty elves, grumpy dwarves, and terrifying monsters. So many monsters. Arden had taught me about a few. Showed me pictures. Scary stuff.

It was a story as old as time.

I kept moving, hoping that my momentum would keep me upright. The plan was to never sit down. I was now the man who stood. If I sat, I was done. Standing prevented me from looking like an idiot. I would be fine. That's what normal people did. Stood around all day.

I limped into the large room with the Goddess statue. She was still as beautiful as ever, but the church was empty. It smelled lovely though. Like fruit, and flowers, and horse. Like Naya!. Oh God...dess, is that what I smelled like? Probably worse. I'd only had a few rag baths in, like, four months. I probably smelled a lot worse than horse. I covertly sniffed myself. Oh Goddess, it was bad.

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"Alex!" Naya waved me on. We walked up and down the pews for a while until she put on a serious face. "Ĉu vi pretas?"

Totally, beautiful elf woman. Whatever you say, I am but putty in your hands. I nodded.

She guided me toward the end of the rows of pews, then kept having me walk until we reached the large double doors at the end of the great hall. I'd never been this far before. My blood froze.

"Wait." I hadn't been out of the church in... since I got here. I was panicking! I was panicking?

"Come." She opened the doors, and light filled the hall. Beckoning to me, she walked out into the world beyond.

For some reason, I was scared. Why was I scared? I dug into the feeling. Why would I feel that way? Because I was a giant baby. I dug deeper. Because I was a big wimpy baby man.

Focus!

There were a lot of feelings, but the one that kept coming up felt the most true: once I stepped out those doors, everything they told me about my new life would be real. Once I saw the outside in person, all the feelings I'd been grappling with—the loss, the confusion, the anger and bargaining and the other stages of grief I forgot, all of it would be justified. This was my life now. There was no going back.

An impulse hit me hard. I could just hide in my little room and never leave. This could be my home now. My shelter. My bulwark against the cruel world beyond.

But a competing thought kicked that one away. That was no way to live. Tristan told me there was a guy on the other side of the church like that. He'd come from wherever the dwarves came from and decided his room was home. He'd been there for fifty years. Never left. Not once. He just sat alone in his little room and looked out the window. Every day. Lost in his thoughts about a home he'd never see again. T

hat was no way to live.

I wouldn't be like that.

I was going to be awesome.

I took a step out of the church and into the light, and the feelings washed over me. I closed my eyes, took some deep breaths, imagined my center (whatever that meant. My sensei was always saying it, and it didn't make sense, but I sure could fake it), and just existed for a while. When I opened my eyes again, what I saw took my breath away.

The sky was endless and blue, a deeper blue than back home, and there wasn't a cloud in it. From this vantage, I could finally see the tower they had all been talking about. It was a thin white line stretching as high into the sky as I could see. At the top was the sun, or what kind of looked like it.

It was bright, but I could almost look at it without feeling like my retinas were going to melt the way the Sun felt on Earth. I raised my hand to block the light and looked through my fingers. The light almost seemed to twist and swirl around the thing before being sent out into the world. It almost seemed like the light was a physical thing instead of an energy or whatever it was on Earth. Schrondinger's light or something. I'd watched a YouTube video about it once, but I forgot the specifics. But light did things, and this light seemed to do other things.

"Good!" Naya clapped. "Come!" She started walking down a dirt path that snaked away from the front of the church.

I limped after her.

The woman had me walk around the church, which was way harder than it seemed. By the time we reached the back of the far too large temple, I heard the sounds of a Rennaissance fair in the distance. I looked toward the noise and saw several red-and-white-clad people and others in brown robes swinging swords and other weapons and doing play fighting.

No.

They were training! It looked like they were doing some active sparring against one another. My blood started pumping. Now that looked fun! I could just make out the very stout Rennard commanding each of the trainees as he walked between the various sparring groups. I realized that one of the men, the one with a whole mop on his head, was Tristan. He'd told me he trained sometimes, but I didn't realize he meant he trained out here.

"Go?" I said to Naya. I didn't know how to communicate that I wanted to go watch them train, so I pointed instead.

"Okay." She'd picked that word up from me. There was a thin gravel trail out to the training ground, but it wasn't exactly even. She looped her arm in mine and helped me over the treacherous terrain. An embarrassingly long time later, we were standing watching the group.

Rennard gave a curt nod and continued drilling his class, who'd switched from sparring to forms. Each of them flowed through their movements with practiced ease, though the red and white people were far more smooth about it. Rennard called out from time to time, and the group flowed between forms of different types. Some were fast and acrobatic. Others were forceful and precise. Still others were elaborate and fluid. I felt my mouth drop as I watched them. They were really good.

I wanted to do that!

I started practicing the movements in my head. I'd trained for many years growing up. The forms didn't feel so complicated that I couldn't pick them up with some practice.

Rennard called out again, and each of the fighters closed their eyes and held their weapons in front of them. Most of them held maces or swords, though a few, mostly the dwarves, had hammers or axes. With a sharp shout from the dwarf, each of the fighters performed a gesture, and every single one of the red-and-white-robed people shot waves of light from their maces.

I fell on my ass.

Naya walked over to help me up as the group members all began to smile, to pat one another on their backs, and drink water. They started stowing their weapons and toweling off, and Tristan and a handsome elf in red and white robes walked over to me and Naya. The elf stripped off his shirt, revealing rippling abs underneath, looking like some sort of hunky elf supermodel. He had long, perfect golden hair, and even his eyes were gold! His fair skin literally glistened in the light, and he looked almost as tall as me. Not a single lock of his perfect hair was out of place.

When I couldn't get up, Naya let go of my arm and walked to the man. He scooped her up and swirled her around. She leaned in and kissed him.

Nooooooooo.......

Damn it.

Crush ruined.