I was led into another portion of the wondrously glowing forest for all of about ten ters before she suddenly stopped, pointing a wrinkled finger down a small incline. Oh! Hidden in the trees was a rock pool the size of a large bathtub, carved and smoothed to provide a place to bathe. Clear hot water poured into the bath from a small stream that wound in through the forest. On the opposite side of the rock tub the water flowed out again, continuing the little stream off into the forest.
“This is nice,” I said, giving the older woman an appreciative smile.
“Yes, yes. It’s lovely, now get in,” she grumbled back, motioning impatiently towards the bath.
I did as she asked, carefully making my way down to the edge of the pool. It looked kinda hot, so I tentatively dipped my toe in to test the temperature.
“Ah! Fuck!” I swore, pulling my foot back almost imdiately. “That shit is way too hot!”
“Youth,” the old lady grumbled dismissively.
“My body is like ten minutes old!” I complained, frowning up at her.
“Fine, fine. No need to pout at young Elias. Stupid na by the way. You ought to pick a new one,” she said with a frustrated roll of her eyes. “Let adjust the temperature.”
She raised her arm and closed her eyes, the air appearing to go strangely still for a mont in anticipation. There was a stir, a breeze and then markings like blue glowing vines twined their way up her exposed forearm. When they reached her hand, a burst of blue light shot out and raced off into the forest, following the path of the stream closely.
“Try it now,” she remarked with the first smile I’d seen on her. It was the smile of soone showing off, but it was still a smile, so good on her!
I tested the water again with my foot and found it to be a much nicer temperature. So with an eager sigh, I slipped in, feeling the gri being almost tugged off , like the pool was scrubbing . Oh my, that felt strange.
“Uh, this feels weird,” I called up, then smiled yet again at how cute my voice sounded. There was actually sothing I liked about the masculine speech patterns funnelled through a high voice that was unmarred by the ravages of testosterone. It gave my voice a husky quality that was pleasing to the ear.
Another roll of her eyes and she nodded. “Yes the pool is enchanted to clean you, stop squirming.”
Before I took her advice, I dunked my head under and let it get my face and hair for a mont. Then when it was done, I pushed back above the surface and leaned gratefully into the rock, letting the water clean off. It had been a long ti since I just had a nice relaxing bath.
Closing my eyes, I tried to let myself just sit and process everything that had happened. Magic existed, that was fairly obvious. Magic fucking existed! I wonder if I could try to learn it? I hope this old lady was willing to teach , because I would be gutted if she wasn’t. She seed so grumpy though, maybe it would be best to find another teacher?
Unbidden, my last mory of Grace flashed through my mind’s eye, and I felt my stomach drop into the bottom of the pool. Fuck. I had just been pulled away from everyone, all those friends, my new family. My heart took up a dull ache as I began to worry. Would they be alright? Would I ever be able to see them again? I needed to ask questions, but there were so many— where did I start?
“Am I allowed to ask questions?” I called up to her, my voice significantly more sombre than it had been when I was still bouncing around with euphoria.
I heard her grumble in annoyance from up on the bank for a good five seconds before she finally muttered, “Fine, go ahead.”
“Where are we?” I asked, opening my eyes to watch and wait for an answer.
“Excuse ? We are quite clearly in the Naless Garden,” she frowned, tilting her head curiously at . “Specifically, we are in my Grove.”
“I don’t know what either of those things are sorry, is the Naless Garden sowhere on the ring world, or is it different?” I asked, curious now.
“You are remarkably ignorant for soone who found my magefruit,” she said, really frowning at now, like I was a puzzle to solve.
I wondered whether I should tell her where I was from. Pretty clearly I wasn’t a native to this place, wherever it was, but more than that I ca from a place where magic didn’t exist, as far as I knew. How would she react if I said I was from Earth, from another place or world?
Taking a chance, I began to speak about the past week of my life. “So about a week ago, my University was taken from the city it was in and placed on the ring world. They took everyone, the buildings too.”
Her eyes lit with sudden understanding and excitent, and she began to pick her way down the small slope. “Ah! That explains many things! Wonderful! No wonder the fruit taught you my way of speech. It should work on the accent though, truly strange. Regardless! It has been almost a hundred years since the last ti a new people was brought to the ring!”
Hold up, it taught her language? Oh holy shit I was speaking a different language. How the hell did I not notice that? Fuck, magic was pretty wild.
She stopped at the edge of the pool and dipped her feet into it. I watched the water gnaw away at the mud there until it was gone, washed away out into the stream below. This bath was so damn cool!
“Tell about the world you ca from,” she said, her deanour completely changed to one of excitent now.
“Uh, it was called Earth. It was smaller than the ring world, spherical, and it had a population of around seven billion people the last I checked,” I said, trying to think of what to say. “Despite what the— people used to say, it was a fairly peaceful world, at least by the standards of our own past. We had a good life expectancy in much of the world, entertainnt and arts flourished. It was honestly kinda nice now that I look back.”
“But no magic,” she said with a smile, like she’d figured out so sort of ancient mystery.
“Yeah, no magic,” I nodded, then gave her a pleading look. “Can you uh, explain what happened to now? Also, I have friends to get back to. I don’t know what they think just happened to .”
“Oh, there is no just about what happened I’m afraid my dear. You’ve been in that fruit for almost forty days,” she said, showing a little compassion for the first ti. Forty days? What?
Before I could freak out over that little bomb that she’d dropped on , she kept speaking. “You found one of my magefruit. You see, when a mage reaches a certain level of power, they are able to make a magefruit. This allows them to gain advantages in the world of magic, how and why is not important at this ti however. The real point is that the magefruit must be planted outside the Naless Garden, which is the plane of existence we are currently in.”
“Right, we’re in a different plane of existence from the ring, got it,” I nodded, my mind very much not having got it, instead exploding like a waterlon that had just t a 50-cal bullet.
“I doubt it,” she chuckled, but explained further anyway. “If soone picks that fruit, it takes them and transports them to the Grove of the mage who created it. A Grove, by the way, is a pocket realm within the Naless Garden and also the source of power for a mage. Anyway, they are then cocooned within the fruit and transford into a mage. This is what happened to you.”
“I’m a mage now?” I blurted, excitent once again bouncing around inside like a hyperactive bunny.
“Yes. What, you think any old human woman has bright magenta hair like that?” she scoffed, motioning to my hair. “Mages are separate from their original race in a great number of ways. The most imdiately apparent manifestation of a mage's unique physiology, especially in humans, is the colour of our eyes and hair.”
I quickly reached up and grabbed at the hair in question, bringing it around to look at. Wow! It was the sa colour as my pubes, a kind of dark tallic magenta colour. That was… amazing. I loved it!
“Can I see myself? Do you have a mirror? The water is moving too much for to see my reflection,” I asked almost desperately.
Wordlessly, the woman flourished her hand into the air, and this ti it was markings like silvery shrubs that whispered up her arm. They culminated in a burst of silver light in her palm, and a mirror spun into existence out of an infinitely small spark. The mirror was large enough to get a proper look at the whole of , and what I saw took my breath away.
I was stunning. I was beyond stunning. My face was gorgeous, with high, angled cheekbones and infinitely soft skin. My nose was small and perfect in every way, my lips were full but not too full. My eyes were incredible, the sa tallic magenta as my shoulder length hair, shining brightly from wide, huge eyes. I was almost scarily good looking.
My body was also amazing— lean and soft, with curves arching everywhere they were ant to be. Funnily enough, given what I’d seen so far, my boobs were actually fairly proportional to my body. Maybe a little smaller than I expected. You’d think that the horny fruit that made look this pretty, would have given balloon titties or sothing. Not that I was complaining, I liked the ones I had now.
“I’m pretty,” I breathed, my hands drifting up to my face in awe.
“You are indeed, it seems my magical essence is strong,” the old lady remarked, sounding impressed with herself and getting a confused glance from . She responded with the shrug of soone who couldn’t be bothered explaining sothing.
I kept staring at myself in the mirror, tilting my head— the beautiful girl in the mirror copied every movent. That was . That was really . This was really, actually real, not a dream. I was a girl, through and through, my outside finally matching my inside. It was like I could breathe for the first ti in my life, like I’d been struggling to keep my head above the waterline— any stray ripple or wave would send water down my throat, choking and sending into a panic.
It was more than that though, far more than that. My very consciousness felt unshackled from the constraints of bone-deep depression and my terrifying future as a man. I’d always fantasised, or even planned to kill myself at so point, but sothing had always co along to stop from tipping over the edge completely.
Usually it'd be sothing small and inconsequential that saved , like a book series that I wanted to see the conclusion to, or a movie I was intrigued by on the horizon. Recently it had been my friendship with Bray, although my new friends had been adding to that, along with the sheer excitent of our abduction.
Now though, now… I was whole and free and unbound from that final awful truth. I was a woman— a woman like those born to it, or those who'd had the courage to change themselves, one agonisingly incrental step at a ti. I was… also a woman who needed a damned na. Grumpy lady was totally right.
“You were right, I need a na,” I said, turning to look at her for the first ti in minutes.
“I’m sure you’ll think of one,” she said idly, leafing through the book she was reading. Wait, where’d she get the book from?
“Uh…” I hesitated, trying to think of sothing. I slipped further into the water in thought, frowning at my reflection in the mirror.
What was my na now? I wanted sothing fun, sothing that fit with my magical appearance. Oh, I could—
“Rynadria,” the old lady said, her eyes now strangely piercing, like her gaze was boring into my very essence.
“That’s a mouthful,” I replied, but even then sothing sprung out at . Feeling another wave of euphoric rightness, I whispered, “But it can be shortened. Ryn.”
“Ryn, eh?” she mused, placing a bookmark between the pages of her book and then regarding with a far more normal expression. “I can see it.”
“Thanks… I think I’ll keep it. How did you do that by the way?” I asked curiously. She’d totally just called out a na that knocked flat with how good it felt.
“A minor divination spell, there were a dozen or so options, I just chose the one I liked the most,” she chuckled, standing up slowly and stretching out. “I am functionally your second mother now, whether either of us wanted it or not.”
“You didn’t want a… a mage daughter?” I asked with amusent.
“I placed my magefruit out in the middle of the damn wilderness— of course I didn’t want a damned mage daughter,” she grumbled to herself. “Nevertheless, you are here and obviously green, so I must do my duty. Don’t get comfortable though! I’m kicking you out when I feel like you won’t imdiately die to a random band of thugs.”
“That’s fine, I have a cooler family to get back to,” I said with a cheeky smile.
“Yes, yes, whatever. Now get out of the bath, it’s ti to put you to work as an apprentice,” she huffed, wapping on the head with her book.
“Ow! Fine! Damn, no need to get physical on ,” I grumped. For so reason the light tap hadn’t reminded of my past issues with parental figures and physical violence. It was more playful than anything else.
“Onwards,” she said, ignoring my complaints. “I have so much to teach you before I can throw you out and get on with my life.”
“Okay, okay! I’m getting out.”
I would get out, I would learn what I needed to, and then I'd find my way back to my friends. My family.
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