I think the smartest decision I’ve made in this world was making that bookstore run with Mia. I just turned five, and I have a kid brother now, plus Mother’s pregnant again. Enough is going on to keep both my parents and our attendants busy, so I can do as I please during the day. As long as I show up to dinner, no one even asks me questions anymore.
Training is my only real focus, and I’ve convinced my overlords that running in the forests behind the estate is entirely necessary. Out of earshot from my family’s estate, I stop and sit on a log.
Magic radiates out of my body and, with a thought, turns into the elements. Water droplets form into arrows, then freeze and stick into the ground. Fire spreads from my feet to melt them, then the ground turns over, and wind blows the rising smoke into the brush. Lightning crackles at my fingertips throughout, but it’s all meh.
Healing magic uses the fog; why can’t everything else? It’s like free magic, but it’s hardly usable.
THUMP
I fall backwards off my log, then swipe my hands through the air at the magical energy with no owner.
“It’d be nice if you listened to my commands…” I grouse.
But do I command it?
I mix my magic into it for healing, then command the combination, but have I ever tried relaying an order through my magic?
Huh.
My eyes shut, and the magic shooting from my body doubles. Carry the message, magic. Use the energy around us to make a flame.
WHOOOSH
My eyes open to a fireball near the edge of my magic. It’s not especially large or radiating heat at this distance, but it doesn’t feel like it consumed any of my magic.
I’m fucking cooking; this is peak efficiency. Delegate the activation to the fog, and keep my magic spread a bit thinner. In theory, I can create elemental changes further away from me too.
Thank you, fantasy world. Now I just need to learn some stealth skills so I can practice at night…
***
Sometimes it’s good to break things. The mirror I fucked? Replaced with a giant one that can be used in today’s experiment.
It’s a few meters in front of me in my room, with everything else pushed out to the walls. I can see my whole body in it, but I’d like to see nothing at all.
Think… INVISIBLE!
But in the mirror I still stand. I release magic, and hold it tight around my body like a diving suit.
Think dark thoughts??
It’s not that kind of fantasy world. I’ll need some science. I only see things because light hits them, then bounces off them and into my eyes. So how do I stop light from hitting me?
Water bends light, which is why bow-fishing and I never got along. But I can’t surround myself in a sphere of water all the time, and at best it would distort me.
Can magic handle light like it does the other elements? Creating and manipulating existing forms?
I push my magic out into a circle around me, and focus on the light passing through it. It’d be a lie to say I feel the photons, but I feel something.
Now bend! Avoid me! Scatter!
WAHA! I’m thin! At least my reflection is. I turn to the side, and the me in the mirror is pencil thin. I back up towards the wall, and push the circle of magic further away.
I’m gone. Totally gone. I send the command through my magic, and let the energy in the air take over with the same effect. It’s pretty light on magic consumption, and I leak enough to activate this, but good to know.
Knock knock
“Come in!” I shout, and bite my lip hard.
I’m fucking invisible; why did I say that so fast? As the door creaks open, I scatter my magic all over and watch as my form reappears in the mirror.
“Alfred,” Mother says softly, her head just inside the door, “care for a snack?”
Ah. The only time I see Mother is for meals, and sometimes those meals come when the baby in her belly tells her to eat.
“Sure, Mother, let’s get something to eat.”
***
Sneaky timeeeeee. It’s dark, and time to make use of that sword training book. Swordsmen shoot magic from their feet to accelerate, kicking up a lot of dust in the process, but it gave me an idea.
What if I push magic from my feet without the recklessness, and try to hold it in place? The answer: sick fucking magic footholds. Or invisible steps. Either way, it lets me get down from my third-floor room without making noise.
I hike a kilometer into the forest behind my family’s estate. Ever since I started running extra magic through my eyes and inner ears a few years ago, my senses have greatly improved. I’m not sure how my vision compares to animals that hunt at night, but I never run into anything, and I’m pretty aware of my surroundings.
I came out here for something special. I can manipulate light to make myself invisible, but that made me think – can I create light like I can with other elements?
It’s all imagination. The magic from my body moves into the space in front of me, where I want it to be a light-bulb. I suppose that'd just be a point that emits photons in every direction so...
FUCKING A! BRIGHT AS SHIT!
I regret making my eyes so good, but proof of concept is great. Think less photons, like lamp lighting, just enough to dimly cover the ten meters around me. That’s better. I move it left, then right, up, and down. Neat. I manipulate it to fly back and forth.
I can manipulate every element in a similar way, but making it fly side to side, I can’t see the ball of light anymore; it just looks like a tube light you’d see at a large store in my old world. It’s quite fast too… but I want to touch it. I lower the ball of photons into my han-
FUC. It’s hot. It’s bright, and it’s hot.
And for part two of hurting myself after sneaking out.
SHING
My trusty nipple slicer, now laced with lots and lots of my magic. Hopefully enough to cut one of my fingers clean off.
Left-hand pinky is the only option. I’m not certain I can make it grow back with healing magic, but from how easily I can patch up my skin and nicks to my muscles or bones, it should be doable.
On the count of three. One, two, three - SLICE!
JESUS TITS! Way worse than I thought.
I shake my hand around like the pain will fly off, but all I manage is to cover myself in blood.
Deep breath. I cover the air around the stub with magic and pull energy from the air towards the wound. I visualize what I want to regrow - bone, connective tissue, nerves, muscles, skin, and nail. Layer by layer, a new pinky takes form.
It’s all there, and it moves how I want it to. I’ll need to focus on it during my nighttime magic infusions, but I can regrow body parts. And weirdly enough, this made me really hungry.
***
My youngest sibling should be born in about two months, so anything I need from my Father I need to get now. And I have just one thing in mind.
I walk into my Father's office, where he's flipping through a stack of handwritten letters.
“Father, when is the new baby coming?”
He looks up and smiles.
“Should be in two months, Alfred. Are you excited to be a big brother again?”
“I can’t wait!" They might forget I live here with a second baby in the house. "I’m hoping for a baby sister this time, but I know you’ll be busy once she’s here, so I was hoping we could go into the capital once before they come...”
Father tightens his expression, then one of his eyebrows lifts.
“The capital… that’s a bit of a trip with your mother so far along; why do you want to go?”
“I heard there are going to be magician and swordsman exhibition matches in the capital two weeks from now. I really want to see them, and it’d be fun to go with you before you’re busy with a new baby.”
But Father sighs.
“I understand, son, but I can’t be away from your Mother for that long. Would you go with Shayna? She’s been teaching our new attendant how to care for your little brother Oliver, so until the baby is born, we have a surplus of help.”
I feign a pout, but it gets more real as I think this through. “I’m sad it won’t be with you, Father, but I’d still love to go if you can spare Shayna.”
Shayna will watch me much more closely than Father would, but I’m under the impression that my magic usage far outstrips what’s seen in this world, and I need to know if that’s correct.