I was not going to a magical school. Currently, I was in the condition of a delicate wedding cake that had been turned into a piñata and then vigorously shaken.
After the professor and Frida’s concerns had been soothed, the professor left, still eyeing me skeptically. Frida fussed over me again, unsurprisingly, before she ushered everyone out of their space so I could get some proper rest.
It was a pattern that continued. I spent the next few days mostly sleeping. The Tavern Crew was in and out, puttering around town. Slowly, I began to feel a little better, though the constant ache in my chest at the sight of my missing arm didn’t seem to fade.
Candy was also mostly quiet. [Symbiogenesis] had taken a lot out of both of us. I had been seriously wounded before, and Candy was just a widdle baby pwort. I ate stew, and occasionally a pastry that the others brought back, mostly I napped. Despite feeling like shit, the utter boredom of it all was getting to me.
And the awkwardness. I was living in their space, taking up one of the beds. I really felt like I was overstaying my welcome; they had all been unreasonably generous. Despite being antsy, I was still in no condition to be back on my feet for long.
I had latched onto the notion of a magical school. Attending an honest-to-God magical academy was a combination of two passions. I wanted to learn magic, and I wished I had continued in academia. Unfortunately, there were two problems. Despite being an outworlder, I wasn’t a noble. I didn’t exactly have any political status. Secondly, I was flat broke, and attending the academy cost gold crowns. It wasn’t a school for anyone. There were no schools for peasants. Only the elite got a formal education.
Then there were all the personal barriers. Candy, my missing arm, my crippling insecurity, my missing arm, and still Candy.
But I so wanted to learn magic.
That meant I was going to need to get very wealthy and influential fast.
Which was about a billion times easier said than done.
Having only one arm was exhausting. I wasn’t used to it. It actively kept me up at night, mourning what I had lost. I couldn’t write anymore, I struggled to eat, to dress myself, to use the bathroom. Not only was I a hand down, but I only had my non-dominant arm. It left me clumsy and incapable. I hated it.
I spent far too long simply prodding the squishy lump that had once been my elbow. It still didn’t feel real. Yet it was real. And every time I reached for something with a limb I no longer had was a haunting reminder of it. I couldn’t make sense of it, and neither could my muscle memory.
After a few days, I was shuffling about and occasionally playing a very awkward hand of cards here and there in the evenings. It involved a lot of pushing cards around on the table and using my teeth in pique frustration. It was embarrassing, it was fatiguing.
I got the chance to try out [Digest]. Kimrel and Frida had returned with fresh produce from the market, including some apple-looking non-apple fruits that were instead some kind of red, round pear thing. I held one in my hand and used the skill. The flesh of the fruit withered and broke down where it touched my fingertips as they glistened a vicious translucent purple.
When I simply rested the apple in my palm, it very slowly disintegrated. It was like an ice cube melting in my hand, and yet no residue remained. Candy’s slime absorbed it.
I couldn’t taste it. Besides a certainly grimey slime grit, the fruit simply seemed to evaporate at my touch. One side of the small piece of fruit was withered and rather desiccated, yet the tip furthest from my touch was crisp and bright as ever. It was a strange skill indeed. But it was my skill, finally, a real skill that allowed me to influence the world around me.
It felt… weirdly substantial.
I ate the rest of the fruit normally. It didn’t taste quite how I expected. It had an odd, earthy flavour similar to what I imagined licking a rock might taste like, except it was sweet. All the food in this place wasn’t bad, just… very different.
If I had ever been much of a cook, it would have come in handy. I could have opened an outworlder restaurant or something. It would have made a fortune.
“More,” Candy insisted sleepily. “Still hungry.”
“You’re always hungry,” I sighed.
“I’m growing,” she grumbled. “I need to eat to be big and strong.”
“You’re ridiculous,” I smiled.
“Stop being mean,” Candy huffed. “You’re not mean to people you care about.”
I pursed my lips. This was another current issue. Candy was legitimately trying, but she was rather childish sometimes. She viewed the world in a strange simplicity that whittled down any potential for nuance. Not that I really held it against her, it took years for human children to begin to move past that and hell, I knew plenty of adults who never truly had.
But Candy simply wasn’t there yet. Either I cared about her, or I hated her. I was nice when I did what she wanted and mean when I didn’t. She absorbed my analysis of the world as absolute and unchanging.
As if humans couldn’t be cruel to each other, that was as much a foundation of our species as collaboration. We had the capacity for so much. But I wasn’t going to dig into that with Candy right now. I was trying to show her a… more empathetic way of being.
Maybe one day I could get into the problem with monarchies and class inequality. Maybe one day she would be able to understand that people were not a pillar of behaviour, but that, nonetheless, I strived to be good and kind even if no one would ever be perfect.
On the plus side, she wasn’t threatening my organs anymore, so that was a win.
Stepping back outside after days of bed rest made my head spin.
“You okay?” Frida asked gently, repinning my sleeve so it didn’t hang loose at my side.
“Yeah,” I nodded, grimacing up at the sun.
“Are you sure you’re up for this?” she asked skeptically.
“You’re picking up some of Kimrel’s armour from the blacksmith down the street,” I nodded, parroting the plan. “I can handle a short walk.”
“Alright,” she nodded.
It was good to be out, to breathe some… fresher air. The horse dung that I periodically had to step over in the road wasn’t the most pleasant. Nor were the buckets of… I didn’t even want to know that they were tossed out of windows onto the street. Towns were gross. The forest just had mud and dirt.
Fuck I needed to have a proper bath. Wiping myself down with a wet cloth would have been hard enough with both arms. Jesus, I couldn't believe I was still living with the Tavern Crew.
“I’m not sure I’ve thanked you all sufficiently for your hospitality,” I smiled weakly as we continued down the street.
Frida smiled at me. “Don’t mention it. It's the least we can do after… you got hurt,” she added. “But… we will probably be back on the road in a few days with another job.”
I nodded through a grimace.
“You can stay here if you want,” she hurried to add. “We just won't be around. I know it's a bit silly to have that space, but… it is really useful to have between jobs.”
I let out a breath. That was a reassurance at least. Though the premise of being left alone for… who knew how long wasn’t exactly a comfortable one. Though now that I could actually gain experience unhindered… some time to train or something with Candy could be good, if maybe lonely.
“I need to make some money,” I said. “I need to make an ungodly amount of money if I want to go to the academy.”
Frida nodded slowly. “I’m not sure how to do that. I’m not even sure Kimrel could afford it, and he’s the only one with the ties to even be considered. Mercenary work pays quite well, but… not that well. You need to own land for that kind of money.”
“Shit,” I muttered.
“But again, there's no rush. If anything, it will be good to have someone using the space while we’re gone,” she continued as we reached the blacksmith.
“Yeah, but… you’re all paying for my food and… everything," I frowned.
“Pamela, you just lost an arm, you’ve been stumbling about for days, and the whole slime thing…” She shook her head. “Really, don’t worry about it. If you get accepted into the academy, you can pay us all back by giving Martrix all the gossip.”
I chuckled.
“No, I’m serious,” Frida clarified. “She’s been dying to know what goes on at the academy for as long as I've known her.”
“I didn’t realize schools were so secretive,” I muttered.
“Well… practically every noble in the county sends their children there, it’s partially what Agocester is known for. Martrix simply has a nose for drama. She loves the squabbles of politics, though… far less when she’s involved in them.” Frida smiled.
“I can relate to that,” I chucked as we headed into the blacksmith.