18. Guilt (Patreon)

A freak. An outcast. A pariah. That's the core of my fear, isn't it? Sure, there are people who will accept me for what I am. There are people that already do. But society as a whole? No. Definitely not.

It's similar to being gay, really. I do not live in what I would describe as a queer-friendly community, so I keep my mouth shut about it. Does that mean that the average person on the street would attack me if they saw me kissing a girl? No, almost certainly not. It's not like I live in Iran or something, it's not hated with a vehemence that borders on sociopathic. A good chunk of people won't care in the slightest. A good chunk would be happy to see that. And a good chunk of people, my family included, would glower judgmentally at me, complain about the sin of the youth, and be just a little bit angrier the next time they go chat with their friends… or go to the polls.

And in the wrong parts of the wrong towns, yes, I absolutely might get attacked for it.

For obvious reasons, I don't want to deal with that. Even before this whole mutation problem, I was very purposefully trying to get through life without adding to my list of issues. It's easier to just not think about it, to bury the thing people will hate me for deep down inside, to avoid the disdain and the ostracization by pretending I'm just like everyone else. I know not everyone does that. We had pride parades in town last June, even. Ida invited me to come with her to one and wow I thought she was making fun of me at the time, I could not have been more wrong. But the point is that I know I'm not trapped. There are people braver than me who created ways for me to safely come out. I just… can't. I don't want to. I'm scared of stepping out of line, of the disapproval of my family, of being dragged to church every Sunday with that much more vitriol behind the expectant glare of my parents. I can't… no. That's a lie. I could handle it. I know that. I just don't want to. I wish I didn't have to make this decision at all.

Honestly, I hate being a lesbian.

If I could just be straight and date my best friend and live a normal life, that would be awesome. I mean, for a certain kind of normal life. I get that I'm weird even without the gay stuff and the turning-into-a-monster stuff, but it's a different kind of weird. A more acceptable kind of weird. Nerdy girls that barely talk to anybody unless it's about video games or fantasy novels, who don't like going out and don't fit in with any cliques and don't bother remembering the names of most of their classmates are weird, sure, but it's a different kind of weird. A socially acceptable kind of weird. 'Eccentric,' I think the word is. Sure, I'd probably have more friends if I wasn't introverted, or geeky, or fashion-ignorant, but all of those things are still socially acceptable. All of those are things my family and community can forgive. Being gay isn't, so that's what I end up crying about in my room.

I feel like a traitor to the queer community for thinking this way. These kinds of feelings are exactly why 'pride' is emphasized, because we're raised in a culture that has been trained for generations to shame. I know, intellectually, that there's nothing wrong with me. That my family's bigotry doesn't make me a lesser person. That the things I've been taught by a religion I don't believe in do not dictate my reality, and that it is okay to be who I am. But my emotions don't care. I still feel the shame of being other. I still feel the fear of being a sheep surrounded by wolves. I hate it. It's not fair. I should have never had to deal with any of this. And now it's worse, because my body is giving society even more of a reason to think I'm a monster.

If I start walking around as openly homosexual in this town, I'll be hated. If I start walking around as openly inhuman, I'm pretty sure I'll be shot. Not by anyone I know, and not right away, but there's no doubt in my mind that somebody in this town is a crazy, neo-confederate bastard with no doubts as to my lack of personhood and ready access to plenty of methods to relieve me of it anyway. I'm sure I can convince my family that I'm still Hannah, and I'm sure they'd be on my side, but only in that very particular way that they're always 'on my side.' Which is to say they'd try to bring me to their side, dictating everything I do because they know better, insisting on having control of the situation and—most frighteningly—doing their best to remove me from the situation entirely.

They would view what's happening to me as a problem, and they'd only be right because they'd make it one.

My grip tightens on the broom in my hands as my claws dig deep into the thick soles of my shoes. Without really thinking about it, I let out a low hiss, as if trying to intimidate the crumbs on the floor. I'm at work now, the rest of the school day having not been all that exciting. Somewhat predictably, though, thinking about all this garbage has put me in a bad mood. It isn't helped by the fact that my boss gave me a bunch of crap for wearing gloves.

I can't really blame him though, since he's just doing his job. Gloves and food service have a tricky relationship, to say the least. Food safety protocols are complicated, and in many cases purposefully excessive. Which is a reasonable policy, if I'm being honest. Lazy teenagers comprise a pretty large percentage of food service workers, and the amount of times I've seen my coworkers casually disregard the health code is frankly rather terrifying. By holding everyone to a ridiculously high standard, they prevent the vast majority of inevitable slip-ups from actually hurting anybody.

So! Gloves. Common wisdom would suggest that you want food service workers to wear gloves. And oftentimes, you do! Hands are gross. But while the gloves I wear to hide the fact that my fingers are powerful, deadly weapons are pretty stylish (if I do say so myself), from a health perspective they are significantly more gross than my bare hands because they aren't designed to be washed in a sink.

Gloves in food service are only sanitary if they are disposable gloves, and only if they are actually disposed of and replaced often. Wearing gloves prevents dirty hands from touching food, but it does not prevent dirty gloves from touching food, and it's often more difficult to notice when gloves are dirty than when hands are dirty. My workplace actually doesn't want us to wear gloves at all most of the time, preferring that we use tongs and ladles and what-have-you to keep our hands away from the food completely. As such, it's against company policy to wear the kind of gloves I'm currently wearing at all, even if I'm not working in the kitchen. It's a uniform violation, one I had to get around by insisting to my boss that I have some really gross crap growing on my hands that I thought customers would be concerned about seeing, which is technically true. The compromise is that, when I step foot in the kitchen, I have to wear disposable gloves over my normal gloves and change them out often.

Honestly, it's not that big of a deal, really. My boss wasn't happy about it, but I've earned enough brownie points by being a good worker that he's willing to let it slide. I'm technically violating company policy, but as long as I use disposable gloves properly I'm not violating the health code, and that's a compromise he was begrudgingly willing to make for me. I still hated needing to have the conversation at all. Needing to draw attention to myself, needing to be an exception to the rules that all my coworkers will at some point ask about or find out about. And the worst part is that it's all unnecessary, it's all performative. My gloves will never be dirty again, not unless I choose to let them be.

Though that thought is a bit annoying, it makes me smile a little, too. I love my cleaning spell. I could start using it right now and make this restaurant cleaner than the day it opened. I won't, but I could, and something about that makes me very happy. I sweep efficiently away at the floor, tidying up the dining room just in time for another customer to come in and return my focus to the register. I may not have been thinking about very pleasant things today, but I'm glad I've been thinking about them. The customer is a regular, an annoying and belligerent one, but I patiently help them anyway, recording their ridiculous order and all the off-menu peculiarities that we never complain about to their face. We have a lot of strange regulars that order difficult-to-make things, but no one ever grumbles about the ones that are actually nice to us. Funny how that works.

I wish that people would accept the weird parts about me as long as I'm nice enough. Maybe I could find some pride for who I am, if that were true.

A lump starts to form in my throat and I swallow it down, trying to will away the uncontrolled burst of depression I feel coming. As usual, my emotions brazenly defy me. No, no, no! Don't start crying now! I'm busy, I'm working, I'm in a professional environment! My shift just started, we're not even at the dinner rush yet, I can't fall apart already!

The tears start to drop. Silently, without looking at any of my co-workers, I quickly turn a hundred and eighty degrees and walk into the back room, where my manager is sitting at the store's computer and looking at his phone.

"Hannah?" he asks, looking up and noticing my tears the moment my name leaves his lips. His eyes go wide. I pretend not to see his facial expression.

"Could you man the front for a little bit?" I ask quietly, forcing my voice not to waver.

"Yeah," he says, nodding once and getting up to do just that. I collapse into the chair and start to sob. My coworkers will probably all think I was driven to tears by that jerk of a customer, even though I've dealt with him a hundred times and I deal with him well. They're going to think I'm emotional and weak. They're going to be right, even if for the wrong reasons.

I banish those thoughts from my mind. I barely know them and shouldn't care what they think. I care anyway, but I shouldn't. My focus right now needs to be pulling myself together. I take deep, slow breaths, each of them shaky and accompanied by the wetness of my cheeks. I try not to think about how my life is going to fall apart, how I'll have to live as a sideshow freak if I even get to keep living at all, and focus on those breaths. Keep them even. Calm myself down. Through sheer force of will, I start getting the tears to halt. I brought my backpack to work today, and I'll keep bringing my backpack to work in case I need any of the supplies I've been stuffing it with. I pull out a small hand mirror once I have a bit more control of myself, and to my dismay I find my makeup smeared and messy. It's not too bad, not enough for most people to notice, but any other women that get a good look at my face will be able to tell I've been crying. I don't have a makeup kit in my backpack, though. I'll need to buy a portable one for when I inevitably need it to cover up my skin falling off, but I guess for now I'll have to head to the bathroom and wash it all off. Better no makeup than smeared makeup, no matter how light it happens to be. It annoys me. The placement of makeup is important, that's a big part of why it works. It's subtle, that's the point. Even people who can't tell why it's wrong will get the feeling that something is wrong. It can't function if it's… disorderly.

Huh. I wonder if…

A twist of will and a pleasant thrum of power later, I watch the smeared cosmetics return themselves to how they were before, the extra salt and water from my tears separating from the compounds and evaporating back into the air. The makeup looks better than when I put it on this morning. I smile.

I seriously have the best spell ever.

I take in a deep breath and let it out in a refreshing huff, putting my hand mirror away and returning to the front to get back to work. I assure my boss I'm okay when he asks, and the rest of my shift proceeds fairly normally. No more outbursts, no more tears. I only fantasize about killing three different customers, but that probably isn't even the monster thing. I asked the girl running the other register and she admitted to wanting to strangle five.

Fantasizing about eating them though, that's probably the monster thing. I get over the urge by stealing some raw chicken from the walk-in fridge and slurping it down. It's all slimy from the marinade but I pretend it's blood and that makes things more fun. I don't even have to worry about getting messy anymore! It's kind of weird how standing in the fridge doesn't really feel cold anymore, though.

…I really, really hope my immune system is up for dealing with raw foods, because I've had weird teeth for like, a few days, and I'm already addicted to ripping apart uncooked meat with them. It's just not the same when the meat is cooked, there's no… pop, if that makes sense. There's no moment between not enough pressure to penetrate and then enough, where you suddenly break through all at once, like biting into an apple but more… soft? Even? It doesn't resist being pierced because of skin, but because it's bending to absorb the force, I guess. It's hard to describe, but there's nothing else quite like it. The feeling of cutting it apart, of letting my teeth slide through the flesh, is completely different when the food is cooked. Tender meat is easier to chew for pathetic omnivore teeth, but I like mine tough and dripping. It's satisfying on a much more primal level than simple flavor.

Also nice is that it means I can eat the restaurant's chicken without paying for it and without anyone suspecting that I'm the reason for the shortage, since no one will ever see me cook the stuff. Woo for stealing from soulless corporations! …Exclusively in ways that can't be traced back to me, of course. I'm a hungry, hungry lesbian, not a revolutionary.

With that as the highlight of my night, I eventually drive myself home and scoot into bed. I'm still not feeling great, all things considered, and while I'd normally be happy to get to sleep for that reason—one of the absolute best cures for bad days is a good night's sleep, after all—I don't get that sort of luxury anymore. My bad night will carry over as a bad morning in the other world, because my day never really ends anymore. Still, though, a change of scenery might help, not to mention getting to wake up surrounded by friends.

Or more accurately, wake up with a friend surrounding me. When my eyes close on Earth, my eyes are already open on the Mother Tree thanks to my complete lack of eyelids. Of course, I still can't see anything, because I'm snuggled up deep inside Kagiso's bedroll, with three of her arms wrapped around me and hugging me tight against her chest. I adjust my legs slightly, all too aware of how the minute movements press up against her fuzzy boobs. Damn. I'm finally getting to touch another woman's breasts, and I don't even have the libido to appreciate it.

Thankfully, I can still appreciate every other part of this situation. The way the bedroll ecompasses me is delightful to my burrowing instincts, and the joy of cuddling a friend I care for and trust with my life is possibly all the more vibrant now that I'm not distracted with thoughts of sex. The warmth of Kagiso's fluffy arms around me is one of the most profoundly comfortable things I've had the pleasure of experiencing, so I'm more than content to just stay still and enjoy letting her sleep.

The sheer comfort of the moment makes me happy to not have hormones making things weird, but unfortunately the moment I have that thought I'm brought back to thinking about how I resent my sexuality. I've always struggled to make friends, but being attracted to or the object of unwanted attraction from any potential candidates made that struggle all the more difficult. It's a big part of what trained my brain to avoid physical contact with people: it makes me feel like a total creep. Just brushing shoulders with another girl would set my heart fluttering, and that always started up a chain of self-loathing which contributed to my distance from everyone else. It's certainly not all of it, I'm sure I'd still be an incorrigable introvert if I was straight or asexual or whatever, but it's still another thing to add to the pile. I hate how just having an upcoming maybe-date is forcing all these thoughts back into my head. I shouldn't have bothered with—urk!

I twitch with surprise as Kagiso suddenly gives me a firm squeeze, prompting me to phase a few legs into 4D space to avoid them getting crushed. She starts mumbling something in her sleep in a language I can't understand, and I stay still for a moment before hesitantly bringing my legs back to wrap them around her arms and torso. I squeeze her back, and she quiets down, returning to restful sleep.

A warm feeling bubbles through my body and, on a whim, I start stroking a claw through her hair. It's so weird how quickly I've warmed up to Kagiso, considering all my hangups. Sindri and Teboho, too, though neither of them are insisting on cuddling me to sleep so it's a much less extreme example. Maybe it's because they keep saving my life? As reasons to trust people go, that's a pretty damn good one. Whatever it is, though, I'm glad for it. I'm glad that my friend group has basically doubled thanks to this other world. I'm glad there are more people in my life that I can touch and talk to and joke with and enjoy being around. This world is crazy and terrifying, but I'm really starting to love it thanks to my friends. If only Brendan could be here. He'd love it, too.

…Gosh dang it, I'm introspective lately. I don't like it. Let's think about something else. Uhh… according to the one-half rule, the fact that dentron have four breasts means that their average litter size is two, but having up to four children at once wouldn't be uncommon. So it's pretty likely that Kagiso and Teboho are twins. It's also fairly likely they're triplets or quadruplets, and their other siblings are just dead. Oh geez. I… don't know if I should ask them about that. Probably not? Wait, was Kagiso having nightmares earlier? Is that why she keeps wanting to cuddle with me at night? Oh no poor baby.

I squeeze her a little tighter, eliciting a small, happy noise from the sleeping fuzzball. She gets to cuddle me as much as she needs to, ding dang it. In the meantime, I distract myself by keeping tabs on the camp with my spatial sense rather than trying to think about more things. Thinking has been somewhat of a loser's game today.

It's easy enough to find Teboho, snoring away in his bedroll as he is. At least he doesn't seem to be dreaming. Sindri, meanwhile, seems to be… talking to a bird? Hmm. That's probably a normal thing for a person to do if they're an animal tamer. The owl-like creature looks large enough to pick me up and fly away with me, though it's hard to be afraid of it with how happily it's gobbling down chunks of shredded starhydra meat pinched between Sindri's fingers. I wonder if this is one of the birds Sindri is using to track the chaos mage or if it's a… 'new hire,' so to speak. Hopefully it didn't have to get run down like I was, but Sindri mentioned that his power is intended for animals rather than people anyway, so it's probably a lot more effective on them. It's kind of strange that it worked on me at all, but I suppose I'm a bit… animalistic. It sucks that people keep assuming I'm not a person, but I guess I can't really blame them for that. I definitely have 'weird critter' vibes.

Since I'm awake anyway and Sindri seems a bit distracted, I turn my focus to keeping watch on the camp perimeter, settling into a familiar watch routine. I only realize it's morning when Sindri puts out the last embers of the campfire and heads into Teboho's tent to wake him up. The bird is long gone. I hope for a moment that he lets Kagiso rest, but unfortunately he's tapping on the outside of our tent flap right afterwards and Kagiso's long ears perk up instantly, rousing her from slumber. She pats my carapace good morning and extracts herself from the bedroll, leaving me to begrudgingly follow. I scuttle up her leg and onto her head as she exits the tent.

Teboho waves and says something that I can actually parse as 'good morning, you two!' thanks to all the lessons I've been getting on the dentron language. I wave a leg back at him and he grins, the four of us coming together so Sindri can cast the mental communication spell on us. It's a nice morning ritual, one that's particularly welcome in this crazy world where my normal routine means absolutely nothing. It's nice to start the day by joining hands with all of my trusted friends.

...And there we go, Sindri announces. Good morning, Hannah.

Warm hat, Kagiso agrees happily.

"Good morning, Hana!" Teboho says aloud. "You [gibberish] me, right?"

All but one word, I answer. I'm far from fluent, but I'm starting to pick things up.

"[Glibblegorble] fast!"

I do my best to commit the sounds I don't understand to memory so I can try to remember them from context before I answer.

Yeah, I didn't think I'd learn this quickly, I admit. Either my magic is helping me somehow, or more likely I think Sindri's magic is.

I couldn't say for sure, Sindri admits. It's definitely plausible, though. Sharing information between minds is well within the realm of Anima magic, and this communication spell is relatively new and unnamed. We tend to think our thoughts in our native languages, so whenever Kagiso and Teboho send you their thoughts you're getting that information along with the meaning of the words. I can see that being a very effective teaching aid, but considering that you're the first person who has attempted to learn a new language under the influence of this spell, I can't say for sure.

Yeah, we need more data points, I agree. It's pretty darn useful if it does help, though. Learning a new language in a week and change is crazy.

"You negative [glurpleburple] yet, Hana!" Teboho reminds me.

…But I haven't finished learning yet, yeah, I agree. I'll get it, though. I appreciate you all helping me out so much.

"Think small of it!" Teboho assures me with a laugh. "You are being very pleasurable!"

Um. Oh! He means I'm enjoyable to be around. Gah, I'll have to mentally translate things less literally, as well.

Well, we have a long day of walking ahead of us, Sindri reminds the team. So let's get camp packed up and get to moving.

We do—or rather everyone else does, since I continue to be pretty useless at basic object manipulation—and then we get walking. …Which I guess is also just something that everyone else does. I need to find more ways to help out. I kind of wonder why they put up with me, now that I think about it. Are they just going to leave me in the city when we finally make it there? …Well, I guess I'm not an entire human's worth of logistics either. I don't help very much, but I don't really make their journey that much harder either, barring that time we were almost murdered. Still, they're all going on a really dangerous journey. It's weird that I'm tagging along when I barely even know how to fight.

Oh. Wait. That's why Sindri wanted me to go hunting. He wants me to practice killing. He wants me to fight the chaos mage for him. He wants me to murder another person. Am… am I willing to do that? Even to the monster that slaughtered Kagiso and Teboho's village, I'm not sure I can.

I… I guess that's why I need practice? If I'm not going to bring anything but trouble to my friends, the least I can do is help them safely deal with a threat to their lives, not to mention countless other lives. I don't realize how hard I'm gripping Kagiso's head until she reaches up and scratches the base of one of my legs, letting out a quiet trill. I relax, resettling my weight. It's okay. I'll be okay. I'll figure something out.

Shortly into the walk we encounter a forest, and with Sindri having to trudge through the thick undergrowth on foot, I finally get a chance to walk under my own power rather than just ride. Kagiso, Teboho and I take to the trees while Sindri struggles below us, which gives me time to hunt. Kagiso purrs with approval as I successfully sneak up on and assassinate a fuzzy little friend noodle, gobbling it down and savoring the bloody meat. The furry snakes are surprisingly delicious! I expected all the hair to be a bit unappetizing, but nope, it's still yummy. I gleefully hunt two more and eat them before Sindri eventually gets fed up with his slow progress and mind controls what looks like a giant tardigrade-sloth combo to clear the way for him. It also looks tasty, but since it's currently an ally so I guess I shouldn't stab it through the skull and suck its brain out through the hole before tearing the rest of its flesh from its bones and oh my gosh I'm really hungry, why am I still this hungry after eating so many friend noodles? I've probably close to doubled my weight in food intake, not that I'm actually any heavier. …Hmm. I'm gonna go eat more cute fuzzy snakes.

Hours later, I decide to reinstate my usual position on Kagiso's head after being electrocuted, immolated, splashed with acid, driven into a mindless terror by a cute little noodle song, and utterly flummoxed by a little fuzzy worm that just grew wings and flew away when I got close. Only the latter two actually stopped me from eating them, since the lightning and fire didn't really hurt and the acid was easily cleaned off my body with my spell. Still, it served as an important reminder that potentially everything in this world is dangerous, no matter how cute or delicious.

Which is why I could really use that aura sight spell, I remind Sindri. You're not still mad at me for the blood in the waterskin, are you? I promise I'm really sorry.

It wasn't just blood in there, but alright, he acquiesces. I'll quit being a grump and teach you. To use aura sight, it's important that you first understand what aura is. Therein lies our first and largest obstacle: we don't know.

We don't know? I repeat dumbly.

Nope, Sindri confirms. We don't know what aura is, beyond the fact that it only appears on creatures with souls. And we don't have a great idea what souls are either, but they're a lot easier to interact with so we can start there.

Okay, I wanna stop you right there, I say. When you say the word 'soul,' that's being translated as a word in my language that has a lot of cultural baggage. Like, we're talking 'the part of you that goes to the afterlife and lives forever when your body dies' kind of cultural baggage. 'The part of you that is most truly and essentially you,' cultural baggage. 'The ephemeral essence of a person that separates thinking beings from mindless apes,' cultural baggage. Can I get some clarification here on how accurate that is?

Hmm. A good chunk of it is, Sindri confirms. Souls are hardly exclusive to people, though, nearly every living thing has a soul.

Souls are granted by the goddess the moment a living being takes their first breath, and they are returned to the goddess the moment a being takes their last, Teboho chimes in. That's not merely a poetic turn of phrase, either. The first breath of a child summons her as surely as a spoken spell, wherein she takes that breath and fashions a spirit from it. It is thus via the soul that we interact with the divine, as the soul is inherently divine in nature.

Uh, what about creatures that don't breathe? I ask. Y'know, since I'm currently one of them.

You still respirate, Sindri shrugs. The common wisdom for the trigger is an organism respirating under its own power rather than being supplied by its mother or an egg, though this is largely disproven by the existence of ensouled synthetic life forms.

Woah, woah, what!? I ask. You guys have robots?

Unfortunately, yes, Sindri grumbles. That's not important right now. What is important is that—divine or not—the force responsible for magic is responsible for souls, and souls are extremely influential. Anima mages can manipulate them to affect your personality, and Death mages can communicate with the recently deceased, so the idea that your soul contains your personality and continues to retain it after death is a fairly compelling one. Best we can tell, the aura is just… some sort of energy that a soul passively gives off. The stronger the mage, the larger their aura. The aura sight spell magically attunes your mind to detect the energy of whatever you're currently focusing on. Calling it 'sight,' however, is a bit of a misnomer. It's a unique sense that most people equate to sight, but it's… odd. Difficult to describe. Foreknowledge of the experience thankfully isn't required to learn the spell, but the odd sensory inputs do make things difficult to parse at first.

I'm getting used to having weird new forms of observing the world that don't seem to make any sense, I answer casually. I'm not too worried about it.

Hmm, yes, I suppose using sight as a comparison would be a somewhat different metaphor for you, Sindri agrees, giving me an odd look while I pretend that I definitely was referring to sight when I said that, yep.

…Though I guess being able to see in three hundred and sixty degrees is pretty darn weird. On one hand it kind of feels like I just have way more peripheral vision than normal, but that's not quite right. It's more like I know I can focus on additional directions at once, but I'm so used to only focusing on one that I never do that without putting in the effort to. The rest of the time it feels more like I just have one eye that can rotate in whatever direction I want and kind of detect movement in whatever direction it isn't looking. I guess my brain isn't powerful enough to unconsciously handle all the sensory input yet.

In any case, Sindri continues, Aura Sight is a powerful spell in its initial state. Because Aura reflects the soul, experienced and skilled users can discern a lot of information with this spell alone, watching fluctuations in the natural emissions of the soul to determine thoughts, moods, opinions, strengths, and weaknesses. You need to know this because it's important you understand the nature of the spell itself, even if you'll never be able to accomplish that sort of refined ability with it.

Wait, I won't? I ask. How come?

Because your learning is third-hand and you aren't even an Anima mage, Sindri answers. Spells are substantially weaker when taught rather than innate, and weaker still when taught by someone other than their originator, and the fact that you only have an adjacent affinity compounds both of those problems immensely. Your aura is so powerful you'll be able to push raw strength through those maluses, but you'll still only get the bare basics. My guess is you'll only be able to manage viewing a single person at a time, and you'll only get their affinities and maybe their relative strength.

Geez, I sigh. That's some stiff penalties. Learning a bunch of spells doesn't sound like a great strategy when you put it like that.

Mmm. It depends. Even a massively neutered version of Aura Sight grants you essential information: your target's affinities. Thus, as long as you can cast it at all, there's little reason not to find someone to teach it to you. A lot of spells are useful even without significant power behind them, so those are the ones that get passed around. Most people will charge exorbitant prices when teaching spells, of course. It's a valuable resource, and time-consuming for the student and the teacher if you don't want things to end in disaster.

Uh… disaster? I hedge.

I doubt that's a concern in this instance, Teboho protests.

Teboho, do you have any idea what an Anima miscast can do to a person? Sindri snaps.

Woah, woah, don't fight! I yelp. We'll do this the safe way, there's no reason not to do this the safe way.

Exactly, Sindri agrees. Thank you, Hannah.

So, uh, what does an Anima miscast do? I ask hesitantly.

I assure you that you don't want to know, Sindri answers firmly.

Yeah, okay, he's right, I don't want to know.

Anyway, Sindri continues, you know the basics now, so most of the rest is getting a feel for the spell in action.

Which means what? I ask.

Paying attention while I cast the spell, Sindri answers simply. Exposure to the spell being used is statistically proven to increase your chances of success. So if you'll come over here…

He holds out his arm and I hop on, scuttling up to his shoulder.

Just wait and get a feel for it, Sindri instructs. You won't see anything. The spell won't do anything to you. But the feeling of the invocation itself is something you should try to commit to memory. Cultivate an affinity for it over the course of a few weeks. Ready?

Yep, I confirm.

He takes a breath, and then the goddess takes it back, tasting the air from his lips with the same amusement as always. She acknowledges him for only a moment before switching to me, her attention stroking my carapace with equal parts affection and schadenfreude. She licks her nonexistent lips with a tongue of horrors and speaks the words Sindri meant to say.

"Aura Sight."

From my perspective, nothing else happens. Sindri presumably feels the effects of the spell. The goddess, however, does not leave. Her gaze remains on me, crushing me from without and within, playful and expecting. Inviting me. Daring me, almost. It's tacit permission, and while I'm curious why she's extending it I'm far more terrified of what might happen if I deny her.

I let the intent flood through me, and she rips the air from my body, laughing with delight. Knowing me a fool. She says the words anyway, because what would a goddess gain from a lie?

"Aura Sight."

And then she's gone, leaving only one last cackle that I'm not sure anyone else hears. Not that 'hear' is the right word to describe how one experiences the sounds she makes. I don't have much time to be horrified by the interaction, because Sindri grabs me and yanks me off his arm, throwing me away from the others as hard as he can. My heart nearly bursts with terror as I fly like a football, instinctively curling my legs up underneath me and holding myself in a tight ball. I hit the ground, bounce, and roll quite a good distance before I re-extend my legs and skid to a stop, my body shaking with adrenaline and sore with damage.

What the FUCK were you thinking!? Sindri roars furiously into my head, and Teboho starts to laugh. Sindri ignores him. I JUST told you that kind of shit is dangerous, Hannah! You could have killed yourself! Or WORSE!

I told you! Teboho laughs. The goddess favors her! It's obvious!

She might have become a mindless beast! Sindri snaps back. She might have gone insane! She could have turned into a completely different person! She could have done that to all of us!

But she did not! Teboho continues to chuckle as I get back to my feet and start to painfully limp back to the team.

Only because of dumb luck! Sindri counters. Dumb fucking luck!

I want to be angry, but I know that was stupid. Sindri only threw me because he was afraid that I was about to hurt everyone. It hurts, but it's my own dang fault.

It wasn't luck, Teboho insists. The Mother Tree speaks to you, doesn't she Hannah?

…I don't know if 'speak' is the right word, I answer noncommittally. But I do feel a sapient intent behind magic, yeah. I know it's not exactly scientific, but… I don't know. I was urged to try it. I was scared of not trying it. I'm sorry.

The apology comes out easily, years of experience guiding me to downplay what happened and immediately admit fault. I can tell in an instant from the look on Sindri's face that he's still angry, though. It takes all of my willpower to avoid hiding in another dimension.

That sort of recklessness isn't something you can just say sorry to, Sindri hisses. You will not be learning any more spells.

Any 'more' spells? I don't exactly see any… oh, wait. I tilt my gaze up and look at Sindri with my eyes rather than my spatial sense, and I focus. Sure enough, the magic I activated shows me… something. It's like a halo of light, but it glows Anima rather than white or green or blue. Its color is a meaning, not a sight. It makes my head hurt. I look at Kagiso next, who sure enough glows with Motion. My glance at Teboho has a bit of extra strangeness: he glows with Matter and Barrier, but the two are similar and blend together in odd ways. It's sort of hypnotic, like a lava lamp or something.

Kagiso runs up to meet me halfway, lifting me onto her head and giving Sindri an angry glower.

Only I throw Hannah, she growls at him.

Wait, what? I protest. How about nobody throw Hannah!

No. Only me!

Why is the person doing the throwing the thing you're worried about!?

Enough! Sindri shouts, saying the word out loud as well. This is not a joking matter! Hannah, you need to understand the severity of the risk you just took. Learning spells is not that easy. You had well over a ninety percent chance of ruining your life forever by speaking those words. Promise me you won't invoke a spell's name like that again without my approval.

I let my legs droop, hanging limp on Kagiso's scalp.

I promise, I tell him.

Good, Sindri says firmly. Good. Okay. Let's get moving again. Teboho, keep teaching her the local language.

Fine, fine, Teboho agrees. Though I do think you don't understand as well as you think you do, Sindri.

The feeling is mutual, Sindri grunts.

Some people are born with a deeper connection to the Mother Tree than others, Teboho insists. She has favored children, I think. I may not know as much about numbers as you do, but aren't outliers exempted from averages?

They start bickering a bit more about that, though I mostly tune them out, a lump of dread settling into my body. Teboho is right, isn't he? I'm pretty obviously different. Favored. My situation is exactly the kind of weird that evokes a chosen hero with a grand destiny. I've been living my life in this world day to day without thinking about why I'm here, about what could have caused my situation in the first place. I've read stories where people get reincarnated in another world to fight demon lords, corrupt kings, or… or apocalypses. Such as, perhaps, the one the crazy apocalypse cult that almost killed us might be worshiping. Oh, god. Is that why? What do they know about me? Am I going to have to keep fighting them? What are they trying to accomplish? What sort of horrible fate am I supposed to prevent? No, no no no. This is crazy, right? I'm not arrogant enough to think that this world revolves around me like that. I'm not a hero. I'm nothing like a hero.

I can't even get through a week without crying. How the heck am I supposed to save the world?