Stay
For the first day, you stay at the temple. You try to learn what you can about this world from books, thankfully in a language you can read unlike the symbols upon the walls of the room in which you awoke. You try to learn about yourself, too. About Serrin, the snow leopard whom now for all purposes is you.
He was a good man. Of that, you're glad. He was a practised magic user. Of that, you're a little scared at first. But, after a little time spent with Lira, you realise that using magic is just like using your hands to juggle, or your feet to kick a ball into a goal. It's all just muscle memory. Practice. Magic or not, it's something which is inside your body every moment of the day, and thus it's not long before you begin to grasp how to make it manifest.
And for a moment or two, as you watch a small flower sprout from between two paving stones upon which your eyes are currently focused, you stop thinking about the world from which you'd come. You stop thinking about being a stranger here. You watch a small violet flower rise from between the stones, sprouting leaves before gorgeous curved petals burst outward, and you feel like maybe you could actually belong here.
You eat with Lira that evening. A meal of sushi, fresher, tastier than anything you'd ever known before. Whether you liked sushi or not as a human, you love it now. Lira giggles. Serrin loved sushi,but to see him... to see you shocked by how tasty it is, as though eating it for the first time? It makes her happy.
For several hours after you eat, you sit and read and practice your magic. You can still only manifest some small conjurations, suggest reality to bend in slight and subtle ways like the growth of a flower or the appearance of an apple within your hand. You know that with practice though, more will be possible. Much more.
You sleep in a chamber made for guests visiting the temple. Only as you lie in bed do you wonder where Serrin normally lives, and why you aren't offered his room. But, perhaps that's expecting too much. You're still growing used to the fact that this isn't all some dream. That any of this could be real and happening to you. Why should you expect the people of this world, Lira in particular, to be any more open in return?
Written by Jeeves on 17 September 2017
