"So there"s no confusion if events turn out to be slightly false, it"s my cousin"s fault... She claims that you pushed the woman out of the way because she was raining insults down on him. My cousin thinks Ivan"s intended, who admittedly does have a mean streak, felt slighted for me being chosen by you instead of her and decided to take it out on my brother.

"This next part is where I don"t know how much of my cousin"s story I believe. She said that after you stood before him, you knelt down and lifted his head because he was so shamed by you in challenge that he couldn"t meet your eyes. She claims you cleaned him with magic before anointing him with blood from a narrow bottomed urn that seemed to immediately fill him with health and vigor.

"She went on to say that you combed his hair with your fingers and kissed his cheek before you shoved the other antler into his chest. Another family member who was closer and on the other side of the cavern said that it looked more like you grabbed his hair to keep him from flinching away as you whispered something before cruelly stabbing him with it. What everyone can agree on was that once you finished gifting the antler to my brother, you fainted and he carried you away.

"No one except my brother knows where you were or what state you were in for the next couple of days and the only thing he"ll tell anyone was that for all that he owed you, he would honor his word and your small request if it cost him his life to do so. Even grandmother was turned away when she asked after you. She was tempted to force answers out of him but she admitted to being unnerved by Ivan"s grim refusal. Two days later, he brought you out and dropped you off with your friends after apologizing over the delay."

Orison was a little sh.e.l.l shocked and felt a faint nostalgia for Droya"s oversharing speeches.

A little unsure of what to say to all of that, he asked, "Is there any other business that brings you here? I"ve lost a lot of time and should probably try to catch up with my companions or they"ll leave me behind."

Vivian stammered a bit while blushing and said, "I thought that maybe, you know...but I guess that it was all smoke and confusion for you, huh? No huge surprise. I just..."

The young woman started crying and it took some coaxing to calm her down. All the while she had been getting closer and curling into him provocatively. She didn"t love him. She might not even like him that much but whatever had happened that he couldn"t remember had made her feel she was more than she thought herself to be. After all the glamour and hormones had worn off, Orison thought that maybe she wanted some confirmation.

Maybe it was because he was still a little unstable. Maybe giving her what she wanted was easier than facing her hurt face if he rejected her. In a moment of more painful honesty, perhaps he simply wanted her and didn"t want to give logic and reality enough time to provide him with a reason to say no that he couldn"t refuse. Fishing out the small handful of familiar ring shaped packages from the a.s.sa.s.sin"s loot, Orison bent himself to the sweetest labor nature demanded from the creatures upon it while denying nature its due.

Sometime later, amid fading bliss and cooling sweat, Orison struggled to put words to his tangled feelings into the slowly growing s.p.a.ce between their tangled limbs. "Hi."

With a small, confused smile, Vivian replied, "Welcome back?"

Drawing her back in close, the young mage said, "What I mean is, I"m not ready to let go yet."

Orison"s body rebelled with a loud growl issuing from his empty stomach.

Vivian lifted her head and nipped at his neck. "Then let"s order in and make a day of it. I like your hungry look but hearing it too isn"t as... endearing. Besides, I"m feeling a little peckish myself."

With a mental apology to Gan for standing him up, the young mage gave in to her wishes. If some food and a little more time for affection was all she wanted, then that"s all he"d give her. Over the course of an afternoon, Orison indulged in physical needs and wants while slowly killing the small ember of possibility that had sprung up in his heart. When Vivian had reached the limit of what she could endure and Orison had reached a tipping scale where ache was overcoming enjoyment, he finally let her go.

As she dressed silently, they met eyes one last time. Mirrors of each other, there was satisfaction, accomplishment and a touch of emptiness. As insightful as he thought himself to be, he had only been half right. She may have came for validation but she had stayed for closure. Once the door closed behind her, Orison hit himself and the sheets with cleaning but couldn"t quite get up the energy or desire to do more than just lay in the bed and stare at the ceiling.

A few minutes later, there was a Gan patterned knock at the door. Not hearing Orison shouting otherwise, the scout let himself in. Taking one look at the young mage, the grouchy scowl on his face turned into slightly concerned amus.e.m.e.nt.

Setting the paper bag in his hands on the dresser, Gan pulled out a couple of green bottles with reusable caps on them. "Did the la.s.s break you, Little Boss?"

Accepting the offered bottle, Orison sat up and popped it open, "Maybe a little. Nothing to worry about. An evening of wallowing in self pity ought to cover it... Good G.o.d, Gan. If this beer was any greener it would give a leprechaun the sh*ts!"

Gan chuckled as he flopped into one of two chairs near the window table. "A Northlander will fight you over those words." He took a big swig from his own and let out a belch, "Kiss of the hops."

Orison rolled out of bed and threw some shorts on before flopping into the other chair.

The scout snorted. "Still burns me up."

With grim determination, Orison swallowed a few more drinks of the offensive beer. "What does?"

"I spent this whole week busting my a** hunting and getting certified as a tanner while you just slept and still roll out looking like you put in more effort. Do you sleepwalk Morrel"s training routine or something?" Gan complained.

Whether from bitter beer or memories, Orison had a sour look on his face as he said, "You joke but I actually woke up stretching once. In fairness, I had forgotten to take off those enchanted boots but still."

Curious, Orison stood up and walked to the mirror in the bathroom. The last bit of odd block shape that had stubbornly persisted in his muscles had smoothed to an appreciable silk over steel cable. As much as he wanted to lose himself in narcissistic admiration, other features caught his eye that had him a little dumbfounded. Inhumanly bright eyes colored like still frames of the Caribbean Ocean stared back at him.

Beyond, in the reflection, a set of perfectly symmetrical and very much human ears helped hold nearly translucent hair back. Orison swore he"d never cut his hair too short to lay. Unnaturally numerous strands of silk fine hair with an indigo shine, they would surely feel like chinchilla fur and probably be just as puffy.

Every aspect of himself was unblemished, symmetrical perfection. The more he looked, the more unnatural he felt. Switching to spirit sight, Orison scanned over himself to realize that the free flowing blue motes of "spiritual blood" had thickly condensed into his marrow, filtering in and out of his body through just as inhumanly symmetrical veins. The icing on top of the creepy cake was the discovery of two completely in sync hearts and two smaller but highly efficient livers.

A part of himself that hadn"t batted an eye at having pointy ears balked hard at the new changes. Intuitively, he understood that whatever was happening could only be counted as an infant, a pupal stage. Knowing without really understanding how, Orison realized that after he"d changed a bit more, all the physical parts would eventually be natural looking again. It would only be just a facade, however, a mimicry to hide him from predators or maybe prey.

Orison came charging out of the bathroom and stood in front of Gan, arms out wide and said somewhat manically, "Do you see it?"

With oddly guarded eyes, Gan said, "See what?"

"Perfect symmetry. Everything"s exactly the same on both sides," Orison said.

Not knowing exactly what to say to that, Gan lamely replied, "Congratulations?"

Frustrated, the young mage lowered his arms and walked closer, locking eyes with the scout, "I have TWO hearts, Gan!"

Gan chuckled a little nervously and said, "Well, that"s something."

Seeing that all he was managing to do was make his friend uncomfortable, Orison put all his gear on and said, "I"ve got two livers too. I feel like trashing them with cheap booze. You game to join?"

The scout didn"t say anything. He just put his stuff into his inventory and headed for the door, looking back at Orison as if to say, "what"s the hold up?"

The young mage held the half used up purifying crystal in his hand. Beyond all expectations, it had cleared out the a.s.sa.s.sin"s and the one he"d snagged on his way into reality. Somewhere along the way, he"d lost the a.s.sa.s.sin one and he knew it likely had ended up in one of the antlers, maybe both. At the moment, he didn"t care about that. He just wanted the crystal to get to work clearing up Gan"s Osomo infection.

Orison"s little "look at me" episode must have spooked Gan more than the young mage thought it did because when Orison approached him with the crystal, the scout looked ready to bolt rather than let it touch him. Orison quickly explained where it came from and what it did. Banking on the long standing trust they"d built despite his jitters, Gan put the crystal up to his chest and pushed before lowering his shirt back down so he didn"t have to see it slowly sinking in.

They waited a few minutes, Gan pulling the half empty bottle of beer back out of his inventory and finishing it. With no discernible change, Orison contemplated just calling it a night and letting things take their course first but Gan wasn"t having it.

Gan grabbed his arm and headed out the door. "You"ve got extra organs and now I have rocks in me. You aren"t backing out."

"As soon as you feel something off, we come back. I don"t expect anything though. I"ve tested it twice. I"d try more out but I"m afraid it would run out of power." Orison said.

Gan stuck fingers in his ears. "We"re getting drunk. No serious talk allowed until after remembering it gets hard."

As Gan half dragged and then pushed, the young mage chuckled and said, "F*** it. I"d say YOLO but it"s obviously a lie. At least I"m pretty sure it is."

"What"s YOLO?" Gan asked.

Orison replied, "It means "you only live once" but I can say with some certainty that you can, in fact, live more than once."

Gan mulled over that until three shots of what Orison a.s.sumed was rum. "No, I think it"s right. The me from yesterday isn"t even the same as I am now. Sleep is like the end of a whole one day life or something. Even if we do come back, we aren"t the same person. The life you know now is the only time you"ll have it, you know. So YOLO isn"t wrong, at least not the spirit of it."

Nearly fifty gold worth of drinks and eats later, Orison blearily remembered that he wasn"t that wealthy anymore and for the first time since he left the lake house manor for Whiteriver, the young mage was almost broke. In this world, he wasn"t a young lord. He didn"t have stockpiles of resources or rich family. There was only one way for him to earn good money fast here and that was to kill. Grabbing one more bottle of "Cactus Blue", Orison convinced Gan to go back to the mage"s room.

Orison thought to himself, "My G.o.d, drinking with Gan in the tavern would cripple a well off person much less a broke one."

It was a little hard to get the conversation rolling but Orison got the scout to spill what was on the boards. Though it was barely coherent, the young mage got a good idea of where they"d be going for the next few days while Rithus and Duran finished up. Considering circ.u.mstances, it sounded like the best plan.

Due to Orison"s issues, Gan and Rithus both had decided to go the route Orison had and got their certs through the Children equivalent a.s.sociations in Auma.

When the tanner examiner realized that Gan could teach him a thing or two about leather work, the examiner pa.s.sed the scout earlier that day. Rithus hadn"t been so previously blessed with knowledge on tailoring. The wife of Duran"s guardian instructor just so happened to be a part of the weaver"s guild and for a small fee, Rithus did field training in the art while Duran and the boy"s instructor protected them.

With all the traveling, inn rooms and eschewing free crafting instructors for costly paths through the a.s.sociations, everyone"s funds were low. It tickled Orison a bit that the one with the most funds at the moment was probably Duran. In the long run it didn"t matter much, Orison needed something far more than money anyway and that was also something that murder hobo-ing for a few days would help with.

A dark part of him even hoped that some Sek idiot would follow them out to where they were going and really give them a pile of quick gains. Then it dawned on him that he wasn"t some big bad-a** here. Orison wouldn"t even rank in the middle and if he was caught out in the boonies with Gan and little else against someone like the a.s.sa.s.sin he"d managed to catch off guard, they could die all too easily. It was a humbling thing that despite all his quirks, nothing had overly changed much from when they"d first arrived here aside from some spiffy new spells or abilities.

As Orison laid in bed, not the least bit tired, he thought, "I may not have raw power but I do have a lot of tricks. Once I get the ball rolling, I should be able to close the gap to mid range pretty quick. It irks me that I can"t go hit up a trainer again. I"ve got the room in my noggin now but it"s probably just as well. Ninety percent of that sh*t"s either Osomo dependent or so lacking in practical theory behind how it works, it would probably just screw up what I can do or maybe even pollute my understandings which is worse than nothing."

After dragging an insensibly drunk Gan out of the chair and dumping the scout into bed, Orison spent the rest of the night studying his past and present summoning models trying to make sense of how it worked in Osomo.