“What are you waiting for?” Connor shouted when I hesitated for too long.

The door creaked faintly as I pushed it open, revealing the werewolf sitting on his bed. He covered himself with the bedsheets, leaving only his head visible. Both ears were down, just like a dog’s. It was my only indication of Connor’s mood. I couldn’t discern his facial expressions with clarity. Stepping inside, I closed the door and walked to the table. My eyes never left his. Finally reaching my destination, I pulled one chair out and turned it around, resting my arms on the backrest, as I was already used to doing. Silence prevailed even after I took a seat.

“I thought you wanted to talk,” Connor finally said.

I looked down, trying to come up with the right words as I fiddled with my fingers. Anything that wouldn’t be considered rude, condescending, or outright stupid. His silent stare just added more pressure. I didn’t actually expect him to let me in, so I hadn’t thought of anything to say.

Why did he do it, anyway?

Is it because of my appearance?

Was Lucy right?

That was the one thing I wanted to know. It wasn’t how I would’ve liked to start the conversation, but it was important to me.

“Why did you let me in?”

“Curiosity, mostly,” he replied, doing what seemed to be a frown. “Everyone is too scared of me. You aren’t.”

“I find that hard to believe,” I said, raising an eyebrow. “Maybe the nurses or some of the assistants, but not everyone.”

He shook his head. “I can smell it.”

“Huh?”

“Their fear.”

I frowned, not expecting him to say something so weird.

“Is it really that hard to believe?”

“I don’t doubt you’re able to, but how can you tell?”

“I just can!” He shouted. “And everyone reeks of it! They saw me as a monster from the moment I woke up. And who can blame them? I mean, just look at me!”

That was the reaction I wanted to avoid. I thought about what he said.

There’s no way he’s right.

He’s probably confused.

Or is he?

What if he can really tell the difference?

Perhaps it’s like my growling.

Something that comes on instinct.

“You had that scent earlier,” he continued. “Though it was gone by the time you stopped us. That’s when I realised your fear wasn’t aimed at me, but at something else… What was it that scared you?”

“Ah, right. I saw a very big spider in my room.”

“You screamed like that because of a spider?”

“Hey, it was huge!”

He snorted. “Sure, whatever you say.”

I simply rolled my eyes, not bothering to insist. He would most likely take anything I said as an exaggeration. It was easier to show it to him later on. Assuming they didn’t dispose of it after they were done with their experiments.

Would they even let him see it?

“The point is that your attitude towards me made me curious about you,” he continued. “Is it because of your own situation? Do they fear you too?”

So that was it. I guess it makes sense.

“I don’t think anyone here is scared of me.” I replied, shaking my head. “No, I simply realised that you were only there to help me, and I find it hard to be scared when I know you aren’t a bad person.”

“Well, I appreciate it.” He sighed. “I’m somewhat disappointed, though. I thought you would understand me.”

“I never said I didn’t know what being feared feels like. Nobody here is scared of me, but that’s because they got to know me before I looked like this. When it comes to new people, however, I know what you mean. Like you said, we can’t really blame them. It took me a while to get used to seeing my own reflection.”

“How can you stand it?” He asked. “How can you endure having a body that you know isn’t yours? All I can think of right now is ripping everything off. These fucking ears, the tail, the fur, the claws. None of those should be here. This is not me. I am human!”

I bit my lip in response. To me, the answer was already clear, and it pained me to see some of my previous self in his anxiety. I wanted to make it easier for him. To point out the good things that the transformation brought. Magic was never a bad thing in my book. In his case, strength and heightened senses were also there for sure.

Is it the right answer, though?

Am I the one who is wrong for accepting it so easily?

What about the others?

Is it normal for them because they didn’t change that much?

I shook my head out of that train of thought. It was not the time to think of the past, no matter how recent it was. In the end, I very much preferred to be someone who adapted freakishly fast to a radical change, rather than agonising about it like him. Because we were so different, I feared that my next words would cause the opposite effect on Connor, but it was him who asked the question. He wanted to know how I came to terms with my own situation, and there really was no other answer.

“I guess I just learned to accept it and see the good in it,” I replied. His ears perked up and focused on me. “I think it’s important to point out that my transformation went very differently to yours. And I don’t mean how we are a different race. No. To begin with, I was awake during most of the process.”

“Honestly, that sounds more terrifying.”

“Does it?” I asked, knitting my brow.

“To watch as your body slowly transforms while you can do nothing about it? I can’t believe you actually made me feel fortunate to just wake up like this.”

His statement caught me off guard, making me fake a cough to suppress the chuckle that almost came out. Laughing could’ve been dangerous, although I doubted that he would attack me because of it. I simply didn’t want to hurt his feelings. “I guess you’re right. I didn’t see it that way. To me, though, it made the changes easier to accept.”

“You’re weird.”

I smirked at him. “Maybe. To be honest, I was thinking something similar just now. I guess I had my mind mostly focused on the pros that the change brought. I can fly now. I can also see in the dark and use magic.” His expression didn’t change when I mentioned magic. That meant he was already aware. It probably wasn’t enough for him to accept the change. “Like those, there are many other things that, to me, make the good greater than the bad. There were a couple of situations that made me doubt myself, of course. How my family would receive me or the way society may treat me once they learn of my existence. Stuff like that. I’ve been proven right a couple of times, unfortunately.”

He nodded.

“But now I can only believe that’s just how people are. Some like us, and others don’t. And you know what? I’ve decided to stop caring so much about it. My body changed, and yes, the virus made it so I no longer feel strange in it, but I’m still the same person, and I like being myself. It’s all that matters to me, and I have my family and my friends there to support me.

“I know that our views and appearances are probably quite different from each other, Connor, but I think that you should at least give this transformation a chance. Who knows? Maybe it will eventually feel normal, like it did with me.”

“Do you really think it’s that easy?”

I shrugged. “That is my own experience. Honestly, I can’t promise you anything. You know yourself better than I do. The thing is… I don’t really think there’s much of a choice right now. They can’t seem to create a vaccine for this virus, so I doubt they’ll have better luck finding a way to reverse its effects. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe they’ll come up with a cure, but would you bet everything on that? What if they never do? Don’t you think it’s better to say that at least you tried?”

He was silent. Only the sound of his deep breathing was present. His eyes wandered to the floor and then to my face.

“I… I don’t know. I need some time to think about it. Alone, if possible.”

“I understand.” I nodded and stood up, fixing the chair’s position to face the table once more. “Thank you for letting me talk with you.”

“Yeah,” he replied with a weak wave. “Thanks to you.”

Walking towards the door, I noticed a shadow under it. “See you later, Connor,” I said loudly enough to let them know I was coming out. I didn’t want him to know they were eavesdropping, even though I doubted they heard much. Neither of us was loud enough. The last I saw before closing the door was him staring at the same hand he had lifted. I hoped everything went well for him.

“So?” Lucy whispered without delay. The assistants were no longer around, meaning they probably left once they knew he wasn’t going to hurt me.

“He needs some time alone. Was it necessary to stand right outside of his door?” I whispered back, glaring at her. We started walking to our rooms after that.

She sighed. “Sorry. I can’t help being worried.”

“Something tells me he will be fine. Like I said, he just needs some time to think about it.”

“I see...”

We kept walking, and she agreed that no one should bother him until he was ready. He still needed to eat, so she would suggest leaving a tray with food by his door. Then it was up to him to accept it or not.

Lucy also asked about me, or rather about that second voice in my head. I decided to keep it vague. I simply told her about it answering with short or incomplete sentences, and only doing so from time to time. It didn’t seem wise to tell her I knew what it was or why it came to me. To begin with, I wasn’t so sure myself. I also didn’t want her to think I was truly going mad. It was one thing to hear voices, and another to believe them when they claimed they were a spirit that descended from the heavens to grant me a cheat for my magic.

The description I gave seemed to confirm to her that it was a Tulpa. Apparently, it was common for them to not speak properly during their early stages. She asked me to keep her informed about it, and I agreed. It was the best option until I could confirm it really was what it said it was.

I also brought up my sudden behaviours, like me jumping out of the window after a big urge to fly or even that time when I used magic despite Anna’s warnings. She pondered on it for a bit, though she told me it simply sounded like normal behaviour. Sure, jumping out of the window was certainly not normal for a human child, but I was no human. She said we could talk more about it in our next session if it kept on bothering me, and then wished me a good night.

Unfortunately, the spirit didn’t speak to me this night, making me wait to confirm what Lucy told me. I was somewhat disappointed about it, although this probably meant it wasn’t by my side all the time. I certainly appreciated having some privacy, if that was the case.

---<>----------<>----------<>---

The next day arrived, and I woke up as late as always. I had gone to bed early, planning on going back to my usual schedule, but Alex’s words became true. It didn’t feel good. It was a similar sensation to having an entire day of rain. It affected my mood. Because of that, I ended up going back to bed after just an hour of waking up.

Lunch went by uneventfully. Anna and Dr. Blake were nowhere to be seen, and like them, most lab personnel were locked downstairs. That spider was definitely important for their investigation. Without anyone there to give us our daily news on the virus, the conversation was mostly casual. Allison and Rex were finally able to tap into their mana core, thanks to Viken’s guidance. Officially, though, they simply worked together to figure it out. Lily, on the other hand, was still busy with her school studies. Apparently, Dr. Blake was a very good teacher, and while she still didn’t like to spend so much of the day on those activities, she didn’t hate it because of his way of explaining things.

Sylvia’s morning sickness was tame enough to let her eat with us, and she spent most of the time chatting with Allison. I listened to their conversation from time to time. It was unavoidable, considering my hearing. Although, they didn’t say anything of interest to me.

Occasionally, some green uniformed strangers would walk into the building carrying a covered cage. Nobody paid much attention to them, so I assumed they were the rangers I’d heard so much about. The content of the cages made me curious, though. Given the timing, they were likely spiders.

Their presence of these people in the forest during my free flight training was a confirmation of my assumptions. I never got to see any other giant spiders. Not when walking through the woods, and even less when flying so high. Though, I did see another two of the rangers take cages back to the building. In total, I counted six spiders, and there were probably a few more I hadn’t seen.

Their origin was a mystery to me. I had visited these woods on a daily basis for weeks, and I never saw even the tiniest hint of the overgrown arachnids. Then, out of nowhere, a large number of them appeared. I wanted to think that they simply hid well enough. It explained why I hadn’t seen one in the wild yet. The rangers probably knew where to look for them, although that still didn’t explain why they hadn’t before I found the first. Either they blended well with their environment and were only visible once you were aware of them, or they grew really fast.

My guessing finally came to an end as I went back for my evening break. Anna had gone out to stretch her legs for a bit, and I took the chance to ask her directly.

“We confirmed the presence of the MAV in all of those spiders,” she commented. “Oddly enough, the virus is still active in their bodies, which makes their mutation similar to how yours went. The one strange thing about it, however, is that neither has changed at all since they were caught. It would make sense for the ones we found recently, but not for the first.”

“Do you have any hypothesis on that?”

“Well, we did. We thought this could be a new type of carrier. One that does transform with the virus. As you may have guessed already, it wasn’t. We did some experimenting with human blood samples, and none of them were infected. Now we don’t know what’s happening. All we can do is wait to see if they change after a while. We’ll keep them in a terrarium downstairs for observation.”

She went back to the laboratory shortly after that, although I managed to get permission from her to take things from the pantry at night, once the coast was clear.

I spent the rest of my break visiting Sylvia. She was in great condition, meaning I could convince Clarice to leave us alone for a couple of hours. She wasn’t allowed to accompany us to the forest yet, though. Because of that, I used that time to summarise how things had been lately with Belaury at her request.

When the time came, Alex and I left for the forest to meet with my teacher. She was there, waiting like usual, playing with a small red object in her hands. Getting closer, I noticed the object was a gem, probably a ruby or something like that.

“Hello, my apprentice.” She said once we were close enough, ignoring Alex as always. He simply chuckled and took a seat at the table.

“Are you going to keep this game forever?” I asked her, looking at him.

“Who knows,” she replied with a smirk, crossing her arms. “Maybe if he actually stays quiet and doesn’t interrupt at least once every single class.”

I rolled my eyes and shrugged at him. He simply returned the gesture. “What is that gem, anyway?” I said, pointing at her hand.

She smiled and lifted her hand in front of me, presenting the stone on her open palm. “This, Nora, is an enchanted gemstone. Do you remember what I said about them?”

I nodded, picking up the jewel to examine the symbol visible within its core. There were four lines arranged into a cross around a big dot. It was similar to a crosshair from Allen’s shooting games. Taking a close look at it, I noticed each line was an arrow pointing outwards. The arrowheads were small and with a slight curve. “You said that every enchanted gemstone has a rune. Something about it forming as a side effect?”

“Correct. Each rune is unique to the spell they represent. This is useful to identify the magic contained in an unknown gem. I happened to find this one hiding in a drawer of our storage room. It’s been centuries since I last needed it, so I had forgotten I had it.”

“What spell does it contain?”

“It’s a basic fire spell. Something one used to find with ease at any elven market. Its primary use is to light up things like a stove or a campfire, but it can also be used for self-defence. When I became an elementarist, this stone lost its purpose, but I always kept it in case Viken and I ever thought of having another child.” She looked up and blinked rapidly before continuing. “We eventually decided that it was too cruel to bring another elf into this world. In constant danger, with little to no chance to find love, and the possibility of them being left alone when we died. That’s what we often said to each other, but, to be honest, there’s also a part of me that never got over the loss of my daughter.”

She sniffed and put her hands around mine, closing them around the red gem. “But I think it’s time I finally let go of the past and look at the present. Because now, there’s someone else in my life. I know we haven’t known each other for too long, Nora, but you are my apprentice, and that makes you the closest thing I’ll ever get to a granddaughter. That’s why I would like you to have this.”

I looked up at her, mouth agape. My eyes stung a bit. “I don’t know what to say.”

Belaury patted my head, her smile still present. “You don’t need to say anything, my dear. To me, it’s more than enough that you continue learning and training. As your teacher, that is the best gift you can ever give me.”

“I will!” I said, holding the jewel against my chest. “Thank you very much!”

“Thanks to you,” She replied, surprising me with a brief hug before taking a step back to hand me a more familiar object. The small marble we had been using for my control training. “Now, let’s start today’s class.”