When I wake up, everything is different. The first things I notice are the strange colors floating in the air. I can't really see them, but I know they're there. They overlap with my sight, as I look up at the ceiling, but don't hinder my vision in any way. It's a bit strange, but I adjust to it after a few seconds.

The more I look at the colors around me, the more I seem to see. Some of the things I'm looking at don't even have a color, but I can still see them. I can sense them, and as I focus on one of the most noticeable ones, my mind is filled with many concepts and meanings.

I can't really understand any of the information I receive, except that the thing I'm focusing on is a very free, and flowing, existence. It fills every space that is not filled by something else, and can both kill, and sustain, life.

I realize that it is both air, and not air, as I look at it. The something that I'm sensing has some relation to air, but it is more intangible, not actually a physical thing. I think it's some form of energy, but that's all I can get from it.

This 'air energy' has no color, and I can see it all around me. I lay in there, staring at the ceiling, as I try to understand why I can see the air energy under my bed. It's the same for the other things floating around me, they all seem like an energy, but are connected to a physical thing.

The most noticeable ones are heat, air, earth, and darkness. I can sense the air filling the room, and the earth flowing behind the walls. The earth energy seems to be following a set pattern, and every part I look at is slightly different, but still holds a sense of earth to it.

I think the energy is flowing through the stone slabs, and pillars, which are holding up most of the weight of the manor, but I can't be sure without punching a hole in the wall. I'm not going to do that, as it would be inconvenient to explain, and I have no proper reason to.

The darkness energy seems to be everywhere where it is dark, including within solid objects. I'm a bit confused about how darkness can be an energy, but I have more important things to think about.

Along with the things which I think are all some form of energy, I can feel emotions that are not mine. Focusing on them, I find a strange connection. It doesn't have a form I can see, seeming to just be something in my mind, but focusing on it let's me sense a presence. I know exactly where this presence is, and I find that it is laying right beside me.

I sit up, looking down at Nalu, who is pressed against my legs. He looks up at me, tilting his head, as he lays there. I'm not sure why I can sense him, but I know that the emotions I'm feeling are his. He is very relaxed, and content, happy to be somewhere safe.

I look at him strangely for a moment, trying to comprehend the strange things I woke up to. The energies are still filling the room, overlapping with each other, and sometimes merging into a new form. I have something connecting my mind to the fox I found a few days ago, and I somehow can't seem to find this bad. Just slightly strange.

"What is wrong?" I hear a voice in my head, it seems curious and slightly worried. I can sense the same emotions coming from the fox, so I assume it's his voice, but I'm still shocked to hear it.

His voice is very pleasant to hear, being very smooth, and flowing. It's filled with warmth, and a hint of playfulness, while also being concerned, and caring. I feel like I've heard his voice before, but I know I haven't. This is not something I could ever have trouble remembering, it is too unique, too recognizable.

"You can talk?" Is the first thing that comes out of my mouth. I'm not sure why, but it's the only question I can actually form into words at the moment. My thoughts are still jumbled, and I'm extremely confused.

"I can't form words with my mouth, but I can still think them. I'm not sure why I'm able to send you those thoughts though." he says, just as confused as I am. I assume he didn't expect me to wake up like this either.

"Can you see the floating colors too?" I look away from him as I ask this, staring at the shifting energies. They seem so physical, as if I could reach out and touch them, but at the same time, they are invisible, and all I see is the room around me.

"I have always been able to see them, and I thought you could too. I realized you couldn't in our time together, so I made it so you can." He explains calmly, with a sense of questioning in his words. I feel that he is asking if it was wrong to do that, but doesn't expect it to be.

"Oh... what about this link between our minds? Has it always been there?" I look back to him, just now noticing that his body is also filled with energy. This energy seems unique to him, and looking at it reminds me of him. I would probably be able to tell that it's his, even if he wasn't here when I first saw it. The energy itself is a pleasant milky white, seeming very airy, but also firm, and flowing.

"No, I did not know of its existence until I awakened your mind." He says, not really caring about that fact. I frown slightly as he says this, then shrug, ignoring it for now. I have no way to explain anything that's happening at the moment, so I'll just go with it.

"Oh! Now that you can actually tell me, what is your name?" I just remembered that I gave him one, and even if I'm positive it was already his name, I have to make sure. As I look at him, I notice that his energy extends out of his body, floating a few inches past his fur. It is much less dense than it is within his body, forming a sort of aura around him. The aura seems to both shield, and hide, the energy in his body, but I have no problem seeing through it.

"My name is Nalu. I'm not sure how you new that, but it was the same for me. I knew your name was Zuren before I heard it spoken." He says casually, not caring about any of this. I don't really care why it happened either, but I'm still confused that it did. I sigh, giving up on getting answers from him. It seems he doesn't know more about our strange connection than I do, and we were probably both living normal lives up until he got shot, and I found him lying in the woods.

I look down at my hands, then realize that my body is also filled with energy. It is nearly identical to Nalu's, just mine, and most people probably wouldn't be able to tell the difference. That's if they can even see it anyway, no one I know has ever shown any indication of having knowledge about the energies.

I crawl to the foot of my bed, then slide my feet onto the floor. Nalu drops to the floor beside me, and we slowly walk towards the door. It is only when we are nearing the door, that I realize that I can see perfectly in the darkness. I'm so used to being blind while I'm in my room, that I haven't even been paying attention to my sight, being completely lost in thought, thinking about my recent experiences.

Now focusing on my vision, I realize that I can see perfectly. I'm not hindered in any way, by the darkness filling the room. It still looks dark though, I'm just able to see through it. I thought that night vision would make the surroundings look brighter, but that doesn't seem to be the case. I guess it makes sense, as the amount of light is still the same, but I remember seeing images taken with night vision cameras before, and this looks nothing like that.

I wonder if it's the same for heat vision, and things like echolocation. I guess it looks different for people who can actually use those senses, and it needs to be changed into something comprehensible for people who can't.

Everything around me does look a bit darker, more grayed out, but I can still see colors fine. I guess it would be hard to differentiate between similar shades of most colors, but other than that my vision really is perfect. This is in complete darkness too, with no moonlight coming through a window, and no candles lit beyond the door.

I think about these things as I reach the door, then open it. The hallway beyond is similarly dark, but also similarly easy to see in, and I can sense new energies around me. My ability to sense energy seems really undeveloped compared to my other senses, but it also seems much more complicated. If I focus in a certain direction, I can extend my senses that way, but it restricts my senses in all the other directions. I seem to only have a certain total area I can cover with this new sense, and I'll have to see if I can increase that limit as soon as possible.

I turn to the right, then start walking down the hallway, as I mess with my new ability. As I extend my senses in different directions, I find that I can only sense up to twenty meters in a single direction. When I'm not actively changing it, I sense everything around me in a sphere, extending three meters in every direction.

I find many new energies as I go, each being unique, but also extremely similar to every other energy I sense. All of the energies hold information, meanings, and concepts, much more than I can hope to remember, let alone comprehend. Much of it is simple, like how fire consumes other things, and how fire energy always brings heat energy with it.

Water flows, and changes form when combined with a certain amount of heat energy. I also learn that cold is an energy, not a lack of it. Cold and heat energy seem to be both the same thing, and complete opposites. The more hot something is, the less cold it is, and I think it's more like a percentage. Something that is fifty percent cold, is also fifty percent hot, meaning it's warm. I'm pretty sure it's much more complicated than that, but that's as much as I can understand in the time I've spent observing the energies.

I stop at the second door to the right of my room, then open it. I find a simple staircase, leading down to the second floor of the western hallway, and walk forwards. I think the energies I sense have something to do with magic, so I'm heading to the library in search of magic books.

Nalu follows me down the stairs, not saying anything, but I sense that he is curious about our destination. I remain silent, as we step into the western hallway, then turn to the left. There are actually windows in this hall, and the moonlight coming through them seems to make the surroundings much brighter, but also not bright at all.

A normal person probably wouldn't be able to see anything with how little light there is, but I can somehow see even better now. This really is a strange thing, but it's definitely not stranger than waking up with a completely new sense. I'm still confused about that, but I can't find any answers just thinking about it. That's why I'm going to the library.

My plans are interrupted when I see my reflection in a window out of the corner of my eye, and I freeze, then turn to look at it. The face looking back at me is definitely mine, but my hair is now completely white, the same shade as Nalu's fur. The only difference is that my hair is hair, and Nalu's fur is much thicker, more furry. My eyes have also changed, becoming identical to Nalu's. They're the same bright, vivid gold, and my pupils are slightly larger. It's not really noticeable that my pupils are larger than a normal human's should be, but there is definitely a difference.

My hair now hangs down my back, stopping at the base of my spine, and is perfectly straight. I can tell that it is just as soft as Nalu's fur, but not nearly as fluffy, without  having to touch it, and I notice that my face isn't covered in the dirt it was when I fell asleep.

I stare in shock at my reflection for a moment, then blink, and continue walking. It's probably the least strange thing to happen to me today, and it actually explains why my night vision is so much better now. I feel slightly detached from this experience, but that's probably just the shock.

I walk until the end of the western hallway, then turn into the northern one. The windows to my right show me the inner courtyard, with the roof above the rooms to the right of the lower hallway just below them. All four of the hallways are built like this, with the second floor having windows facing the courtyard set directly into the right wall, left if you're walking counterclockwise. The first floors have rooms to the right, along with a few entrances to the courtyard. To the left of both levels are more rooms, and the third floor is cut off by a slanted roof, turning most of the space directly above the cardinal hallways into small storage areas, or hallways like the one outside my room.

It's a really interesting design, and I don't remember seeing anything like it back on Earth. I didn't spend my time looking at different types of manors though, so I can't really say anything.

We slowly walk through the manor, as I keep observing the energies around me. I find light and darkness to be similar to heat and cold. They are basically the same thing, just different sides of a scale, and the different areas I sense have different percentages of the two. I also never see somewhere where one of the two sides is missing. Even inside of solid objects, it is never one hundred percent darkness, there is always light, however small the percentage might be.

I also notice that there are different types of light energy. Moonlight is much different from candlelight, but they are still the same. The more I look into the connections between the different energies, the more connections I find. I could probably spend years doing this, and never fully understand even one of them.

I keep inspecting the different light energies, as I walk into the second floor of the library. The doors to the second floor are the same as the ones on the first, but the doors on the third floor are quite a bit more hidden. I immediately move to the closest bookshelf, and start looking at the different titles, after I close the doors behind us.

"What are you doing?" I can feel Nalu's confusion, as he stands behind me. He's staring at the books as I run my hand over them, mumbling the titles under my breath. The library is about as dark as the halls were, but the lighting is a bit different, more uneven, as the windows are bigger, but the bookshelves block the moonlight from reaching certain areas.

"I'm looking for books on magic." I respond, not looking back as I continue scanning the shelves. This area seems to be about agriculture, so I start walking down the row I'm standing in, looking for some indication of where the magic books might be located.

"books?" Nalu asks, and I realize he has no idea what a book is, as I sense his confusion. I somehow managed to forget that he's not a human, in the time that I've known him. I guess he's too intelligent to think of as a normal animal, but that doesn't mean he knows about human culture. It makes me wonder why he's different, and why I found him injured in a forest.

"Books hold information. Someone learns something, then they put it in a book, and other people can learn the same thing they did, when they read the book." I explain, moving past a section about horse riding, and finding a new one about sword styles. I might come back here in the future, actually knowing how to use a sword sounds like it might be useful.

"how do you put knowledge in a book?" Nalu asks curiously, walking behind me. He seems interested in the books, and I get a strong sense of curiosity from him, as he looks at the different titles sitting on the shelves. I hope the magic books aren't near the ceiling, it'll take me days to find them like that.

"With words. The same way you can tell someone about something that happened, you can write it in a book. You can't hear the words in a book, but you can see them. It's just another form of communication, the same way you can't read the words someone speaks." I elaborate, skipping past some books about the types of plants found around the world. I'm not even sure if the library has books about magic, but I still have to look. I wish I knew how the books are ordered, or at least for there to be a front desk to go to.

"Oh. What kind of information can you find in a book?" He asks, as we keep walking, moving onto a new row of shelves. I have a strange urge to move up to the third floor, as I keep searching, so I just shrug, and start walking towards the back of the library. It's not like I have any better chances on the second floor anyway.

"All kinds of information. Anything I can tell you, I can put in a book. From the types of trees in a forest, to the number of people living on a continent." I say as I start walking, scanning the shelves as I go. Nalu follows me towards the back corner of the library, seeming to be out of questions.

We walk up the stairs to the next floor, then wander through the bookshelves until we reach the center balcony. I stop for a moment, as I notice that the strange symbols carved into the wood are filled with a new energy. After looking at it for a while, I realize that it belongs to a person, or more accurately, has someone's imprint on it. The energy seems to be normal air energy, but it has a presence in it, probably remaining from when these symbols were carved.

That means someone moved this air energy, and made it stay in these symbols, which probably means that I was right about the energies being related to magic. I'm going to assume these symbols mean, or do, something, probably letting whoever put them here do magic without having to actually be here when it happens.

This just makes me want to find the magic books more, so I go back to looking. I walk away from the balcony, heading towards the northeastern corner, as I keep scanning the shelves. I pass books about explosives, and metalworking, then types of mountain terrain, and cave systems. I can never get over how many books there are in here, and I'm still shocked every time I browse through them.

I eventually find what I'm looking for on a shelf against the eastern wall, and I stand there, indecisive, as I look at the hundreds of different magic related titles before me. I see anything from 'Magic Awakening' to 'The reasons why Necromancy is considered a Dark Art', and I have no idea where to start.

After a few minutes of looking, I find several books that I think will be helpful. Among them are 'The Origins of Magic' and 'Spell Craft, a peek into Magic Theory', along with an untitled book with a symbol similar to the ones on the balcony as the only thing on the front cover.

I turn around, and head back towards the stairs, moving up to the fourth floor. Each of the four towers has four floors, one more than the main building, and two more than the entrance wing. I think the design is pleasant to look at from outside the manor, but maybe I'm just weird.

I walk through the bookshelves, heading to my usual spot by the northeastern corner. Nalu follows behind me, still curiously staring at the surrounding books, and soon we walk into a slightly more open area. The northern wall is on my left, and a small table with six chairs is directly in front of me. To my right are two larger tables, with twenty chairs each, and I can see the balcony beyond them.

The three tables are rectangular, and the two longer ones are running north to south, with a large space in between them. They stay about five feet from the bookshelves beside them, and have twenty foot of space between them. The table in front of me has a chair on each end, and two on each side. It is sitting directly in front of a window, with the backs of two chairs facing said window.

The tables are made of simple wood, and the chairs are the same, with flat, but firm, cushions built into their seats. The chairs and tables have a very elegant, but not extravagant, design to them, and seem to fit perfectly with the surrounding books. The entire library is overall cozy, even in the middle of the night, and my new senses don't seem to have changed my image of this place, something I'm glad for.

I walk over to the window behind the table, then set all but one of my books behind me, and climb onto the windowsill. The sill is large, with about two foot of space before the actual windowpane, and four foot long from end to end.

I lean my back against the wall to the right of the window, and leave my feet pointing towards the opposite end. I used to sit here and read in the moonlight, but that's not really necessary now. It's still a good spot to read though, so I have no reason to stop using it.

Nalu jumps up onto the windowsill after me, then lays across my legs. There's just enough room for him to lay his head in my lap, without pressing his tail too much into the wall behind him, and he seems content like that. I move one of my hands to his head, gently stroking his fur, as I look at the book I'm still holding.

'The Origins of Magic' seems like the best place to start, so this is the one I kept when I climbed into the window. I'm excited to start learning about magic, and I hope to be able to use it soon, but I doubt I'm going to have a proper teacher any time in the near future. I look back down at Nalu, actually able to feel his enjoyment at my petting now, then return my gaze to the book. I turn the cover, and start reading.