9 Years, Forest. Self-manipulation

There has been one thing I always was cautious with, and therefore never spend too much time with: The manipulation of my own body. Sure, I nearly incinerated my own skin, but at that time, it was needed to mitigate the cold. But not once did I manipulate my body's movement, did accelerate or decelerate it in any form. Today, I want to change that, as to finally gain new, practically usable techniques. For this matter, I chose to venture into the forest. The usual spot a few hundred meters away from the village entrance would too high of a risk to gather unwanted attention. Acceleration of stones and heat magic was fine, the chance of people discovering it is small. Also, back then I was not as cautious as I now am to keep my doings a secret.

It is early in the morning in autumn, I have plenty of time until I am going to meet Ione and Brian for the lessons. It has not been long since Ione learned to use her magic, but her advancements over the last weeks have been astonishing. Technique-wise, she only learned output regulation, but her usable coefficient rose at an alarming rate, to a point where she even surpasses me. To compare, we usually each start heating a cup of water at the same time, and hers is boiling more or less without delay. In addition, this is most likely not ever her limit. With further time, her magic prowess will be something to behold. Brian, invigorated by the success of his sister, is frenziedly trying to succeed as well, yet until now without visible progress.

I lay down on leaves covering the ground. Sharpening my senses, I prepare myself to commit my first test: Adding upwards acceleration to my own body.

Slowly, I begin to focus on my body. Not at a specific part, like my skin, but rather the body as a whole. It is harder than I thought, since I do not really know what is inside my body. I have rough estimations, all based on the autopsies I did on several animals. Those are only valid in the case that we are fundamentally built the same, of course. A weird feeling overcomes me. It has nothing to do with magic euphoria, which I sense exactly like every time before. It is a different feeling in nature, and feels like I was perpetually jumping upwards. It is extremely dissonant with the fact that I had not moved at all, and this dissonance is nauseating. Since I use only a fragment of my coefficient, it is bearable, but I lose concentration nonetheless. The feeling vanishes instantaneously.

All it leaves is a slight sensation of disrupt, making it hard to focus. For the next minutes, I am simply lying down, and try to recollect my thoughts. Finally, I feel prepared for another go. I focus, and very slowly increase the output. The feeling returns, but this time I steeled myself beforehand, and can keep my concentration. I am still lying down, and haltingly accommodating to the feeling. After not too long of a time, I can sort of ignore it. At this point, I further increase power, and with it the feeling returns. This time, it takes less time to grow accustomed to.

I repeat this cycle a lot of times for the next half hour. At the end, it takes me only a short amount of time to acclimatize to the change. At this point, I am using my full coefficient. It still feels different to how it feels without any influence, but the nauseating factor is gone. I stand up.

Or at least, I try to. I want to push myself up with my elbows, which works a bit too well. The bit of force I used was supposed to get me high enough so I can use my arms as struts to get up, but it almost sent me flying – I stumble around, and with great efforts manage to end up standing on my legs. Finally, I can put a finger on this strange feeling: It feels like my body is extremely light. I feel like a sudden gust could blow me over like a straw in the wind. Thinking about it, it does make sense: The innate downward acceleration is still too strong to let me levitate, but it got lessened to a high degree. Were my coefficient higher, it is very possible that I actually would have taken off had I further increased the power of my spell.

Carefully, I take a step. I used way more force than necessary for that, and again, I struggle to not go prone. To an outsider, it most likely looks like I am in a deep state of intoxication. Even more careful, I take another step. This time I did it right, and there was no immediate danger of kissing the floor. Again, I take my time to practice walking in this state. It is unfamiliar, but it feels great once I got a hang for it. Every step is effortless, and not tiring at all. Most likely, I could walk a whole day like this without tiring out. Every now and then, I pick up the pace. Finally, I feel safe enough to try something: Jumping.

At first, I do nothing but little hops. They bring me around three two four times higher than expected. Not only that, but I fall down slower as well. Every time I land, there is considerably less impact than one would normally expect. If I were to jump of a ledge, it would probably hurt a lot less than normal. I jump again, this time with more force. Unexpectedly, I find myself in over three meter height. A sudden panic befalls me, but it quickly dissipated since I am slowly gliding to the ground. This is actually quite entertaining.

After this, I get more confident, and decide to just move forward for a bit. I run through the forest, barely touching the ground; jumping over bushes, fallen trees and rocks alike. Cold wind is blasting into my face, not because the air is moving against me, but because I am moving against the air. A gigantic oak is towering in front of me, and in a spark of madness, I prepare to collide with it head-on, and cling to its bark.

Legs first, I sail into it, and manage to cushion my rush enough to not get hurt. I grab on to gnarly bark protrusions, and look down. I am roughly two meters above the ground, a previously unknown point of view. I enjoy this feeling of height for a bit, and let go of the tree afterwards. The sun is standing on its highest point now, from what I can tell through the sight-obscuring tree tops. It is time to head back, in order not to be late for the lesson with the siblings.

I look around, in order to determine which direction would be the best. After some thought, I settle for one, and start running. Even though I did nothing else then running for the past hours, I do not feel particularly exhausted, this lightness that envelopes my body does wonders in that regard. Running fast feels good, and mixed with the magic euphoria, I feel like I could keep doing it for the entire day without ever tiring. Sadly, I do not have that option. It would raise suspicion if I would run like this at a place where somebody could see me.

I am already almost at the forest borders, so I come to halt. I dismiss the spell I had active for all that time, a bit hesitant since it felt great.

My body feels heavy as if filled with lead. Additionally, the nauseating feeling is back, immensely stronger than ever before. As if thousand invisible hands were dragging me to the ground, I topple, and fall over backwards. A sharp pain shoots through my head as I hit the the ground without even being able to slow down the fall. I feel sick. I try to at least sit up, but my hands slip away and I fall down into the leaves again, face first this time. I try again, and barely make it, supporting myself with my arms. I vomit on the ground, my throat burns with gastric acid. A pulsing headache is wrecking the backside of my head, where I hit the ground first. I feel dizzy, unable to get a clear thought.

After around an hour of trying to cope with the pain, the nausea and everything else, I feel braced enough to stand up and continue walking. I clean my face of dirt as good as possible, and go. Slowly, leaning against any trees in reach, I stumble out of the forest. It took me way longer than wanted and anticipated. When I finally reach the training spot, Brian and Ione are already waiting for me. They approach me once they spot me.

“You took your time, didn't you?” Brian seems a bit impatient, and so does Ione, to a lesser extent. Their expressions immediately change once they got a better look on me. “Good god, Reiland. You look terrible!” Ione expresses concern, unneeded concern.

“It is alright. We can start the lesson now. I hit my head a bit on my way here, that is all.” I say it as I feel it. There is no reason to stop the lessons, just because I feel slightly dizzy.

“Reiland, you are clearly not. You are pale like ash! You tremble like it is winter! You reek of vomit.” Ione seems to view this a bit differently than I do. Am I really looking that bad?

I look down on myself. Indeed, my hands seem to tremble a bit, I did not notice. There are also specks of vomit on my robe. Weird, I thought I had put care to not stain my clothes... Apart from that, it is also covered in dirt, mud and leaves. “I may have a slight concussion on the back of my head, that is all.” I do not like that the siblings are that concerned for me.

“A slight concussion? What did you even do? Turn around, let me see it.”, Ione demands. Brian has a look on his face I can not categorize.

“I am fine, I am fine. I swear.” Still, I turn around, albeit begrudgingly. Are they that eager to skip this lesson? They could have told me. As I said, there is no need to say it the roundabout way.

“Rei, there is blood on your head.” Brian says with an unusually emotionless voice. I turn around. He is pale in the face now as well. I reach for the back of my head, where the pulsing headache formed. A sharp pain brings my hand to twitch back involuntarily. Indeed. My hand is coloured red now. Funny, is it not. The first time that my body is actually covered with my own blood. For such a ludicrous reason. “Heh.” I let out a slight laugh. “Heh.” This gradually turns into a continuous stream of chuckles and laughter. “Heh, heh. Heh. Haha. Hahahahahahahaha.... …... “ I suddenly feel very tired. “Fine, fine. You have reached your goal. You may skip the lesson today. However, do not think you can do the same thing tomorrow as well.” I start slowly walking into the direction of my family's shed.

“What are you even talking about, Reiland? Come back! We're taking you to the Doctor.” Ione shouts after me. Why can she not care for her own shit now? I choose to remain silent, and just keep walking.

Suddenly, I am grabbed from behind, my arms were forcefully slung around two necks, and kept there with iron grip. “You are coming with us, Rei. You need to see a doctor.”

“Leave me be.” I say with my coldest voice possible. My ability to bring forth cold voices is severely hampered by my roaring headache, so it came out more like a squeak. I try to resist, but am lacking the power to do so. In a desperate attempt to free myself, I try to make myself heavier with self-manipulation. It is very hard to concentrate while I am being dragged over the ground, and I only succeed when they already dragged me through the village entrance. Needless to say, I go in full power.

I hear a groan from both sides, and I get a bit closer to the ground. I would celebrate that, but the dissonant feeling makes me puke, and lose concentration. They have me in their tight grip again immediately. A few villagers have already assembled to watch the spectacle. Ione and Brian are still dragging me through the streets. I am not going to forgive them this. I try to wiggle me free, but no chance.

“Come on, now, Reiland. We are almost there.” It was probably Iones voice, but it is hard to tell. Sight and sound turned blurry after my last attempt for freedom. I puke again. How is there even still something inside me to puke out? A waste, really. I think the last meal I had was decent. Too decent to puke it out. I wish the headache would stop. It would do that, certainly, if I was able to lay down on my bed. And rest. They wont let me. Why? I hate them.

My arm on one side is free, now. I am only held by one person now, this could be the chance. I try to focus on myself again.

Distant knocking.

No matter how hard I try, it wont work. I can not focus myself, can not make my muscle react. It is irritating.

Distant voices. “Please, help us! He is hurt!”

“The mayors children? And... oh. Come inside.”

The second person grabs onto me again. I am carried inside a building, most likely. The light shifts, but I can not make out details.

“You can put him … on this bed over here.” I think I know this voice, it is the village doctor's. Fits, considering they said they would bring me to her.

Suddenly, I go prone on a soft surface. I want to roll on my face, but someone keeps me sideways.

“Now, tell … happened to him?” I am only understanding fragments of the conversation now. “Don't … head … blood, all pale in the face... “

This surface is surprisingly comfortable. What is it? Not leaves, that is sure. It is too warm for that. Too soft...

I wake up. My head is surprisingly clear. I open my eyes. I see a wooden ceiling. Judging from the colour, angle and intensity of the light shining through the windows, it is most likely late in the evening. My throat is dry, and I am hungry. How did I get here? It is not my shed. I sit upright. There are bundles of herbs hanging around, and several bottles of unidentifiable liquids stand all over the place, in shelves, on tables, some are even hanging from the ceiling as well. Right, I remember. The doctor's house. A door leads to another room, and another door leads outside, most likely.

I look down on myself. I am clad in a grey linen shirt, and similar pants are revealed once I pull back a blanket. Both of them are a bit oversized. Memories of what happened slowly return. I want to sink into the ground. It was not exactly my most glorious day. My head is still slightly aching, but it is absolutely bearable. I touch the back of it, only to feel some sort of fabric cover. Rags. Right, I hit my head. There was probably a stone inside this leaf pile. I sigh.

A door opens, and I look right into the eyes of a woman. Not exactly elderly, but not young, either. Strains of grey hair, a few wrinkles all over the face. “You are awake. Good.” She has a strict voice, and a strict expression. I simply nod. After that, she asks me a question“Tell me how you got injured. I did not get much out of your friends yesterday.”

Wait. Yesterday? I take a look outside through the window. Indeed. What I thought to be evening, was in fact early in the morning. “Where my parents here? Or do they know I am here, at least?” I was out overnight a few times already, but they were worried sick each time I was not there when they woke up. Therefore, I have to make sure they know.

“Don't worry. Your mother came here yesterday. She wanted to stay by your side, but I quickly denied her that.” There are is a second bed standing in this room. A groan halls through the room, and a person starts squirming inside. “Wait with your explanation. I have to help him.” Everything she says sounds like a command not to question. Strict, but not particularly unfriendly.

I watch her doing. She removes a wet towel from his forehead, and changes it with a fresh one. Afterwards, she puts some medicine from one of the hanging bottles into a metallic spoon, and administers it to the person. He quickly stops moving afterwards. She seems finished for now.

“What does he have? An illness?” I ask, out of curiosity.

“I believe that is not of your interest. All you need to know is that you would not like to change place with him at this moment.” She restricts me, but without anger. “Now, answer. What did you do?”

“I hit my head. A rock, probably. I do not know it exactly. My memories are a bit foggy.”

“As I thought. According to your friends, you behaved quite weird afterwards. The wound on the backside of your head reinforces that story, of course.” I could be wrong, but I think a slight smile plays around the edge of her mouth.

“When can I leave?”

“Oh, so eager to? Well, I wont keep you here. Actually, I would appreciate having the bed free in case something serious comes in.” Right, there are only two beds, and one is occupied by something that does not look like it will heal soon. “Be careful of your head in the next weeks, however. Take it slow.”

I nod. Then, I look down on myself. The fact that I am not wearing my clothes has not changed. The doctor seems to follow my gaze. “Oh, right. Wait a second.” She leaves the room, and returns with my robe and underwear shortly after. “I have seldom seen clothes that stained with all different bodily fluids. I hope you did not mind me washing them.”

I shake my head, and catch the bundle she throws to me.

“Leave what you are currently wearing on the bed.” After she said that, she discretely turns around, and looks after the other patient.

I swiftly change, and neatly fold the borrowed clothes on the bed. A thought crosses my mind, not a sweet one. “What is about Payment?”

“Payment? Oh, right. We will figure something out, me and your parents. In a village, you do not want to owe the doctor money, or so they say. I am sure they will come by themselves regarding that, as I know Kuum and Iuli. Don't worry about that.”

I swallow. “Thanks.” I say, but very quietly so. I do not even know whether she heard it or not.

I head to the door, and open it to leave.

“Its alright. Also, I hope that you don't have to see me again soon. Have a good day.”

I close the door behind me.