The next five days were a bit of a blur for Pallas. After eating dinner that first night, she went to bed early and woke in the dark of morning to a knock at her door. Amelinne walked Pallas down to the kitchen where the latter was instructed on the basics of scullery work. This primarily consisted of washing and cutting vegetables, washing dishes that had been soaking since the night before, scrubbing uniforms and linens in the laundry and hanging them to dry, and dressing proteins for roasting and boiling. Because of her extraordinary strength, she easily handled the large burlap bags of potatoes and other produce without assistance, much to the surprise of the rest of the kitchen crew. Pallas also did an excellent job of sweeping, mopping, table bussing, and cleaning the fireplace. She performed her tasks tirelessly and without comment or complaint. In truth, she was throwing herself into her work to avoid thinking too deeply about her situation.

On her alternating days off, Pallas spent time exploring the village. She learned where the main businesses in the village were located - the barber, the butcher, the carpenter, the blacksmith, and the cobbler in addition to the general store, the tailor, and the watermill. She ate her meals alone and largely kept to herself so that she could observe the villagers from a distance and try to understand them better. She delivered the acolyte's dress and shoes that she had borrowed back to the church, avoiding Berna as much as possible. Throughout this time, nobody made any real attempts to engage her in conversation or even approach her. She simply performed the jobs she was instructed and wandered.

On the sixth day, two things happened that changed the routine a bit. The first was the arrival of the firewood order for the inn. Two great beasts that looked something like a hybrid of a ram and an ox pulled a large cart laden with chopped wood bundles up behind the back of the inn. The beasts, Pallas later discovered, were called hubbocks. They had more pointed snouts, long hair that hung down over their eyes, muscular bodies covered with a wooly coat, large eyes with horizontal pupils, spiraled horns and cloven feet. After some careful consideration, Pallas decided that the animals were cute.

Lukas, in her estimation, was not. Eber had sent Pallas out back to help unload the cart, forcing her to interact with him. Amusingly, a couple older girls had conveniently shown up at the same time to talk with Lukas while he emptied the cart of firewood.

"Hey, Lukas!" one of the girls, a blonde with green eyes and freckles, said with a smile. "So nice of you to come up from the river once in a while."

Lukas unlaced his shirt and tossed it over the top box board, revealing a well-muscled and tanned torso with just the fairest hint of golden chest hair. "Good afternoon, Merrilee!" he responded. "You come to help me unload the cart?"

"Oh, no, I was just walking by and saw that you were making a delivery. I wanted to stop and say hello!" Merrilee replied quickly.

Pallas, watching the interaction with a blank expression, proceeded to leap gracefully to the back of the cart, gather a full armload of wood and jump back down without a word to Lukas or his groupies. She simply stacked the wood bundles under the sheltered lean-to against the wall as everyone looked on in shock. Lukas seemed especially intrigued.

"Y'know, this will go much faster if we work together," he advised. "No sense putting that much strain on yourself."

Pallas turned and faced Lukas as though just realizing he was there. "I'm much stronger than I look. It's not a problem." She shrugged and proceeded to board the cart to pull down more wood.

"Look at the little girl, acting like she's so tough! It's cute how she's trying to show off for Lukas! She must be smitten with him!" the other girl, a brunette with a largish nose and hooded brown eyes exclaimed.

Ignoring the obvious taunt, Pallas loaded her arms with three bundles of wood and turned to jump down again but she was stopped by Lukas. "Why don't you hand those to me? That way you don't have to keep jumping up and down?" he asked. 

"Okay. Here," Pallas replied as she kneeled down and rolled her armload into Lukas's arms. He received the burden with a surprised grunt, his biceps taut with the effort of holding the load. Pallas suppressed a smile. Each bundle of wood was approximately 25 pounds and the three together were equivalent to roughly her own weight. Lukas eyed Pallas suspiciously, but went ahead to stack the wood against the wall.

They continued thus for the rest of the cart, the girls offering periodic praise for Lukas amongst a smattering of idle chatter. Pallas remained stoic, listening to the small talk without contributing to it and continuing to throw the bundles of chopped wood around as though they were nothing more than small batches of kindling. The pair unloaded the cart in short order and soon the last of the wood was stacked neatly under the lean-to as Pallas dusted the bark and debris from her dress. Not a single bead of sweat was visible on her face or arms, whereas Lukas's body was covered in a reflective sheen of it.

Finally, Lukas had had enough. "Okay, what is your deal, Miss Pallas? How in the world are you not at least a little bit tired? I make my living cutting and chopping lumber and even I'm a bit winded after that."

Pallas shrugged again and gave a teasing smile. "Maybe you're just not as tough as you think you are?"

Lukas huffed indignantly and spread his hands in resignation. "I concede to your superior strength," he said facetiously. "Thank you for gracing me with your assistance."

Shrugging nonchalantly, Pallas replied, "You're quite welcome. If you need further help, my services are available for a modest fee."

"You arrogant wretch!" cried the brunette girl. "Lukas is one of the hardest-working men in Rivergarde and you seek to insult him with petty quips? Who are you to make light of his strength?" At this, Lukas widened his eyes in surprise, but said nothing.

"I'm sorry, Miss What's-your-name? Is there a reason I should care what you think?" Pallas asked coldly.

"My name is Allete Riden! I am the blacksmith's daughter!" the brunette called out pompously.

"I didn't ask what your daddy does. I asked who you are. What do you do? How are you important?" 

Allete faltered, apparently uncertain how to respond. "I-I do what any girl my age does! I help with chores around my house and take care of my younger brothers and sister!"

"So, you are 'like any other girl your age.' That's disappointing. How, exactly, does that give you the capacity to judge my strength and worth? Or to denounce my ability to judge that in others?" Pallas, still standing on the back of the cart, planted her feet squarely and folded her arms. The distant look in her eyes gave both girls a chill and Lukas looked on, enthralled. "Do you have a job? Provide a service? Perform a function for the greater good? Do you do anything that benefits anyone outside of your home?"

Allete looked down at the ground before elbowing Merrilee in the arm. The blonde, shaken out of her stupor by the sudden jab, shook her head as if just becoming aware of herself and spoke up. "Well, just who are you? What makes you so important?"

With a wry grin, Pallas jumped from the back of the cart, landing carefully on both feet as her skirt billowed out around her. She stood to her full height, which was well below the chins of all present, but something in her bearing gave her audience pause. There was something *commanding* in her poise. "For now, I'm nobody. Just a stranger seeking refuge in your village. I work at the inn to pay for my room and board. I have no family, no friends, no home. But I work as hard as I can to pay my way and that gives me a fair view of what hard work looks like in others. And what you may have missed was that what I said to Lukas was a joke between two people who worked hard together to complete a common task."

Lukas burst out laughing at that, no longer able to contain his amusement. Allete and Merrilee looked at each other in confusion before turning on Lukas. "You knew?!" Allete shrieked. "You knew it was a joke and you let me carry on like a fool?"

"Well, you didn't exactly give me a chance to interrupt, really. The way you blew up at Pallas made me think you had a personal grudge to settle! I wasn't about to get in the way of that. I've seen girls fight." Lukas replied with a knowing wink.

Merrilee, whose face had gone crimson from her embarrassment and anger, spun on one foot to leave, the skirt of her dress flaring out as she did so. Unfortunately, Allete had attempted to do the same thing at the same time, resulting in their skirts colliding and throwing both of them off balance. The girls staggered and appeared ready to fall. Without a moment's hesitation, Pallas darted in front of them and firmly grasped each girl's hand, steadying their balance. The speed with which she had moved caused her hair to fluff out in disarray and she absently ran one hand back through her hair to smooth it down as she released the hands of the girls. Looking back up into their faces, Pallas asked earnestly, "Are you all right?"

Allete looked off to the side, unable to make eye contact while Merrilee pouted her lips a bit as she furrowed her brow. "Y-yes. Thank you," the blonde said uneasily.

Pallas stepped back and to the side, bowing slightly and extending an arm in the direction they had been heading before turning back toward Lukas. The girls walked off unsteadily, whispering to each other.

"That, my friend, was the most dashing thing I've ever seen and I've done my fair share of lady-killing moves," Lukas said as Pallas approached. With a wide smile, he reached out to pat Pallas on the shoulder. "Should I start taking notes?"

"W-what do you mean?" Pallas asked suddenly. "I'm a girl! Girls aren't supposed to be dashing!"

"Says who?" Lukas replied. "I recognize competition when I see it. You're clearly not interested in me -- your loss, by the way -- and the way you tossed aside your grievance with those two girls you barely knew to save them from an unsightly tumble? Very gentlewomanly. Any other girl would have let them roll in the dirt. You may be a fetching young thing yourself, but you sure know how to treat a lady."

Lukas placed his hands on his hips and looked Pallas up and down. "So, what's your secret? Blessed by the Gods? There's no way your tiny little body could keep up with mine without breaking a sweat otherwise." For all his self-assuredness, Lukas seemed quite hung up on that point.

"Um... something like that?" Pallas began cautiously. "Sister Berna found me by the river a couple weeks ago. I have no memories of this world before that, but old man Eber told me that I'm much more than what I seem." She hated omitting facts, but the truth would be difficult for most people to swallow. 

Lukas wasn't having it, however. "No memories of this world? Does that mean that you have memories of a different world?" Pallas cringed inwardly. Lukas was surprisingly perceptive. Observing Pallas's reaction, Lukas laughed. "Hey, don't let my good looks fool you, I'm not an idiot."

Pallas nodded mutely, gathering her thoughts. "Can you keep a secret?" she asked of the young man after a moment.

"I don't see why not? I keep to myself most of the time, down at the watermill. Gives me a lot of time to think and reflect, but not much time to gossip," Lukas replied candidly.

"So, I have sixteen years of memories of another life in another world. I died in the river, pinned beneath the blades of a watermill. When I woke up, I was in this body," Pallas said, gesturing at herself, "in one of the dorms in the Church. Sister Berna came in to check on me and that's when I found out I wasn't in my world, anymore."

"Huh," Lukas muttered thoughtfully. "I can't say I was expecting that. Does explain your fainting spell down by the watermill, though. That was probably a lot to process, being faced with the actual means of your death." He wandered over to the cart and retrieved his shirt, throwing it on but leaving it unlaced. "So what was your name in this other world?"

"I'd rather not say," Pallas mumbled.

"Because it's a boy's name?" Lukas asked.

"How did you--?"

"Don't worry, I'm not upset or anything," Lukas interrupted. "If anything, it clears up a few things. For starters, some of your mannerisms and speech are pretty masculine. For another thing, I can't think of a girl in this village who would have even thought to help me unload this cart. And lastly, I'm interested in men, too," he added with a wink. "But don't worry. For all your boyishness, I think you're a girl through and through. I don't think most people would see you as anything more than an uncouth young lady."

Pallas burst out laughing for the first time in days. "I can't believe it. All this pent-up worry and anxiety and you see through me as if I was a glass sculpture! This whole time, I'm freaking out about being seen as a girl, being treated like a girl, whether people know I'm a total fake. And you? You just read me like a book."

Lukas lifted himself onto the back of his cart and patted the space beside him. Pallas took his invitation and hopped up into the empty space to sit. "I wouldn't know. Never read a book. Mayor Rusk says that most of them are dreadfully boring, but I wish I had the chance to decide that for myself. However, for people that can listen and watch, there are a lot of clues about a person to be learned."

Watching him from the side, there was a certain morose quality to the playboy affectation Lukas gave off. "It's a shame. I think you'd like reading. Stories about heroes and villains, stories about normal people overcoming struggles, stories about the past. There's a lot to be learned from books, but also a lot to just enjoy," Pallas said.

"You can read?" Lukas said, clearly surprised. 

"Yeah... but I don't think I'm supposed to. Only two people... no, three? Know about it. Eber told me to keep quiet about it," Pallas said, flopping backward to lie face-up in the back of the cart with her legs kicking freely over the edge. "I think it's because I could read in my old world, there was a sort of ... translation for me? A blessing, I suppose."

"You should talk to Mayor Rusk about it. Even though he's friendly with Sister Berna, he's not very friendly with the Church. He might be willing to loan you a couple books, if he knows you can read. There's a few other folks who learned to read outside the Church and he helps them out discreetly." Lukas chuckled and followed Pallas's example, lying back in the cart. "In a way, I envy you. I'll probably live out the rest of my life in this village without knowing much about the rest of the world."

Pallas rolled her head over to look at Lukas who was staring up at the sky between the roofs of the inn and other nearby buildings. "What's stopping you? You're smart, charismatic, and objectively attractive. I'm sure you could make your way doing whatever makes you happy." She looked back up at the sky. "In my old world, people like you tend to be hugely successful. Just need a bit of courage and a bit of capital to pull it all together."

"Hah! Wouldn't that be something? Getting out there, traveling, trading, doing something more than just slinging logs all day?" Lukas smiled warmly at the idea. "Maybe I'll give it some thought."

"Well, I'd love to stay and chat, Lukas, but I have other things to do. Thanks for bringing the wood and helping to unload it," Pallas stated, sitting up and sliding down from the back of the cart.

Lukas sat up as well. "Don't think anything of it. You did me a huge favor helping to unload. And there was a fun show afterward! Tell you what - if you decide you just want to chat, feel free to stop by the watermill. Unless I'm making a delivery or picking up supplies, I'm pretty much always there." He slid down and stepped behind Pallas, brushing off the debris her dress had collected from lying down in the cart.

Pallas turned around and extended a fist out at chest level. Lukas raised an eyebrow curiously and did the same. Shaking her head with a smirk, Pallas reached up and pulled Lukas's fist down to the level of her own and bumped the two together. "Fist bump!" she said with a laugh. "It's a way of showing respect and gratitude in my old world!" Lukas laughed with her.

As Pallas turned to leave, Lukas called out, "I never did catch your old name!"

Pallas paused. "Not worth knowing. He never did anything interesting."

"He paved the way for you to be born," Lukas said meaningfully.

Pallas looked over her shoulder at him and beamed. "Thanks. Maybe I'll tell you about him, someday."

 

---

 

Back in her room, the second item to break the routine occurred. Pallas noticed two packages sitting on her bed. One was staggeringly large, especially compared with her own small stature. The other was still large, but manageably so. She glanced over the packages. There was no tags or labels, which was unsurprising given the literacy rate of Rivergarde. Pallas fumbled for a moment with the twine straps on the smaller package, trying to untie the knot, before losing her patience and ripping the twine apart. The brown-tinted parchment that served as wrapping paper unfolded to reveal several items. 

The first was a table-top mirror. It was finely-made, with a richly-lacquered wood frame that swiveled up and down, and an ornately-carved base bearing a floral motif. On the back of the mirror was a wood-burn image of a young woman surrounded by leaves and flowers. It was a work of art - the sort of thing Pallas began to doubt existed in this world so tied to its religion. She placed it gently on top of the table by the window.

Returning to the open packaging, Pallas retrieved the second item - a small wooden box. Like the mirror, it was lacquered. There was a silver latch on the front that flipped up to unlock it. There were no other markings or decorations that might indicate what was inside. With a shrug, Pallas flipped the box open to reveal a beautiful silver-handled hair brush and a silver comb with mother-of-pearl inlaid into the shaft. Alongside these were two smaller decorative silver combs with intricate wing designs also made from mother-of-pearl. The entire set was breath-takingly beautiful.

The last item in that pack was a simple dagger with a leather sheath. The leather of the sheath had been dyed black, as was the leather grip on the hilt of the dagger itself. The pommel of the dagger consisted of a steel disc engraved with a bird's wing and the cross-guard was a gently-curved bar, also made of steel. She unsheathed it, examining the blade. It was freshly sharpened and recently oiled for longevity. The dagger had been clearly well cared for. She sheathed the dagger and laid it down next to the other items.

Her best guess was that these items were sent by Mufree. Pallas decided that on her next day off from work, she'd make a point of going to the General Goods store and give him a stern talking-to. Or a thank you. Maybe both. 

Finally, she opened the larger package in the same fashion she had the smaller one - with brute strength. As the twine fell aside, a self-satisfied smile spread across her face. 'This demi-god stuff is kinda awesome!' she thought to herself. As Pallas peeled back the paper (the same kind used on the other package) she was astounded to discover all the clothes that Mallory had picked out for her were neatly folded and packed into roughly a cube. Hesitantly at first, Pallas lifted each garment from the stack and laid it out on the bed. Soon, however, she was holding the dresses up to herself and spinning around in the room.

"And you seriously questioned my wisdom in giving you a female body?" Athena's voice asked from the mirror on the table.

Pallas yelped and threw the dress she was holding down on the bed. "I'm sorry!" she exclaimed.

"Sorry for what, Pallas? Enjoying the perks of the body you've been given? That's nothing to apologize for," Athena replied. 

"I know that. Logically. But I'm also working against years of internalized guilt and shame. Not to mention the *external* factors," Pallas stated. "The fact is, I kinda ended up dead because of this."

"And for that, I am truly sorry. Had this all happened a couple millennia ago, back when I was in my prime, I would have had the power to intervene more directly. As it stands, I barely had the power to transmigrate you and imbue you with my Divinity," Athena admitted. 

"You didn't have to do that... any of that. Why did you?" asked Pallas.

Pallas's reflection in the mirror took a deep breath and tilted her head thoughtfully. "Call it the whim of a capricious goddess," she began. "In my many years, I've relied primarily on reason and logic. I've never fallen in love. My father, Zeus, ate my mother, Metis, to avoid a prophecy of his downfall. I sprang from my father's head fully grown. Contrary to popular belief, Hera was not exactly thrilled to see me born. So in addition to never falling in love, I've also never truly known maternal love." Athena sighed and gave a rather sad smile. "I think a part of me wanted to experience that mother-daughter relationship. 

"I listened to your prayers and your rituals every day. Even the things you didn't say. The more you studied, the more you learned, the more you taught yourself about me, the Greek Pantheon, and the customs of my time, the more I took an interest in you. I don't have many followers these days, so it was easy to pay more attention to you. When you chose to dress as me for your social gathering, I felt pride in your craftsmanship and your courage.

"I began to feel... affection. Not the same feelings I had with heroes like Perseus and Heracles. Instead, I felt a genuine concern for your general well-being. When you were thrown into the river, I was helpless to do anything but watch from afar. When you died, I panicked. It was the first time I ever felt such fear. I was desperate to do something... anything to keep your story from ending there. 

"I had a flash of inspiration -- if I transmigrated you into a new body made in my image, you could keep your psyche intact. I just had to find a parallel world where I would have enough strength to forge your body," Athena concluded. "I know that you had human parents in your previous life, but it's my hope that you can come to know me and accept me as your mother in this one."

Several long minutes passed as Pallas considered all of this information. "Even if we can only talk through mirrors, it helps to know that you're watching me and you're on my side. I'm not sure how much of a mother-daughter relationship we can have like this, but maybe that's something we can explore together?" 

Athena-as-Pallas's-reflection smiled brightly and clapped joyously. "You have no idea how happy this makes me! Now, show me some of your outfits, I want to see what you picked out."

The two of them continued chatting until Eber sent Amelinne to fetch Pallas for dinner. After she ate, Pallas returned to her room and put away her clothes in the large chest of drawers. As she lay down for the night, Athena hummed a gentle melody from the mirror, falling silent as Pallas drifted off.