The sun soaked into my leaves, warm and gentle as Grace’s arms. It had the same effect as her arms too, soothing my mind of the worry and anxiety that had plagued my mind recently. Two weeks ago I’d fought and killed two people, one so quickly it had almost been an execution.

Troy had sat me down after the battle for a chat, and every night since. He’d talked a little about his time in the military, using his experience to help me through the fact that I now had another person’s blood on my hands. He said all the things that I’d read about in books. That it was good that I felt a degree of horror at what I’d done, but not to let it control me, and especially not to lose that horror entirely.

We had travelled for a week and a few days to reach the foothills of the mountains that Avonside lay within, and another day to reach the town that the Order had first found when they left so many months ago.

We were now taking a rest while the obrec made preparations to take their wagons into the mountains. Mostly wagon related stuff that I had no idea about. I was a little skeptical that they could get those things through the rough terrain ahead of us at all. We probably should have thought about it a bit more.

I’d only gotten a day of rest before Esra pulled me over into her grove for a lot of combat training. After that last battle with Fennimore’s people, she’d decided that combat was definitely a priority for me. Both of us had big targets on our backs, and somehow they had been able to follow us through the mundane realm, always there waiting to pounce. Esra had gotten the worst of it. She’d apparently killed six of Fennimore’s more experienced mages thus far.

I was in Esra’s grove now, practicing in a little arena that she’d set up for me and eventually Kit. The idea was to train my magical senses in the ways of magical combat. There was no real way to tell what exact spell your enemy was using, but you could get a taste of what types of energy those spells might make use of.

Fire spells were easy to pick out, the heat of fire energy was unmistakable. Some, like teleportation, were a little harder to pick out because they used many different types to do what they did.

It was pretty clear as I lay there on the ground in my plant form that I had a long way to go in training. Magical combat was an entire discipline, with many areas and sections you could focus on. There was no brute forcing it with raw power either, at least when it came to more skilled opponents. It would be years before I could hold a candle to the real mages that roamed this continent.

“Ryn!” Esra’s voice knocked me out of my trance and I blinked, pulling my plant features back into myself. My eyes took a moment to focus, but when I did I found Esra standing over me, looking all kinds of agitated. “Hurry up and get off the ground. Your friend, Kit… he’s going to be hatching out of his fruit any moment now. We must hurry.”

** Kit’s POV **

I sort of kinda knew what to expect going into the mage fruit, Ryn had told me all about it on the way over to Esra’s grove. Then I’d forgotten it all because oh my goodness was the Nameless Garden pretty! I mean, it was also absolutely terrifying, because up and down ceased to be things that applied in that space… but still!

Once we'd retrieved the fruit, which was actually a seed at that point, Ryn had transported us both out onto the ring, where she planted it and we watched it grow in a matter of seconds. Magic was just so cool! I was so glad the magic system in this place was more than just fireballs and lightning. That stuff was fine for games and all that, but this was the real world and we needed magic floating lights and cute bunny familiars and stuff. The necessities, obviously.

God I was crap at being a manly man. What kind of self respecting dude was about to get magic and all he could think about was pretty lights and cute fluffy animals? Well actually, the answer was obvious—a dude who wasn't self respecting. It was me, I was the un-self-respecting guy.

Anyway, once the fruit was ready, I touched it. It was sort of singing—calling to me—I didn’t really get a choice in the matter. Then it was wham bam slam into the… fruit? That sounded better before I actually put it into ordered words.

As I understood it, once the fruit sucked me in I was transported into Esra’s grove, where I sat for the past few weeks. Oh, and I was unconscious, which was nice because I’d probably go insane if I were awake while being stuck in a fruit for a whole month. Did not sound like a good time to me. Not that I knew what a good time was. Life had been very far from a good time so far.

I cringed as my stupid fucking brain began to dwell on my past, and my absentee parents, always off working, or my older sister and the way she had bullied and degraded me. It was so hard to stop the spiral, so hard to stop my shithead masochist mind from dredging up every torment I had endured in my short life. That wasn't even counting all the stupid cringe moments in my life. What was worse, actual trauma or cringe trauma? Hard to tell.

Shaking my head to try and stop the thoughts, I realised with a start that I was both awake and floating in a viscous liquid. Oh my goodness, I was awake! That meant… that meant I was a mage now, transformed and able to have my own grove! I just had to get out of this yucky gunk.

Opening my eyes while still underwater—underjuice?—, I blinked and looked around trying to see through the slimy liquid. Unlike the chlorinated pools of my childhood, this didn’t sting, and I was able to dimly make out where the outside of the fruit was.

I reached for it, only for my brain to fizzle and spin when it took longer than I’d expected to find the wall. Not a really long time, mind you… but it was sort of like stepping off something into thin air when you expected to find0 hard ground under your feet. That was odd…

Regardless, I pushed at the wall with as much strength as I could muster. Which was apparently, not a whole lot. I pushed and I pushed and I pushed, but I just couldn’t get a hole in it. Damn, why was I so weak? My whole body felt strange actually, but I couldn’t really tell how because the juice was rendering everything down to a fog of orange.

With a frown, I lunged for the edge of the fruit and bit down with my teeth, tearing a hunk out of it. Like a popped balloon, it exploded, sending me slopping out to sprawl across the ground. God that was so fucking gross! That was a whole other level of yuck. Blech.

“Oh, you have got to be joking,” came an amused chortle, Ryn’s voice if I had to guess. Her voice was an odd mixture of high and pretty but with soft husky undertones. I was pretty jealous, if I were being honest.

“What in the god’s name?” Esra’s voice asked, and I blearily wiped the juice out of my eyes to find her leaning over me, staring into the fruit with a huge scowl on her face. “This is too much of a coincidence, this is just… unprecedented madness I tell you! What could be causing such results from my fruit?”

She wiped a finger over the inside of the now empty sack that had been my fruit and stared at the sticky juice on her finger. She sniffed at it and muttered something about acceptable parameters, but I wasn’t sure.

Next to me, Ryn knelt down and smiled, a quirky and amused one that had me narrowing my eyes at her. “What?” I asked, and practically jumped out of my skin when a small, feminine voice spoke for me.

She just motioned down at the rest of my body, giving me a kind, compassionate expression as she readied to give me a towel to wrap myself in.

My eyes were wide as I followed where she’d pointed. Oh… oh holy crapsicles. Those were boobs. I think? I’d never seen any, other than my mother’s when I was very young. Mine were small, but definitely developed. Then below them was a smooth, flat stomach flanked by a thin waist and wide hips.

Between those hips was a tuft of metallic brown fuzz and… nothing else that I could see. My hand rushed down there so fast I swear it should have whizzed off into the bushes. Instead I found my bush, and then the uh... new anatomy.

I freaked out, a hyperventilating squeak straining out of my new high voice. “Ryn! I’m a… I’m a… girl!”

“You have the body of one, that’s for sure,” she nodded, standing up and offering me a hand to help me up. “Whether you actually are one is… um… well we can talk about that. I guess. I uh, I’m here to help? Is what I’m saying?”

“What does that mean?” I asked, panicked and quivering. Crap, no one would recognise me, and… Mer…

“Body and mind are two different things, Kit,” she said gently, then wiggled her fingers again. “Come on, let’s go get you bathed while Esra tries to figure out if she is doing mage fruit wrong.”

I felt tears prick at the edges of my eyes, getting caught in my now much longer lashes, “Did she do this? Did she mess it up and turn me into a girl?”

Esra’s response was quick and frustrated. “No! No I did not! This is… this must be something to do with you being from that planet, Earth or whatever!”

Ryn rolled her eyes, and laughed, “Esra, all humans are from Earth.”

“Quiet, you!” the older mage grouched, gesticulating wildly. “There is clearly something wrong with you Avonsiders! My last apprentice went in as a healthy young man and came out of it a healthy young man!”

“Look how well that turned out. Maybe you just rolled the dice twice and it came up trans,” Ryn shot back while motioning for me to take her hand. “Come on Kit, I’ll get you into the bath and we can talk. Without grumpy old women involved.”

How was she able to just… talk back like that? Esra was so scary and Ryn just bantered and bickered right back at her. I wish I had half as much confidence as my friend.

I had to smile though, I couldn’t help it. Even if I could never talk back to anyone like that, it was pretty funny to watch Ryn do it. They were always amusing, always making me struggle not to laugh. My initial panic was wearing off thanks to the silly banter between them.

Ryn gave me a pointed look as she stood above me, making grabby motions with her hand. Right, time to get up. I took Ryn’s hand and found myself pulled up and onto my feet. Except… only kinda.

“Oh no,” I groaned, feeling my face flame up in a blush. I covered my face as Ryn laughed another one of her giddy laughs and placed the towel around my shoulders.

I was at least a head shorter than her now. A whole head shorter! I was a… a damned hobbit now!

“Come on tiny, bath time,” Ryn giggled, pulling me along by the hand.

This sucked!