As a precious and ferocious young lady of the Sincavage duchy, I must fulfill my duty and be named by the Church. My pure white shoes and simple white dress adorn my frame as I slowly and methodically approach the altar, holding a bouquet of flowers in my hands.

I'm annoyed, of course. Right as I was on the verge of victory, Winona decided to pull a fast one on me, and snatched away my dignity at the most crucial point. I am without my usual shirt and pants, instead wearing the dress that Wimberley prepared in advance. And to be fair, Winona was right. It's a simple and modest dress that fits just right, with no constrictions or stuffiness about it. But when I feel my bare arms and legs, scarred as they are, exposed and visible to all the prying eyes of the surprisingly abundant audience, I'm just reminded of my defeat.

Perhaps I'm focusing on that too much. What I should be directing attention to is my legs. In my humble opinion, the Church is as at least as damned as our current noble society, and due to that, this place is cleansed of mana, because of course it is. In fact, this place has wards in it that dispel any type of mana usage. Did the clergy push the spirits out of this place and make it a purely manaless zone? What an ironic practice, for a place that believes in spiritual influence.

Because of this manaless zone, I can't apply my usual internal magical brace to my damaged left leg, which means I'm limping, and unfortunately, it's a lot more obvious than usual. It hurts too. Each step sends a pain up through my leg and travels beyond the base of my spine. I've become way too used to my own brace it seems. What a terrible first impression for the public. A weak and damaged girl struggling to even walk with a bouquet of flowers. I can already hear the whispers from the audience. This is exactly why I want to leave the Duke's estate as soon as possible. I don't need to deal with the scorn of the masses, and I definitely don't want to feel humiliated over and over again.

*Clack*

A step. It's own beat adding nothing to the organ music sounding out near the altar.

*Clack*

Another step. I try to ignore the various scents of perfumes and colognes from the noble audience.

*Cla-clack*

A quick stumble before I catch myself. I hear the whispers become more frantic.

*Clack*

And yet another step. The quiet echoes of each step are deafening.

One foot in front of the other. Ignore the pain, and pay no attention to your leg threatening to buckle under itself. Every step is simply a second closer to the goal. My father told me how many paces it was from the door to the altar. 54 paces. I'm halfway there. Just keep going. It's a straight walk from the doors to the priests.

I get an unintentional whiff of the flowers I'm holding. They're home to a strong fragrance, tough on the olfactory sense and hard to ignore. The smell is sweet and peppery, throwing little prickles of distraction against my focused mind. I don't particularly like the smell, but I recognize it all the same. Paperwhite Narcissus. It's one of the flowers associated with my month of birth. Because I was born in the 12th month of the year, I need to hold one of the birth flowers attributed to that month for this ceremony. Some lives I have some holly or poinsettias, but it seems I'm stuck with the Paperwhites for this one. I believe these flowers in particular are known for their thin and fragile petals, and I can't help but mentally laugh at myself for how I match that description right now.

The flowers probably suit my dress, though I wouldn't really know. White fabric can go with white colored flowers, but there's always those slight differences in the shades of each color for an outfit, even if they're supposed to be the same. I'll trust Winona and my father and hope I don't look ridiculous.

Also, who the heck chose this type of flower for me? Is someone trying to call me narcissistic? I hope they gave me these flowers with the intention of conveying the flowers’ other meanings. Perhaps they believe I have a sense of dedication and faithfulness. I'd like to think I’m reliable in some ways.

Well… I guess I do plan to abandon everyone here actually, so maybe I'm not reliable at all. Flowers only bloom to wilt afterwards, indeed.

I'm just a few steps away now. And I thankfully finish my walk down the aisle with no more stumbles, though when I stand still I make sure to shift my weight onto my right foot, and straighten my back as much as I can. I hold my head in the most horizontal and neutral position. If I try to look the priests in the eye with no way to sense them, I'll just look like an idiot.

“We gather here under the blessed Spiritual Goddesses to welcome the daughter of the Sincavage duchy, Aella. By the will of the spirits and their mothers, she is to be granted a second name, so she may walk with spiritual guidance and find peace with her life.”

Blah, blah, blah. A bunch of vague contextual wordage is spilled from the head priest to the audience as I stand here waiting for this to end.

Two female priests take my flowers and start to make a flower crown out of it, while I'm thankfully guided up the steps by another priest into the pool of water that will start the ceremony.

“Through the purest waters, formed by the tears of the Goddesses, may you be granted a new life.”

Water is poured over me as I kneel in the pool. I'm like a bird in a birdbath, and these 8 priests are the ones bathing me. The other three for the ceremony are the head priest, who does all the blabbering, and the two female priests who are making my flower crown.

After about thirty minutes of blessings and tricks with water, the flower crown is placed on my head, and the moment everyone was waiting for arrives. Benedict, I believe that's the name of the head priest, leans down and sprinkles the pollen of the Paperwhites onto my face as he holds my head in a way that makes me look up to the ceiling.

“By the will of the spirits and the wails of the Goddesses above, your name shall be…”

“...”

“...”

Why the hesitation?

“Claudia.”

…Wait, Claudia?

“This child is to be known as Aella Claudia Sincavage! Please join us in welcoming her into her spiritual journey!”

There's a hesitant clap from some random audience member, but soon everyone else joins in as two of the male priests and the two female priests sing a hymn.

There's a reason the crowd was hesitant. I should be offended right now, and part of me is. The name “Claudia” in this culture means “lame” or “limping”. It's a direct attack on me. A small girl who can barely hold herself up. It's also besmirching my father's honor and the honor of the Sincavage family. What the heck was Benedict thinking, saying that name?  Everyone here knows that a child that is granted that name must be burdened with some unfortunate circumstances. It's a shame that such nice names like “Claude” and “Claudia” have been contextualized under that meaning. But… my mind is mostly past that, for one main reason.

I've never been named Claudia. Not once. Every single time I've been named by the Church, my middle name has been “Efigenia”. And that's stayed true even when I've had body damage arguably worse than this. Whether it be amputated limbs or complete paralytic nonfunction, “Efigenia” has remained with me through thick and thin.

But now I have a new name, and one sourced from what was likely malicious intent on Benedict’s end. And it's throwing me off. I unconsciously tune out the sounds of the crowd and their whispering as my father hurries over and picks me up. I forget to squirm like I always do. He says something to Benedict, but I don't process it.

There's so many questions running through my head right now. What was the cause of the change? Why now, in this life specifically? Did the change derive from Benedict, or me? I think I may need to consider everything that's happened in these past few months and go through it step by step to see what went wrong and why I'm named like this now.

I didn't expect to be thrown off like this today. I wasn't prepared. I was expecting some minor humiliation at best. It's arguably much worse than that.

I don't even realize we're back at the inn until my father sits me down at one of the tables. We already went through the formalities after the ceremony? The documentation and signatures and everything? How lost was I in my own thoughts that time is jumping by me so fast?

My father and Winona start to speak to me but I don't pay them much attention.

“Aella… are you alright? You can relax now. Winona can help you take off your dress if you want.”

“...”

“Winona, do you recognize any habits from her right now?”

“I'm… I'm not sure, Your Grace, I-I’m sorry…”

“Relax, you're fine. What the hell did that damn priest say to her? Or is it just the name? Does she already know the meaning behind it?”

“Hm? Ah Lee, you're back! How'd it go? I ran out for a bit to get some whiskey, ya want a drink?”

“Rick, please, now is not the time. My daughter is acting unlike herself.”

“Ya sure? The flow of her mana channels are all the same from what I'm seein’. Though I don't really know what her channels are usually like. If anything, she seems quiet as usual.”

“Rick, she let me carry her.”

“...And? Ain't that what a father's supposed to do?”

“And she never lets me carry her without complaining. She's not responding to things in the way she usually does so I'm worried she's experiencing some sort of mental block, and I don't know what to do.”

“Some liquor would probably hel-”

“Rick.”

“Alright, alright. My bad. D’you need me to do a little prying then? I could probably break her out of it. We both know you suck at that. And if she's really your girl then your careful attitude ain't gonna do shit. When stuff like this happens you've gotta give people things to think about, y'know?”

“...Fine. Do what you need to.”

“Scram then, I'll sit with her.”

The hollow words of their conversation bounce in my mind as I mentally recount the things that happened during this life. The purple flash, the months in the wild, the days at the Duke's estate, did any of that have an effect on Benedict or the Church?

The biggest suspect here would be that flash, but that was a significant distance away from Hitherbliss. Someone in Benedict's position doesn't leave the Church, ever. They stick by it and do spiritual study all the time. Was my haywire magic enough to uproot that notion, even from that far away?

“I can feel it in your mana, little lady El. You've reversed it before, haven't ya?"

Alarick starts talking to me, and I intended to ignore him, but something is making me pay attention instead.

“Sorry for forcin’ this on ya, but I want ya to look at me, okay? This will be good, I promise. I know you've been messing with your magic, so let me show ya something. Try sensing my mana channels.”

…He's got some sort of magic that's making me focus on him, which is annoying because I was running through my head trying to figure out my current name problem.

But fine, I'll play along, Alarick Dustfield. Show me what you've got. Your mana channels look completely fine to me. The flow of them is a bit fast, but everyone's mana flows at different speeds anyway. Since I'm assuming that you're using magic, the increased speed makes sense.

…Except the flow is all natural. There's not a single point where it's coalescing to, which means there's not an indication of magic usage. How the heck am I being coerced into observing this right now?

“I see your confusion, which is good, that means ya want more, so keep looking.”

In a single second his mana channels have been completely restructured. The webbing and the speed of the flow is different, and I can feel the sensational viscosity change too. It's all sluggish and thick now. But it doesn't stop there. Every few seconds, Alarick's mana channels change in more drastic ways, sometimes being near unnatural, other times being so simple it could belong to a bug.

“Have ya ever heard of the saying, ‘Move in silence, and never let them know your next move’? It's got a few different versions out there, but it's a good set of words to live by, y’hear? I use my magic to mess with people's minds, and that's part of what got me to where I wanted to be. The only one who truly knows me, is me.”

So, Alarick is able to alter magic perception just like that? Is that why I never sensed where the magic was accumulating to? His real mana channels are probably buried under a giant stack of fakes for his own benefit. And if he did input his own mana into my mana stream, he probably found a way to make it hidden to my own detection.

“Here's what I'm tryin' ta say, little lady El. Sometimes you've gotta be crazy, even when being crazy before has kicked ya in the groin. I'm willing to bet that the reason why your body is like this right now is because your magic went haywire. There's something funky with your eyes that I can't quite identify, which means ya went ahead and did something wild like reversing your mana flow too far, and that's good! No one can get what they want without being a little messed up in the head. And even more than that, we've gotta be crazy on our own terms. If we go ahead and blabber about our brand of crazy to everyone else, then what’s the point?”

Crazy this, crazy that, are you sure you're not crazy yourself? Heck, I'm going crazy trying to understand whatever you just said. I have a feeling Alarick is at least a little bit drunk right now. Is he trying to be profound? It seems like Alarick is trying to teach me a wise lesson but is too much like… himself to actually convey the lesson properly.

But besides that, it was at least clear that he noticed what the cause of my condition was. Is that why he approached me earlier today, before we left? If his understanding of mana is that deep, it could be useful. Maybe I could keep that in mind if I'm ever desperate enough for something.

“I'm going to be honest with you right now, I've forgotten what my mana channels are supposed to be like. I've got no clue, and I'm sure as hell never gonna try and figure that out again, but that's just part of moving forward, y’hear? So even if your body is all messed up, and even if whatever happened earlier at that damn ceremony went wrong in some way, you can move past it by sticking by your choice. Don't let something minor like body damage trip ya up. If you're gonna be crazy, then you've gotta commit to it. Hell, I'll drink to that, lemme pour myself some whiskey…”

Essentially, he's trying to say to stick by my resolve… I think. It's kind of hard to piece his sentences together, but he probably means well. I hear him pouring himself multiple mugs of whiskey. At that point you could've just drank straight from the bottle, if you were going to serve yourself that much.

“You're probably wonderin’ how I got ya to focus in on me, so I'll let ya know a few secrets, but you've gotta promise that you keep them close to your heart, yeah? It's like I said, we hafta keep the craziness secure, and it's better if we're the only ones who know about it. Lee's already known about my magic for a while, so it should be fine if I educate ya a bit.”

I feel the magical pull of my attention breaking off, but that doesn't break my engagement in the conversation. Regrettably, I've been intrigued by what Alarick has been saying, even if it is probably drunken rambling.

“I can distort things, y’hear? If things are supposed to be one way, I can make them another. And that goes for everything. That's why my mana channels are all out of whack. I went ahead and messed them up, and now I can't untwist them without wondering if I'll break or not. When I made you focus on me, I ‘distorted’ your thoughts. I had no damn clue what you were thinking about, but I made sure that your mind had tunnel vision on what I was saying. Or, would it be tunnel hearing? Do ya get what I mean?”

I hear him stand up and roughly place his hand on the chair next to me.

“It's got a lotta practicality beyond that mind stuff too. I'm touchin’ this here chair, but with just a simple twist of my mana, this chair's gonna really feel it.”

I hear a violent creaking and shattering of wood. As some stray broken pieces bounce off me.

“A simple ‘distortion’ and it doesn't even know what it's supposed to be any more. Just as I can distort intention, I can mess with physical objects, and even magic itself. But here's the catch, little lady El, there's not a school of magic for this type of stuff. My noggin was the one that gave me these shitty techniques, it's all self taught. Do ya see what I'm sayin’ here? You're the same way. You're messing with ya magic despite not actually knowing anything, and that's awesome. I bet you've made some nice techniques for yourself, and you prolly are gonna keep doing that as ya get older.”

He downs an entire mug of whiskey before continuing his thoughts. This man can really ramble, huh?

“I'm gonna assume that ya got all of that, and if you didn't, then that just means that my brand of crazy is still where it needs to be. But I'm an aging man, little lady El! My noggin may be sharp, but it's got some holes, y’know? Some things tend to slip through the cracks. So I'm gonna ask one thing of ya, now that your attention is on me. Why are ya worrying about things, huh? If whatever happened earlier messed you up, especially when you've got evidence of crazy magical innovation inside, then all you've gotta do is make things messier, alright? If ya feel in your gut that something needs changing, then change it. Ya don't want to become that chair I just messed with, ya want to become the person who distorted it in the first place ”

He downs his other mugs of whiskey while I ponder what he said. Isn't he just saying “be the change that I want to be” and “don't let anything get to me”? I'm not sure he had to go and break a chair for that point to be made.

“It's a good afternoon for a drink, isn't it little lady El? Anyways! Lesson's over! Move on! I can see your mana moving in that curious way that I saw when ya got here the first time, and that's what I think Lee needed, so I did my job.”

Alarick hustles over to behind the front counter and starts humming some random folk tune.

“Leeeee!! The little lady is good again! I'm takin’ a nap!”

My father and Winona rush down the steps and immediately bombard me with conversation, but I don't fully respond again, for completely different reasons.

What the heck was all that about? I need to break that down. On my own terms. So I hold out my hands to my father and Winona, and give two thumbs up before I sit in the same corner from earlier today and start to think.

“Winona, what is she…?”

“She's thinking, Your Grace. When she moves her fingers in a spastic way like that, she's trying to process something. Perhaps Sir Alarick gave her something to think about?”

“...Then let us leave her to think, for now.”

Alright, so Alarick called me “crazy”. But I think he meant that in a good way. According to that drunkard man, his magic is a distortion of intentions, physical objects, and mana itself, and is not derived from a specific school of magic. The majority of magic techniques I use, that being my mana pulse, internal magical braces, various sensing techniques, and physical enhancement, also do not fall under a school of magic. If both of our magics are unschooled, and instead sourced from raw mana manipulation, does that mean he considers users of unschooled magic “crazy”? Is my father also crazy then, for heating up his scorching mana as he does? Since the Duke uses physical enhancement too, is that also crazy? But then again, there's types of physical enhancement that are within schools of magic, such as through enchantment or invocation. I'm pretty sure my father might use a hybrid of direct manipulation and traditional magic. Where does that put him?

No, that doesn't matter right now. This is about Alarick and I, and our conversation. If he uses his baseline mana to do his techniques, like I do, then sure, I can mentally clarify us together as “crazy”. But I also pre-code some of my techniques. My mana apparitions and delayed mana blasts are examples of that. Does Alarick pre-code his distortions to suit his purposes? Is it not the manipulation of raw mana that makes us crazy, but instead the pre-coding of it?

On the surface, that doesn't make sense, because in essence, traditional magic spells, whether inscribed or chanted, are sets of code to make mana do something. Any renowned magician is essentially a magic programming expert.

So what Alarick must instead mean is internal coding. Manipulating the natural mana in our bodies to do things beyond the schools of magic. We do not pour our magic into our words or our sigils, but instead directly change it as we please. I think that's the conclusion I can reach with my limited understanding I have now.

…Or maybe that was just the rambling of a drunken man, and whatever conclusion I just derived from it was entirely unnecessary. It may be best to just ignore that conjecture and derive my own conclusions.

If there's one surefire thing I can take from Alarick's “lesson” though, it's his statements on “making things messier”. I think I'll take that to heart and do what I want to do. I won't be around these people for much longer anyways. As soon as I take my leave from the estate I think I'll do some snooping around the Church. And I'll make Benedict in particular my information target. I won't outright ignore the changes I find concerning, but instead use them as catalysts for my actions in the future.

I'll need to get used to walking without my internal magical brace for my future Church infiltration, so I think I'll start today. No better time than the present, right?

“Your Grace! Her hair tips are glowing! I think she's figured something out! She must be happy.”

Winona, you are a terrible whisperer. Please stop making me self conscious of my mental state. Also, come get me out of this dress already. Now that I've settled on what to do after I leave the estate, this dress is making me uncomfortable again.

As I stumble out of my seat and grab Winona’s hand to steady myself, my flower crown falls off my head and onto the floor. Paperwhite Narcissus, huh? Its petals may be fragile, but it trades that for a strong scent. The flowers also hold meanings and folklore origins deeper than its appearance suggests. Perhaps this was the correct flower choice to represent me after all.