Chapter 5: Test DriveAwoken by the first rays of sunshine they eat a small breakfast and pack up their camp. Before they start their journey towards the vilge of Svatobors Remembrance Ivy walks up to her companions and informs them, “Cil and I talked yesterday about choosing a name, I liked her idea of using Ivy so this will be my name now.”

  “In general or just in public?” Cil inquires.

  “In general. I think going by two different names would just overcomplicate things.”

  “Good choice, I like that one,” Theo approves.

  During the hike Ivy feels a distinctive feeling of dread rising in her it makes the fur on her neck and tail stand up straight. She is afraid of what the vilgers will think about her, about her thefts and her abnormal arrival.

  Cil notices her change in demeanor first and walks over, putting a comforting arm around Ivy. “Hey, what’s going on? What troubles you?” she asks with concern in her voice.

  “I don’t want to go back to the vilge. I’m a criminal there. They’ll know it was me. What if…”

  “Hey, Look at me. Look at me, you don’t have to go back to the vilge.” Cil says, grabbing her shoulders to turn the scared feline towards herself. “Look at this map, see that path there? It leads up north and then to the west. It exits the forest at a simir titude where the fort is and it’s wide enough for our sled. See that marked spot there, close to that path? That is the crater you appeared in. You can wait here with one of us and the other one goes to the vilge, reimburses them and comes back with the sled and the rest of our stuff. Sounds like a pn?”

  “O…Okay, sounds good.”

  “I’ll go,” Theo offers, “I think I’m better suited at talking to them and Ivy will be more comfortable if you stay, I think.”

  “Sounds good to me. Ivy, what do you say?”

  “Yeah… thanks. I’d like that,” Ivy says with a friendly smile on her face. Now with their mood lifted the st leg of the journey seems to pass in a much quicker pace.

  As they arrive at the crater everyone drops their gear to take a short brake. “Could you please hand me the knife and the tinderbox. I should go now, there is no point in waiting any longer.” They say their good byes and wish Theo good luck.

  “So, what do we do until he’s back?” Ivy asks.

  “How about some sparring. I’m curious about your abilities,“. Cil replies.

  Cil walks over to a tree, breaks off two sticks and clears off the smaller twigs with her hunting knife. She hands one of them to Ivy and says, “Take this, imagine it’s a sword and try to hit me,” while standing a few steps away, the stick in a ready position in front of her.

  “Okay, if you say so,” Ivy says with a nervous chuckle, feeling ridiculous in this situation.

  She slowly closes the distance and softly swings at her opponent. Cil blocks the swing with ease and in one fluid motion hits Ivy’s shoulder with a meaty thwack. “OW! Are you mad?”

  “Dead. Again,” Cil says and goes back to her starting position.

  Ivy’s eyes narrow to a thin line in frustration, she approaches Cil with a roar and strikes with purpose. The impact of the two sticks colliding jostles her whole body, Ivy’s arm feels numb from the vibration but before she can form another thought she feels a tap from the stick on her chest, right above her heart.

  “Better, but you swing too wide. I know where you will hit me before I’m in any danger. Hold the stick in front of you and make quick strikes like this,” Cil expins and swings at an imaginary target, “Got it? Let’s try that again, hit me.”

  Ivy manages a brief exchange of blows before she feels another forceful tap against her colrbone. “You’re a quick learner, did you fight before?” Cil questions.

  “No, never. I’m new to this.” Ivy replies truthfully

  “What was your profession before if you don’t mind me asking?” her lupine tutor asks

  “I was… I had an office job.” Ivy mentions, her bushy tail flicks around nervously.

  “Office… a scribe?”

  “Yeah, something along that line”

  “I’m impressed, scribe. The next lesson is footwork. Firstly widen your stance. One drawback of being a Forestborn is that we are forced to stand on our tiptoes the whole time, we need all the stability we can get. Stand like I do. Secondly you stand like a stone column. Flex your knees, let your whole body move around and use your long tail as a counter bance. Be like a leaf in the wind. It makes striking and evading easier. Again”.

  After an excruciating training lesson and countless bruises on Ivy’s body ter Cil calls for a brake, “Enough for now. I want to teach you, not brake you. Sit down for a moment.

  “Be honest… How bad… am I?” Ivy asks between deep huffs.

  “All things considered… For someone with no prior experience in fighting and in a new body? I can’t be happier with the results. Of course, you still have a long way to go to become a passable fighter but with time and dedication I see no problems in you getting there. We will train every day for the rest of our journey together to develop and hone your skills”

  A few exhausted huffs come from Ivy at this remark.

  “I know it’s a fairly short time you will be here but the nds can be treacherous and full of unknown dangers.” Cil expins and walks to her pack and picks up a long, rectangur bag.

  “What’s in there?” Ivy wonders.

  “Your next lesson,” Cil says while opening the bag. Ivy sees her pull out a long, somewhat straight stick with a string attached at one side.

  “This is my hunting bow, just a simple longbow made from ash. Bows are stored without their strings fully attached, so the wood doesn’t warp and loose its tension. Now I’ll teach you how to string a bow. See that notch here? You have to bend the bow to hook the other end into that notch. Step forward with your left leg, put the center of the bow behind the thigh of your front leg and rest the other side against the shin of your right leg. Yes that looks good. Then you bend the bow with your left hand and attach the string with your other. VERY GOOD, put those muscles of yours to use.”

  With lots of moaning and groaning Ivy finally manages to string the bow while Cil already brought her quiver full of arrows. She gestures to ivy to hand her the bow, picks a tree, paces ten steps away and makes a mark in the snow. She then turns around, draws an arrow and sinks it into the trunk.

  “Now you, come here. I marked the string, nock the arrow there and rest the shaft of the arrow on your thumb. Doing good so far, I like it. Lift up the bow with your left arm straight and pull back the string all the way to your cheek, elbow up. Aim along the arrow, find your target and let loose.”

  Ivy’s arrow gnces off the bark and stops in a tree a few feet behind.

  “Don’t hold the bow at full draw for too long, you will start to tremble and lose your aim, again.”

  This time the arrow finds its target and each subsequent one hits closer to Cil’s.

  “I’ll be damned, you must have done this before. There is no other way.”

  “Well… not really. We just visited an archery range for a teambuilding exercise one time.” “Teambuilding exercise? What do you mean by that?”

  “It’s an activity hosted by a company you work at, giving you an opportunity to get to know your colleagues better.”

  “In your spare time?”

  “Yes, but the company payed for it”

  “Still, sounds like bullshit to me. But hey, either you’re a natural at archery, or it actually helped” Ivy’s face heats up and her ears fold down, she is not used to praise.

  “Why do you look so ashamed? You did a good job,” Cil asks and holds her arm to comfort her.

  “… not used to being praised. At least you can’t see my red face with all this fur” ivy mumbles quietly.

  “HA. It’s still not very hard to guess what’s going on in your brain. Forestborn are notoriously bad liars. Our animal half makes it hard to hide our emotions.”

  “Great, another new thing I have to deal with. I was wondering… how many different kinds of Forestborn are there?”

  “There are… loads. If you can think about an animal there’s probably a Forestborn who looks simir. And not just predatory animals I’ve also met some sheep and deer but no reptiles or avians, though supposedly they exist. But back to training now, let’s conduct a field exercise.”

  “And what would that be?”

  “Let’s go hunting. Theo will be hungry when he comes back. But first we need to collect all the arrows we shot”

  “Before we start, could you please remove the… fashionable rope you use as belt? I have something better for you,” Cil says and hands Ivy the now full quiver. Attached to that is a sturdy leather belt with a rge brass buckle.

  “Wow, definitely an upgrade. Thanks,” Ivy answers and gdly exchanges her belt for the new one.

  “So… what are we hunting? Ivy asks in curious anticipation.

  “Well… Svatobors Keep is considered a royal forest, meaning only the lords, dies or hunters with a royal permit are allowed to hunt everything. The commoners are only allowed to hunt vermin, beasts and predators. The tter two only in self-defense or by order of a military or mercenary officer, vilge elder or noble. The rest would be considered poaching. Since I belong to the mercenary guild it would be a smaller problem, if I could prove that it happened out of necessity but that would require a disciplinary hearing and no one likes that. And killing a deer would be far too wasteful for just the tree of us, we have no means to preserve so much meat. That leaves us with mostly just rabbits and hares, let’s find some.”

  After a short trek they find thicket riddled with burrows and several rabbits around. Cil motions Ivy to be quiet and whispers, “If you get three in a row without missing you can keep the bow and arrows, for a fourth one also my hunting knife”

  Ivy spurred on by the challenge creeps up towards the burrows and crouches down behind a bush. As she looks back to Cil she sees her waiting some distance behind with a self-confident smile pstered on her face. Ivy rolls her eyes and turns back. She takes a few deep breaths to steady her nerves and a serene feeling of awareness washes over her, her senses purely focus on her objective and everything else seems muted, time appears to pass in slow motion for her.

  She nocks the first arrow and draws back. She exhales and lets the arrow loose, hitting the first rabbit behind the shoulders. Before the arrow hits its target she already has the second one at the ready. In the chaos of the scrambling rabbits she manages to hit three more of them in quick succession without missing a shot.

  When she turns back to Cil she sees that her previously smug expression has turned into one of sck-jawed astonishment

  “Ivy, Your eyes!” As Cil’s scream breaks Ivy’s concentration, dark fshing specks start to appear in her vision and she feels dizzy.

  Cil sees that her hunting companion starts to wobble and rushes in to catch her before she falls. The st thing Ivy notices as she passes out is Cil’s caring embrace.

  When Ivy awakes again she finds herself lying beside Cil with her head rested on her p, while she idly combs her fingers through the fur on ivy’s head.

  “Oh, you are finally awake! You had me worried,” Cil says eted.

  “Where am I? How long was I out? What happened?” Ivy stutters and tries to get up but Cil keeps her down and continues to absent-mindedly brush through her fur and tells her,

  “Well… After you shot those rabbits at an astonishing pace, when you turned around your eyes were glowing. Then you fainted and I carried you here, back to the crater. You were out for a solid four hours, long enough for me to cook the rabbits into stew and for Theo to get back with our sled. As for what had happened, we are still not sure. How did it go down from your perspective?”

  “Well, I did some breathing exercises like you showed me, then time seemed to slow down for me. It felt good, I felt in charge of my situation for the first time since I came here. Then, as I turned around my vision started to tunnel and I fell into your arms,” Ivy answers and touches Cil’s caressing hands.

  Cil suddenly pulls her hand back and her ears fold back in embarrassment “Sorry, I was just… I wasn’t thinking,” she stutters.

  “I think you cast a spell without realizing, how thrilling,” Theo says and rubs his hands in excitement, “Finally, someone to talk about magic!”

  “Magic… Spells? Me? How could that be possible?” Ivy sputters and jumps up in astonishment.

  “Maybe your transference changed you more than you thought,” Theo suggests.

  “How does magic even work here? It can’t be normal to faint after a spell, right?”

  “No it’s not normal. Well sometimes it is for beginners. Using magic is like using the muscles of your body, you have to train to get better. Overexertion leads to feelings of weakness or fainting. I’ll gdly expin the intricacies of magic but first have some stew. I also prepared some herbal tea if you want”

  Ivy gdly takes both and starts to hungrily shovel in food while she waits for Theo’s expnation to start “There are two types of sources for magic, Internal, like you and me and external. External sources of can be a pact with a magical being, an oath to a holy order or through a strong religious belief. Internal sources are tent nodes of magic either of ancestral origin or through a cataclysmic event, like with you. The difference between the two is that external sources can be removed. You can break an oath or pact and you can lose belief. Once you have access to your internal magic, also called sorcery, you have it until you die.

  What the two sources have in common is that you need a key to unlock them, a strong, formative emotion that pushes you to use magic. It can be a want for conquest and power, to protect or heal people, a search for wisdom or a love for nature, either to preserve or to hunt. I think the st thing fits for you.”

  “What was your key” Ivy asks with genuine interest.

  “You think it was through studies, right? But no, it happened when Cil and I were still kids. We were attacked by some bullies a few years older than us, they mostly focused on Cil because she’s a Forestborn. As they ran off after getting bored with her I… I just wanted to help. I found out that day that I had the ability to heal. It ended for me about the same as it did for you with Cil carrying me home.” Tears well up in Theo`s eyes as he relives his vivid memories.

  “So…, how do I get better? I’m sick of fainting and feeling helpless” Ivy inquires.

  “By training, duh!” Cil interrupts their discussions.

  “Yeah, she is right. The most important lesson for new magicians is to control the flow of the energy for the spell. We call this energy mana. It’s simir to flexing a muscle, how much energy, or in this case mana you commit, the more intense are the effects of the spell. The first lesson from my tutor was to ignite a fme above my finger and hold the fire at a steady size, I can try to teach you how to do that,” Theo expins. He seems to get more and more excited by the prospect of sharing his knowledge.

  “Another teacher, another subject” Ivy grumbles, rubbing her snout at the bridge of her nose.

  A chuckle escapes Cil at her companion’s dismay, “At least you won’t be bored in the foreseeable future. Close combat, archery and now magic? Girl, you got your work cut out for you. When we are finished with you you’ll be a formidable opponent.”

  Ivy just shakes her head at the amount of work that lies in front of her.

  “But first I have to pay off my debts.” Cil says and removes her hunting knife with the sheath from her belt, “I didn’t expect you to use magic but that’s on be for not setting the rules clearer.” She hands Ivy the sheathed knife and her bow, the quiver is still on the belt around Ivy’s hip.

  “You… You really don’t have to. What will you use?” Cil asks, bewildered by the gifts.

  “Firstly, you’ll soon be better than me with the bow, even without magic. Secondly, I still have my longsword and that’s my favorite weapon, I only use the bow for hunting. And stly, you need some weapons to be able to defend yourself and you’ll get some good practice by being the designated hunter,” Cil justifies.

  Ivy, overwhelmed by the generosity hugs Cil and whispers “Thanks” into her ear. Cil freezes at the sudden dispy of affection but quickly regains her composure and returns the hug.

  “Magic training can wait, you’ve had enough excitement for now. We should get going once you are ready,” Cil answers.

  “I agree. I’ll get the horses ready and attach them to the sled” Theo proposes.

  “There’s not enough space on the perch op front for all three of us so you can make yourself a bed with the camping gear on the back and get comfortable while I put my armor on,” Cil mentions to Ivy.

  After a short while everyone is ready and after a sharp yank with the reigns by Theo, Ivy’s journey back to her old life finally starts.