Mere moments ago, my severed foot vanished into the water beneath me.But that can’t be true!It can’t be!It must be a trick!Yet I…I can’t feel my toes!My foot doesn’t move!It’s gone!No!No, no, no, no!!What do I do!?

  “Aaaaaaah! Aaaaah!!”

  Panicking wildly, I scream and scream again.*Spsh*However, my hysterics are interrupted when my attacker, this ancient water fairy, propels water at my face.

  “I assumed your time as a human would have engendered some ability to tolerate minor distress. Yet as you immediately began uncontrolbly screaming, it seems I was mistaken.”

  “Minor distress!? You cut off my damn foot!!!”

  And my leg is starting to seriously hurt!The stinging sensation is rapidly growing into piercing pain, as if a hundred needles are pricking me at once.

  “Yes, I did. Your point being?”

  She’s insane!I felt she might be different, but I should never have trusted her!

  As my only response to her question was whimpering and an incredulous look, she speaks again with an exasperated voice.

  “Somehow, you are worse still than a newly-formed. Honestly, there is no great threat to your integrity, and as such, should provide no significant pain, yet you screech with such fervor. Are all humans now unable to tolerate this level of discomfort or is this unique to your newly fashioned form?”

  Agh!It hurts!It seems I was na?ve in thinking the fairies wouldn’t directly harm me.Yet the immense power I constantly feel from her keeps me from doing anything rash, though just barely.As long as she’s giving me time, I need to think of a way to escape.She might take my other limbs if I attack, yet the water surrounding us feels like a wall to my magic sense.I doubt I can simply fly through it.But there must be a way out!

  Ow, ow, ow!It’s so hard to focus!Seriously, no significant pain!?When someone loses a limb, it hurts tremendously!So much so that I likely won’t even be able to speak soon!

  But…it’s stopped.Yeah, sure, it still feels as if I twisted my leg in the worst way possible, but I expected the pain to continue building.This isn’t just a sprained ankle, my foot is entirely missing!So why doesn’t it feel worse?

  Looking down, I study my leg closer.Even after all the time I spent panicking, there’s still not a drop of blood.Not a hint of any liquid falling into the water.Moreover, instead of becoming extraordinarily painful as I expected, the initial slight sting of the cut hasn’t truly become more than I can bear.

  Unexpectedly, an odd stretching feeling suddenly begins spreading down my lower leg, and as I watch, a strange, dark substance pushes forth from the end.Entirely unrecognizable to me, what at first seems to be pure magical darkness is interwoven with tiny threads of silver.With an uncomfortable increase in the stretching sensation, the bckness shifts and grows, molding itself into the shape of a foot, though smaller than the one that was there previously.

  Then Aquia offers a warning.

  “At this point, you may want to brace yourself.”

  Oh, now she warns me!?She couldn’t have done that before she attacked me!?Or better yet, not have attacked me at all!

  However, I’m not certain why she said anything now.While I’ve no idea what is happening and it feels extremely odd, it is not any more painful than before.

  Gah!I grasp my leg as sparkles of all different colors suddenly surround the lower end, bringing with them an intense prickling feeling.Within me, magic begins flowing uncontrolbly from all over my body down into my leg, diminishing rapidly upon arriving as more shining motes appear.Then they begin rushing down towards the darkness that shaped before.

  “Aaaaahh!!!”

  Screaming, I pull my leg tightly to me and curl around it, the watery ptform shifting to catch me as I fall on my side.What feels like liquid fire rushes through my foot, growing in intensity with each passing moment.

  Agh!!I can’t stop it!The magic inside me is pouring out in a painful frenzy, and a small stream of lights is constantly falling into the water from those surrounding my lower leg.And it burns!This feeling is so much worse than when I was cut!

  Thankfully, shortly afterwards, the surging magic within me calms and the sparkling fades away, taking all the unpleasant sensations with them.With a sigh of relief, I look at my leg once more.…And I wiggle my toes.Then all ten of them.

  Oh thank goodness, it’s back!It’s truly returned!I have both feet again!Yeah, sure, I’ve swiftly healed from injuries before, even from a small tear in my wing, but I didn’t expect to be able to fully recover from such a loss as this.Especially, not so quickly.

  While I’m running my hands over my foot to confirm it’s there, Aquia addresses me again.

  “I trust this has begun to answer your inquiry concerning the construction of your form. As you saw, fairies do indeed have a shaped frame of solid magic that additional magic builds further upon. Do you require me to repeat the demonstration? If so, you may wish to draw in more essence prior to it.”

  Repeat!?

  “No! Please no!”

  At my words, she carefully stores away her iron weapon back within her shimmering garment.

  “Excellent. However, before this conversation progresses, I would appreciate an answer to my recent question.”

  Her question?She cut my foot off and was expecting me to hold a conversation with her!?

  “Well, excuse me! I was somewhat busy with my foot being stolen!!”

  However, she’s still much more powerful than I and has that bde…I’d better not make her angry while enclosed in here.

  “But…but what did you ask?”

  “Have humans changed to be unable to tolerate the initial level of discomfort or is this unique to yourself? I wish to understand if your prior form pyed a great part in what occurred a few moments ago.”

  Oh.She did say something like that.I thought she was merely taunting me, but she truly wanted an answer?

  “Um, humans can’t regrow lost limbs, so I was quite convinced that you had taken it from me permanently.”

  Also, now that I think about it, if such an injury only took this short while to return, perhaps she’s not quite as mad as I thought.But only slightly so!She still took my foot without warning!And to return it was excruciating!

  “Fascinating! A prior fear, now unfounded, manifesting such a reaction. I am immensely grateful that you allowed me to observe it! However, I will set you at ease. Such a loss will not take pce unless your vortex becomes damaged or your form is severely disrupted, and even the pain generated from injuries is lessened at your extremities, with your wings as the notable exception.”

  Vortex?From the way she is speaking, it seems to be something vital that I should be aware of.

  “What is a ‘vortex’?”

  She blinks at me for a moment before replying.

  “My apologies. Your appearance led me to forget for a moment how young you truly are. When I speak of your vortex, I refer to the swirling energies within you from which your form, control, desires, your entire being stems.”

  A small, vertical sheet of water lifts into position directly in front of me before shimmering, suddenly showing my reflection quite clearly.

  “Peer into your eyes and you will see it. That which constantly defies my attempts to wholly understand it. The wondrous essence of a fairy. The wildest of magic which empowers itself by gathering other magic about it. The supremely intriguing spell that binds our incomprehensible form together with it in symbiotic retion. Any magic you’ve gathered or utilized, all the moments you have experienced, every memory you may recall, they all combine within, this.”

  With that, she taps me lightly directly between the eyes, then moves the “mirror” closer.Looking into the reflection of my bizarre eyes, I can see that the swirling colors have changed slightly from the st time I studied them.Some have heightened in intensity, while others have diminished.Cyan now appears to be somewhat dominant in the maelstrom, while brown has become difficult to spot.Moreover, small fshes of red are now visible, joining the churning depths.

  From her words, I gather it’s not merely an illusion that there seems to be a billowing pool behind my eyes.These, honestly, beautiful swirls are truly spinning about within my head.And while it seems that fairies are more apt to simply describe things rather than name them, from the way she speaks of this, it may already have one.

  “Are you saying that this is my soul!?”

  “Hmm… I believe that would be a fitting term, yes.”

  I’ve heard the saying that the eyes are the windows of the soul, but I doubt it was ever meant to be taken literally!To think that I am apparently looking directly into the core of my being, it’s…it’s mind boggling!Yet, if magic seeps into this, into me, whenever I carry essence, it’s no wonder that it heavily influences my personality.Moreover, it appears that some of the influences may be more permanent than others.Judging by the colors, it seems my enjoyment of wind essence is represented here.However, I fear it is possible that I may enjoy that energy because it is prominent.I can’t recall if it’s always been my favorite or if perhaps it changed me to prefer it, but thankfully, Mum said it’s simir to what she remembers me liking.That being the case, it’s likely that the state of my, uh, vortex is as simir to my original personality as it will ever be.I ought to remember how it appears now, so if it ever changes greatly, I’ll be aware and could possibly shift it back.Though I worry that if such a thing would ever be the case, I may very well not want to do so anymore.

  As I gaze at my reflection, Aquia interrupts my pondering.

  “If you wish to examine yourself in the future, you need only find or create a reflective surface, but I intend to continue my inspection at this time. Would you please stay still for a few moments?”

  As she asks her question, the watery mirror returns to the pool beneath me.

  “You aren’t going to attack me again, are you!?”

  “Certainly not! That was simply for demonstration purposes, as oftentimes, it is a far more effective method of communicating an idea than simply stating facts. In addition, I have no desire to cause you any serious harm. That would be quite counterintuitive to any pns for long-term study.”

  Uh, I think she agreed not to hurt me anymore.As for the rest, well…I understood some of those words.

  “Okay. So you would like me to simply sit here?”

  “Yes, remain as still as you can, please.”

  With that, water flows upwards from my perch and begins to surround me.Flowing swiftly but gently, it soon covers me from head to toe.I believe even my wings have a thin film over them, as the cool, wet feeling is easily noticeable.Then a surge of magic rushes through the water, causing the essence surrounding me to dramatically increase in pressure.Yet moments before the energy forces its way inside me, the pressure fades, and along with it, the water falls away, leaving only my seat remaining.

  “Hmm, standard magical resistance, storage pattern creation, form stability… All evidence indicates that you are a typical fairy, if one were to ignore your appearance and magic density mismatch. In regards to that, it’s possible your size may even begin increasing shortly if you so wished for it.”

  Honestly, out of all of her words, I only fully understood her st remark.But truly!?

  “You’re saying I might start growing soon!?”

  “Certainly not! Fairies do not grow. However, due to your unique origin, your vortex has already garnered the requisite abilities to begin integrating additional magic, thus expanding the size of its frame.”

  “Yeah, sure, but how soon?”

  “If you were to turn your focus to essence gathering and utilization, I would estimate a possible increase in size as soon as three thousand years from now.”

  Uh-huh…So if I understood her correctly, should I do nothing but absorb energy and train with it, I’d possibly hit my fairy growth spurt in only three thousand years.I’m sixteen!That is far too many lifetimes away for me to even consider at this moment!

  “Well then, I believe I have gleaned all that I am able to at this time, so I will allow this shelter to disperse.”

  As the seat beneath me returns to the pond, I scramble to clothe myself.Thankfully, this dress that Nibi gave me doesn’t seem to have been affected by floating on the surface of the water.Though the thought of that extremely young fairy brings another question to mind.

  “Could you please wait!? I wish to ask one more thing while we’re still inside of here.”

  I’ve no desire to remain in this magical bubble any longer than necessary but this is important enough for me to wait.As long as she doesn’t abruptly attack me again, that is.

  “Very well. Ask.”

  I hurriedly called out to her, but now I need a few moments to gather myself.At least I remembered before we left the privacy of this pce that I wanted to know about this particur topic.It’s already difficult enough simply asking about this, even more so of a stranger, especially after what she did a short time ago.I certainly don’t need Nibi also listening, or the other fairies for that matter.While Aquia is certainly mad, I doubt I’ll find any fairy I could consider entirely sane, and thankfully, one thing is for certain.She is surely old enough to know the answer to my question.

  Ugh, this is going to be awkward.Yet I fear it would be even more so if I returned without discovering the answer.After all, I did ask this of Mum when I said that I wished to come to this pce, and when I return, she’ll surely question me about it.With how much she enjoys learning about fairies, she might even tell me to come back here if I forget to ask about this!Well, that’s probably not true, but I doubt she’ll stop asking till I know the answer, and I’d rather not have her repeatedly bring up this subject.

  *Phew*Okay, I’m ready.I’m just asking a question.

  “Um, how…h-h-how are baby fairies born?”

  Gah!Now she’s staring at me strangely!I knew I should have put this off!But she said I could ask whatever I wanted, and I don’t know if any other fairy would offer answers so easily.Also, since I’m a fairy now, which she has repeatedly confirmed, I think this is something that I ought to know.Although, she said I wouldn’t get bigger for quite some time…Oh no!Is she going to say that I’m too young to know!?Are all of the fairies here considered to be children in her eyes!?Agh, say something!

  At st, she replies.But not with an answer.

  “Is your emotional link with your wings dissimir to other fairies, or is this dispy of mortification indeed showing your true state?”

  Seriously!?Did she truly ask me if I’m embarrassed right now!?Gah!Of course I am!And judging by her expression, she is clearly awaiting an answer.Could this water just let me sink now please!

  Unfortunately, it doesn’t heed my unspoken request, and I’m forced to give a reply.

  “Um, y-yes.”

  “Yes to which option?”

  “Agh! Yes, I’m embarrassed, okay!”

  “Fascinating! I have never witnessed a fairy so abashed from asking such a simple question, especially from one that is clearly ignorant of the answer. Though your form is entirely that of a fairy, your unusual personality is certainly still affected by your previously living condition. This irregurity is quite enjoyable to observe!”

  Wonderful.Now the ancient fairy is calling me weird.That doesn’t help the awkwardness of this situation!

  Ugh, I should never have asked this question!