Inari’s Gift

Rising in the morning, Cera spent a while longer than needed brushing her tail as she thought.  Eventually, she decided that since she was having difficulty coming up with more ideas on what to teach, she’d see what her students were interested in, then try to figure things out from there.

With her new plan in mind, she headed toward the mages’ guild and spent the day reading even more books on magic.  She didn’t learn anything particularly useful, but she spent some time speaking with the woman who operated the golem and handled newcomers, Ann.

As she brought up her goal of going to the mage academy in the future, she was surprised once again.

Surprisingly calmly, Ann mentioned, “I’m not sure that’s a great idea for you in particular, Cera.  There’s no way the staff would miss spotting your tail.  They might dismiss your ears, with how small they are, but there’s no mistaking that tail.”

“Wait, you knew?  You could see that this whole time?!” Cera exclaimed, shocked at having been spotted for so long, without any noticeable reaction until now.

Ann laughed and shook her head, stating, “I know, I know, nonhumans bad, blah, blah, blah…  Not everyone believes that.  No one is inherently bad, so far as I’m concerned, at least.  And you’ve never acted in any way that would cause concern, so far as I’ve heard.”

As Cera sat there in surprise, Ann continued, “I’ve had a few others bring it up to me, as they were concerned, but I won’t name them, as that would be rude, I believe.  They’re convinced that you’re fine to be around now, after having gotten to know you a bit better.  None of your current group of students have brought it up, so I don’t think they know, however.”

“This is somewhat concerning; I thought I was much better about hiding myself than that, by now…” Cera muttered and sighed.

Ann laughed again, then reassured her, “Don’t worry too much.  Most people are unlikely to notice, but I’ve learned quite a bit over the years, and could qualify for a good position in the capital if I desired, but I prefer this relatively calmer life here.”

She then paused for a moment before frowning for a moment, then added, “You know what, how about we make a deal?  If you will agree to train one of my close friends, Laura, I will help you improve your ability to hide yourself.  She isn’t a member of the guild, though, she thinks there are too many people here, despite how few are normally present.  I’ve been trying to change her mind for years.”

It only took a few seconds for Cera to decide that it was a good deal, though she did add a condition, “I’ll have to get to know them first, but it’s likely that I’ll be fine with that.  I’ve just been assuming that everyone here was fine to teach since they were members of the guild.”

Since Ann already demonstrated that she knew, and there was no one else nearby, Cera had no problem bringing up her plan to use biological manipulation to hide her ears and temporarily remove her tail.  To her surprise, Ann looked quite concerned at the idea.

“First off, it’d be a damn shame for such a lovely tail to be removed.  You certainly seem to take care of it.  Reminds me of when Laura decided to cut her hair short; it was so pretty when she had it long.  And second, you need to be very, very careful.  Biological manipulation is very rarely used due to how easy it is to screw up and permanently damage yourself.   Also, on the subject of you being different, do you mind if I let Laura know?  I can promise she won’t judge you for it; she’s quite similar to me in that regard,” Ann rambled for a moment before focusing again.

Cera paused for a bit before cautiously nodding, remarking, “If you’re absolutely certain she won’t fear me or expose me, I’m fine with it.  But I don’t want it becoming public knowledge.  I already had someone freak out at the healers’ guild when they brushed against my tail, and I don’t want to have people actually realize and then report me.  I’d have to flee, and possibly kill people to defend myself.  I’d really rather not have to do that again.”

With a quick nod, Ann responded, “Oh, she’d absolutely not do something like that.  She will likely fear you, however.  She’s not good around people unless she knows them well.  She might even be more interested in you once she knows you aren’t human, however.”

“I see…  I must admit, I feel somewhat similar; I just try to force myself to handle limited interaction with others.  I suppose I’ll rely on your judgement,” Cera replied, thinking back to her past life and how much of a loner she’d always been.

After a short pause, she decided she would try being more open, and admitted, “In fact, this isn’t my first life.  I lived in another world, and was quite a skilled mage there.  It’s quite different here, so I’ve lost basically all my power.  But I do still have my knowledge, and simply need to adapt it to the system this world uses.”

Ann’s eyes widened at the admission, her jaw dropping for a moment before she managed to choke out, “Wait, is that why you’re so different in how you do things?”

Nodding, Cera replied, “Indeed, I was actually quite focused on defense in my prior life, and took it far beyond what most others ever even considered possible.  Unfortunately, it is far too difficult to manage even a single percent of what I could do before.  I still have the knowledge of how to do it, and I know it will work.  I just need to get there.”

Staring at her hands, Ann asked, “Do you know if it’s common for people to have other lives?  I’ve heard rumors of people claiming it, but I have no idea what to believe.  In your case, it makes sense, at least.”

“I really don’t know, to be honest.  I’d heard claims in my own world, but very few had even the tiniest bit of reason to believe them.  But that was a different world, and perhaps things are different here,” Cera responded with a shrug.

From then until the time came to meet with her students, Cera and Ann discussed a number of minor, relatively unimportant topics.  The most important one was about when she would meet with Laura.  According to Ann’s best estimates, it would take at least a week or two to convince her to meet Cera, though she was confident in her eventual success.

As Cera’s students arrived, she said farewell to Ann and moved into the room they’d been using for lessons.  Once everyone was seated, she brought up her difficulty with finding new things to teach them, asking them if they’d be okay with the idea of working on learning things together, making use of her unusual views and experience.

Fortunately, only one of them had any issues with the idea.  In the end, they decided they’d see how things turned out before deciding if they wanted to leave or not.  Meanwhile, the other eight students chatted with each other for a while before deciding on what they were interested in the most.

In the end, they decided on biological manipulation, spurred on by the idea that it might be possible to regenerate limbs using it.  Cera nodded, as she’d considered the possibility, and was, in fact, relying on it for her idea of how to disguise herself.

They were also interested in learning how to improve their enchantments, which she had to turn down, as she couldn’t make use of the current system at the moment, herself.  The third idea was hesitantly brought up by one of the less vocal students, a desire to learn how to manipulate space.  This fit neatly into Cera’s own goals as well, so she was certainly willing to attempt it.

Altering space, however, would be incredibly difficult, and incredibly dangerous.  As such, she made sure to impress on everyone that they were not to attempt it on their own, and let her do the initial experiment.  She still had no idea where to even begin, however, given the differences between this world’s magic and her prior one.

It was always possible to simply experiment at random, however, and she now considered herself capable of doing so in a relatively safe manner, since she could, with her constructs, work magic from a distance.

For the rest of the evening, the group discussed ideas on what they were hoping to manage with the skills they wanted to learn.  During the talk, Cera mentioned that she was certain biological manipulation could be used to regrow limbs, bringing up that she’d already experimented with removing and recreating bone on her own.

Her admission shocked the students, who had thought she’d stuck with more tame stuff, like she’d been showing them so far.  The same person who’d brought up spacial manipulation remarked that they’d been sure it would be possible, given what she’d shown them before, but would like to see a demonstration of it, if possible.

This got Cera thinking, as she certainly wasn’t going to show off her tail, and she didn’t want to harm herself just for a demonstration.  As such, she decided on a course of action and everyone that she’d see if the healers’ guild knew of anyone missing any fingers or toes, and try to get them to agree to be a test case.

It was at this point that Feira remarked that she could likely offer a small sum of money to try to convince someone to accept, if they didn’t for free.  Her parents may not be rich, she explained, but they were much better off than many, and were willing to pay for her to learn, as was proven by her being present right now.

After her announcement, several of the others mentioned splitting any such payment, and Cera approved, especially when it was brought up that they should split it based on what everyone was capable of paying.  Unfortunately, one of them, the same one that was wary of whether her teaching was still valuable, insisted that they wouldn’t take part.

In the end, people seemed relatively okay with what had been decided, and they split off for the night, Cera returning to her room.  Worryingly, there appeared to have been an attempt to break in.  That, or someone was quite clumsy.  After further thought, she decided it must have been the latter.  There was a single large, muddy bootprint on her door, but it was closer to the hinges than the latch, and only the one.

While she was downstairs to pick up some food, she asked the owner, and they actually did know what happened.  Apparently, a visitor was quite drunk, and managed to trip beside her door, and in their flailing, managed to make a bit of a mess before puking on the floor after falling.  After receiving an apology about missing the mud on the door during the cleaning, Cera shook her head and said she’d handle it herself so that no one needed to bother themselves with going upstairs to deal with it so late at night.

Putting action to her words, she returned to her room with her food, and after eating, went ahead and spent a moment removing the dried mud.  Following that, she promptly headed to bed, curling up and hugging her tail, as usual.  Yet again, she was incredibly thankful for the fluffy appendage, and incredibly sad that she’d be temporarily removing it in time.

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