“…Richvarrion, the prince of beasts came upon Erliasil upon the sacred forest. Erliasil was the human princess, unrivalled in beauty and grace. Besotted, the beast and the human lay with each other. The humans and the beasts, common in their mutual hate did not share their enthusiasm. They accused each other of sedition and went to war. For 10 days and 10 nights, war raged. Richvarrion and Erliasil stood grieving in the battlefield, surrounded by thousands of fallen kin. Out of sorrow, they took their own life to end the war. Touched at their sacrifice, the god Allurian descended. He held their bodies and declared thus, “I shall divide the beasts and humans, since this day. Let each race seek their lands far away from each and never come in contact. Thus I decree, for the lands of beasts and humans to be separate, forevermore…”

- Translated extract from the Epic ‘Undgezush Traal’avil, date unknown

It had already been some days since I arrived in this strange world. My language skills were still shit, but if I could pick out names and few words and phrases now. No thanks to the gods. Honestly, I started to wonder whether there was anything more to the Gift of Knowledge except the occasional flash of insight about random things. Oh well. I'll just take things slowly. I mean not like I even know the language yet. Fuck you, gods!

I sprang out of bed at the crack of dawn, well before Arin could attempt to dump cold water on me. Yep, not gonna let her do that again! I had woken up the first couple days soaking wet while Arin's shook with that breezy laughter of hers while an empty pail hung by her side.

Ah ha! I growled at her as I saw her lug a pail even bigger than yesterday. She was planning to do it again!

When she realised I was awake, she bounded away fast as a trang with an easy smile on her face.

This girl!

And now I am hungry! I remembered the roasted trang last night, it was like a hare but with little, winged ears that it used to flop and glide on air when not running on the ground. Very tasty.

Like every day, I got ready to help either the grandma or Arin in their daily chores. Well, I tried to. Often I botched up things simply because things were too friggin weird.

Goddammit, I cursed as another piece of cane broke in my hands. I need to control more...I took a deep breath. I thought I was just thinking it but...my physical abilities seemed to have increased for real. Not as if I was a different person, but I did have much more stamina and general strength. This has to be the Gift of Might, right?

A sudden shout jolted me out of my thoughts. Ugh, I groaned as I heard the rap on the door that had become familiar by now. Him again, I thought as I saw the guy with the sword who had attacked me.

He really does come around this house a lot. His face beamed as Arin answered the door. Well, I can see why. The sheepish grin lighting up his face screamed of the innocence of a first love. However...

"Karro", Arin said in a flat voice.

She either doesn't seem notice or was totally uninterested in him.

Karro's smirk dimmed a little at the unenthusiastic reception.

Oof, I sympathised with him. Tough luck.

Karro shot me another of his death glares when he spotted me. There it is again, I sighed.

When Karro had learnt that I was staying at the house, he had glared at me like he wanted me dead. Really, really dead. If my nightmares weren't plagued by much worse things, I would probably have seen that kid would plunging that sword he kept lugging around in my chest.

Today, after collecting Thalis blossoms with Arin, I went to the Knight Training ground. Well, less knight and more like a ragtag group of guards. I wanted to see the people spar. However, there was only Karro today at the grounds, hacking away at a training dummy. He saw me and gave me a nasty glare and said something. I didn’t want to pick a fight so I turned around and tried to walk away from the grounds. This seemed to incense Karro and he spat on the ground. Then he pointed his sword at me and charged.

Oh, come on! I picked up a short, thick wooden stick that was lying around for training purposes. The kid rushed me and slashed diagonally upwards left to right. I managed to barely avoid that attack by jumping. Fuck. What the fuck is this guy's problem!

He kept shouting something. I didn’t pay heed to it, my find was focused on his blade. It was blunt. As soon as I had realized that, my fears went away. I took a stance and countered with my…wooden stick.

Oh yes, I hadn’t been sitting around lazily these last few days, you bitch. I religiously went to the knight training grounds and watched them spar. Each passing moment, I understood more and more. The motions they made grew more meaningful to me. I watched them hungrily, drinking in the atmosphere around me. The Gift of Knowledge had helped me to process the information and improved my learning curve, even if by just watching.

The strokes, the slashes they made were beautiful. Not that they were perfect, but the act itself was beautiful. I felt that I wanted to spar with them, to fight and make them submit…That’s a rather dangerous line of thought, I had thought to myself. I had come back to the house every day, shaking and with a quick breath.

The kid was surprised when I lunged at him single-handed.

He avoided my strike by stepping-sideways.

Too bad, it was a feint. I curled the fingers of my free hand into a fist and punched his chin.

Karro’s eyes widened and he jerked his head quickly before my fist could connect. The fist ended up grazing his cheeks. Suddenly, I felt something off and I quickly jumped away. The pommel of the blade in the guy’s hands stabbed empty air, where I had been just a moment ago. Blood was rushing to my ears, I could feel my face and chest grow hot.

A grin split my face as I charged at the guy; my wooden pole outstretched at his torso. Before he could parry it, I stabbed it onto the ground before his feet, disrupting his balance.

Karro stumbled at the unexpected move. I saw the split-second chance and jerked myself up, propped on the wooden staff with my right hand, swinging my whole body into an arc to kick him.

His eyes widened but he couldn’t stop the stumble and the half-lunge he had committed himself to.

Just when my savage kick was about to connect to his side, the elbow I had used to prop myself up, folded. I had done a move that my body couldn’t perform yet. The balance broke and I folded like a deck chair. My body slammed into the earth, and sharp pain lanced up my ribs.

Shit shit shit! I howled in pain.

Karro didn’t relent. His blade came swinging straight at me rested against my throat. He shook; his hands dug down on the handle dug savagely. Rage coiled behind his black pupils. Karro tightened his grip and uttered something in a low growl.

Red fire trickled forth the sword guard and ran down the length of the blade. Enveloped in flames, the blade stood a few inches from my eyes and throat. The heat from the blade singed the skin of my throat near the blade tip.

Fuck. I could feel more and more blood rushing to every nook and cranny of my body as my heart thumped hard enough to burst through my chest. I was naïve to think watching was enough. I needed to train rigorously to even have a fighting chance.

Suddenly, Karro flew to the side. That’s how it looked, but what happened was that the old guy from before had punched Karro hard enough to make him crumple like a sack of potatoes. Karro’s sword lost its fire but retained a faint orange tint.

Fuck, Fuck! I just realized how dangerous it was. People die when they are killed, dammit!

The middle-aged man barked at us very loudly, visibly distressed. Karro grew paler and paler and trembled with every sentence. Suddenly he stopped, noticing something. He came and sat beside me, probing my ribs with his fingers.

The pain was so intense that I screamed out in dear agony. Lances of hot fire swept up my right side, making me wail like a gutted pig. The middle-aged man picked me up and made me put my balance on him while he helped me to the infirmary on the Knight Training Grounds. I recognized the room I had woken up in after the tête-à-tête with Astria. I lay down on the bed, holding my right side and trying to suppress my scream. The adrenaline rush from the fight earlier had been keeping the pain away till now but as it wore off, the pain from the fall hit me all at once. Fuck! I broke my ribs, I think.

When I noticed, the man had gone away somewhere while the Hippo nurse sat beside me. Karro stood at a corner, his face ashen.

Running footsteps reached my ears; Arin burst into the room with a worried face. Her hair had come undone, the Riverdong shells nowhere to be seen. After her, grandma trudged in on her wooden walking stick, supported by the middle-aged guy. The first thing grandma did was to slam her wooden walking stick lightly on my forehead as if to admonish me. I tried to make an apologetic face.

What happened next, surprised me even more. Grandma sat beside me on a chair and uncovered my shirt. She kept her hand on my seemingly broken ribs and started chanting in a sing-song voice. The tone and temper of the song reminded me of Ave Maria. The wound slowly started to heal. The speed was much slower than when Zain or Astria did it, but the wounds were getting healed.

She...the grandma can do magic?!

I could feel my ribs snapping back into its place and mending. A slight tingling and sensation of warmth exuded from my skin. There was sort of a pinkish light seeping in from the gaps between her palms touching my flank.

After what seemed like ages, she got up and ruffled my hair. The internal wounds were mended, but the blue-black bruising and swelling remained. The Hippo nurse inched towards me with some cotton cloth and an ointment that stunk like a college dorm.

Arin walked up to Karro and demanded something. Her curled up fists were drawn taut at her sides while her voice quavered with a strange anger.

Karro spread his hands, trying to explain something.

Arin’s face grew crimson and she slapped him with enough force to make him take half a step backwards. She then walked out of the door. I tried to stop Arin and clear up the mess between her and Karro, but the Hippo nurse didn’t let me up and shook her head telling me not to interfere.

Shit. Karro will hate me even more now. That said...I wasn't exactly unhappy. Karro did attack me out of nowhere. Serves him right!

After my poultice was done, I was led to grandma’s house by Arin and the middle-aged guy. Grandma stayed back at the infirmary to talk with the Nurse. The guy issued some instructions to Arin and left us after making me lay down on the bed that I used. After I was settled in, Arin said something in a stern tone. She had been quiet all the way from the infirmary. She looked at me angrily and then left me in a huff.

“Thank you,” I said when she was about to leave the room. I hope that's what the word means.

Then she turned around, looked at me with her eyebrows squinted. A puzzled look came upon her face.

I guess not.

A slow smile spread across her face having guessed my meaning. She nodded and left.

I spent the whole day in bed, counting the beams. I winced when I tried to walk. I shouldn’t have flown off the handle at that time. But somehow, those few moments of aggression felt like a rush. I had felt really refreshed and alive those few moments, possibly even excited I realized with mild surprise.

When had I become such a fight junkie?

More important than that, I had seen two pieces of powerful magic today. I had to learn the language and then the magic quickly. I didn’t have time to dawdle. The next time I saw either of those two gods, I wanted to melt their faces off.

Arin came into my room towards the evening. She sat down on a chair beside my bed and put down the tray she carried onto the bedside table. Gruel with thin bread. I didn’t know what this gruel was made of, but it was good when I ate it yesterday. Somehow, didn’t want to find out what animal the meat came from.

Arin wore a simple white robe that came to her knees. The rough weave of the fabric complemented her unreasonably good looks, lending her an irresistible charm. I was quite sure that I was staring. She was aware of it too, as evident by the faint blush that crept up her fair skin.

Stop staring, I reminded myself.

Arin tried to feed me the gruel with a wooden spoon. I protested, saying that I could eat by myself. I mean, my ribs were hurt, not my hands. I didn’t need to be fed by a girl when my hands were fully functional. Imagine Karro seeing this! Hed' laugh!

Arin just wouldn’t listen. At one point I wondered if I was going to be more injured trying to stop her feed me than getting chopped up by Karro. She fed me the whole gruel and kept talking the whole while. She knew that I didn’t understand, yet she chattered incessantly. And she didn’t even look like that she minded my silence. She would gesticulate and talk without a care in the world.

She cracked open a book she had brought with her. Then, her voice changed. With a voice like melting honey, she started reading. The voice was warm and soothing at the same time. Also, I knew that tone.

Huh? Is she reading me a story? How old does she think I am?

I wanted to stop her, but I decided against it. I could guess that she felt sorry about the whole Karro incident and wanted to make up for it. I wasn’t going to refuse her efforts. I listened to her patiently, even if I didn’t understand. I wasn't going to stop a pretty girl who felt sorry for me, would I?

By now, the sun had fully set. I hadn’t understood the function of the bottles hung all over the house when I had first come here but later that night, I was stupefied. The bottles had something inside them. Each bottle lit up of its own accord at night, glowing with a swirl of flickering and fidgety source of light inside it. The lights were either yellow or green tinted, cold to touch and not very strong. But all those bottles together were sufficient to light up the house. Each sunset, the houses of this village would light up in these bottled lights, making it seem like thousands of fireflies were dancing.

Arin’s figure was illuminated by the warm light of the firefly bottles, as I liked to call them. Her figure looked like a queen of the fairies from some forgotten folktale in that shadowy light. As she read through the evening with the light of a thousand fireflies as her accompaniment, I wished I understood what she was saying. My breath had caught at the spectacle. I want to know what Arin is saying, I want to know what she is thinking.

As a girl weaved tales in an unknown language through the night in her voice of melting honey, my eyelids closed of their own accord. Her feathery whispers conjured strange magic in a land of fireflies. The kind figure of a girl keeping her lone vigil made me wish I knew this world, and her a bit better.

While my conscious faded to a sleep, I thought to myself, Maybe being fed like that isn’t so bad once in a while.

Little had I known that the stars had started to shift for us back even then. The destiny of the boy and the girl beside him had been set in stone already.