The next month was a period of warm embraces amongst all three of us, and we all ended up staying with De’Nara in her room. My nights were warm and passionate, and I drifted off into a peaceful slumber, with one of the girls held tightly with each arm. My nights were heavenly bliss.

My days were hell.

For some reason, ships don’t stay docked near an island where a volcano erupts up out of the ground. Our ride had sailed away, and we’d all missed our ship. The rules for the merchants only allows them to dock once a month to deliver merchandise or travels to and from the island, so we were stranded until the next month’s trade-day.

And, while we were stuck on the island, Mother put us to work fixing the things we broke. We had to rebuild Le’Nara’s room. Mend furniture. Fix windows. Clean, repaint, and repair every little crack in the rooms and all the contents in them – which, with magic really didn’t take that long.

And then, we had to fix the island. The forest had to be regrown. Mother thought a bare ash-covered mountain sticking up in the center of the island was ugly and tacky. I had to shape stone steps up the outside of it and then build a spiraling stairway down on the inside of it. De’Nara and Le’Nara were put to work gathering seeds and growing trees and flowers up the outside of the volcanic mountain, and I had to create water and build pools and heat them with lava vents to create hot springs inside the bottom of the volcano!

I’d broke mother’s isle by showing off and releasing a volcano, so she put us to work remodeling the volcano and turning it into a natural hot spring resort full of flowers, trees, and vines. At least we didn’t have to repopulate the animals – mother did that herself with summoning magic. De’Nara’s glade was unfortunately destroyed, and The Lady’s Bath replaced it.

I woke up exhausted from my nightly passion with the girls, and from trying to help fulfill De’Nara’s request, and I went to sleep exhausted from my daily labors. The days blurred together in a haze, and I think I’d lost five kilos from the endless stress on my body. Never had I ever been so grateful to see a ship in my whole life!

And, that feeling of gratitude lasted right up until the point when we left the dock.

I’d trained myself in earth magic and fire magic, first and foremost. Air magic came second, and water magic a distant third. I’d attuned myself over the last fifteen years of life so that I could feel every flow and ebb of energy across the forest, and even most of the island proper. When we left the dock, I lost my connection to the energy that I’d always attuned myself to; the damn ship bounced and flopped up and down like a piston in and engine; and I was ill.

Violently ill.

And, since it was a problem with my magic not finding the earth and fire it expected, I never got better. I was thinking the ship ride would give me a month to enjoy some relaxed time with the girls, but it didn’t.

I can officially say I hate ships. I hate the ocean. I hate leaving land!

And my idiot parents live on an island that requires me to take a month long trip across hell to visit them!!

If I thought I was grateful to get on the ship to rest, I was a thousand times more grateful when I finally managed to get off it. Everyone looked at me oddly when I fell off the side and down to the beach, but I didn’t care. I simply wanted to kiss the warm dirt and let it know that I’d never cheat on it again! If I need to visit mother in the future, I’m going to write her a letter, let it make the damn trip across the ocean, and then she can come pick me up like she did when she gave me my merchant’s card so many years ago!

The land we settled in was the small ocean kingdom of Tameriel, and we spent a few days at an inn together to say our final goodbyes. Andor was to the north of us, Gondor was to the south. We all promised to write and send messages to keep in touch, and then we went our separate ways. De’Nara and Le’Nara boarded a carriage and rode off, but I really wasn’t in any hurry so I simply walked the roads.

At first, the roads were full of people traveling back and forth near the city, but then things settled down and it was nothing more than walk, walk, walk, and look at the forest. I saw some wildlife from time to time (and it was tasty), but Tameriel is a land where the one real cities are along the coast. Roads were built so travelers and traders from the other lands could get to the ocean, but the majority of the place was deserted and boring.

I expected an adventure of some sort while heading to Gondor, but all I did was wear blisters on my feet. Dull, dull, dull…

OH HELL!

Was I starting to sound like that Flipping Fool that caused all this mess?!

Once I started to think like that, I immediately changed my attitude. No one was around to see me. I was alone in the wilderness. The sun was out, it was a bright and beautiful day, and I was surrounded by nature. Deciding to indulge my whimsy, I stripped myself naked, put all my things in my traveling pack, tied it to the end of a long stick like a traveling hobo’s bundle, and skipped along down the road while whistling lightly.

And, that’s when I encountered my first goblins in this world!

A group of eight little green men shuffled out of the woods and surrounded me, spears pointing in my direction. They were grunting and hooting, and arguing amongst themselves in a language I didn’t recognize. I figured I could defend myself with my magic if I needed to, so I thought I’d diffuse the situation by being friendly and trying to talk to them first.

“Hi!” I told them enthusiastically while holding my arms up in the air to show I had no weapon at the moment. Surely, a naked guy couldn’t seem threatening to a goblin! “I’m Michael. It’s a pleasure to meet all of you.” I half-waved at them while my arm was up, and the group began to chatter wildly amongst themselves.

Since it didn’t seem they were going to attack me right off the bat, I flopped down, and sat cross-legged on the ground and opened up my pack slowly, so as to not frighten them. Gently, I reached inside, pulled out an apple, and took a bite of it to show it was good, and then I held it out to offer it to the goblins. I had plenty of food, and with my magic, I could always grow a tree and make more if I needed it. I didn’t mind sharing.

The group was gathering up together in a small circle now and chattering wildly to each other. Since it didn’t seem they were going to take the apple, I went ahead and began to eat it. I’d never seen creatures like these before, and I found the whole experience to be fascinating.

“So what are you guys talking about?” I asked them. “It doesn’t seem like you’re going to kill me or anything. Am I going to be kidnapped? Taken to your cave to be held ransom, or made to work in some mine? I have a little time before I have to be at school, so I don’t mind really. I’ve never seen a goblin cave before, so it might be interesting to go.”

The more I talked and ate my apple, the more excited they got. Figuring they were frightened of me – after all, as a healthy male I am almost twice their size – I finally tossed the apple core away and sat my sack-on-a-stick on the ground. I turned my back towards them and crossed my arms behind my back. “Here you go,” I said reasonably, “this should make it easy for you to tie me up and kidnap me if you want. It’ll be fine.”

The sounds of something tinkling on the ground made me turn around and look back over my shoulder. The goblins were all running off into the forest, and they’d tossed several small copper and silver coins on the ground between us.

I don’t know what the heck that was all about! My first time meeting a goblin party and they didn’t attack me, or anything. I thought folks said they were dangerous! They were friendly enough to me… they even left me a parting gift of some coin before they left.

After that, I was baffled by the goblin’s actions for the next week or so as I traveled the road. I’d skip along and sing and try and be friendly whenever I saw them, but they truly were a skittish race. I never put any clothes or armor on, didn’t carry any weapon, and I didn’t even use any magic for anything while they were around. I tried my best to be open, friendly, and as harmless as possible so they wouldn’t be scared – but I never could get them to have a conversation with me.

Every morning they showed up and tossed a few coin to me, along with some fruit or vegetables. Every night they’d do the same. But each time they’d skitter, yelp, and run away if I even looked towards them much. I accidently sneezed once, and one of the goblins fainted, and its friends dragged it off by its ankles.

If they’re supposed to be dangerous or frightening, I just don’t see it.

After passing what I assume was the goblin territory; they quit bringing me gifts after that week’s journey; I was stuck alone on the road with the boredom once again. I was going to take my time heading to the school, but honestly, all the endless quiet out here was getting to me. I liked the forest back home – but it was a forest on my terms and only in short stretches of time. Here, I was stuck alone with mother nature for day after night after day after night….

So I cheated.

I can’t travel like Mother can, but I can still make decent time when I feel like it. I used my magic to help shape the ground beneath my feet, and I simply slid it across the cobblestone road like a sled across the ice. Once I’d started sliding, it was a simple matter to keep increasing the wind behind me for thrust, and I started to build up phenomenal amounts of speed. At first, it was a little difficult to control, but I quickly learned to use my magic to sense the difference in the grass and cobblestone road before me, and then I could really unwind.

The wind whistled as I rushed down the road in a blur, and I was reminded of the way TV shows made things look from the perspective of being inside a race car. I don’t know how quick I was going, but the world was zipping past in a blur as I rocketed myself along for several hours.

And then, I hit the border.

Well, I didn’t quite hit it. I felt it first and barely had enough time to react before colliding with the stone wall which was built to designate the border between Gondor and Andor. Since I was already weaving such massive flows of earth magic to slide along, that’s what I used to push a few people, wagons, and guard towers of the way to shape a hole in the wall so I could rocket on by.

Sorry border guards! I accidentally skipped the checkpoint and instead of trying to stop and explain (and get myself tossed in a dungeon somewhere for rearranging the kingdom wall), I pushed my magic and shot forward even faster as I blew past them, and I didn’t stop until I felt my reserves of energy starting to run dry. Even then, I didn’t want anyone to see and arrest me, so I shaped a ramp in the road in front of my path and launched my sled airborne like a rocket.

While in the air, I dismantled the stone sled and let it rain across the land as a fine mist of stone powder while I flipped freely end over end. It wasn’t until I started my downward arc that I pulled upon the magic of air to help slow my descent and guide me into the woods for a private landing.

By pushing my gift, I’d traveled further in just a few hours than I would’ve by walking for two weeks!

The rest of the trip to West Gondor was dull and peaceful, and I made certain not to stand out at all. I was almost to the place where I’d be going to school, and I didn’t want anyone to know I was a Flamedancer, a wizard, the heir’s champion, or anything else. I just wanted to relax and be ‘that idiot farm boy Michael' for a while.

There were so many things that I still didn’t know about this world and so many things that I must’ve learned wrongly while on the island. After all, from my experience, goblins weren’t anything frightening at all. They didn’t attack me, they didn’t kidnap me, in fact, they even gave me food and coin while I traveled through their lands!

I was excited! I had so much left to learn still, and now I was finally getting to my school where I could just be a common nobody and ask all sorts of stupid questions now!