Author’s Note: So I didn’t post anything last week because I was instead working on how the mana system would work. That takes a bit of time so I might take breaks in the future so I can work on other things. I might even post the file that I have the information on as something like a reference point. We’ll see eventually.

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“This water is slightly too cold. It would feel great if it was like a sauna or something, like those Japanese ones! The ones you always see in anime and manga, and you always wonder if it’s as good as they make it out to be.”

Azad was still resting in the small pond in the middle of nowhere. The pond had a pleasant temperature from being in the open sun all day, but it was still on the cold side. It worked to relieve some of Azad’s stress but not enough in his opinion.

“Can’t I just use magic or something to heat it up? Would that work or would that just be me fucking up again? Probably the latter, but now I’m curious. I’m gonna try it, but first let’s see if I can actually a less than melting temperature before I try and heat the water I’m currently bathing in. Don’t want another burn injury.”

Azad raised his hand and channeled mana into the tip and had it leave his finger and hover above it. Last time he just moved the mana to his hand and left it inside, which caused the fire to be stemming directly from his hand, burning him. Hopefully if he had the mana hover above his finger instead, the flame would be above his finger, not on it.

As he imagined the flame, the mana began to start get, as Azad would describe it, excited. It was buzzing and shaking like it was restless and needed to release energy. It then began to from in a white flame above his finger.

“This is too hot; I’ll just get boiled like a lobster.”

Azad tried to lower the flames temperature by applying the science he knew and calming the mana down. It worked and the color of the flame began to get closer to a mix of orange and blue. Just the right temperature.

“This’ll do, but how do I heat the water? Let’s just try stuff and see what happens, I’ve been thinking about complicated stuff too much as of late.”

Azad attempted to heat the water for close to a half an hour before he managed to grasp the concept, but it was worth it for the pleasant sensation of a warm bath.

As steam rose off of the water, Azad sank into the water and sighed in relief.

“God, this is a feeling you can only understand if you go weeks without a bath or proper sleep. The only thing that could make this better is if I wasn’t stuck in the middle of nowhere, but I can’t really do anything about that now.”

Even after all this time Azad was still frustrated at where George had put him. But as he just said, he couldn’t do anything about it besides continuing to walk, so he decided to just take another nap in the water.

The nap was enjoyable, especially so when combined with the warmth of the water, but he was awoken suddenly from something lying on his face. Specifically, his nose. With his nose blocked, Azad was unable to breath and quickly got up, flinging the thing into the water, which had gotten cold.

“WHAT WAS THAT!?”

Azad screamed and looked in the direction the thing was flung, expecting to see…. Well, he didn’t really know what he was expecting, but the thing didn’t meet whatever those expectations were.

“Is that…. A rabbit? With wings? I know it’s supposed to be a fantasy world, but still, wings? How would that help the rabbit? This isn’t really the time to be questioning something like this world’s evolutionary paths and shit, but I really had to ask.”

The Rabbit was floating in the water with its wings spread to the sides of it as if they were fins. The rabbit was also very small, as if were a baby.

“So I was nearly just smothered to death by a baby rabbit with wings? Fuck my life. Anyways, it’s the only living thing I have seen for a month, so I’ll just leave it at that and be glad that I’m not the only one alive in this endless grassland.”

Azad was happier then he let on. He hadn’t had contact with anything living besides George and trees, and Azad was sick of both of them. Having something new around would make it so he wouldn’t have to talk to himself as much. He could keep it as a pet or something, give it a cute name and carry it around to show off to people and brag about how cute it was.

Azad had already decided to keep it with him. But how would he convince it to come with him?

“Hey you, rabbit thing. Wanna come with me?”

Azad did this more as a joke than anything and didn’t expect it to work at all. But the rabbit nodded in response, began to swim over to him, and flopped out of the water and onto his head, where it laid down and folded its wings in.

“…… Fuck it, why not? A tiny rabbit with wings that can understand human speech. It’s fantasy, anything is possible.”

Azad decided to just roll with it and began thinking of names.