The sun soaked into my leaves, as warm and gentle as Grace’s arms. It had the same effect as her arms too, soothing my mind of the worry and anxiety that had plagued my mind recently. Two weeks ago I’d fought and killed two people, one so quickly it had almost been an execution.

Troy had sat me down after the battle for a chat— and every night since. He’d talked a little about his time in the military, using his experience to help me through the fact that I now had another person’s blood on my hands. He said all the things that I’d read about in books. That it was good that I felt a degree of horror at what I’d done, but not to let it control me, and especially not to lose that horror entirely. It felt wrong that there was even a script for this, and at the same time, comforting.

While Troy was helping me process my new and unwanted status as a killer, Esra decided I needed to get better at it. Unfortunately, she was right. Both of us had big targets on our backs, and somehow they were able to follow us through the mundane realm — always there, waiting to pounce. Esra got the worst of it. She’d killed six of Fennimore’s experienced mages thus far, even as they hunted her across the ring.

As for our battle, the enemy troops very quickly surrendered. The obrec disarmed them in a hurry, and then because we had nothing else we could do, we sent them away. Troy was sure at least some of them would desert Fennimore's cause entirely, and I hoped he was right.

Afterwards, we travelled fast for two weeks, putting distance between us and the site of the battle. The plains began to ripple and fold as we went, until we came to a series of foothills that heralded the massive range of mountains, within which lay Avonside, our home.

The obrec had to make preparations for the journey into the mountains — mainly, their wagons had to be altered in some way. I wasn't sure how, or what they were doing. Frankly, I was a little skeptical that they could get those things through the rough terrain ahead of us at all, but they seemed confident.

So while they worked, I was in Esra’s grove, practicing in a little arena that she’d set up for me, and eventually Kit. I was trying to better hone my senses for combat, because that was the main reason that the enemy mage had been able to dance rings around me. With the amount of power I had at my disposal, simply finding the enemy could be enough to win some battles — assuming they weren't actually competent and didn't have any truly tricky spells up their sleeves.

Unfortunately, there was no real way to tell what exact spell your enemy was using, but you could get a taste for what types of energy those spells might make use of. Fire spells were easy to pick out, the heat of fire energy was unmistakable. On the other hand, spells like teleportation were a little harder to pick out because they used many different types to do what they did.

It was pretty clear as I lay there on the ground in my plant form that I had a long way to go in training. Magical combat was an entire discipline, with many areas and sections you could focus on.  No amount of brute force would see me through an encounter with a skilled opponent, either — that much was clear from the battle. Hell, if the senior mage hadn't been so arrogant, he could've killed me before I knew what was happening.

It would be years before I could hold a candle to the real mages that roamed this continent.

“Ryn!” Esra’s voice knocked me out of my trance and I blinked, pulling my plant features back into myself. My eyes took a moment to focus, but when they did, I found Esra standing over me looking all kinds of agitated. “Hurry up and get off the ground. Your friend, Kit— he’s going to be hatching out of his fruit any moment now. We must hurry.”

From the Perspective of a New Mage

I kinda sort of knew what to expect going into the mage fruit — Ryn told me all about it on the way over to Esra’s grove. Then I’d forgotten it all because oh my goodness, the Nameless Garden was pretty! I mean, it was also absolutely terrifying because up and down ceased to be things that applied— but still!

Once we had the fruit, which was actually a seed at that point, Ryn had transported us both out onto the ring. She’d planted it and we’d watched it grow in a matter of seconds. Magic was just so cool! I was so glad the magic system in this place was more than just fireballs and lightning. That stuff was fine for games and all that, but this was the real world and we needed magic floating lights and cute bunny familiars and stuff. The necessities, obviously.

God I was such a failure at being a guy. What kind of man was about to get magic and all he could think about was pretty lights and cute fluffy animals?

Once it was ready, I touched the fruit — it had sort of called to me, I didn’t really get a choice in the matter. Suddenly it was wham bam slam into the… fruit? That sounded better before I actually put it into ordered words.

As I understood it, once the fruit sucked me in I was transported into Esra’s grove, where I’d been for the past few weeks. Unconscious too, which was nice because I’d probably go insane being stuck in a fruit for a month — did not sound like a good time to me. Not that I knew what a good time was. Life had been very far from a good time so far.

I cringed as my stupid fucking brain began to dwell on my past, with my absentee parents, always off working, or my older sister and the way she had bullied and degraded me. It was so hard to stop the spiral, so hard to stop my shithead masochist mind from dredging up every torment I had endured in my short life.

Shaking my head to try and stop the thoughts, I realised with a start that I was both awake and floating in a viscous liquid. Oh wow, I was awake! That meant… that meant I was a mage now, transformed and able to have my own grove! I just had to get out of this gunk.

I opened my eyes inside the liquid — a skill I’d learned in swim class — and blinked around trying to see through the juice. Unlike the chlorinated pools of my childhood, this didn’t sting, and I was able to dimly see where the outside of the fruit was.

I reached for it, only for my brain to fizzle and spin when it took longer than I’d expected to find the wall. Not a really long time, mind you… but it was sort of like stepping off something when you expected there to be hard ground under your feet.

That was odd…

Regardless, I pushed at the wall with as much strength as I could muster. Which was apparently, not a whole lot. I pushed and I pushed, but I just couldn’t get a hole in it. Damn, why was I so weak? My whole body felt strange actually, but I couldn’t really tell how because the juice was rendering everything down to a fog of orange.

With a frown, I lunged for the edge of the fruit and bit down with my teeth, tearing a hunk out of it. Like a popped balloon, it exploded, sending me slopping out to sprawl across the ground. God that was so fucking gross! That was a whole other level of yuck. Blech.

“Oh, you have got to be joking,” came an amused chortle, Ryn’s voice if I had to guess. I liked her voice. It was an odd mixture of high and pretty but with soft husky undertones. I was more than a little jealous.

“What in the gods’ name?” Esra’s voice asked, and I blearily wiped the juice out of my eyes to find her leaning over me, staring into what was left of the fruit with a huge scowl on her face. “This is too much of a coincidence, this is just… unprecedented madness, I tell you! What could be causing such results from my fruit?”

She wiped a finger over the inside of the fruit and stared at the sticky juice on her finger. She sniffed at it and muttered something about acceptable parameters, but I wasn’t sure.

Next to me, Ryn knelt down and smiled, a quirky and amused one that had me narrowing my eyes at her. “What?” I asked, and practically jumped out of my skin when a small, high voice spoke for me.

She just motioned down at the rest of my body, giving me a kind, compassionate expression as she readied to give me a towel to wrap myself in.

My eyes were wide as I followed where she’d pointed. Oh— oh holy crapsicles. Those were boobs. I think? I’d never seen any, other than my mother’s when I was very young. They were small, but definitely developed. Then below them was a smooth, flat stomach flanked by a thin waist and wide hips.

Between those hips was a tuft of metallic brown fuzz and… nothing else that I could see. My hand rushed down there so fast I swear it should have whizzed off into the bushes. Instead I found my bush, and then the uh... new anatomy.@@novelbin@@

I freaked out, a hyperventilating squeak straining out of my new high voice. “Ryn! I’m a… I’m a… girl!”

“You have the body of one, that’s for sure,” she nodded, standing up and offering me a hand to help me up. “Whether you actually are one is— um… well we can talk about that. I guess. I uh, I’m here to help? Is what I’m saying?”

“What does that mean?” I asked, panicked and quivering. Crap, no one would recognise me, and… Mer…

“Body and mind are two different things, Kit,” she said gently, then wiggled her fingers again. “Come on, let’s go get you bathed while Esra tries to figure out if she is doing mage fruit wrong.”

I felt tears prick at the edges of my eyes, getting caught in my now much longer lashes, “Did she do this? Did she mess it up and turn me into a girl?”

Esra’s response was quick and frustrated. “No! No I did not! This is— this must be something to do with you being from that planet, Earth or whatever!”

Ryn rolled her eyes, and laughed, “Esra, all humans are from Earth.”

“Quiet, you!” the older mage grouched, gesticulating wildly. “There is clearly something wrong with you Avonsiders! My last apprentice went in as a healthy young man and came out of it a healthy young man!”

“Look how well that turned out. Maybe you just rolled the dice twice and it came up trans,” Ryn shot back while motioning for me to take her hand. “Come on Kit, I’ll get you into the bath and we can talk. Without grumpy old women involved.”

How was she able to just… talk back like that? Esra was so scary and Ryn just bantered and bickered right back at her. I wish I had half as much confidence as my friend.

It did make me smile though — I couldn’t help it. Even if there was no chance I could ever talk back to anyone like that, it was pretty funny to watch Ryn do it. She was always amusing, always making me struggle not to laugh. My initial panic was wearing off thanks to the silly banter between her and Esra.

Ryn gave me a pointed look as she stood above me, making grabby motions with her hand again. Right, time to get up. I took Ryn’s hand and found myself pulled up and onto my feet. Except… only kinda.

“Oh no,” I groaned, feeling my cheeks flame up in a blush. I covered my faxe as Ryn laughed another one of her giddy laughs and placed the towel around my shoulders.

I was at least a head shorter than her now. A whole head shorter! I was a… a damned hobbit now!

“Come on tiny, bath time,” Ryn giggled, pulling me along by the hand.

This sucked!