"Get back here, you absolute mongrel!"

  Xae barked out a laugh, just barely audible in the chaos of shouts as we pushed through the crowd with wild abandon. The absolute bitch was somehow managing to keep her distance even though she took on most of that burden, maybe because she was taller than me? I was growing, but not nearly as fast as I'd like, though a bit of strengthen here and there made it so that I could at least keep pace.

  "Never gonna catch me at this rate, little prodigy!" Xae yelled back.

  "Choke on a bag of dicks!"

  She laughed all the harder, dancing around a bigger man rather than trying to body past him. I growled and pushed some of my spell into the muscles of my legs to make some headway. The feeling of muscles straining was a small price to pay for potentially making this troglodyte parading as a child pay.

  Then Xae cut into an alley, and I was close to follow.

  My reward for that being an outreached arm to the neck.

  The way my body swung with my momentum was likely a comedic sight to say the least, but I was too distracted by my faculties resetting after such an abrupt stop.

  And the coughing, there was a lot of that.

  I could hear Xae's wheezing laughs clearly enough to assign blame though. "Holy shit," Xae struggled. "You fucking flew, girl, like a proper bird!"

  I tried to voice my protests, but those came out as strangled coughs.

  Instead, I gathered enough of my faculties to give her the finger.

  That just made her laugh harder.

  "Fuck—" a cough. "—you."

  "Hah! You wish, beat me without your magic and I'll consider it."

  I was pretty proud of the visible cringe in my form when she said that, despite my ongoing war with breathing.

  That seemingly tipped Xae far enough into hysterics that talking became a bit of an impossibility. It took a while for the both of us to get under control. Well, for her to get under control. I was faced with the indignation of mockery! After an ambush! She would know my wrath!

  "Oh come on, don't give me that look," Xae chuckled.

  I rubbed at my neck and scowled as I got up off the ground. "Give me one reason not to beat your ass in the next five seconds."

  "We're friends?" Xae tilted her head with a smile.

  "Friends don't steal each other's sweets," I grumbled. "Or ambush the other with a clothesline."

  Xae shrugged. "Not my fault you've had lame friends up till this point—" I winced hard at that. "—but no worries! I'll make sure to catch you up on all the years of fun you've missed."

  "My friends were great," I mumbled.

  "I'm sure," she scoffed.

  My face darkened, and Xae raised her hands to placate me. Though the slight amusement in her expression almost made me actually start swinging.

  "Whatever," I sighed. "Anything else you wanna do today? Sun's still high in the sky."

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  Xae hummed and tapped her chin. "How about we see where the day takes us?"

  "Balnae?" I suggested.

  "You're a bit obsessed with those, aren't you?"

  "They're nice," I said. "Feels like I'm being purified in the scalding water."

  Xae rolled her eyes and walked past me to the streets beyond, choosing to be the lead of our next adventure since my suggestion was apparantly found wanting. I grumbled and followed along, going through a gambit of silly games. We agreed not to play anything physical, since we get enough of that when sparring. She hated prism unfortunately, refusing to sub for Kerro or Gar when one of them wasn't available. A shame too, I was warming up to the game; so instead we played a variation of knuckle bones, darts, ring toss, and house climbing!

  That last one got us into trouble a few times, but my ears did a lot for keeping us out of the stockades.

  I caught the last knuckle bone with a flourish, giving Xae a wicked smile. "Looks like I win again! For having such talent with the sword, you have a surprising lack of dexterity."

  "'you have a surprising lack of dexterity'," Xae copied in a nasally tone. "That's what you sound like."

  "Oh? Is someone a sore loser?" I said in a singsong cadence.

  Xae pouted. I chuckled.

  It was nice.

  "C'mon, let's go back," Xae sighed.

  "Don't want a rematch?"

  "It's getting dark soon, and if you haven't noticed, we're in gang territory."

  I raised a brow. "I didn't take you for one to be afraid of the gangs."

  "I'm not." Xae rolled her eyes. "In the same way that I'm not afraid of a wendigo, but bravery doesn't mean shit to something that could kill you with ease."

  "Surprisingly wise words, considering who it's coming from," I said.

  Xae shrugged. "I have my moments."

  I smiled and gave her shoulder a light pat. "Back we go then?"

  "Yeah."

  I pocketed the knucklebones and followed her out of the alley. We made good time considering we were walking, and found ourselves back in the northern district soon enough.

  "Next week?" I said to Xae.

  The girl pursed her lips and looked away. "We could hang out more often if you want," she mumbled.

  I blinked, and held back the urge to reject her outright.

  "What makes you say that?"

  "These are fun," Xae said, still looking away. "I...uh...don't normally hang out with people. I like it."

  I considered her with a raised brow.

  I hadn't actually seen her interact with anyone our age other than me, always assumed that was a deliberate choice. Might've been, I wasn't a mind reader. But she was a kid...and strong enough to take care of herself.

  "Sure." I nodded. "what day are you thinking?"

  She whipped her head to me with her signature wide smile, albeit a bit wider than normal. "How about tomorrow?"

  I had to hold back my displeasure at the prospect of taking it easy for two days in a row, but I nodded nonetheless. Xae pumped her fist to the air and skipped off in the direction of the hunters guild with the giddiness of a gremlin.

  I let out a sigh and shook my head with a smile, walking back to my inn to get some training done today. If there was one consolation it was that the sun set much earlier in winter, meaning I had more time to figure out the bloodmancy bullshit I was trying. And bone. But creating a finger's worth of bone took all I could handle, so I didn't do it every day.

  It was starting to take...longer for my tolerance to settle, didn't notice it until a half hour of rest wasn't enough to reset. Now it took five days.

  Five. Days.

  Meant I hadn't thought of branching out into manipulating muscles or tendons yet.

  That shit was probably more complicated than what I was already doing, I'd leave it for later if I ever understood enough about the respective tissues. Organs though? I knew what the kidneys did, and they seemed safe to experiment with a bit, as well as the digestive system.

  But...later. I had so many Words I was trying to get at the same time, probably too many.

  Mine was progressing nicely, but for whatever reason I hadn't been feeling any ethereal knowledge dumps for bone or blood. Strength was the closest Word I had to being complete, and I felt that it still needed plenty of months to go for that.

  Well, pian was closer, but it bottlenecked a while ago.

  Even using it to increase my speed barely made any progress, I shuddered to think of what tortures were needed for it to be a part of my lexicon.

  I whistled happily as I trotted down the streets, another tune from my old world that the locals could only consider esoteric. The joys of city life. I greeted the innkeeper, and ignored the few patrons who tried to start conversation, heading up the stairs to my room.

  The stairs creaked in way that was satisfying to hear, old wood to mark an aged building.

  The inn was a generational thing, going from first born to first born over the ages. Surprisingly, if the current proprietor could be believed, then they didn't discriminate by gender.

  Or maybe not very surprisingly?

  Sexism existed in this world, but it was comparable to what I experienced in my old life. Well, for other people. Being an elf made me a bit special in the eyes of bigots, not that I cared for their opinions. I entered my room and stretched, getting a nice pop from my vertebrae before plopping on my bed and starting my training.

  earlier? Why do I feel good? Wouldn't you like to know, and I would love to tell you! Unfortunately it involves a metric shit ton of spoilers.

  Do I change the blurb?