Anika had visions of tripping and her body landing in a pile of magical rocks conjured by a well-meaning capybara.

  “I have Aether magic!” Lily chirped happily. “That means I can catch you! Well… I can’t catch you yet… but it’s something I will get eventually!”

  “I guess I don’t really know what Aether magic does?” Anika said uncertainly. “The others seemed pretty straight forward, and I know the counselors they called for Morigan were Aether mages, but I didn’t really understand what they could do. There were a lot of other things on my mind at the time. What kind of power does Aether magic get?”

  “Lots of cool stuff! Like, I knew something had to be wrong because I can sense your emotions, and they were wild and all over the place. And later I can make peoples’ minds do weird things. And soon, I can move things with my mind! That’s how I will catch you,” Lily somehow managed to smile, a feat Anika hadn’t known capybaras were capable of, but which only enhanced the charm of the fluff ball in her lap.

  “Aether magic sounds a little OP. Mind magic and telekinesis? That’s like Jedi stuff. I always wanted to be a Jedi,” Anika pouted, now wishing she had something more exciting than boring Water magic.

  “Don’t cry Anika! Don’t you remember what Nilendi said? The gods made us so we share our magic!”

  “Wait… what? How could I miss something as amazing as that?” Anika’s mind reeled. Getting more than one power? She vaguely recalled Nilendi saying that everyone only had one Primary affinity… but something about the gifts the gods imbued would transfer some of their magic onto her? That definitely seemed like a spectacular deal, if it was true!

  “I must have been distracted… I remember her saying something like that but at the time I didn’t really register what it meant.” Anika thought about it, “But wait, if we share magic, why don’t I see anything on my character sheet about Aether magic? I know I looked at all my spells and abilities after you were summoned.”

  “That’s because I need to be level 20 before the magic share starts to work! I don’t know exactly how it works once I reach 20, but I do know that’s when it starts. I guess it’s a good thing so we can both learn to use our normal magic first before you start getting more magic.” Lily yawned, her snout wrinkling a little and a slight squeak emerged.

  “Oh no, you’re tired! I’m a night owl, and when this much has happened today it’s like my mind won’t shut up and let me sleep. I’ve always been a bit of an insomniac, but I guess we should try. Nilendi says we have a lot to do tomorrow. Because I’m new to magic, I guess they are going to try to help us a little more.” Anika scooped Lily into her arms and stood up from the chair, walking over to the bed and putting Lily in the corner before crawling into bed herself.

  “Don’t worry about sleep. I’ll just use my Calming Presence on you,” Lily curled up next to her. Before Anika could even ask what Calming Presence was, her mind started to clear and she was asleep before she knew it.

  ---------

  Morning arrived with knocking on the door. Anika groaned. The strange dream she had last night must have interfered with her sleep, because she was exhausted. Or was it just super early in the morning. But then who would be knocking on her door?

  Somebody better be dying to wake me up before my alarm, Anika thought, squeezing her eyes together more to block out the light. She rolled over and her arms encountered something furry. Good kitty, Anika thought.

  Then she froze. She didn’t have a cat. Her mother was allergic. She always slept with her friend’s cat when she was at a sleepover in high school, but this wasn’t high school, and she wasn’t at a sleepover. She opened her eyes to the cheery capybara face of Lily, sitting in the bed next to her and looking in her direction.

  “It wasn’t a dream,” Anika exclaimed, sitting bolt upright.

  “What wasn’t a dream?” Lily jumped down from the bed and took a few wake-up hops while Anika slowly pushed back the covers.

  “This! Being in a magical world looking like Mystique with a talking capybara sidekick!” Anika’s voice rose in panic as she felt an anxiety attack coming on, only to be suddenly squashed down by a feeling of calm emanating from Lily.

  “Okay, that spell may be coming in a little too useful,” Anika commented between some deep breaths. As Lily’s spell calmed her anxiety and prevented a return of the ‘i’m in another universe’ panic, the burst of energy she had on the realization that this was real faded back into sleepy morning haze. She wondered if she could just go back to sleep… but the knocking continued.

  “Is everything okay in there?” An unknown female voice sounded from behind the door.

  “We’re coming!” Lily replied to the voice, as Anika grudgingly swung her feet out of bed.

  Anika quickly, but clumsily in her half startled-half sleepy daze, changed out of the simple shift they had supplied for sleeping and slid back into the set of robes and basic, slip-on shoes she had been supplied yesterday. They were pretty comfy, made from a super soft material that slinked over her skin without any irritating seams or tags. Having nothing else to her name in this new world, she ran her hands through her surprisingly untangled green, turquoise and purple hair as she looked in a small mirror she hadn’t paid attention to the night before. She took a moment to revel in the colors while Lily hopped around her feet before she moved to open the door.

  Outside stood a young Mizeta girl, the same race as Anika, but unlike Anika’s blue skin, the girl had green skin. Gold eyes complimented her skin and hair was long in a mix of green, shiny gold, and blue. If ages worked the same on Etalan as they did on Earth, Anika guessed she was around 16.

  "Good morning, Anika. I am Sinaya, one of the acolytes in training. They’ve asked me to show you around this morning.

  Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.

  “Nice to meet you… does showing me around involve coffee? And food? I’m starving.” Anika croaked, the high pitched voice of her morning panic attack back to her normal, low-energy morning voice. She usually didn’t function in the morning prior to at least one cup of coffee. Preferably two. Conversation just should not happen prior to the second cup of coffee.

  “I’m not sure I know what coffee is, I’m sorry,” Sinaya sounded apologetic, so Anika resisted the urge to wail at the thought of never having coffee again, “but we do have a large variety of food and drink you can try. We hope you will find something to your liking. Follow me please!”

  Anika followed Sinaya in a subdued, sleepy, and most importantly, silent manner. Lily walked next to Anika but struck up a conversation with Sinaya as they walked down the stone corridor. Great, Anika thought sarcastically, my capybara is a morning person.

  “What about food for me! I would love some yummy leaves, or maybe a melon!” Lily’s voice had an air of desire when she mentioned melons.

  Sinaya glanced down at Lily before replying. “I believe the kitchens have some leafy greens we normally eat at lunch that would be suitable for you, Lily, as well as some local fruit.”

  “Yay! That sounds tasty!” Lily’s cheerful voice almost brought Anika out of her ‘how am I going to live without coffee’ depression as they walked down several short hallways nearly identical to the hallway they started in. Anika assumed this area was some kind of living quarters, which made sense with the large dining hall they were now entering. The chamber continued the stone walls of the hallway, with soft warm light spreading from magical sconces spaced evenly around the room. The ceilings were high with several large overhead lights giving off a subdued natural glow. Wooden tables and benches with ornate carvings were arranged in neat rows of V’s- not long, skinny rows like a certain wizard school. Some of the tables and benches looked shorter than others, which Anika assumed was to make some of the shorter Degeta more comfortable. On one side of the room were several large doors, likely leading to a prep area, and a large serving window with a variety of food trays laid out. The smells coming from the room were… acceptable. She was getting hotel buffet vibes as opposed to a fancy brunch place. She hoped they had waffles.

  Realizing she had spaced out on Sinaya and Lily’s conversation, she heard the end of Sinaya’s statement about grabbing a plate from a small nook on the same wall as the door they entered from. With an uncaffeinated goblin-like grunt of understanding, Anika headed away from Sinaya in the direction of the plates, Lily at her side.

  “Plate or bowl, Lily?” Anika asked, not knowing how the capybara might prefer to eat her food. For now, Anika would have to get her food for her, since she had a distinct lack of thumbs. It sounded like that wouldn’t be the case for long though. Not only did she have a magical capybara companion, she had a magical capybara companion who could use the Force… eventually.

  “A plate is fine! What do they have that isn’t meat?” Maybe Lily would be able to levitate herself in the future so she could see the buffet, Anika thought, as she answered.

  “Looks like some mixed greens. They look pretty fresh and there’s like 4 or 5 different types of plants here. And a few kinds of sliced fruit. None of them look like melons… one is kind of like a pear and a kiwi had a baby. And these are some kind of citrus,” Anika lowered her head to sniff, “they smell sweet. And this last one looks like a grape.” Anika paused a moment, “Uh, I’m not sure if you know what any of those are, but they all look good”

  “I want to try them all!” Lily bounced happily at the options.

  “Ok, I’ll get a little of everything and whatever you like I can go back for if you want more.” Anika put a selection of the fruits and greens on one plate and put a bit of the kiwi-pear and the grapes on her own plate as well. Examining the other food, she identified eggs and some kind of grilled breakfast meats. Nothing that looked like bacon though… she hoped that there was something similar to bacon in this world. She’d even take turkey bacon. She grabbed a sunny side up egg, a hunk of the grilled meat, and a slab of bread and cheese. No waffles or other griddled goodness. Anika sighed. There were a few other options, but she wasn’t feeling particularly adventurous this morning. Better to stick to things that at least looked somewhat familiar. She saw Sinaya sitting at one of the shorter tables nearby, and led Lily over to the table, putting both plates down as Lily jumped onto the bench, kicking the air with adorable little bunny kicks that did little to propel her upward any faster. She managed to scramble up on the shorter bench… barely… unlike her attempted jump into Anika’s lap the previous night. She put her front feet up on the table, purred in happiness, and started immediately munching the plate of food.

  “I’m going to go back for drinks,” Anika said, before Sinaya could start talking. She’d have to try every drink they had in order to find an appropriate morning pick-me-up to replace coffee before she could deal with a full conversation.

  There were several large ceramic canisters with little spouts that she couldn’t see inside, as well as several large glass canisters with various colored liquids. One glass container was full of water and Anika immediately got a bowl to fill for Lily. She got herself a cup and tried the orange, green, and brown colored liquids, identifying the orange and green liquids as kinds of juice (she wasn’t sure if they were a single fruit or mixed, as the first tasted like a combination of mangos, pineapples, and starfruit and the other tasted like a combination of cantaloupe and grape) and the brown was some kind of unsweetened tea. She shuddered and was glad she hadn’t gotten more than a taste. She may have only moved to the south as a teenager, and she may not always love Georgia with its hot, sticky summer weather, but they had it right that sweet tea was the only correct way to make iced tea.

  Filling a glass with more of the orange-colored juice, she picked up a mug and turned to the ceramic canisters. One of them was probably hot tea, based on the iced tea she had already encountered, but maybe one of them was a coffee-like beverage. Of course, she wouldn’t be able to really tell if it was a caffeinated coffee-like beverage just from tasting it, but if it was at least a flavor substitute she could attempt to convince herself into a placebo effect. Gamers needed their caffeine.

  The first canister was filled with, unsurprisingly, tea. It was slightly more palatable hot than iced, but it wasn’t to her liking. If she was going to drink tea, something that tasted like generic Lipton wasn’t the flavor profile she was going to go for.

  The second canister left Anika feeling much more optimistic about life. It was filled with a delightful warm drink that reminded her of hot chocolate mixed with a chai latte. This could definitely replace her coffee cravings. It was almost like a Mexican hot chocolate, but with much richer spices and flavors and a little less chocolate. She almost stopped right there to fill up her mug but decided to try the last canister first.

  Anika filled her mug with a small sample from the last canister and immediately regretted her life choices, trying hard not to spit it out. It was vile. It was like hot cherry cough syrup mixed with bitter grass. She almost gagged as she swallowed and immediately chased it with the entire cup of the orange-colored juice. She didn’t even want to use the same mug to go back to the second warm beverage, afraid that the smallest drop of that foul drink would soil the glory that was the chocolatey chai goodness. Looking around, she noticed a dirty dish station and quickly dropped the tainted mug onto the cart before returning to fill up a fresh mug from the second stone canister. For good measure, she filled her glass with juice again, then carefully balanced the mug, cup, and bowl as she went back to the table where Sinaya and Lily waited.

  “I was just telling Lily about the plan for the day. I have a list of things to brief you on…” Sinaya trailed off as Anika shook her head.

  “Uh uh, first things first, what the heck is in that third ceramic canister over there and how do I NEVER drink it again.”