Blessing

An hour later Nia knew the prayer for good harvests. Her head also burned with the red color of embarrassment. At least there wasn’t any smoke coming out of her ears.

Wearing decidedly female clothing—a skirt that went down to her ankles—made her feel strange. As if she had trespassed on territory she shouldn’t have. And it emphasized her curves. Tina had made sure of that and insisted that she wore those clothes.

Her upper body was clad in a warm sweater. It was gray and slightly scratchy, but it would keep her warm. As did the skirt. No fancy robes. Now she only needed a way to dye her hair and get some colored contact lenses, and she’d look like a normal human being.

Tough luck getting both in a medieval fantasy world.

She’d probably have to ask Mother Clemens whether there were prayers that changed her looks. At least the embarrassment from the clothing started to fade. It did help that no one seemed to look at her strangely.

Okay, there weren’t many people in the village at this time of day that could look at her strangely. But a win is a win and one should take it.

Nia looked up in the sky to estimate how late it was, and stopped.

“We definitely had a regular day and night rhythm, hadn’t we?”

“Yes, we had,” Tina answered. “Why do you ask?”

“Well, I have a strange dark vision ability all of a sudden, but more importantly: Isn’t that a planet?” She pointed at the large object in the sky on the horizon.

“Yes, I think so. It has started to rise the yesterday morning.” There was a small pause. “Wait, you can see in the dark?”

“Don’t worry, Luaria will keep us safe,” Rena said and folded her hands in prayer. “She even sent us a saint to help us through the period of darkness.”

“Period of darkness?” Nia looked at the farmer’s wife and ignored Tina’s question.

“It usually lasts about two weeks. Luaria gives us light while Rygara blocks the sun.”

Nia stared at the reddish object on the horizon. She couldn’t see any clouds on the planet, nor any patches of water. It looked like a larger version of Mars.

“Come.” Rena walked past them and to the village’s entrance and then to the fields beyond.

A moon world. We are on a moon! The thought clung to Nia’s mind. If she still needed proof that she was in another world, now she had it.

Though, if I still needed that proof, I’d be pretty dense.

“Here are the fields, miss.” Rena stopped and pointed at what was obviously farmland. Several people stood on the earth there and plowed the field.

“Okay, here goes nothing,” she said, took a deep breath, and raised her voice to sing.

She followed the melody Rena had taught her. It came easy to her, as if she had sung it for a long time, and she did it with a strong and clear voice. Embarrassment be damned. I was dead once and these prayer songs saved my life. Her head still burned with the telltale sign that this was uncomfortable.

The magic reacted as soon as the last note left her lips. She felt the magic stream out of her and onto the field. It settled into the earth and she could feel vaguely how it retrieved something from deeper in the earth, connecting it to the top of the soil.

The prayer itself hadn’t given her any clues as to what it did. Although the reference to Mother Moon in it was interesting. Maybe there was a core of magic deep inside the moon they were standing on. Then again, the term could just refer to the body they were on, like the moniker Mother Earth she was used to?

Nia shook her head. This was a prayer she couldn’t learn anything from. It felt more like a set prayer that connected to some bigger magic that was already present in the earth below her feet. Or maybe it just retrieved some nutrients the plants needed to grow. That thought didn’t explain, why the field sparkled in the sunlight.

“Oh, thank you, miss saint!” The farmers called out to her.

Nia breathed in sharply, which resulted in a hissing sound. Rena didn’t seem to notice anything, her eyes almost sparkling as much as the field she was looking at.

“I see you’re good enough to be running around again.” Tom shouted from afar. He walked next to Sonja, and Ralf trotted along behind them. “I heard you decided on where we’re going next?” Tom stopped in front of her and stared her down. It was infuriating that he was now taller than her. “Who made you the leader of our party?”

Nia shrugged. “No one. But be my guest. Tell me where you want us to go next.”

Tom opened his mouth, closed it, opened it again, without say anything for a while, before finally answering. “I just don’t like you deciding any of these things on your own. Without consulting us.”

“You don’t need to go to Drakar with me. You can go your own way.” Nia shrugged and turned back to the field.

There was silence. A lot of it. But Tom also didn’t move away from her.

“I can’t.” He sounded frustrated. “Or rather, we can’t.”

Nia turned back to him. “Why not?”

“Because we want to go home. And we believe, the only way is by defeating that Saesquar. Which means, we need you.”

“Well then. I am going to Drakar. I still want to speak to Luaria herself and the council there seems to be the best choice. If you need me, then I guess, you have to follow me.” She held a hand up. “Following me is not the same as making me a leader though.”

“How is that not making you a leader?” Tom growled and squinted.

“Because such a group will have to make more decisions than where to go. A leader would have a say in all of those. Don’t even expect me to have an answer to everything!”

Tom was silent for a few more moments. “Fine.” He turned around and walked a few paces away.

“Sorry.” Sonja shook her head. “I don’t know why he is like that around you.”

He probably still doesn’t like what I was before. Or the change. Or anything.

Nia sighed. “You don’t need to apologize for how he acts.” At least Sonja had buried the hatchet.

“You’re right. I just don’t understand, why he acts like that.”

Nia bit her lower lip. His comment about having another date he’d need to get to came to her mind. “Maybe you just don’t know him as much as you think you are.”

“Maybe. Though I also think he’s changed somewhat. He realized that he’s far less in control than he thought he’d be. Especially after what has happened.”

“Staring death into the eyes changes everyone.” Ralf had also stopped treating this as another role-playing-game.

Reality has settled in for all of us.

The stakes are far higher than Nia had liked. She needed to practice more. Needed to be able to use her magic without any songs. Needed to get stronger.

She tried to reproduce the effect of the blessing without singing. It was different from the magic she’d used up until now, but having more variety would probably help in the long run.

“Ah, there you are.” Mother Clemens’ voice interrupted her just as she was making the connection between her magic and the deeper earth below her. The ground below her feet began to sparkle as well, which was not the effect she had wanted to achieve and the way the people looked at her became even worse.

Great. You didn’t want them to worship the ground you walked on and then you did this. The idiot in another world just got a second volume.

Rena turned to her. “What are you?”

Nia didn’t answer. But she felt that her head answered for her. How could blood be so warm that you’d feel as if you got a fever? Now she knew why some animated characters had steam coming out of their ears.

“A true Saint …” Mother Clemens seemed to revere her even more than before. She even sank to her knees again. Behind her were two young men, who stared at her with open mouths. It didn’t help with her head. If she were a steam engine, she’d be able to run away with some fantastic speed. Maybe even at 88 miles per hour. But she wasn’t.

“Aren’t you supposed to do magic without prayers or incantations?” Sonja asked.

“That’s only true for sorcery, but not for divine magic. The only ones that can do that are saints. And its even rare among them, as far as I know,” Mother Clemens said.

“Can’t we just forget what just happened? It was an accident!”

“There is no way we’ll ever forget that you’re a true saint.” The two men behind the priestess nodded in tandem. They also looked pretty similar. Almost as if they were twins.

Don’t make me want to die after I’ve just came back from the dead!

“Anyways, who are they?” Sonja thankfully shifted the topic away from her.

“These are Torax and Erax. They’ll accompany us to Drakar. They know how to wield swords and are training to become guards. They’ll protect us on the way and will be able to gather experience as guards,” Mother Clemens explained.

Trying the Two-Birds-With-One-Stone-Method? Though I’m not sure how much help they are, if we encounter Saesquar or one of her goons …

“I think it’s better, if we’re traveling in a small group,” Nia said.

“The saint needs a large retinue. She has to stay safe!” Mother Clemens shot to her feet.

What’s with her energy levels? Sometimes she moves and talks like an old lady, and now she’s like a young girl. Nia sighed. Maybe I shouldn’t meddle in things with my magic too much.

With Mother Clemens turning into a fanatic regarding her sainthood, Nia was willing to leave her behind. The big problem was, that Nia didn’t know where to go.

Nia looked back at the village, then at the old priestess. “Safety is a good point. I don’t suppose you know a prayer that can change the color of something?” She figured that she shouldn’t ask her directly for something that changed her hair or eyes.

“No, there’s not.” The old woman shook her head. “Why do you ask?”

“I just hoped to …” she began, before quickly settling on a half-truth: “I just hoped to hide my sainthood in order to fly under Saesquar’s radar.”

“What’s a radar?”

“Nevermind,” Sonja interjected. “I think she just wants to dye her hair.”

Mother Clemens nodded slowly, put her hand to her cheek and looked down. “That might be a good idea …” She turned to one of the twins with her. Either Torax or Erax. She couldn’t tell them apart and it wasn’t really important anyways. “Do you have any Cyanese Grass in the village?”

The man nodded in answer.

“Great. Get us five tufts of it. We’ll change the saint’s hair color.”