An Answer?

Oh god! I am gonna die again.

“I’ll take that expression of pure terror as an apology.”, Skadi says as the memory begins to fade away.

“So what do you want from me?”, I inquire of the goddess after collecting myself. Still afraid she may be here to give my final rites.

“I heard one of the reborn joined a certain guild recently.”, She begins to explain. Reborn? She continues, “With that in mind I decided to check in on you.”

“So I’m called a reborn?”, I ask her as a neon psychedelic forest or jungle forms around us.

“By us at least.”, The huntress replies looking at the scenery around us as it begins to blur. “Us being the gods obviously.”, She adds nonchalantly.

“Then you know what happened earlier today?”, I inquire Skadi while rubbing the back of my neck.

“Something happened?”, Skadi languidly side eyes me as something blurry nearby flashes for a moment. Jesus, have I fallen asleep?

“I was targeted by an anti-magic spell.”, I explain blinking to return my sight.

“Oh, that can be problematic for a reborn.”, She responds rather disinterested. The goddess kneels down and begins to examine a bizarre neon colored flower.

I cannot say my actual thoughts on this woman’s attitude. I am sorry my harrowing experience is so boring to you oh miss patron huntress! So I bite my tongue and let her continue.

“I doubt your returner explained this to you.”, Skadi begins now poking at the blurry neon highlighter colored flower. “But reborns’ physical forms are completely made out of data.”, She explains to me as she stands up. “Or what most would call magic.”, She adds looking at me again.

“So my physical form isn’t even real!?”, I yell at the goddess. “What am I supposed to do with that information!?”, I inquire as I grab the taller woman and pull her towards me in frustration.

“What you’ve been doing.”, She responds indifferent to my agitated state. “You’ve had that little body for four years now. Nothing is actually different.”, She explains further.

I let go of the goddess and sigh. She is right, all that info does is make me ask more questions. None of which will actually change my current situation probably.

“Thank you.”, I say in defeated acceptance to the goddess barely above a whisper.

“You’re welcome.”, Skadi replies stoically.

-- -- --

I turn on my side. This is a terrible mistake because the hammock turns a little too much and I begin to fall.

Before I can collect myself I am bungeed by the rope I tied around my waist. I groan in exhaustion and annoyance as I still continue to wake up.

“Owwwww.”, I mutter while spinning, after the rope stops bungeeing me, to get rid of the excess momentum. After a moment, I grab the rope to steady myself and stop spinning. “Okay, this was a stupid idea.”, I groan while beginning to climb up the rope back to my hammock.

Whilst climbing the rope I notice that the lighting has become brighter. I look towards the horizon, happy to see the rising sun breaking over the guild hall. I wish I had a camera, it is so beautiful every time I see it.

-- -- --

“Glad to see you all made it through the night.”, Bergenia says looking over all of us applicants walking back into the guild hall. “Now all the practical entrance exams are done!”, She adds cheerfully almost as if she was one of us taking it.

“Your schedules will be given to you soon.”, Nir states to us. “But for now, you all are probably pretty hungry.”, The man says with that bellowing laugh of his.

“You want to get something to eat together?”, Birta asks from behind me. “I wanna know what it was like sleeping in a tree.”, She says walking along side me.

“Sure.”, I answer her.

-- -- --

Birta and I sit down at a table alone. I am unsure if it bothers her, but I am quite happy about it.

“So what was it like to sleep in a tree?”, The teen asks the question she was holding in before taking a bite of her bread.

“Comfy until I turned a bit too much.”, I begin to explain. “Because of that I fell out of the tree.”, I continue before I bite into my own bread. “Thankfully I was smart enough to tie a rope around my waist before laying in the hammock.”, I finish after swallowing the bite.

“You tied a rope around your waist?”, She inquires further.

I eat a bit of my meal before answering.

“Yeah, I thought maybe something like that might happen so I didn’t wanna break something.”, I explain. “Not sure if I’ll ever do it again.”, I continue, “But if I do I’m not sure if the rope should be shorter or not.”

“Why would you shorten the rope?”, The ogre asks finishing up her meal. Damn, I thought I ate quick.

“So I don’t have to climb up as far.”, I answer rather rudely. I did not intend it to be rude but I understand how it could be heard that way.

“Sorry I asked.”, The teen responds clearly hurt by my mistake.

“No, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound rude but I did.”, I explain to Birta with a sigh. I want to be on this girl’s good side since I will have to live with her for awhile. “I usually try to not sound like that but I do have a tendency to just suddenly sound condescending.”, I continue before finishing my meal as well. Not as tasty as the stuff at the orphanage but it will have to do.

A silence builds between us as we leave the cafeteria and head back to our dorm room.

“I see.”, Birta finally responds to my apology. “How do you know such a large vocabulary?”, The teen asks me before another silence falls.

Well shit. I am not sure how to explain to her that I am technically actually forty not ten. Not that she would believe me even if I did tell her.