The cold wind penetrates me to the bone as I walk through the snow-covered plain. My only protection from the wind is a tuxedo I wore for the party. The snow seeps into my shoes causing my feet to burn from the onset of frostbite.

The snowfall was even worse. The winds whipped it as fast as a professional pitcher. The snowflakes pelted me like someone was casting a frost shot spell. All I could do to stand it was clench my teeth and take the pain.

Through the winds and the whipping snowfall, I could see something house shaped. I take a deep breath as I got closer to the shape.

It was exactly what I saw. A house. A log house in the middle of some snow-covered plane. I burst into the house shutting the door behind me quickly. I take a relieved sigh as I fall into a deep bawl.

I was at a party for the dastardly rich. When I say dastardly, I mean these people were the stereotypical snooty rich folk. Who had way too much money to care about what other’s thought and felt. I was one of them. I didn’t like acting as I did, but it was expected of me by my father. Thinking about his name makes me want to blow this house to smithereens.

He always had it out for me since I developed my ethereal form at thirteen. He was jealous that I had magic and he didn’t. He didn’t like the fact that I am more feminine than most guys, my big lilac eyes and elven face makes me look like a beautiful exotic girl even if I have short, neatly combed auburn hair.

I guess I’m at fault too. I followed him. Did what he told me just so he would love me like he did before I became an elven beauty. I hoped and prayed that the gods would give me the paternal love I’ve so desperately wanted.

My pleas all went in vain for today my father did the unthinkable. He got another mage to emergency teleport me to this place. By emergency teleport, I mean banished, or at least it feels like I was banished.

All I could think of is the line from The Assassination of Julius Caesar.

‘Et Tu, Brute?’ I giggle at my own thoughts as I pulled on the ley lines of this place. I feel the essence flow through me. I focus on my feet, slowly heating them up. If I defrost them too fast then I could lose my feet. I then pull more essence into me. I close my eyes and focus on my body. Slowly heating it up.

It felt like hours before my body felt normal again as the sun had already set on the snow-covered plane. I stand up and casually hold my hands out with palms facing up. I focus my essence out, making light rather than heat. The essence flowed out of me and shaped into a ball of light.

The light was too intense, so I pull back a bit of essence. I then moved it above my head. The log house was bare of any furnisher or possessions.

“I have to figure out a way to get out of here,” I say to no one in particular. I put my hand in my mouth in a thinking gesture. ‘Teleport?’ was all I could think of. The thing is about teleportation. It can only be done with a spell circle or a disposable object with the spell imbued.

Unfortunately for me, I didn’t study spells. I only focused on my raw magic. As I was forbidden to learn anything about spellcraft. Another reason why I hate my father.

“If I’m going to get out of here. I’m going to have to teleport without a spell circle. I don’t know how I’m going to do it, but I’ll have to figure out something.” I say to myself. “For now, let’s sleep.”

When I wake up, it wasn’t even half as cold as it was when I first got here. I didn’t need a fire because I could just concentrate on my essence to warm me up. It’s exhausting to do, but it’s better than hypothermia.

I stride out of the log cabin to survey. It was a snow-covered desert. Luckily, I’ll never worry about water, but the food is another thing I’ll have to worry about. I focus the essence on me and tightly secure myself with it. I then close my eyes and flow the essence above the ground. Slowly pulling me along with it. I feel the air resist me as I elevated higher in altitude. The heat from the sun kept me from being too cold.

When I am satisfied, I open my eyes to the landscape below me. My jaw opens slightly with awe of the beautiful snow-covered plane. I feel myself losing grip of my control of essence. I focus on it, regaining that control.

I take a deep breath as I look in front of me. There was a tundra not far from me. Maybe a half a day’s walk. I focus on the essence to turn me around. Behind me was nothing but more of the wasteland.

I descend down with grace and fall on my back, into the snow, panting heavily. Flying isn’t very easy to do. Especially without a vessel.

After a few minutes of laying in the snow, my stomach growls, signaling that I need food. I get up and go back to the log cabin. I sit Indian style and focus on turning essence into nutrients throughout my whole body. I picked up this trick when I was doing some very heavy gaming and didn’t feel like eating. It takes about four hours to successfully convert enough essence to nutrients to satisfy my body. I’ll need to go out hunting soon, but after a doing flying magic. I barely have enough strength to go the distance. Instead of doing four hours of essence-nutrient conversion. I do it for eight. Giving myself a feeling of being full. I lay down on the bare floor and focus on my essence to keep my body warm as I drift into the dream realm.

I do stretches as I am getting ready for the trek to the tundra. I get into the runner’s position and focus essence on my legs.

“Get ready,” I say taking a deep breath. “Set,” tensing my muscles for the run. “GO!” I sprint off as fast as I could. I’m using essence to increase the speed and efficiency of my muscles. Providing more oxygen than my blood can normally carry, along with repairing the microfractures in the muscles. All of this is allowing me to make the twelve hours walk a six-hour run. I’m also building muscle mass rapidly in my legs.

When I came to the edge of the tundra. I stop and sit there for a quick meditation. I used a lot of essence getting here. It isn’t like flight, where I’m using more than I can gather, so I didn’t lose a lot of stamina. After the meditation, I walk through the tundra.

When I get to the middle of the tundra, I sit down and close my eyes. I then gather essence. After a minute, I disperse all the gathered essence as far as I could, using the dispersal to detect any sign of life.

I detected something hot not but a mile from me. I stand up and run that way all the while dispersing my essence echolocation towards that direction. The target was moving very slowly.

When I get even closer, I see an elk with the magical echolocation. I stop running and use essence to bend all light and sound around me. Making me undetectable by ear or eye. I walk straight up to a three-headed elk. I slap my hand right on the elk, lifting my invisibility and soundproofing. Quickly, I move my essence to the elk’s heart and crush it. The elk tries to escape only to fall dead. At least I know I’m not in Antarctica.

“Now, how in the world am I going to get this elk back to the cabin.” I muse. I use essence to mask the smell of a dead elk. I do not want any predators stealing my food after all.

I sit on my meal and ponder the question I spoke of. An idea pops into my head.

“If I can’t go home, I’ll make a home here… in the tundra… where there are no trees.” I facepalm at the stupidity I just spouted. Then I came up with another idea. Dragging my prey with me, I came to the nearest hill. Using the essence to form a shield around my hand, I cut into the rock to outline where I’m going to dig. I then touch the middle of the outline and slowly dig around it. When I got to a point where I was satisfied. I strengthen my arms and pull the filling out. I then carve a room into the hill. I cut a then part of the filling and poke a hole in the middle of it. I made the thing into a door by simply using essence to repair and cut it.

I made a separate room and chilled the air to turn the room into a refrigerator. I bring the elk into the room and dismantle it. Dismantling animals for their meat and other things is a lot easier with essence. I made use of the fur to create better clothes than the suit I had on. I threw off my torn tux and put on my new clothes. Sewing with magic is so much easier than doing it by hand.

I sit in the main room of my little rock apartment. Staring at the wall. I still didn’t know where I was or how to get out of here. My only hope is to find a local that lives here or teleport. Teleporting is a better idea. Then an idea came to me.

“Warp hole,” I say enthusiastically to the wall. Warp holes bend time and space. Magic can do a lot of cool stuff, but bending reality then cutting a hole into it to get to the other side could lead me to another dimension if I’m not careful. It’s also going to have to take major concentration and an amount of essence not known to mages. I start carving into the wall of the items I need.

1. I need a vessel that is synchronized with me

2. I need to practice my control with essence and create new magic

3. I need to also make my own spell language and spell annulus.

Number one and two will be easy but will take time to do. Number three is going to be difficult. Spell languages tend to be language imbued with power. Kind of like the Dragon language from Skyrim. Most mages use Latin as it’s easier to learn with words similar to English and other languages. I’m betting I can make a more simplistic spell language.

Spell annuluses are going to be an interesting one. The only annuluses I’ve seen are ones in anime. Particularly in Full Metal Alchemist. I don’t know how they are made in real life, but I’m going to have to make my own.

For the past few days, I’ve been messing around with gravity magic. The flying magic I did before was way too difficult. I thought if I make myself a zero-g environment a few centimeters away from my skin. Then I could just float around. The problem is, gravity is one of the wonders of the world. No one knows how it’s actually created or why it works the way it does. It, by itself, is magic. At least in science.

Magic is very unknown still. You can create stuff from thin air and bend the laws of physics, but only if you have the control and discipline to achieve the impossible. Also, luck of manifesting your ethereal form. Something that, like gravity, is very unknown to the world.

Ethereal manifestations started happening forty years ago to kids hitting puberty. It was thought of as some weird genetic thing until the kids produced magic. All the kids are some form of magical lifeform. You know, the things you hear from fantasy. Elves, fairies, mermaids, djinn, etc. all are part of ethereal form. Hell, there was this one guy who got gender bent into an angel. I can’t imagine how that felt like. About one out of a hundred kids manifest.

Me, I’m just an elf. A bit of a different elf because of my feminine appearance, but an elf all the same. I’m not bothered by my appearance so much. I just wish guys would stop hitting on me as I’m not into men. Ethereal manifestation does not change your sexual orientation. No matter how much you blame it.

I bent the space around me to allow me to float. It’s hard to explain how I did it. I simply thought of myself being in neutral buoyancy water. It was really fun, floating around like an astronaut. The only problem is I didn’t have a break, so I ran right into the mountainside. God that hurt. I learned, breaking an arm is super painful. Yes, I’ve never broken an arm before. What can I say? I never went out often due to my dad being embarrassed by me. I’m starting to think I have daddy issues.

Today I’m going to try something different with the gravity magic. I’m going to give myself a zero-g field as I’ve been calling it and use essence to move me around. Since I don’t have to lift my whole weight. I can just fly around and it’s more efficient.

I stand in the snow and close my eyes. I focus on producing a zero-g field and get this feeling of being weightless. I then grab a hold of myself with essence and float slowly up. I climb altitude higher and higher until I feel satisfied. I open my eyes to see the beautiful tundra below. I stare in awe for a second then fly.

Feeling the wind-resisting my body is adrenaline-inducing. Looking down and see the ground below from so high up is adrenaline-inducing. Flying is just a huge adrenaline rush. I pull on myself harder. The wind kicked up. Luckily, I have my new clothes, so I’m not very cold along with heating my body up magically.

Even though it takes less essence to do my type of flying. It still takes a lot out of me. I head back and have lunch. I think I could start traveling to find out where am I. I have to guess that I’m in another world. Hopefully not a cold one.

It is better if I start heading south where I can farm and find trees. Wood is a thing you make vessels with. That and metal. Copper is really good in amplifying your magic. Wood is good for controlling magic. You can tell which items do what because of their conductive or insulative properties. Despite my father being a total shit. I learned some stuff on the internet just out of curiosity and spite.

I head back home for the evening and have dinner. Sleeping is so much easier now I can suspend myself with the zero-g field.

Morning came and I pack up to head south. I look at the sun and try to remember if it was right or left of the sun that was south. I just take a guess and say it’s right. I didn’t have much to pack up. Only a water bottle I created from the elk liver. After saying goodbye to my lovely apartment. I take off south, or I think it’s south.

How do you like this new story. I don't know how much I'm going to work on it, but it's the start if I want to pick it back up. I think I'm going to start outlining my project rather than free write.