That morning was my first time in the Fairy Ward’s training room, and it was nothing like I had been expecting. I had expected some sort of converted hospital bathroom, but the room was constructed when the Amethyst Harbour Hospital for Altered Care was first constructed six years ago to accommodate the city’s steadily growing Altered population and their medical needs, which were very different at times from the medical needs of baseline humans. It was roughly the same size as a human bathroom would have been, but that, and the human-sized door was only so the maintenance and cleaning people could access it.

It was like walking into some sort of self-contained jungle oasis, with plants and flowers of various types growing all around the room, including creeper vines growing up a couple of the walls. In one corner there was something like a tiny rock garden and at the center of the room, there was a small pool of water, which was pond-sized to us Sprites. There were a few things that still reminded me that this was a room inside of a building though, such as the grow lights on the ceiling, a plugged drain visible through the clear water at the bottom of the pool, and a faucet with a short hose and sprayer attached on one of the bare, ceramic-tiled walls.

While I had instinctively used my water magic to escape the prison that was my former body, learning to use it consciously was going to take time and effort on my part. Other Sprites might be able to give me advice and tell me what worked for them, but how fast I learned would depend on how good my instincts for magic were and how much I worked at developing my skills and perfecting my technique. Breeze was sure to tell me that before starting me on the first step of that journey, sensing and manipulating mana.

Apparently, mana is everywhere, but until the Wild Magic released during the Breaches started changing people into mythical creatures, it was extremely rare for people to be able to sense and make use of it. Beyond Breeze and Poppy telling me that mana felt different to everyone, neither of the other two Sprites was able to help me with this first step. Breeze suggested meditation to open my mind to the world around me, so I tried that for the first couple of hours while Poppy tried to learn more about her special ability.

Unlike other types of Altered, even the Pixies who were grouped with us as Fairy types, Sprites have a very close relationship with mana. We feed on it and are constantly and slowly drawing it into our bodies for energy without even thinking about it, much as plants photosynthesize sunlight. The problem is that once we start using magic, it can drain our mana reserves fairly quickly, which means that to effectively use magic we need to learn to do consciously what we’re already doing unconsciously and at a much higher rate.

After two hours I started to become frustrated and vented to Moonlight, “This is impossible. Breeze said that Sprites have a natural ability to sense mana, but this is like learning how to breathe or make my heart start beating. How do I learn how to do something that my body already does without trying?”

-Perhaps you are thinking too hard about this, Lily,- the Unicorn replied gently. -Breeze said it was akin to sunlight for plants and that you absorb it through your skin and wings. Relax, clear your mind, and focus on your skin and wings.-

I didn’t have high hopes for this, but I attempted to get myself nice and relaxed and do as she had suggested. Clearing my mind of everything else, including my frustration, wasn’t easy, but I tried to just focus on the sensations on my skin and wings. The first thing that I sensed was the warmth of the overhead grow lamps from above, then there was the ever-so-slight breeze in the room from the air circulation fan.

I tried to ignore things like that itchy spot on my left ankle and the slight glistening of sweat from the warmth of the training room. Those were just distractions, annoying but unimportant and unrelated to what I was trying to do. Like the warmth and the breeze, I filtered those out hoping that if I eliminated enough sensations then I would be left with what I was looking for.

I was getting nowhere, all that this focusing on my wings and skin was doing was making me super aware of them and making them all tingly. Starting to get frustrated, I decided to take a break from the whole magic thing for a bit and work on my rehabilitation exercises and flying practice. I tried again before lunch, but it was the same deal, nothing that screamed out, “I’m sucking in mana,” just that tingling sensation after focusing too hard.

I was beginning to feel discouraged as Poppy and I sat down to eat lunch together, especially since the Fire Sprite seemed to be having a much easier time with her task than I was having with mine. She had been trying things with rocks, leaves, and whatever else she could find in the training room, and as best she and Breeze could figure, Poppy had the ability to manipulate any raw material she touched and form it into whatever she could imagine. It was more than just clothes that she could make too, if she could picture it in her mind and had enough of the material she could make it.

Breeze was going to see about getting some metal, scrap clothing material, and other such things for Poppy to test with but so far there only seemed to be two limitations. The first was size, the bigger the item she was trying to make, the more mana it seemed to take to do it. When she tried to form a statue out of a rock a little larger than she was, it took a lot more time and she had to absorb more mana to do it so she wouldn’t completely deplete her reserves. She also couldn’t seem to make anything with moving parts, unless perhaps she made all the parts individually and then put them together.

After turning my hospital gown into something like the outfit she had made for herself earlier. Poppy asked, “So, Lily, how’d your training go? Have you used any cool water magic yet? I kind of thought you’d be all wet by now... I mean, from splashing yourself and stuff. Magic is a bit hard to control consciously at first.”

“I haven’t even got to that part yet,” I told her with a sigh of disappointment. “I’m still working on the whole sensing mana thing. Whatever it is I’m supposed to be feeling, I’m, not.”

“Maybe you just need to be turned on first. Wait, no! I didn’t mean it like that!” Her cheeks were flushed as she thought carefully about what she wanted to say and how to phrase it and a moment later she added, “I meant that you probably don’t have to draw any mana in right now since you’ve been here a week and haven’t used any magic yet since Sprouting, or even done much flying, so you’re probably stuffed… I mean filled… I mean you don’t need any mana right now. So, try going about it in reverse maybe? Try using some water magic and then see what it’s like when you actually need mana.”

Why did Poppy have so much trouble talking to me and keep rethinking how she said things? She wasn’t like that with any of the nurses and we had known each other for over a week now, so I would have thought she’d be over any shyness by now. Was the friendliness just an act? Did I make her uncomfortable somehow?

Wait! What if she realized that I was into girls and found her attractive? What if she knew I used to be a guy and that was making her nervous? Was I being some sort of creeper without realizing it and making her uncomfortable? She was a real girl, and probably straight so of course she wouldn’t want some skeezy pretender drooling all over her. What do I do!?

Depression and uncertainty warred in my mind, and for several minutes I just sat there frozen as I spiraled deeper into self-doubt and self-loathing. I had felt such euphoria earlier when Breeze and Moonlight had helped me to figure myself out, but those feelings were long gone now, and I wondered if I deserved to be calling myself a girl. I was obviously doing something wrong here and making Poppy uncomfortable.

A hand squeezed my own, making me focus a little more on what was going outside of my head, and I found myself staring into a pair of orange eyes set in a face that currently wore a very concerned expression. “Hey, are you okay Lily? You look kind of down. I’m sorry if it was a stupid suggestion, I just thought…”

Shit, and now she was blaming herself for my current mood. I tried to tear my thoughts from my misgivings and try to recall just what we had been talking about and what it was she had suggested. Right, the whole mana and magic thing. She had suggested trying magic first and despite her odd verbal bumbling, maybe she had a point?

I forced a smile that I didn’t feel at all as I tried to convince her everything was okay. “Sorry, I got kinda lost in my thoughts there for a minute. That’s probably a good idea, so I guess I can try that. But how do I use magic?”

Poppy seemed to be thinking over an answer when Breeze, who had just returned from taking lunch to Nightshade, provided one for her. “You should feel a connection to your element. Honestly, for us Sprites, it’s as easy as focusing on that element and what you want it to do.”

Then, as Poppy and I ate our lunches, Breeze gave me an impromptu lesson on basic elemental magic. First, they told me that water is the most versatile of the elements, with Earth being a close second. Water exists practically everywhere on Earth in some form and even if there is no visible water anywhere, Water Sprites can gather it from moisture in the air and manipulate ice or anything that has enough moisture in it, like I had used embryonic fluid and blood to escape my cocoon. Those were more advanced techniques though, and they suggested that I work on controlling actual water first.

Earth was nearly as versatile since they could control not just earth and stone but plants and metals as well to some degree. The other two elements could be versatile as well but took a lot more work to master. Air might be as easy to come by as water and earth, but it was really hard to focus on at first because it wasn’t something you could actually see most of the time. As for fire, it was far less common, but just as I could draw moisture from the air, Poppy could heat it up to generate flames if she needed to or do the same with combustible materials. With enough practice, she would even be able to control lightning and electricity in time.

Then the pair told me what drawing on mana felt like for them. Poppy described it as a feeling of electricity in the air around her while Breeze said that for them, it was more like a breeze blowing over them that felt different than other air did to their senses. Once we were done eating, I was ready to give things another try as Poppy and I flitted back to the training room while Breeze called someone to see about getting some other materials for Poppy to practice her new ability with.

I sat down cross-legged in front of the bathtub-sized pond and attempted to feel my connection to the water. Surprisingly, I didn’t have as much trouble discovering that as I did how to sense mana. There was this definite feeling that I couldn’t quite describe, like a pulling sensation or awareness, but not.

It was kind of like when you walk into your house and someone had been cooking something delicious, you just sort of know it’s there and can practically follow the smell. I wasn’t smelling this with my nose though, but with my mind and I could sense it coming strongly from the pond in front of me. It was in the air around me too, but weaker and harder for my new sense to pinpoint.

I ignored the moisture in the air and focused on the pool ahead of me. This was my element and, if my will was strong enough, it was mine to command. I only needed to bend it to my will and make it do what I wanted it to do. Taking a deep breath to steady myself, I willed the water to rise into the air, but the only result was a throbbing pain inside my skull.

“Too much, too soon,” I thought to myself. I needed to start smaller. With that in mind, I left my sitting position and leaned forward to place both hands beneath the water’s surface, holding them apart at around shoulder-width. Now, laser-focused on the water between my hands, I willed it to rise along with my hands as I drew them out of the water, the shape of a sphere firmly envisioned in my mind.

This time there was no throbbing discomfort in my head, which was good because keeping my mind focused on holding that sphere of water took every bit of concentration that I could muster. I did hold it though, and it did rise. It was an unsteady, slightly sloshing sphere, but it was a sphere and didn’t immediately splash downward to join the rest of the water below. I turned to Poppy, feeling very pleased with myself, and then I noticed that she had formed a fireball in the palm of her hand with seemingly little effort.

I almost lost my grip on the water between my hands at seeing her doing it so effortlessly. It was disappointing, but to be fair, she had been at this for a month longer than me and this was my first time trying this. I was about to put the water back where I had gotten it and start again when I was struck with a mischievous impulse.

Holding the water in my hands, I willed it toward the flame as if it had been propelled from a squirt gun. It worked! The flame was extinguished, and Poppy turned to gape at me in surprise. “You were playing with fire,” I teased. “Didn’t you say something about wanting someone to get you wet when you do that?”

Poppy’s face immediately went almost as red as her hair as she sputtered, “I… well… ummm…”

That was about when I noticed that the water I had sprayed her way hadn’t just extinguished her flames. It had soaked the Fire Sprite from head to toe, and now the remains of the clothes she had formed from the paper hospital gown were clinging to her wet skin and leaving nothing to the imagination. My eyes went wide, my cheeks turned as red as hers, and I quickly turned to face away from her as I blurted, “Omigod! I’m so sorry! I didn’t mean… I didn’t think… I…”

Shit! What do I do?! She was probably mortified now and likely thought that I was some pervert who did that on purpose to see her naked body. My knees gave out on me, and I fell onto my butt as my mind tried to come up with some sort of apology that didn’t sound either lame or hollow. I couldn’t breathe as the first panic attack that I had had since I first Sprouted clutched viciously at my chest as I gasped for air, my mind spiraled, and I clutched at my knees and rocked back and forth. “You have no chance with her, she thinks you’re some disgusting pervert now. Even if she is into girls, she wouldn’t be into a freak like you. She probably hates your guts.”

-Lily, you must calm yourself,- Moonlight’s voice gently prodded at my mind as she attempted to break through my downward spiral of self-derision.

“…ly. Lily! Can you hear me?! Please calm down… going to be okay,” another voice called as it tried to pull my attention toward it. It felt so distant though, like it was being filtered through a wall of white noise.

“… need to breathe. Inhale…” a third voice tried to penetrate the storm clouds in my mind.

Moonlight’s voice once again attempted to pull my mind away from my thoughts. -Lily, I know you can hear me, even if you cannot hear the others right now. The one named Breeze says that you need to take slow, deep breaths. Please, focus on the sound of my voice. I am here for you, my Maiden. I will always be here for you.-

“But Poppy, she probably…”

My frantic thought toward the Unicorn was interrupted as she told me sternly, -She is concerned for you, Lily. She flew to get Breeze in a panic and now they are both worried. You are stronger than this, get control of yourself. Please, do not make me show myself to intervene. Deep, slow breaths, my Maiden.- Her mental voice sounded so worried.

A different type of guilt and worry now gnawed at my heart and mind. I had made them all worry. I needed to get a grip. Very carefully, I took one long and deep breath before slowly releasing it. A second followed, and then a third, and soon I was in a pattern that relaxed my breathing and slowed my racing heart. When I finally had calmed down enough to find my voice, I mumbled, “Sorry…. I…”

My apology was swiftly derailed as I was practically crushed in an embrace. When I was finally released and had opened my eyes, all I could see was Poppy’s face, tears wetting her cheeks as she blubbered, “Ne… never worry me like that again! I… I thought you…” Whatever she thought, she couldn’t seem to find the words to express it. Then I was the one at a loss for words as she suddenly pulled me toward her and kissed me.