As comforting at Stacy’s clothes look, I think the skirt would have been the better deal. Before you jump all over my case, no I did not suddenly turn to the dark side. I just think it would not make me feel like I have a permanent wedgie. A feeling, which Stacy says, will pass. I don’t believe her. That feeling aside, The outfit wasn’t all that bad, getting used to a flat downstairs is odd, as well as a strapped in top half. Apparently, all adult female elves are the same size, so everything she had fit me well. Unfortunately, that also means I have shrunken. No more chance at being a six-foot macho man for me, now I’m a 5’ 5” twig. A strong twig, but a twig nonetheless. Okay, maybe not a twig, I just feel tiny compared to what I used to be.

Learning to walk in the clothes was an ordeal. Walking in general was a bit of an ordeal to be honest. Everything moved all funny, and I felt like my body was moving in a very discombobulated manner. However, if you ask Stacy, I’m simply walking like a girl. No wonder girls run so funny. Learning to walk like an elf was where things took a turn for the worse. While speaking and mannerisms came naturally, walking didn’t. Personally, just being able to get from point A to B with your feet was good enough for me, but that earned me a ‘you’re doing it wrong’ lecture followed by a ‘you are the last hope and if you screw up we are dead’ lecture. Lay it on thick, why don’tcha.

Now that I can walk like a stealthy professional snob, I mean an elf, we are heading to find Gryf Temple. Despite the good point of our little band being expected, Stacy seems to think that a group of rebel monks will have set up camp not too far away. Since I am not the tour guide on our little adventure I take the back seat and just mosey along. I think I could have been the guide though, all we are doing is following a river. Thankfully water is still blue here, a very bright blue but still blue. I’m not sure I could have been able to deal with drinking brown water or something. Bleh, just thinking that is disgusting.

We approach the edge of the forest and hear water falling. I don’t know if I mentioned this before but there aren’t trees in the Earth sense. They are more like giant cabbages that are shaped like cucumbers. Sorry I have food on the brain, I haven’t eaten since lunch and even that I didn’t get to keep down.

Our gracious guide Stacy stops where she is standing. “We will rest here for the night, and cross over in the morning.”

I sigh, at having to ask yet another question. “Does this place come with an owner manual? I mean crossing over, what is that?” I drop to the ground in place, walking as a snob is tiring, I mean elf. I’ll get it right one of these times.

Stacy grins at me. This cannot be good. “Come and see for yourself.”

I slowly stand with much complaint from my thighs and back. I trudge over to where Stacy is standing. The view is breath taking. Words cannot describe this scene. The world literally ends. We are on the edge of an island floating in the sky, a wall of off-white clouds below us, the purple sky above. On the horizon, the colors blended in a perfect gradient, where one of the two blue suns shone. You could just make out the one red sun dipping into the clouds without a trace of peeking through. The stream that we had been following flowed right off the edge, only as I peered over the edge carefully, the water did not fall off. It just disappeared.

Something is wrong with the physics here, but it can’t hurt to ask to see if they know. “Where does the water go?”

Mandy walks over to where I am standing and takes in the sight. “With the number of times I have come here, it still takes my breath away.” With a quick look at me, she answers my question. “The water crosses over, just like we will be doing tomorrow. You just walk off the edge and show up on the other side. It’s perfectly safe, only messes with your perception of reality a little. Up is down while down is up, that sort of thing.”

My brain has a hard time understanding how that could work. I sit to watch the suns set and ponder the logistics of an upside down world. I give up and just decide to see what it’s like tomorrow. I walk over to the campfire set up by Stacy and lay out on my back to go to sleep. I move in close to the blue flame and find little heat. Apparently, fire isn’t so hot here, either that or I am just more responsive to temperature changes. On cue as always Mandy jumps in. “It won’t get cold tonight; the temperature doesn’t really change here. And even though it’s colder here than your zone, as an elf you are used to outdoor conditions so you won’t notice changes much anyway. I have to warn Stacy not to wear skirts in the snow sometimes. You will probably have the same problem once you go back, to remember to dress appropriately for weather.”

With that necessary tidbit of information, I roll onto my side and try for sleep. Unfortunately, I do my best thinking while lying in bed waiting for sleep. Despite how tired I feel physically, my mind races at a mile a minute keeping me awake. The topic on the brain tonight, how do I feel about everything that has happened? The existence of magic, that is okay. Me being some key person in a potential plot for inter-planetary domination, less than okay but I can deal with it. The real trip up is with the whole gender bender thing. I’m a guy, I love being a guy. Yet when I think about things, my mind starts stepping in problems. Mentally I am a guy, but when I think about things now they are different. My mind feels like it is slipping. I want to be a guy again, but things are going haywire at some point in the thought process and it comes out with why would I want to be a guy again.

It’s one of those thoughts that I just can’t shake, but I won’t be able to sleep unless I find a way to stop focusing on it. Think happy thoughts, maybe that will work. Puppies, rainbows, butterflies, shopping… wait, what am I thinking; soccer, mud, wrestling, grunting, there that’s much better. This is overwhelming; my mind feels like it’s splitting. What is one thing that hasn’t changed? I open my eyes to try to find something familiar about this world. Everything feels so alien, yet so ordinary in my mind. I shake my head to banish the thought of the difference again. I resume my search for something, anything that is the same. My eyes fall on Stacy, who is sound asleep with her face facing mine. Although she doesn’t have that super elf charm thing on me anymore, she is still attractive to me. Well at least I still am attracted to girls. Being outright attracted to guys would be a little much at this point. But with a female body I know I might be attracted to guys, but since I haven’t seen any since getting here I can’t really be sure. I’ll just call myself uni-directionally encouraged bisexual and call it a night.

With that thought ending, so does my mind’s activity. Sleep instantly takes me.

I awake to the trill of what I would guess is a cricket, if this place even has crickets. I roll over and see Stacy still sound asleep, unfazed by the noise. I cast my eyes over to Mandy and see her sitting against a tree away from the fire wide-awake, gazing out into the tree cabbages. I sit up, causing her to quickly turn her head to look directly at me. When she realizes the stir was just me, she motions for me to join her. Rolling to a stand, I go and join her. “I would ask if you slept well, but I already know the answer you would give me.”
I will never get over how odd it is to talk with someone, but never have to open your mouth. “You know it’s not polite to read people without their permission. What if I was having a private thought?”

Mandy glances at me with a mix of shock and embarrassment. “If that was private I’m sorry, but I can’t really turn it off completely. It’s usually why I don’t talk to people, they get uncomfortable when I know things they don’t say.”

Well, so much for keeping secrets around her. Probably best to keep to non-feeling oriented topics. “So what is up with this world?”

Mandy smirks, “That isn’t what you really want to know, you want to know where we are. Which is a very complex concept. We currently exist outside of the physical world. We are in a focal point where anything and everything meets, yet nothing exists. This place is a step between all places and planes. It’s difficult to understand, but the key thing you need to know is that this place draws energy from all other dimensions, planes, and worlds. It is the focal point for all that is magical, as you would say.”

“So that’s how you and Stacy were able to learn craft? You came here and learned how to channel the energy through you?”

“For me, more or less; for Mandy it’s complicated. She isn’t really an elf. You remember that she is a shape shifter; well she shifted to the elf form so you would feel more comfortable. She is actually a demon, not the big scary things that your planet portrays. Most demons are evil, but Stacy isn’t one of those. She hates being a demon, because everyone thinks she will do something terrible. I guess it’s fortunate for her that her craft is shape shifting, she can hide from all the people who would kill her just because of how she looks.”

I look back at Stacy with a new set of eyes. I have never known that kind of hatred from people, it must hurt in ways I will never know. The thought of her being a demon seems impossible with her beautiful face, but you would never think I was a guy by looking at me now. Things change, some more than others. I hope that my craft will be able to help me as much as Stacy’s has helped her.

“What craft you get tends to follow family lines, but sometimes someone will show one entirely different. When they do, it tends to be weaker than if they had followed in the family line. For each generation it is the same, the stronger it gets. Mine has been in my family for a long time which is why I can’t turn it off. Some people have their craft refined to the point where it becomes dangerous or self destructive.”

I place my hand on her shoulder to give a half hug. “I’m sorry Mandy; it sounds like a curse to have.”

She shakes her head, “Craft isn’t inherently good or evil so it can’t be a curse. It just is, what you do with it makes it good or bad. I know how to live with mine for good reasons I think, so there is no reason to call it a curse. You will have the advantage of the Vlamir. It will let you access free-floating energy around you that people normal craft users can’t even perceive. That is why a wielder’s power is so great. Bloodlines only take you so far, they are disrupted before anyone gets strong. A wielder with a good bloodline would be a force to be reckoned with. Using it around another craft user would amplify it even more because you draw in their collected energies as well. Even with all that power, since the ring is the cause it doesn’t overwhelm or overtake you. If it somehow did, I would think you could just take it off and then you would be just a regular person.”

A yawn escapes my mouth despite my best attempts to stifle it. “Sorry, you aren’t boring me, I am just getting tired.”

“It’s okay, I know what you were feeling. I’ll make sure there is food for when you wake up.” With that she stands and walks off into the semi darkness until the trees block her from view. I look over at where I laid before, decide it is too far, and close my eyes.

Author's note: I don't like this chapter as much as the other chapters I have written, but feel as though the story must go on. I apologize for the large gaps between postings, but this semester has been particularly hectic. There will be large gaps between chapters until the summer starts, but once it does the postings will become much more frequent. All feedback is appreciated. Special thanks to djkauf for editing.