I felt something shaking me almost immediately after I had fallen asleep. I brushed at it with a hand as I rolled back into the glorious comfort of my bed. The poking advanced to shaking though right as I was about to hit that blissful state of unconsciousness. I groaned out my unhappiness, which came out more of a hiss, but my sleep addled brain didn’t care.

It took me almost a full on minute to realize I could pretty much see everything even with my eyes closed. I blinked groggily but every time I closed my eyes it was like I had just drawn a thin piece of plastic over the world. What the actual fuck? I blinked a few more times but still the same response. I was too tired and confused to work out what was going on.

“Fascinating. It almost looks like you have protective scales covering your eyes. Is that a defense mechanism or to apply moisture?” a voice wormed its way into my brain. I was sure the words meant something but my brain was sending the shutdown signal for more sleep. So I gave the only response I could muster.

“Sssssssssssssssa hat. Cuteeeee.” I hissed out slowly and then wrapped my whole body around the dark lump of the hat and went right back to sleep completely oblivious to the squealing protests coming from my coils.

More shaking. I blinked again. It was much lighter than it had been and my brain didn’t immediately try to take the day off so I figured it was about time to wake up. I lifted my head where I had curled it up on myself and looked at who was shaking me. Daryl was giving me a very odd look and then he motioned to something next to me. I followed his pointing and looked at the pile of my coils. A large witches hat sat right in the center of them.

Daryl looked back at me as I looked up at him. Pretty sure we were both confused. “Why is the magister’s hat here? I can’t find her either.” He frowned as he looked back at her hat. I rubbed my face and tried to push the sleep out. It was as I was shifting around that I felt something. I had a very bad feeling.

As Daryl watched, I extended an arm and slowly lifted the hat off of my body. Rested right in the middle of the coil was a head of brown hair tilted over to the side. Daryl and I looked back at each other and then back at the head. Fuck me. I hope she isn’t dead. I pushed some of the hair away and found her face. She was slumped over, but breathing. And drooling. She was sleeping. How long had she been there?

“So when exactly did she go missing from where she was?” I asked in a soft voice. Daryl looked down at me and back to her a few times. It was obvious he was either trying to hide his horror or laughter and I wasn’t sure which one I would rather have.

He coughed quietly a few times before finally responding. “Ah she said she had a few things to do some hours ago. I told her we would be leaving as soon as the sun rose fully and to not go too far out. I had assumed she was off to do who knows what in the forest but I see she was ahhhhh… well taken care of instead.” The laughter in his voice was starting to break through and that’s when all the embarrassment hit me.

I had a little girl wrapped up in my naked snake body. If I could change colors I would be pure red. I looked up at Daryl in a panic. “What do I do?” he looked at me very seriously for a moment and then replied in a solemn voice.

“I have to go make sure everyone is ready to move. I’ll leave you to your business.” He cracked a shit eating grin and turned around, almost running away. Stupid bearded bastard. I clenched and unclenched my hands a few times before just deciding to get this over with. It sounded like we would be leaving soon anyway.

I poked her cheek. She murmured something I didn’t quite catch but didn’t move otherwise. Not like she could move much since she was still all wrapped up. I really didn’t want to just dump her on the ground though. It was a super shitty situation and I couldn’t figure out how I had gotten into it. I poked her again. After that didn’t work, again, I decided to work a little harder. I patted her on the cheek a few times and watched as her eyes flickered for a second before her eyes opened. We stared at each other for a moment in silence as the glassy sleep left her eyes.

As I watched, she started turning a bright red. She blushed so hard I was sure her eyes were going to chance from brown to red as well. She struggled slightly for a moment before I realized she wanted out. I slowly released her and she slid to the ground as I uncoiled. She looked everywhere else but at me as she patted her hair down.

“Hat.” One word was all she said but it contained enough emotion for a whole day of talking. Apparently this was my fault. I had heard that tone before. I silently handed over the hat I had been holding and she fixed it on her head and strutted off towards the wagons in the most stiff and prim manner I had ever seen. I was pretty sure I had just used her like you would a stuffed animal so I deserved everything I got.

The wagons were loaded quickly and the next thing I knew, Daryl was waving me over to the last of them. There were four in total and I couldn’t really understand why but maybe they were owned individually or something. He gestured for me to get up in the back. I had a few qualms about that idea though. I felt like I weighed thousands of pounds now and I wasn’t sure this could carry me. It was one of those that had four wheels and the horse pulling it looked fucking huge but still. Also, how was I supposed to climb? I didn’t have any legs left.

“Just go ahead and get in. only takes a couple hours to get back to Torrence by horse and cart.” He gestured again for me to climb in and I decided to just go for it. I didn’t even realize I had slithered my way up the side of the cart by the time I was coiled up in the back. I looked around as I sat there a little confused. I took up half of the damn thing and yet I had slid right in without a problem. Snakes are fucking weird.

I turned back to look at Daryl just as he held a hand out and Lyria pulled herself up into the back with me. She sat down on a wooden board nailed to the side for that purpose but didn’t look at me. Daryl grinned and slapped the side of the cart as he started yelling for the small goup to get moving. The cart jerked a little but it seemed that the horse had no trouble dragging my huge body along for the ride so I relaxed a bit.

“So about the magic you performed.” Lyria spoke up. She still didn’t look at me but she also didn’t say anything about earlier. If she wanted to act like it didn’t happen I was too happy to join her. Not my fault she was so warm. “Can you replicate the effect with any item or does it have to be a weapon?”

“I’ve done it with a few things. All kinds of materials really. Even organic.” I didn’t want to tell her they had been corpses so I just left it at that. She frowned thoughtfully and started to go through her pack.

“That is very interesting. And you require no input from the aether to do so I presume? You did not invoke any element or higher power and yet you still performed what could only be a high level spell. One of dismantling for sure but also spatial since the items vanished even after being destroyed. There was no trace of them after you released them and there was also no trace of them when I checked earlier which means it is either permanent or you would have the ability to recall the items at will.” She tapped her chin as she talked. It didn’t really sound like she was talking to me so I didn’t say anything. I had no idea what she was talking about anyway.

She turned to look at me finally as she gestured wildly with her hands. “This means that you have access to high level magics without requiring invocation. This is not a skill I have heard of in anyone except for consecrated beings and then they only have access to specified spells for their work. Your magic seems to work on any form of matter. It is marvelous.” She beamed and then started fishing around in her bag. I just nodded a long with what she was saying since I had no idea about any of it.

I could guess that my turning things to sand was a type of magic. It would even make sense in this world since apparently magic was such a prevalent thing. It sounded like a lot of people could use magic so maybe I could as well. Which left me itching to try with no idea how to start. Thankfully Lyria came to my rescue as she pulled a small metal rectangle out of her bag and held it up proudly.

“This is my access card. They are mostly magical in nature as they are actually created by a magical process. I would like to test your ability with this as it is the most sturdy item I have. I want to see if you can dismantle this.” She held out the card to me but I didn’t really want to poof it.

“Isn’t this something you need? You implied it’s rather important. What happens if I can actually um… dismantle it?” calling it dismantling felt really odd. Maybe because I had done it to human bodies and that just felt…. Ugh. It also didn’t feel like the right term to me but I wasn’t the magic person here so I let her use whatever words she wanted. She shook the card at me impatiently and frowned.

“I do not need it at the moment and I can always have a new one made. They will not ask for mine when entering since I am well known by the guards. Please take it and try.” She waved the card at me again and I let out a sigh. I guess I had no choice now. Children would get me every time.

I grabbed the card and looked it over. It really did look like some form of archaic drivers license but it had a few interesting things. There were numbers on it almost like stats in a game but not really. Just three different ones off to the side and that was it. The rest of it was everything that you would expect like name, age, even height and weight, and hair and eye color. It really just was an ID.

I flipped it around in my fingers for a few seconds and then I did the same thing I had done so many times already as I released it. It flapped around in the air a few times before gently coming to rest in the bottom of the cart. We both sat and looked at it for a moment before Lyria let out an annoyed huff.

“I see. Maybe the material was too strong for you to dismantle.” She rubbed her hands against her face and picked her card up. That didn’t feel right but I had no idea why it didn’t work either so I just nodded. “We should try something else. You say that you have never done any form of magic before yes?” she looked at me so I gave a nod and she grinned.

“Hmm the easiest thing to do then would be to teach you a basic invocation. Almost all sentient beings can use one or two invocations.” She started rummaging around in her bag again as she spoke. “It may be easier to give a quick explanation of elements since it seems you were never taught.” She pulled out a blank piece of what looked like paper and a stick of charcoal from who knows where.

“All basic forms of magic comes down to only three different things. You must have a connection with the element that you are calling, you must be able to handle the stress of the invocation, and you must know that invocation as well.” She jotted down the points on the paper and pointed to them as she spoke. The writing looked odd, definitely not English but I could still read it. With difficulty.