Steve drifted in and out of awareness for what felt like a long time, though the concept of time itself was slippery and unreliable, stretching and compressing in ways that made it difficult for him to tell whether minutes or hours were passing between each fragile moment of consciousness. Each time he surfaced, he was greeted by sensations that were still unfamiliar enough to be unsettling: the soft rise and fall of a chest that moved without his conscious input, the dull ache of muscles that had been overused simply by existing, and the faint, ever-present pressure of magic in the air, not flowing through him but brushing past him like water around a stone.
When he finally woke fully, the first thing he noticed was the silence.
Not the absolute silence of the void he had fallen through, but a quieter, more domestic stillness, broken only by the crackle of a fire somewhere nearby and the subtle creak of old wood responding to changes in temperature. His eyes opened slowly, adjusting to the dim light of a modest room illuminated by a hearth set into one wall, its flames casting soft shadows across shelves filled with books, glass jars, and strange metallic instruments whose purpose he could not immediately identify.
He lay still for several seconds, resisting the urge to move as he catalogued his surroundings with the same careful attention he would give a new biome, knowing from experience that rushing headlong into an unknown environment was a good way to miss important details. The bed beneath him was narrow but comfortable, the blankets heavy and warm, and the faint smell of dried herbs lingered in the air, sharp enough to cut through the lingering haze in his mind.
Only once he was sure that nothing was immediately threatening did he attempt to move, lifting one hand slowly into his field of vision and turning it over, palm up, then palm down, watching the way the firelight played across skin that still did not feel like his own. The fingers were slender, the nails clean and short, and there was a faint scar across the knuckle of the index finger that sent a ripple of foreign memory through him, an echo of a childhood accident involving a kitchen knife and a moment of carelessness.
That memory did not belong to Steve.
He exhaled slowly, grounding himself, and reached inward, not physically but instinctively, calling up the interface that had been as natural to him as breathing for longer than he could remember. This time, it answered without resistance, unfurling into place behind his eyes with a subdued glow that was far less intrusive than it had once been, but no less precise.
The status readout confirmed what he already suspected: the body he now inhabited possessed no internal mana core, no natural channel through which magic could be drawn or shaped, and where such a core should have been, there was only a structural absence, as if the body had been built around a missing component and never noticed the flaw. The system had compensated as best it could, constructing an external lattice that hovered just beyond the limits of flesh and bone, an artificial framework that gathered ambient mana from the environment and processed it according to rules Steve understood far better than emotion-driven spellcasting.
It was inelegant, but it worked.
Before he could explore the implications further, the door to the room opened quietly, and a woman stepped inside, her movements careful and deliberate, as if she were accustomed to dealing with things that might break if handled improperly. She was middle-aged, with hair pulled back into a tight bun and sharp, observant eyes that took in Steve's alert posture and focused gaze in a single glance.
"You're awake," she said, her voice measured, tinged with relief but restrained by something more cautious. "Good. I was beginning to worry you might have been lost to the shock."
Steve pushed himself up into a seated position, noting the slight tremor in his arms as he did so, and inclined his head in a gesture that felt appropriate even if he wasn't entirely sure why. "I'm… awake," he agreed, choosing his words carefully, aware that every response was a test he did not yet understand.
The woman nodded and moved closer, setting a small vial down on the bedside table before reaching out to press two fingers lightly against his wrist, her touch sending a faint ripple through the external mana lattice as it reacted to the proximity of active magic. She frowned almost immediately, her brow furrowing as she withdrew her hand and repeated the gesture, this time with her wand hovering just above his skin, tracing a subtle pattern in the air.
"That's strange," she murmured, more to herself than to him. "There's no resonance at all."
Steve said nothing, watching her closely as she performed several more diagnostic spells, each one producing the same result and deepening the lines of concern on her face. Whatever she had expected to find, it wasn't this, and the realization seemed to unsettle her far more than any dramatic magical backlash would have.
"I'll fetch your guardians," she said at last, straightening and turning toward the door. "They'll want to see you're awake."
The word guardians settled uneasily in Steve's mind, carrying with it the weight of relationships and obligations he did not yet remember, and before he could ask for clarification, she was gone, the door closing softly behind her and leaving him alone with the fire and his thoughts.
He used the time to explore his condition more thoroughly, carefully extending the artificial mana lattice and noting how it interacted with the ambient energy in the room, how it filtered, stabilized, and stored power without ever letting it touch his physical form directly. It was a fundamentally different approach to magic than anything practiced here, and he could already see both its advantages and its limitations, the most glaring of which was efficiency; without a natural core, every action required more careful planning, more deliberate structuring to avoid waste.
It suited him just fine.
The door opened again a few minutes later, this time admitting two adults who carried themselves with the rigid posture of people accustomed to disappointment. The man was tall and thin, his expression severe, while the woman beside him wore a carefully neutral mask that failed to hide the tension in her shoulders as her eyes flicked over Steve with a mixture of relief and something closer to resignation.
They stopped just inside the room, and for a moment, no one spoke.
"There you are," the man said finally, his tone flat. "You gave us quite a scare."
Steve met his gaze steadily, searching his own mind for the appropriate emotional response and finding only fragments, a sense of distance that made it difficult to fully inhabit the role he was expected to play. "I'm sorry," he said, because it seemed like the safest option, and because the words carried no real cost.
The woman exhaled softly and moved closer, reaching out as if to touch his shoulder before thinking better of it and letting her hand fall back to her side. "Madam Wilkes says you collapsed without warning," she said, her voice gentler. "No spellwork, no surge. Just… nothing."
Steve inclined his head again, filing away the name and the implication that what had happened to him was considered abnormal even by this world's standards. "I don't remember much," he admitted, which was true enough to be convincing without revealing anything he wasn't prepared to explain.
The man's lips thinned. "That's not surprising."
There was a weight behind those words that spoke of long-held expectations and repeated letdowns, and Steve felt the faint stirrings of the body's original memories responding to that familiar pattern, a reflexive tightening in the chest that had nothing to do with fear and everything to do with learned restraint.
-Authority Arrives-
The tension in the room sharpened as a new presence made itself known in the corridor outside, footsteps measured and unhurried, accompanied by the subtle pressure of disciplined magic. Steve felt it immediately, the external lattice reacting to the increased density of ambient mana, and when the door opened once more, the man who entered carried himself with the quiet authority of someone used to being obeyed without question.
He was older, his hair streaked with grey, and his eyes were sharp but not unkind as they settled on Steve, assessing him with a gaze that missed nothing. "I'll take it from here," he said calmly, and Steve's guardians stepped aside without protest.
The man approached the bed and inclined his head slightly. "My name is Alaric Graves," he said. "I've been asked to evaluate your condition."
Steve nodded, feeling the weight of scrutiny settle fully upon him for the first time, and as Graves raised his wand and began a far more thorough examination, Steve understood, with a clarity that surprised him, that this world was already trying to decide what he was allowed to be.
And for the first time since his arrival, he felt a flicker of anticipation.
Because decisions, like rules, were meant to be tested.