The next few months were frustrating as hell.
No magic fights. No amazing spells. Nothing fun at all. Just the smell of old ink, the scratch of quills, and me getting mad because my tiny toddler hands couldn't even hold a pen the right way.
The Essence of Blank gave me ridiculous magical potential, sure, but it didn't help with basic motor skills.
"No, Merlin, not like that." Jason laughed from beside me at the kitchen table. He leaned over and gently moved my fingers around the feather quill. "You're gripping it like a stick. Easy. It's not a sword."
I pressed my lips together and tried again, only to push down hard enough that the tip almost snapped.
It was ridiculous. I had a cheat-sheet monster living in my head that could break down spell structures, but I still couldn't draw a straight line. The mark on the page looked like a dead insect.
Great Sage, can't you just guide my hand?
[Answer: Negative. Manual dexterity is a physical attribute. I may provide the ideal form of the letter, but your muscles must act.]
Of course.
Martha sat across from us, knitting a thick wool sweater that looked large enough for a boy twice my size. "Leave him alone, Jason. He's four. Most children his age are still trying to eat the ink."
"I'm not eating the ink," I muttered.
I bent over the page again and dragged the quill down as carefully as I could. This time, I made something that almost looked like an O.
Martha gasped like I'd performed a miracle. She dropped her knitting into her lap and clapped her hands once. "There, you see? I told you. He's clever."
Jason smiled and rubbed my white hair until it stuck up in every direction. "He's something, that's for sure. Come on then, clever boy. Read the next line."
He pushed an old history book toward me, the pages soft and worn from use. It was the kind of primer village children learned from. I looked down at the words. The language already lived somewhere in my head because of my wishes, but seeing it written like this still felt strange.
"The... dragons... ruled the sky," I read slowly in my embarrassingly high little voice. "Before the... Kings of Men... built the first towers."
Then I stopped.
It felt strange in a way I hadn't expected. Reading about dragons in a book was one thing. Remembering that I was living in a time when those same dragons could actually descend out of the sky and burn whole villages was something else.
To Jason and Martha, this wasn't old history. It was the world outside.
"Good," Jason said quietly, taking the book back. "You learn fast. Keep this up and you'll be reading my journals before long."
"And after that," Martha said, pointing one knitting needle at me, "you'll learn your numbers properly. I'm not having a boy of mine cheated by merchants."
That became my routine.
My chores mostly involved carrying one very small log at a time from the woodpile to the fireplace while acting as if I were doing something of enormous importance. Then came writing practice. Evenings were spent by the hearth.
One night rain hammered the stone roof so hard it nearly drowned out the fire. I sat on the floor in the middle of a pile of books Martha had hauled down from the attic. Officially, I was studying. In reality, I was having Great Sage skim through everything and sort the information in my head.
Jason came over and lowered himself onto the rug beside me with a tired grunt. He smelled like smoke, damp wool, and the outside air.
"You really do like books, don't you?" he asked.
I looked up at him through my messy silver hair. "I want to know how everything works."
That was the simplest way to put it.
I was in a world with real magic. Of course, I wanted to learn all of it.
Jason just stared at me for a second, giving me this intense look like he was trying to figure out what was wrong with me.
"You've got a long road ahead of you, little magus," he said at last, eyes drifting to the fire. "The world's rough these days. But if you can read and write, you'll always have something of your own. That matters."
I nodded.
For some reason, that hit harder than I expected. When I first came here, I'd thought almost entirely about power—about getting stronger, learning faster, becoming something untouchable. But sitting there in the firelight, in a small house with two people who cared whether I learned my letters, all of that felt a little less urgent.
Maybe I didn't need to race through everything.
"Jason?"
"Yeah?"
I pointed at a word near the bottom of the page. "What does 'cataclysm' mean?"
He laughed under his breath. "A very large disaster." He glanced at the mess around me. "Also, what will this room become if you don't pick up those inkwells?"
I rolled my eyes, but I smiled anyway.
For a little while, life was quiet.
I rolled my eyes, but I couldn't help smiling. For the first time since dropping into this crazy era, everything was just... chill.