"Good morning, Alex!" Na-Ya said with a bright smile as she entered my room. She always shined brightly. She was perfect.

  "Good morning, Na-Ya!" I said back, giving her my best smile. I'd been learning the language from Tristan over the past few months. While my moves didn't seem to have any effect on the girl, they were totally working. I could feel it.

  "Feel good, hodia??" She asked as she sat down and inspected my arm. Hodia?... Today. It meant today.

  We'd been able to communicate simple sentences over the weeks that I'd learned the basic, but I still forgot words all the time. Tristan insisted we only speak Common for a while so I would acclimate more quickly, but it was hard. To make up for it, we spent an hour a night practicing before switching to English. Tristan was a surprisingly good teacher, too. I assumed he'd picked up a few tricks since he'd been getting privately tutored by Arden since he was young.

  "Yeah, I feel good." I felt my cheeks grow warm when she migrated down to my leg. It hadn't gotten easier watching her do that. "So, how are things?" I asked in my best Common, hoping I got the words right.

  She smiled brightly at what was my best Commlish. "Good! You are learning fast!"

  I was just that good. "Yeah, Tristan's a good teacher.."

  "Tristan is smart. You learn fast. And you heal fast!"

  Like the goddamn Wolverine. You've never seen anything like me, baby. "Yeah!"

  That was about the extent of my conversation skills, but I wanted to know more. I was crushing on her so hard. "Sooooo... What... What do you eating?" I knew I didn't say it right, but I was trying.

  She looked at me like I said something funny. "Eitel and eilza are miaj plej ?atataj man?a?oj."

  Damn my kindergartener's vocabulary! "Mmm, sounds great. I like Eitel."

  She laughed. "You have never eaten eitel."

  "No, but it sounds good."

  Giving me a playful roll of her eyes, she said, "Come. Stand. You need to walk."

  I hated this part.

  I creaked out of the covers sounding exactly like how my grandpa used to when he got old, groaning and cracking all over as I did. Once I was able to swing my feet off the bed, I spent a few minutes limbering up, then reached out to my walking stick and managed to stand up. She reached out to catch me when I teetered at one point, but I held her off. "I can do it."

  "Good, that is important."

  I had this. I was a big boy. I could stand on my own. Look out world, Alex is back and ready to kick some ass!

  No...

  Wait...

  I didn't have this.

  Shit.

  I fell back on the bed.

  "Stubborn man..." I'd learned those words early. She said them often.

  "The most stubborn." I laughed and grinned at her. That got me another eye roll.

  She wrapped her arms around my waist and helped me stand. She smelled good... Like berries and flowers, with a hint of horse. But everything smelled like horse here, so that was expected.

  "Good. Walk now." She helped me take my first few steps, but I quickly got the hang of it. Before long, after I'd marched across the room a few times, she opened the door, and I was hobbling out of my room like a track star. A track star who'd been severely injured after being struck by lightning twice and getting exploded by a tree, then ending up in a foreign world with pretty elves, grumpy dwarves, and terrifying monsters. So many monsters.

  It was a story as old as time.

  Arden had been teaching me about them. Showed me pictures. It was scary stuff. But, I was super grateful for his instruction. Between him and Tristan, I'd been learning the language and about the world at a fast pace. In a way, Arden had become my tutor. At first, he came to my room and had me study with him, but after a month, I'd been walking to his quarters for instruction. He said I ought to work out my body and mind to heal faster. I didn't know if that was true, but I was going with it.

  Na-Ya was backing down the hallway, monitoring each movement I made, but when I didn't stumble, she encouraged me to go farther. On good days, we'd walk the pews. On bad ones, we only went down the hallway. Today felt like a good day. It was hard to stop, so I kept moving, hoping that my momentum would keep me upright. I'd fallen enough times that it had gone from embarrassing to pure shame. And sitting was a nightmare.

  Okay, new plan. I would never sit down again. I was now the man who stood. If I sat, I was done. Standing prevented me from looking like an idiot. I would be fine. That's what normal people did. Stood around all day.

  I limped into the large room with the Goddess statue. She was still as beautiful as ever, but today, the church was empty. It smelled lovely though. Like fruit, flowers, and horses. Like Na-Ya! Oh God...dess, is that what I smelled like? Probably worse. I'd only had a few rag baths in, like, three months. I probably smelled a lot worse than horse.

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  I covertly sniffed myself. Oh Goddess, it was bad.

  "Alex!" Na-Ya waved me on. I was getting tired, but I couldn't let her know that fact. I pushed on, following her everywhere she guided me. We walked up and down the pews for a while, her encouraging me like I was a dog. Shit, I'd be her dog. That was, until she put on a serious face. "?u vi pretas?"

  Totally, beautiful elf woman. I had no idea what that meant, but whatever you say, I am but putty in your hands. I nodded to her.

  She guided me toward the end of the rows of pews, then kept having me walk until we reached the large double doors at the end of the main hall. I'd never been this far before. My blood froze.

  "Wait." I hadn't been out of the church in... since I got here. I was panicking! I was panicking?

  "Come." She opened the doors, and bright morning light filled the hall. Beckoning to me, she walked out into the world beyond.

  I could hear my heart in my ears. For some reason, I was scared. Why was I scared? I dug into the feeling.

  Why would I feel that way?

  Because I was a giant baby.

  I dug deeper.

  Because I was a big wimpy baby man.

  Focus!

  There were a lot of feelings, but the one that kept bubbling up felt the most true: once I stepped out those doors, everything they told me about my new life would be real. Once I saw the outside in person, all the feelings I'd been grappling with—the loss, the confusion, the anger and bargaining and the other stages of grief I forgot, all of it would be justified. This was my life now.

  There was no going back.

  An impulse hit me hard. I almost turned around. I had to stop myself from going back to the room. It would be so easy. I could just hide in my little room and never leave. This could be my home now. My shelter. My bulwark against the cruel world beyond.

  But a competing thought kicked that one's ass. That was no way to live. Tristan told me there was a guy on the other side of the church like that. He'd come from wherever the dwarves came from and decided his room was home. He'd been there for fifty years. Never left. Not once. He just sat alone in his little room and looked out the window. Every day. Lost in his thoughts about a home he'd never see again.

  That was no way to live.

  I wouldn't be like that.

  I was going to be awesome.

  I took a step out of the church and into the light. When I did, the feelings washed over me. I closed my eyes, took some deep breaths, imagined my center (whatever that meant. Arden was always saying that, and it totally didn't make sense, but I sure could fake it), and just existed for a while. My heart stilled. The panic faded. When I opened my eyes again, what I saw took my breath away.

  The sky was endless and blue, a deeper blue than back home, and there wasn't a cloud in it. From this vantage, I could finally see the Great Tower they'd all been talking about. It was a thin white line stretching as high into the sky as I could see. At the top was the sun, or what kind of looked like it, shining down on the world below. It was bright, but I could almost look at it without feeling like my retinas were going to melt the way the Sun felt on Earth.

  It was awesome.

  I raised my hand to block the light and looked through my fingers. The light almost seemed to twist and swirl around the thing like a corona before being sent out into the world. It almost seemed like the light was a physical thing instead of an energy or whatever it was on Earth. Schrondinger's light or something. I'd watched a YouTube video about it once, but I forgot the specifics. But light did things, and this light seemed to do other, different things.

  "Good!" Naya clapped. "Come!" She was standing about twenty feet ahead, at the edge of the building. She started walking down a dirt path that snaked away and around the front of the church.

  I didn't want to go further. I was getting really tired. But, she was gorgeous, and I wanted to impress her. I limped after her.

  The elf had me walk around the church, which was way harder than it should have been. The stones in the ground were uneven, and my boots kept sinking into the dirt. Also, I was already pouring sweat out of every pore, and my stink was getting way worse. But, I persevered. I was going to be awesome.

  By the time we reached the back of the far too large temple, I heard the sounds of a Rennaissance fair in the distance. I looked toward the noise and saw a group of people, some dressed in red and white, others dressed in brown, swinging swords and other weapons and doing some play fighting.

  No.

  They were training!

  It looked like they were doing some active sparring against one another. My blood started pumping. Now that looked fun! I could just make out the stout Renard commanding each of the trainees as he walked between the various sparring groups. I realized that one of the people, the one with a whole mop on his head, was Tristan. He told me he trained sometimes, but I didn't realize he meant he trained out here.

  "Um... Go?" I said to Naya. I didn't know how to communicate that I wanted to go watch them train, so I pointed instead.

  "Yes! I will help, though." There was a thin gravel trail out to the training ground, but it wasn't exactly even. She looped her arm in mine and helped me as we walked over the treacherous terrain. An embarrassingly long time later, we were standing just outside of the training area watching the group do their work.

  When he saw us, Renard gave a curt nod before continuing to drill his class, who'd switched from sparring to forms. Each of them flowed through their movements with practiced ease, though the red and white people were far better than the brown robes. Renard called out people out from time to time, fixing a movement or demonstrating something on a training parter, and the group flowed between forms of different types. Some were fast and acrobatic. Others were forceful and precise. Still others were elaborate and fluid.

  I felt my mouth drop as I watched them. They were really good.

  I wanted to do that!

  I started practicing the movements in my head. I'd trained for quite a few years growing up. While long and detailed, the forms didn't feel so complicated that I couldn't pick them up with some practice.

  Rennard called out again, and each of the fighters closed their eyes and held their weapons in front of them. Most of them held maces or swords, though a few, mostly the dwarves, had hammers or axes. After a few minutes of what looked like meditation, Renard gave a sharp shout, and each of the fighters performed a gesture. As they did, every single one of the red-and-white-robed people shot waves of light from their maces.

  I fell on my ass.

  Naya walked over to help me up as the trainees broke apart and began talking, patting one another on their backs, and gathering their gear. As they started stowing their weapons and toweling off, Tristan and a ridiculously handsome elf in red and white robes walked over to me and Naya.

  As he walked, the elf stripped off his shirt, revealing rippling Marvel Movie abs underneath his shirt, looking like some sort of hunky elf supermodel. He had long, perfect golden hair, and somehow even his eyes were gold. His fair skin literally glistened in the light, and he looked like he was about as tall as me, and I was tall. Even more shocking, not a single lock of his perfect hair was out of place.

  When he got close, Naya let go of my arm and walked to the man. When she was in reach, he scooped her up and swirled her around with one arm. As she spun, she leaned in and kissed him.

  Wait...

  Nooooooooo.......

  Damn it.

  Crush ruined.