[Xander – 12 years]

  For the picture with the shimmerwave elk, I sit on the left side of line of boys, at the end furthest from the head. Carter's the one who holds its head up for the video, and I make sure to be close enough to Knox that it doesn't look weird. That makes me uncomfortable, since that means our sides are pressed together. They all crouch right beside each other for the pictures.

  Even though I don't feel like I did anything, they assure me that I was a part of the hunt. Without me freezing the stream, it apparently would have been a lot more difficult. The elk can only do jets with its conjured water, but that's not all it can do with water magic. They tell me that with water it draws on that already exists – including its own conjured water that's just sitting on the ground – it can create snares and walls and other traps.

  So me freezing the stream really did make the fight a lot easier. More than that, sharing my perspicacity with them also made killing it possible in the first place. Without that, they never would've been able to see it to kill it.

  Which means that I really did help out with the hunt even though I just stood off to the side and maintained spells while they fought.

  Once Mr. Martins takes the pictures, Carter and Tate work on removing the elk's innards and I quickly defrost the creek while dismissing my portal-like spells. The stream returns to flowing like normal almost immediately, which is good.

  "Hey, guys?" I ask via telepathy.

  "What's up?" Carter looks over from where he's working.

  "Are there rules about hunting pocket hares?"

  "What are pocket hares?" Mr. Martins asks.

  The fact that he doesn't know about them means they might be rare enough that hunting them is disallowed.

  "Uh… large hares with dimensional magics," I answer. "They have pure black skin and dark grey fur, though not solid dark grey. It's like normal hares in patterning, just with dark greys instead of other colors. They're almost up to my knees in height."

  "Did you hear about them from one of your documentaries?" Tate asks.

  "Yeah."

  "What kind of magics do they do?" Mr. Martins asks.

  "They slip into a pocket dimension of their creation as a way to move around," I answer. "They pop back out in another location. Most of them can travel about twenty to thirty feet at a time like that. It's how they avoid predators. Because of their innate spatial magics, their hides are good for channeling spatial enchantments."

  "They're not on the list of restricted things," Mr. Martins tells me. "So no restrictions. But that sounds like it would be a pretty rare creature to encounter, and I don't know if we'd be able to catch one. Something which can escape into a pocket dimension sounds a little tricky to take on."

  "I've already figured out how to adapt a force net to include a dimensional ward, preventing dimensional magics," I tell him. "And what made me think of it was spotting three pocket hares. I think they were drawn by the portals I'd created to make sure the water kept flowing without being affected by the ice. I don't think they know they've been spotted."

  The three of them are sniffing around at the creek down to the right when I'm facing the water. They're located over by where the exit portal was, which is why I think they were drawn by my magic rather than something else.

  "If you want to trap them," Mr. Martins tells me. "You can. As I said, they're not on the restricted list for an absolute wilderness, which means it's fine. The hunt is mainly for Carter's birthday, but any of you can hunt if you see something you want to."

  "So I can catch them?" I ask. "I kind of want their hides to see how good the enchantments I can do are."

  "Go ahead," Mr. Martins tells me.

  "Okay."

  I conjure a net of force and dimensional magic, the net made of a swirl of blues, purples, and dark greys. Then, I portal it to right above the hares. That part's tricky due to the net's effects but I manage it with a small tweak to the portal spell. Even if it's not on them, it's already disrupting their magics and making it hard for them to perform their jumps.

  The hares quickly realize the danger of the nets and try to hop away and escape, but I shove the net down with my magic. It quickly entangles the hares before they can escape, and the close contact with it prevents them from being able to perform their jumps at all. No matter how much mana they sink into it or how much time they spend carefully casting the spells, they cannot escape.

  "…oh."

  "What's wrong?" Carter snorts.

  "Um… the killing part… I've never done that before…"

  "Come on," Knox beckons. "Lead me to where they are… I can't see where you threw your spell."

  I lead Knox over to the hares and the moment he sees them, he lets out a whistle.

  "These are some big boys," he says. "You'll get a lot of meat out of them. Did you see the stun spell we used on the other game?"

  "You've never used stun spells when playing games," I tell him. "Just right before you killed the other stuff."

  "No," he snorts. "Game as in animals to hunt, like elk, rabbits, birds, and such."

  "Oh," I say. "Yeah, I saw them."

  "Cast it on the hares to render them unconscious," he says, and I do, knocking the hares out instantly. "Okay, so there are a couple of ways you can do it. One is the bleed method, where you sever the carotid arteries in the neck. They'll bleed out fairly fast. The other is by stabbing their brain really hard and badly. That's a lot faster, but it's trickier to do, which is why we went for the throats."

  I really don't want to do this as it seems gross, but Knox keeps encouraging me to do it so I try. The first one, I can barely breathe as I do it. A small squeak escapes me as I cut its arteries. The same happens with the second, but I manage to not make a noise when I do that for the third.

  They don't take long to bleed out and die, and they stay unconscious the entire time. The same thing happened with everything else today, too. Because the hares were entirely my kills, I'm the one who has to gut them, too. That requires me to swap to different gloves, and once the guts are removed and destroyed, Mr. Martins puts the hares into his backpack. The shimmerwave elk is already in there, so we're ready to start making our way back. Carter and Tate have also had the mud from their falls during the fight cleaned off, Mr. Martins using his magic to make sure they're dry as well.

  Since we caught the thing Carter wanted most, we begin making our way back to the truck. We catch a few more animals on the way back, the other boys using their guns and bows for some of the smaller game. We encounter another stonebullet elk, and I help out with this one with a force net when it looks like it's going to escape.

  Massive relief comes to me through the telepathic relay as Tate tells me thanks. I think that means that was the right move. Once the stonebullet elk goes down, Mr. Martins takes pictures of us with it, then Bo and Knox gut it.

  By the time we make it back to the truck, Mr. Martins' backpack is almost completely full. Three large elk, three large hares, plus more than two dozen other creatures that we caught today. All of them are magic beasts, since the restrictions are lighter on those and can be hunted outside of regular hunting seasons.

  Fortunately, we didn't come across any monsters. I don't know how I'd react if one attacked us, but I'd probably teleport away out of fright and that would be embarrassing. At the truck, Mr. Martins transfers our hunts from his backpack to the coolers, which have stronger enchantments on them. Shifting everything to that makes it so the backpack will last longer, as it won't be storing and cooling as much.

  Us boys climb back up into the bed of the truck while Mr. Martins gets into the front. Food is pulled out from the cooler without the animals. It's a simple breakfast and we'll get something bigger back at the ranch, but it still fills us for now.

  Once we're done eating, I quickly fall back asleep, feeling Carter doing the same beside me. We both really got very little sleep last night and did a lot during the hunt.

  A dream about grilled cheese sandwiches racing turtles gets interrupted by a bull showing up and speaking with Tate's voice. He's just saying my name gently and telling me it's time to wake up, and I very quickly realize that it's just a dream bull.

  Why is Tate a bull in my dream? It doesn't feel like that's magic, which means it's conjured entirely by my brain rather than him entering my dream. When I wake up, Tate is gently nudging me but quickly shifts back when he notices I've woken.

  "We're almost to Carter's," he tells me as Carter rub his own eyes. "Mr. Martins said to wake you two. There are some news guys there."

  "News guys?" I ask. "Why?"

  "We caught a shimmerwave elk," he grins. "The last time one was caught – at least around here – was over forty years ago. And we're a bunch of kids who did it."

  "Xander," Mr. Martins' voice joins us back here. "I need to ask about restrictions. I know there are rules about foster kids and being in the media or posted online. While you do stream, I don't know if you're allowed to be on the news. If not, then you'll need to get out before we get there. You can teleport into the office building on the ranch, in that case, and wait for us."

  Those rules are for the privacy and protection of the foster kid. Whether to keep classmates from finding out and bullying them or to keep horrible family members from finding them. Stuff like that, though I'm sure there are others.

  However, Ms. Johnson said that rule isn't being applied to me. She's allowed to make that decision on a case-by-case basis based on the kid's circumstances. Mine pretty much means there's no need for it.

  "Oh," I say. "None of those rules are applied to me, 'cause the reasons for them don't matter. So for my case, it's allowed. But I should still ask my dad, just in case."

  "Do that," he says.

  I pull out my phone and send my dad a text.

  [Xander]: We caught something rare and media people will be at the ranch when we arrive because of it and Mr. Martins wants to know if it's okay for me to be in the news as well or if I should teleport to the office building.

  Dad takes a few minutes to respond.

  [Dad]: I've already spoken with Tiffany about this before, due to your publicity with Xanson Technologies. I just asked again, and she confirmed it – you're allowed to be on the news. She says congratulations, too.

  [Dad]: Congrats on the hunt!

  [Xander]: Thanks.

  "Dad says it's okay," I say. "He said he's already spoken with my caseworker about it 'cause of the company and she said it's fine. But I think it was given because of the streams, too."

  "Alright," Mr. Martins says. "Now for the question: do you want to join us for the interview?"

  This is a tough one. I really don't know if I do or not, but at the same time, it was a group hunt and I was a part of the group. It'd be weird if I can join them and don't. They might not invite me to future hunts if I don't.

  "I'll join you."

  "Okay," he says. "Oh, also, they'll be using a special microphone because of how big of a deal catching a shimmerwave elk is. It takes a lot of mana to use so they don't bring it out often, but it can register lies, just like you."

  "Yeah," Carter nods. "They'll use it to make sure our story of how it was caught is real. So no exaggerating, that can be later."

  Exaggerating is bad so I won't be doing that later.

  "It's to make sure that we didn't do anything bad," Cooper tells me. "Or illegal, or that we didn't actually get help or get the carcass from someone else. Stuff like that. To make sure that it really was us."

  "That makes sense," I say. "It'd be bad to do a news story of liars."

  "Yup!"

  When we reach the ranch, the news crew is at the front of the property, in front of the first gate. There are four men with cameras, one of which is a big one for recording stuff, three of which are for taking pictures. There are also two people with microphones, a man and a woman.

  Mr. Martins parks by the news crew, and we all hop out of the truck. From what Mr. Martins told us as we approached, they'll be live already when we approach, talking about… something. Not revealing to the audience why they're in front of the Martins' ranch.

  Though Mr. Martins also says that they didn't actually tell them it's a shimmerwave elk, just that we caught something rare enough while out to make reporting on it worthwhile.

  "Hello," the woman with the microphone says as she approaches us, the cameramen approaching as well. "I'm Janet White, from the Autumn Realm News Network, and we're live right now.

  "Happy birthday, Carter," she looks at Carter. "We heard you went hunting for it out in the absolute wilderness and caught something really special. I haven't heard what it is yet and am quite curious.Do you want to show it to our audience?"

  She knows Carter? Wait, that actually makes sense. His family's one of the wealthiest in the area, so they've probably been in the news before. The fact that it's okay to show an animal corpse on the news here is surprising.

  I doubt that would be allowed in Dragon Falls. Then again, I don't actually watch the news so it might be allowed.

  "Yeah," Carter grins. "Tate, Bo, can you grab the cooler?"

  Tate and Bo climb back up into the bed of the truck and pull the cooler with the elk in it forward. Once it's at the tailgate, they move it to the ground. Carter opens it up and he and Tate reach inside, grunting a little as they lift out the massive remains of the first stonebullet elk. Once it's out, Carter crouches behind it and lifts up its head so it can "look" at the camera. The man with a microphone crouches beside Carter and holds out his own microphone for Carter to talk into.

  "We went out looking for a shimmerwave elk," Carter begins. "Then Knox spotted this guy. He, Tate, Bo, Cooper, and I worked together and we managed to take it down, just the five of us. Oh, and it's a stonebullet elk. It shot its bullets at us and towards the end of the fight, it conjured a ton of stone spikes out of the ground!"

  The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

  "That's impressive," Janet says. "That does look like a stonebullet elk. Want to tell our viewers how the fight went?"

  Carter describes the fight to her as I examine the magics in her microphone. It looks like they'll turn the black head of it bright red if a lie is told by the person it's closest to. The one the microphone man is using has the same magics, and I'm betting they've already informed their viewers of this.

  Thankfully, Carter is fully honest as he describes the fight against the stonebullet elk.

  "That's an impressive catch for just five boys," she says. "And it was just the five of you? Not your other friend?" She gives me an apologetic look. "I'm sorry, I haven't seen you before and they haven't introduced you. What's your name?"

  "I'm X-Xander King," I tell her as she holds her mic out to me, standing a little too close for comfort. "But I didn't help with that one other than letting them know that it had earth magics."

  Don't panic and step back. Don't panic and step back. Don't panic and step back. Especially not since we're live on TV, probably to a lot of people. That'd be really bad, much worse than on my streams.

  "King?" She asks. "As in, one of the Lumaria Kings?"

  "Yeah," I answer. "But I didn't help with that elk other than to let them know that it was a stonebullet elk. It was my first time hunting and I was mostly observing and looking out for things that might be huntable. That one was all them. They were really impressive, too. Just getting to see the hunt made me glad I got invited."

  "So you didn't help at all?"

  "Not with that one," I tell her. "It was their hunt. And Carter was the hunt lead."

  Which means that she should go back to him. I think she understands that from my statement, because she goes back to Carter. There was no reason for her to keep asking me, though. That was excessive and annoying.

  "We heard you caught more than just a stonebullet elk," she says. "Is that true?"

  "Yup!" Carter lets the elk's head down and stands up. "Come on, Tate!"

  They pull out the second stonebullet elk.

  "We caught two stonebullet elk!" Carter announces as he holds up the head on this one, Knox holding up the head on the first. "Xander did help with this one."

  Carter tells her about how we caught the second elk and when he finishes, he states that that's all that happened. They ask the rest of us about it, probably to confirm Carter's story even though the microphones make sure everyone knows we were honest.

  I have to tell her three times that all I did was drop a heavy net made out of magical force on it to help hold it down. That it was still mostly the rest of them and I only helped out near the end. Why does she refuse to just accept what I'm saying even though her microphone proves it's true?

  "Two stonebullet elks are very impressive," Janet says. "Especially for just six boys doing it on their own. Even one of those would be difficult to manage," why does it seem like she's focusing on me there? "Is there anything else y'all caught?"

  "A bunch of smaller game," Carter confirms. "The first thing we took on was actually some gale quails that started plotting against us while we were getting ready to enter the forest! Those are in the other cooler. There's one more big guy in this one, though. Guys, come on."

  He, Tate, and Bo pull the shimmerwave elk out of the cooler, and I can feel how stunned the reporters and cameramen are upon seeing it. The elk must be extremely recognizable for that to happen immediately.

  "Is that a shimmerwave?" Janet asks.

  "Yup!" Carter grins. "We almost didn't know about it! Apparently, they can do more than make illusions with light magic, they can use it to turn invisible, too! But that doesn't work on Xander, so he saw it and pointed it out to us."

  Carter tells her the whole story of the fight against the shimmerwave elk. She keeps trying to ask about me, but the others make sure she knows all I did was share part of my vision and freeze the creek. They also make sure she focuses more on them than on me, which makes me glad. This isn't about me, it's about everyone.

  Though I do have to answer a few questions, and maybe get a little snappy when she refuses to let up. After that, she keeps a small distance from me and sticks to interviewing the other boys.

  Some of the rarer catches of smaller game get pulled out of the second cooler after that, and the photographers take a bunch of photos before we return everything to the coolers. Mr. Martins had cast a spell to keep them cool while they were out, but it's better to put them back into the cooler sooner than later.

  With the interview over, Janet finishes her segment and we hop back up into the truck. Mr. Martins drives us to the ranch buildings, and Carter lets an annoyed huff.

  "Jeez," he says. "Did she seriously not notice it was making Xander uncomfortable? Or was she just ignoring that 'cause he's a King, so 'oh, he must've done a lot more than they're claiming'? They had frigging lie-revealing microphones! A Lumaria King participating doesn't mean they did everything!"

  So it bothered him, too? I'm glad it's not just me, I was feeling bad for being bothered.

  "Yeah," Mr. Martins says. "I think the point at which Xander pointed out that the microphones would've made it obvious if y'all were lying helped shut her up. Fortunately, most people have brains and will accept that it wasn't 'the King did everything' but 'they worked together and all performed meaningful contributions to the fight'. And even most Kings wouldn't have been able to take on a shimmerwave elk by themselves. From my understanding, perspicacity is rare even among them."

  "Yeah," I say. "Grandpa Adrian says that including both him and me, there are only six of us with perspicacity, and of them, none of the others have one as good as the two of us. I got really annoyed because I didn't do that much for the hunts. Sorry for snapping, that was really bad."

  "You're fine," Mr. Martins tells me. "Sorry 'bout putting you through that. I'll be talking with the station to let them know it was inappropriate and made you uncomfortable. It's unlikely she'll ever do that again."

  It's unlikely I'll agree to be on TV again.

  We reach the house after a few more minutes, but he doesn't drive us straight to it. Instead, he takes us to another building, one they have just for draining blood from carcasses, butchering them, and tanning hides.

  Inside, we hang everything and get them set to bleeding, as well as skin them. I don't know how to skin anything, but I'm shown how by Bo. He caught a hare that makes shockwaves as a defensive spell and uses it to show me the right process. Because the pocket hares were fully my kill, that means it's my job to take care of the processing.

  After the hanging, bleeding, and skinning comes the tanning process outside of the butchering building, which has a lot more to it than I thought it would. Part of it requires me deciding on if I want the fur on or off. I want some of it as leather so I remove the fur from one, but not the other two.

  Creating the tanning solution requires a little bit of alchemy, for some reason. I really thought tanning was a process which existed long before people learned how to use magic and perform alchemy, but maybe they were already doing alchemy before they met my great-grandpa?

  "It makes the tanning go a lot faster," Knox explains as we make the different solutions. "It can take several days to tan a hide using a normal tanning method. Using this formula, we can tan it in just a day. Sort of like the special salt we used to dry them out. It does so in a safe manner, so it doesn't affect the integrity of the hides. Makes it like if we'd tanned it normally rather than with magic, so there's no difference other than being faster."

  "So it'll be done tonight?"

  "It'll be done tonight!" He confirms. "At least, for the smaller stuff. The elk hides'll be finished sometime tomorrow."

  "Okay."

  We finish setting everything to be tanned and once we're done, we're sent to the office building to wash up. That involves using golf carts to go there, and I ride with Knox for the trip. The other boys' dads dropped off backpack with changes of clothes for them for after the hunt and those are waiting for us in the changing rooms at the office building.

  Even my backpack is in here, which means that Mrs. Martins or Collin must have moved it while we were gone. The barrier didn't stop them, but that's probably because it registered that they were moving it so that it'd be easier for me to access now. Weirdly, everyone puts on brown work/hiking boots again rather than their cowboy boots, and they're all in jeans and long-sleeves. I make sure my outfit matches, including wearing a green shirt.

  "You can keep 'em!" Knox tells me when I try to offer him back his clothes. "They don't fit me anymore, so I ain't got a reason to keep 'em. That way, you've got hunting clothes if you ever join us again!"

  I look at the clothes.

  "Oh," I look at him. "Thanks."

  "You're welcome!"

  I put the borrowed clothes into a bag, then place them into my backpack. With all of us cleaned and dried, we head to the house, where Mrs. Martins has a big brunch ready for us. It's really lunchtime now, but our "breakfast" wasn't a real one.

  At least, according to everyone else. I don't understand how that makes sense but that's apparently how it is.

  There's an egg casserole, cinnamon rolls with icing, breakfast sausage links, banana bread, french toast, ham and cheese biscuit sandwiches, fried chicken and waffles, hash browns, monkey bread, and more. That's a lot of food, but there are six adolescent mage boys who spent a lot of mana earlier.

  By the time we're all stuffed, there's nothing left. In fact, Mrs. Martins actually cooked up more food for us because of how much we eat. After lunch is time for fun and games and stuff, and Mr. Martins drives us down to the lake in his truck. The horse trail apparently can have cars on it.

  Collin is at the lake when we arrive, along with his own truck. An open trailer extension is attached to it, and that was probably used to bring down the all-terrain vehicles that are down here. They're all the right size for us and there's even one for me, it's colored parts green.

  The ground here is still a little muddy from last night's rain, and that's apparently part of the fun. I'm not so sure about getting muddy, but I get on the ATV with the others. We're apparently going somewhere else on them.

  I follow behind the others as we go on a trail, and riding the ATV is a little bit scary. What if we fall off? While my body's gotten tougher and I probably won't get hurt, I don't want to fall off. But there aren't any seatbelts or safety mechanisms or walls. No one even put on pads or helmets.

  By the time we arrive at our destination, though, I'm enjoying the ride. It's a bit bumpy and my heart is still racing, but something about this is fun.

  The place we arrive at has a bunch of well-worn dirt paths, and it seems like the goal is to ride as fast as possible without crashing or falling off. At least, for parts of it.

  And that's why everyone's wearing jeans instead of shorts despite it being warmer. Since the forest covers the area, it's even muddier than by the lake, where the sun already dried the ground a lot. The dirt paths are mud paths right now.

  I follow behind the others so that I can make sure I'm driving at the right speed, though I do go a little bit slower because it's more comfortable.

  Driving on the muddy paths sends mud flying up and we get covered in it. Our boots and lower legs end up completely covered in mud, while the rest of us gets splattered with it. There's even mud on my face and it's taking every ounce of my willpower to not use magic to clean it off. The others aren't bothered by it so it'd be weird for me to and they might not invite me to this again if I do.

  I really don't like the mud, though.

  There's also a shallow pit that we drive through. It's not a part of the paths, it just interrupts them for a little while. That contributes quite a lot to the mud on us as we drive through it. The pit is deep enough that my feet actually touch it when I drive through it. So do the others' when they drive through.

  I am so glad I'm wearing boots.

  Why does the mud feel so cool, though? Wait. That's got to be magic.

  Using my magesight, I examine the mud. Without the ambient mana covering things, I can see the magic in the mud and the soil here. There's magic in it that keeps it cooler even in summer. Natural magics, not artificial.

  Huh. I didn't realize even soil could be magic. That's pretty interesting, but why did it form close to where stuff with inherent fire magics grows? I can look it up later.

  We play on the paths for more than an hour, then make our way back to the lake.

  "You boys are absolutely covered," Mrs. Martins laughs as we park the ATVs by the trailer. "Move off to the side and I'll get you."

  We listen to her, and she conjures water to drop onto it. The water has a small scrubbing aspect to it, to get off more mud than just dumping water on us alone would. I close my eyes and stand stiffly as the water falls. This isn't something I want to do but it seems we have to.

  A small squeak escapes me as the water hits, and I hold my breath and make sure to stand extremely stiffly as it goes down.

  "You okay, Xander?" Mrs. Martins asks after she drops the water.

  "I-I don't know."

  "You didn't seem to like the water drop," she says.

  "I didn't," I shake my head. "I could've just used my magic to get the mud off. See?"

  What little mud that's on me pulls away and gathers together in a ball.

  "Oh, sweetie, I'm sorry," she says. "The boys don't care so we do this all the time. I should've asked if you have your own spell to clean up. From what I've seen, you've got plenty of those, I just hadn't thought about it for the scrub."

  She noticed that? They're so subtle, though. Has she been watching me to see how different I am from the others? I probably would in her place, to make sure I'm not someone my kid should be hanging out with. If I had kids.

  "I-it's fine," I tell her. "I could've said something. Um. What are we doing now that we're done with the… whatever that was. With the ATVs and the mud?"

  "Carter?" Mrs. Martins looks at him.

  "Swimming in the lake!"

  I don't want to do that, not at all, but it's part of Carter's birthday party so I'll give it a try. I mostly just hang out and watch them play with each other once we get into the lake. They roughhouse a lot in the water, too, so I definitely stay out of that.

  All of them know how to use water magic to play with each other, too. That seems fun, so I join in on shooting water darts and chasing them with water spheres. Even if I'm stronger than them and have a lot more mana, my control and aim need work. I did well enough when we were doing the marking water games the one time, but this is different.

  This is mostly just throwing water at each other and hoping to hit the other person as they try to dodge.

  Playing in the lake takes up most of the afternoon until dinner, and I move to the side and watch or float when I get tired and need a break. That's honestly most of the time we're in the lake, but I do still have a lot of fun.

  After the lake, we get dressed again and throw a football around in the grassy area. It's still slightly wet despite the summer heat, and I confirm that it's because of the magic in the soil. The cooling property prevents it from drying as fast, and it's still got that property here at the lake.

  We're probably not far enough away from the muddy paths for it to be gone. Where the horses live, though, will probably not have it. I can't imagine the horses would like soil that has it. The flame grasses they have probably wouldn't grow well in soil full of water magic, either.

  Dinner is a massive feast, and includes elk burgers using meat from the shimmerwave elk. There are a lot of different toppings we can add, as well as a ton of sides. The burger I assemble tastes a lot better than I expected it to. I've had several different magical meats before, but this one is… second to mindwave cattle beef. Not a close second, but it's still above everything but that.

  After dinner, we throw the football around some more, and I even manage to get it into the designated goal zone once. I am so glad an agreement was made to have no tackling, just throwing and attempted interceptions.

  Then comes dessert. Cookies, cake, brownies, pies, and ice cream. The cake itself is huge and chocolate, and Carter closes his eyes before blowing out the fourteen green candles on it.

  Good. Everyone should always make a wish before blowing out their candles. If it's not a bad wish, they don't tell anyone what it is for at least a week, and they get lucky, the gods might even grant it.

  After dessert, we play cards for a bit, then return to the lake until it's time to head back to the house. Rather than going straight back, however, we go to the building where the hides were tanning. All of the smaller hides are ready for collection now and it's time for everyone to go home.

  Apparently, the hides did need additional work during the day. Rather than having us interrupt Carter's birthday party and other stuff for it, though, his parents and older brother took turns doing the work. That's made sure the hides finished properly, and they came out really nice. The fur on my hare pelts is still really soft, and the hides are somewhat flexible.

  Somewhat, not mostly.

  "Considering what they can do," Mr. Martins tells me. "It's not surprising their hides came out a little tougher. Strong magic beasts can have tougher hides. It's still good enough for making plenty of things, though. Is it how you expected?"

  "Better," I answer. "And the leather will definitely work. I want to see if I can make a small bag with it that has a massive space."

  "Good luck," he tells me, then returns to distributing the hides.

  In addition to the hides, the meat is also distributed. I'm not sure if it's normal for all of the blood to be drained out this fast, but the blood's fully drained from all of them. The other boys' dads already butchered the meat, and coolers are ready for it to be distributed in.

  For the hides of beasts which multiple people worked on killing, only one person can have it. That means that the contributing boys have to decide who actually gets it. Deciding that doesn't mean the others don't get something, though. Those who don't receive the pelt receive money or some of the pelt-receiving boy's meat from the beast.

  If no one wants the pelt, then it gets sold and the money from that is distributed between those who earned it. The same goes for the meat. There's a lot of meat due to how much we caught today. So if someone doesn't want all of their share of the meat, it gets sold and they get money.

  To help with that, the dads of the others brought cash, and there are a couple of men here to buy the pelts and unwanted meat. With all of the other boys' families being magic ranchers or magic farmers, they have plenty of money they can spend on this.

  For things like scales and feathers, that's treated similarly and the shop guy buys the ones no one wants.By the time everyone is done, I have a lot of meat, the leather and pelts from the pocket hares, a lot of cash, and a promise from Tate's family that I'll be able to get some mindwave cattle leather the next time I see them.

  "Oh, right," I look at Carter as we walk toward the office building after everyone else has left. "I've got something for you."

  "For my birthday?" He asks. "No presents needed, Xander! That's why none of my friends brought one and I didn't have a party that invited others! Other kids from school definitely would've brought gifts."

  "I know," I say. "It's baked goods and stuff. I've got a lot of extra and like giving them to my friends. And, um… I think we're friends?"

  "Sure are!" He grins. "You're a cool dude, Xander, and I love hanging out with you. Let's head to the house and we can drop them off there. Oh! That reminds me, but I wanted to know if you wanted to spend the night again."

  There's no reason for a sleepover that I can think of. It would be just the two of us rather than as part of a group hangout. As far as I know, there's also not something tomorrow that we'll be doing. Even if there was, I could teleport home and then teleport back in time for that.

  "Again?" I ask. "Why?"

  "Just 'cause," he says. "I want to chat with you, and just hang out casually. Not for a celebration or test or in a big group or anything. We can play video games, too. I already got permission from my parents."

  "He did," Mr. Martins says, having followed us. "And we did grant permission, provided you wanted to and your dad agreed. Also, you'll be expected to help Carter with his morning chores before breakfast. You'll have to be up and working on them by six."

  That part doesn't sound so bad. Also more like a normal kid. My dad is really insistent on not really giving me chores. Since I already wake at five most days, being ready to go by six shouldn't be an issue.

  Though having to do chores that early in the morning is weird, I'll ask about it while we do them. If I remember to.

  "I'll need to ask my dad," I say. "He said I'm not allowed to have solo sleepovers with someone I'm dating unless I'm at least fourteen and have dated them for six months, but I'm not dating Carter. So I don't know what the rule is for a solo sleepover with someone who's just a friend."

  I text my dad, who gives permission by the time we reach the house.

  "Sweet!" Carter exclaims when I tell him. "Let's look at the treats, then get some drinks and head to my room! There's this game I've been playing that's really fun!"