Yule was staring Penelope down quietly, whilst Penelope had gotten quite the dumbstruck expression on her face. A tense silence fell between the two of them, one that made the girl feel extremely anxious. Up until this point she had been very careful about revealing too much of her abilities. It wasn’t hard, as Penelope had never been the type to let herself do things the easy way; she was used to going without the very idea of convenience.

“I…” Penelope’s voice trailed off, as she didn’t know what she should say.

Yule crossed the room, closing the distance. Penelope had backed up, the newly made mortar and pestle in her hands, staring up wide eyed at the older boy. He didn’t say anything. Why didn’t he say something?

His hands came up and placed them over hers, startling her. He moved the bowl and little rod while she still held them, inspecting them carefully and quietly. His eyes then went over to the one just out of reach of Penelope’s hands on the nearby shelves. All the while never uttering anything, before nodding to himself.

“So, you can use Divine Magic,” he stated, flatly. Penelope’s eyes got wider and she immediately shook her head.

“No, no, no. Absolutely not! There’s nothing divine about my magic,” she insisted, her words chosen out of pure panic, rather than careful choice. The rationale behind how she did what she did had been long chosen and worked out in her mind, but now that she was here, she didn’t know how to explain herself anymore.

“Then how did you make this?” Yule asked.

“I…I don’t know.”

“Don’t lie, you weird girl.”

“I’m…I’m really not!”

“…” Yule’s expression read as exasperated, when Penelope dared to look him in the eye. Eye contact did not last long. He sighed and let go of her hands.

“Penelope, I’m not going to rat you out,” he said, at length. His hand went to pat her head reassuringly, but he hesitated on seeing her flinch; he let his hand fall back to his side. “But we do have to talk about this. Did anyone teach you about magic?”

“…No. I had to learn on my own.” Literally, it’d been just a few scant days since she first used magic. Yule had no idea exactly how untrained she really was.

Yule frowned a little, before pinching the bridge of his nose.

“Okay, we are going to make sure you are trained. I’m going to ask Aunt Minerva – don’t argue.” He was being quite serious about what he intended to do. “Aunt Minerva won’t say anything to anyone either, but whether or not your magic is divine or not, people are going to see it and think it is. So somebody has to drill some discipline into you, so you can stay safe.”

Penelope didn’t know what to say. Could she really leave her safety in their hands? Should she make a run for it? Penelope knew she could survive on just her drawn rice balls and sleeping outside wasn’t so scary either…but the little time she had been in Ceralde had been so nice. But if there was a chance of something going wrong…

“Penelope.”

He used her name so straightforwardly, and only in moments like these where she was clearly digging herself deeper into her own head, drawing her out. There was an almost lyrical way in how he said her new name. A way that made it feel right. Like it was meant to be said like that. She wished he said it more often.

“I know it’s hard, but…trust me. It’ll be all right.” He held his hand out invitingly, not approaching further, just waiting for her to make the choice. “You helped me out, so let me help you, too.”

Help. That was as strange to her as a two-headed rabbit. Before, when she was Kasumi, she never dared to ask for help nor accept it. The culture she was in said you had to modestly decline before someone could help you, though, more often than not, Kasumi never did received help regardless if she acted modestly or not.

But I’m not Kasumi anymore, she reminded herself. She was Penelope Snowflower, the goddess said so herself. She was renewed, if not brand new! And right now, she was at the beginning of her new adventurous life, just dropped unceremoniously here. Well, if she got into trouble, she could just run away!

And Yule had been a good companion, if a bit too taciturn at times, but that was understandable. She had been, by and large, a stranger to him, yet he had put his faith in her. Some random girl he met by an olive tree. The two of them were still getting to know each other. And he was the only friend she had made, if she could think of him that way. At the very least, she would like to know him better.

So she put her hand in his and nodded.

“All right,” she agreed, smiling. “Let’s go talk to Minerva.”

Yule nodded, now leading them to go get Minerva so they could have a private conversation, hand-in-hand as they had been when coming to Ceralde together.

Minerva had been serving a few customers when the two children went to go see her, so they had to wait until those customers got their purchases before Minerva could put up the closed sign and locking the door. Yule had insisted on it, since the conversation to follow was very important and required secrecy. Penelope appreciated his forethought.

They were all seated in the backrooms together, doors and windows firmly closed with curtains drawn, before anyone spoke up.

“Aunt Minerva, Penelope has something to show you,” Yule said. He looked over to the girl who nodded slowly.

It would be the first time Yule would be witnessing her ability from step one and not just the end stages. So she brought out a piece of paper from her satchel to start drawing. Penelope decided on something simple like a mug of steaming tea. She murmured under her breath, concentrating on the imagery, the scent of well brewed team the steam and warmth as she did so. Her sketch was given a bit more time and detail than she usually gave her quick creations before. Perhaps because people were actually watching her draw and she wanted to perform well.

As it had when she finished with the intent to create, golden light erupted from the drawing, re-creating exactly what she had imagined. The golden lines lifted themselves from the page, before aligning and filling themselves up into her vision into reality. Soon, everyone at the kitchen table could smell the scent of tea, though none of them could pinpoint what kind. Simply that there was an herbal scent filling the room now.

“Go ahead and pick it up,” Penelope offered, gesturing for Minerva to touch the mug.

The mage was gobsmacked, seeing what was in front of her. Her hands slid along the smooth surface of the mug, taking in the warmth coming from the mystery liquid inside. She lifted it, testing the heft carefully, as to not spill anything. Taking the mug close to her face, she took a quick sniff and after a moment, determined it safe for consumption. Just a few ginger sips taken before she set the mug down.

There was a long moment of consideration, Minerva crossing her arms as the children watched on silently. The older woman closed her eyes and took a deep, long breath. Much thought was going into her next words, before she spoke up.

Minerva’s gaze settled on Penelope, who sat up straight in response.

“I have never seen such magic in my life. In order to make an item, we normal magic users normally require at least a base for casting – you cannot make something from nothing, no matter how much magical capacity you may be born with. Even the strongest sage in the world can’t just make something out of thin air!”

Minerva gave Penelope a very serious and worried look.

“Yule explained to me before that you were on a journey and I kept silent about such an obvious fake story, since your circumstances might be too traumatic to mention. I was going to wait to hear your story when you felt comfortable, but…Penelope, where did you actually come from? Are you actually a runaway from a temple?”

Minerva’s tone was not accusatory, just very concerned about the connotations of Penelope being there. After all, in this world, the temples of the world always went after every child with even the barest hint of Divine Magic. A scary sort of monopoly, in all honesty. And Penelope could guess why the mage would assume she came from the temple.

Was now a good time to mention where she actually came from? Could she tell the whole truth?

“I…no, I didn’t,” Penelope began.

She had no real way to tell them where she came from. From her own understanding of Iraloné, people did get reborn and it was taken as fact, but she had not heard of people from other worlds being reborn into this one. Reminding herself of this, she tried to explain herself as plainly as possible.

“I don’t know if this magic is really Divine Magic or not and I honestly don’t want to know.” It was a very honest thing. She had left behind a very hard life and did not wish to repeat all of that hardship again. Penelope just wanted to live peacefully.

The girl explained, at the very least, about her family. How she was always kept at home for one reason or another. Talking about her life before as Kasumi, she realized how off everything was. Curfews before 3 PM when she was in her twenties, when they would make her do chores or something, making her late to appointments or meetings. It made her give up on having any friends or meeting anyone new. She hadn’t even gotten to date anyone, such was the grip her family had on her. They kept her dependent and shackled by guilt and filial duty.

“Oh, but I was happy to do it. I loved my family, you know? I just wanted everyone to be happy. I was even supposed to get married to a stranger.”

That was the truth, too, as resentful as she had become. The beginnings had been innocent enough. Everything hadn’t been terrible at the start.

“But, I am no longer with them, because by the grace of the goddess Tulilith, I was able to escape. That’s how it is. I don’t know where I originally came from, but I…don’t want to go back. I’ll keep running if I have to.” Not quite what happened, but close enough. Tulilith did tag her soul and bring her to this world.

“I always did everything I could, but I had enough, you know? I guess I am a bad daughter, because I left.”

Even though she knew it was good for her, Penelope couldn’t quite let go of the guilt, of the duty she had to her family. She was so used to being relied on, that it just didn’t quite process that her situation was not at all a normal one. If presented with this sort of thing from someone else, she had historically told them to leave, find happiness.  Hypocritical thing, of course, but when you were emotionally wrecked into believing you were only meant to be happy if you were useful to someone, it was hard to break away from.

Minerva’s hand found her cheek. The touch came out of nowhere and Penelope couldn’t help, but to freeze. The older woman looked at her sympathetically.

“I see. That’s enough of that now. You don’t need to say more,” she said softly. “I understand. More than you could ever know.”

“You do?”

“Oh, yes. You’re not the problem. The adults around you…they were the problem. Never forget, that you are the child and you should not be responsible for what adults do.”

…Huh?

“Ah, Minerva…?”

All of a sudden she was pressed up against Minerva’s chest, held by a strong hug from the older woman.

“How despicable! Children are our future! What disgusting people your parents were! It`s illegal to marry a child, what terrible person would agree to something like that?!”

“Wait a minute there, it seemed some kind of misunderstanding—”

“Hush. It’s all right. I understand perfectly what’s going on. If I ever meet your parents…I will burn them!”

No, Minerva, you really don’t…

Penelope pushed away from the older woman, waving her hands placatingly in front of her. “Now, now, calm down, Minerva.”

A knock sounded at the door before Cynthia came in, the Cyno female looking perplexed.

“Hey, I heard a bit of shouting when I came back, is something going on?” she inquired, looking at the scene of Yule, Minerva and Penelope. The mage immediately went up to her lover, dragging poor Penelope with her and quickly filling in Cynthia about Penelope’s (misconstrued situation). After her brief explanation, Cynthia was also upset.

“What the hell?! What kind of crappy parents are those?! And I thought your father was bad, Minnie, but these guys sound worse! Wait until I find them, I’ll bite their heads off—”

“Wait, please, calm down…” Penelope pleaded.

It would be a bit of time before the girl got everyone to calm down.