"Hey! Jacklyn, carry out the trash, will ya? Then you're done for today. 'Kay?" my boss yelled at me from the back room, where she was helping my co-worker with the cleaning of the dishes. I was just locking the terrace door, having chained the chairs and tables neatly to each other. "Sure, no problem." I hung the key in its place behind the counter and took one last surveying look over the cozy little café I worked in. It seemed clean enough, so I made my way back, pushing the annoying door flap aside which separated the bar from the kitchen.
It's been over two years now since Ferras left me at the town gates. It had been hard in the beginning, despite the money that he had left me with in that pouch. I don't think I would have made it without it, but now I had two fairly well-paid jobs and a room above a small bakery in the cheaper part of Whisteria. I was saving up my money to buy a decent place in the near future.
At first, I had tried getting a job at a dress designer, but they didn't like my modern world ideas. Next, I tried my luck at a flower shop, but they took another candidate instead, who had just enough water magic power to sprinkle all flowers at once. Clearly, I would have been a better choice. But to be honest, I didn't see myself as someone who would want to spend her days doing nothing but arranging flower bouquets, selling decorating services to customers and decorating the main streets of Alvira for every festival. I prefer what I am doing now by a long shot.
In my world, I never would have even imagined that I would go into research one day and teach others about math equations, physical phenomena, chemical compounds and other biological processes. Using what I knew from Earth, I worked with one of the most esteemed professors, Professor Leukard, at the Royal Alerian Academy. I had met him at one of his lectures, for he had struck me as different right from the start. His first sentence had been: "I am not here to answer your questions. I am here to help you ask them." That sentence will stick with me for a long time.
Officially I was his assistant, but, when we worked together, we were more like partners. Right now I was working on the Pythagorean theory. As in: I was trying to prove what I already knew was true. But I had forgotten how. Which was great.
But it was a lot of fun working with him.
Professor Leukard was one of the only people I completely trusted. He knew that I was different, but he never questioned it. If I had any problem, I knew I could always go to him.
This feeling of having somewhere to go is such a relief to me, I can't explain it.
My greatest problem was that I knew a lot, but I didn't know how to prove the things I knew. Not just in math, but also, for example, I theoretically knew how osmosis worked in the cells, or how to calculate the friction on an inclined plane, or how a steam train worked, but how do I prove what I know and how the heck do I build a steam train?
Another issue was the more ethical aspect. If I pushed research into the wrong direction, things could fall completely out of balance. Also, this world seemed to be working quite alright without gunpowder, computers or advanced medicine.
So I stuck with the basics in the sciences and focused mostly on governmental policies.
Right now I was writing a thesis paper, on the importance of education together with Professor Leukard. Which by the way was incredibly annoying to do because it all had to be done by hand since they obviously didn't have computers here. We had become really close over the last two years, working on projects together day and night, having interesting discussions about the universe and the gods. I appreciated the company a lot.
We had already written one before on different political systems and, among other things, the idea of democracy which I had explained to him.
I wanted to publish our thesis in a newspaper after we finished it, but Professor Leukard warned me about the consequences it may bring. He feared that people, especially the rich and powerful, would do everything in their power to stop such ideas from spreading. I fully understood the risks, so we published the paper under a false name. Marianna Lever. No idea how I came up with that name, but it served us well.
Many people did not agree with our ideas and many have already set out a bounty for Marianna's head. Yikes! I'm glad we didn't use our real names.
But many other papers and findings we made were successfully published under Professor Leukard's name. I didn't want all the attention and I was fine with letting him take all the praise. I preferred keeping a low profile and helping in the background.
When I wasn't busy at the Royal Alerian Academy or serving aristocrats here at the cafe to keep up my original identity as Jacklyn, I spent the rest of my spare time studying on my own at the library. Yeah, I never thought I'd be studying for fun; but the fact that magic really existed here just made it so interesting. I did a few tests on the laws of physics which turned out to be similar to our laws of physics on earth, except for magic.
Wherever magic was involved, physics just screwed up completely.
I could not explain it.
It kinda sucked that I myself could not use magic of any sort, so all my studying of it was basically useless. But I kept on hoping and looking for a possible way to use magic. I was told it was impossible, but I didn't believe that. I probably knew more about magic than most magic wielders knew themselves. They all only specialized in their own type of magic, whereas I studied all of them. That included all the maps and species that I could find books about in the library.
I found out that, in general, every person, animal, and plant had magic inside of them. Maybe not enough to actually use it, but it was there. I had developed a theory that since I wasn't from this world, I shouldn't have any magic in me, but the fact that Kimba could talk with me proved me wrong. Which made me wonder what affinity I had. Everyone does a certain test when they go to school, to test their affinities and their strength. I never did it and I was itching to go.
Unfortunately, it costs a lot of money to do an evaluation later on in life. Money I did not have...
Lazily I picked up the dirty dishcloth and threw it at Joy, who wasn't paying attention at all.
"Catch!" I said.
Joy hardly had time to spin around and catch my dishcloth with her wet hands. "Haven't I told you before? Stop throwing your dirty towels at me! I'm not a washing machine!" Believe it or not, but they actually had a washing machine. It was powered by Joy's weak telekinesis powers, which were very rare. Sadly, Joy believed that her powers were too weak for any greater use. I completely disagreed. Even if you could "only" control something the size of a toothpick, you could be deadly. Imagine having a handful of poisonous toothpicks at your service. One prick and down your opponent goes. But Joy refused to enter the magic games in half a year. I thought it was quite a shame.
It was where anyone could compete and show their special powers. If you did well, you might even get accepted into the Royal Academy for Magic. A side branch to the Royal Alerian Academy.
And even if you didn't make it, every year many powerful and rich nobles came to watch and recruit new talented people for their own purposes. For the rest of the country and even the neighboring ones, it was a grand spectacle that was broadcast all over via special Iris stones.
I pulled down my cloak from the clothing rack and put it on. Good morning, Nene. Kimba mumbled. Sleepily, he glided down from his perch on top of a sunstone on one of the closets and sat onto my shoulder, comfortably continuing to nap there.
"Oops, sorry. You know, it's sometimes hard to tell." I answered back to Joy innocently, as I went over to tie up the garbage bag. "What did you just say??" Laughing, I dodged her flying spoon and bolted out the back door with the trash. The icy cold wind hit me with full force. "Come back here and say that again to my fa- " But the wind cut off her words, slamming the door shut behind me with a loud clap, that made me jump.
Sighing I pulled down my hood. Even though it was freezing and an icy wind was blowing, I didn't feel cold at all. In general: over the past two years, my tolerance towards temperature has increased dramatically. I've never tried it, but I was fairly sure that I could stick my hand into boiling water now and I wouldn't care. It was the most bizarre thing.