Chapter 24: Hey! Wanna play tag?

It was spring proper by now, in the peaceful village of Baduk, the sun was shining, birds singing and the plants were starting to grow under the melting snow. Alex by this point was already big enough to walk alone and to speak in an understandable manner, mind you he was less than a year old.

So Alexhander fum Baduk could move and act independently, no more passing his days in a crib gazing at the tree by his window with boredom taking hold of him. Alex was in the mood of exploration, discovery and learning about this whole new world.

Our little protagonist was at the outer garden, because although he could move independently, that didn't mean Carol wouldn't be looking out for him, as she was his nanny. Alex was running around and jumping, picking peebles in the ground and throwing as far as he could, let's just say that the muscle in the arm of a nine month old wasn't very impressive.

-Carol, can I go see the dogies?

Alex, even in his old world always liked animals, he even learned how to ride a horse at the age younger than 10, so of course he was interested in how similar or different the animals of this world were in comparisson.

Carol thought for a second.

-That's fine, but you have to promisse me to be careful around them, ok?

Speaking in the tone of a young kindergarten teacher she picked Alex's hand and lead him to the dog kennel.

The dogs were big, because of course they were, most of if not all of them were hunting hounds, bred to be able to corner a full grown elk, the smallest was a dachshund, a breed created to chase after borrowers like rabbits and badgers.

Alex aproched the animals, the were very big, most of them were taller than him. The dogs were hesitant first, as they hadn't seen this unfamiliar mini human before, Alex put a hand up, letting the dogs smell him. The hounds approached, the were even bigger when this close, Alex was a bit overwhelmed with fear, but he knew better than to make abrupt movements in front of such animal.

*sniff* *sniff*

A dog, with a coloring similar to the one you would usually see in a german shepard, smelled Alex's hand, and went back to his house after identifying him.

After breaking a cold sweat Alex slowly went back to Carol. While he liked animals he wasn't really confortable in having various hunting hounds that were bigger than himself close to him like that.

-Carol, I want to go back.

Alex said in a bit of a scared tone, that was mix of fear, frustration and embarrasment in bringing her all the way there just go back.

-That's fine. Oh! I know, do you want to go around the village with me?

-Yes!

Carol, acting patient suggested to take a stoll. She picked up Alex to carry him and went out of the Lord's manor.

They arrived in the plazza at the center of the village, where there were stalls with fruits and vegetables and at least one butcher. there was a charcoal burner selling, well, charcoal. Wagons full of hay were pulled by mules, and some children were playing, running around. Carol decided to go meet those children, having Alex make some friendships.

-Umm.. Hello! What are you playing?

Alex approached in a bit of an awkward manner. There were three children playing, they looked at Alex, looking at his red brown hair with black stripes, his clothes were colorful with patterns and his cloak, made of fine wool looked warm and confortable, but children didn't really care about such a thing.

Alex looked back, curiously looking at the other children, there was one boy that had, quite a long hair for his age, colored a dark blonde almost light brown, his eyes were yellow like the sun.

There were two girls, one had a short light brown hair and eyes like a chestnut, she looked intersted in this new kid she never saw before.

The other had almost white hair from how light her platinum blonde hair was, blue eyes deep like the sea. she looked a bit shy but not the type that would be swayed around by others.

-What is your name?

Asked the brown haired girl.

-My name is Alexhander fum Baduk, but you can call me Alex. And you are?

-Oh, my name is Theodora, nice to meet'cha!

The brown haired girl, Theodora introduced herself in response to Alexhander, in a casual manner.

She looked about the same age as Alex, she was one of the children that were baptised this winter, although Alex was too focused on the moon to notice.

-And you two are?

Alex asked as he looked at the sides of Theodora to whom they were behind.

-My name is Antiochius, my pleasure!

The blonde haired boy, Antiochius said, with a mischieviously smug smile in his face.

-... Moirai...

The platinum blonde haired, Moirai, said in a low tone that was but high enough to hear in the middle of the vivid markets.

Moirai was a bit older than the others having born in last year's spring, making her almost one year old by now, although she was a bit small.

-Nice to meet you all, so what are you playing?

-Uh, Alex was it? We were playing tag! Wanna join in? You are it!

-Hey! No fair!

Alex surprised as the three of them ran around.

Alex wasn't really familiar with the village as he had only went out a few times before, so he made sure to always keep Carol in his line of sight.

Alex decided to try to catch Antiochius first, as he was the one that reacted the slowest to the beggining of the game and as such was a bit closer than the others.

Antiochius was very streetsmart though so he was able to run around the crowds of the market, where it would be very dangerous as children as small as Alex and the rest could easily be kicked or trampled as they were out of the line of sight of others being so small.

Alex quickly lost him from sight, so he retreated to a less crowded and more open area, where he saw Theodora, just looking around. Alex just had an idea.

-Theodora, run! Antiochius is it!

Alex said as he aproached Theodora.

-Wait, really? Then let's go!

Theodora waited until Alex got close to start running, and then.

-Aha! Got you! Now you are it!

-What?!

-I was it the whole time! I tricked you! Haha!

Alex said as he ran away from Theodora.

-What? No fair! Get back here!

Theodora, pretty angry from being tricked like that chased after Alex. But Alex didn't expect her to be so fast, she was catching up to him. Cold sweat droped from his cheek, he tried to speed up as much as he could, but let's just say that just like his arm strength the muscle in the legs of a nine month old isn't very impressive.

"She is definitly going to catch up with me at this point" Alex thought to himself as he tried to sprint even faster. "Faster, faster" at those thought he started to feel his legs burn from exhaustion, becoming ever so conscious of his legs he felt something flow through him, he was getting faster and faster. "I don't have any bit of idea what is happening but I'm getting ground"

Alex mana element was acceleration, he didn't notice mainly because there is really no way to say for sure if someone is using magic from the outside, unlike anime, manga or most fantasy movies there is no such thing as magic circles appearing or some colored lightining manifesting. Alex was unconsciously using magic to go faster, but...

"Wait, I think I'm going too fast! I can't stop" Alex wasn't able to control mana at all, he was accelerating too much, his feet arent able to catch up and then the laws of gravity did their job.

*thud*

-Ouch! Ouch!

Alex tripped over and fell to the ground, his knee started to bleed as it scratched in the dirt and rock of the ground.

Seeing this Theodora went up to him to see if he was alright, she crouched to look after Alex. She looked at the scratch, his knee and elbow were bleeding, but it was nothing serious, she picked her napkin and tried to dry the blood from the wounds.

Carol, that was seeing Alex play, came running to help him.

-Alex! Alex, are you ok?

She asked in worry.

-Ouch!

Alex said in response to her touching the wound with her own napkin.

-Theodora, was it? Thank you for helping, but you can let me take care of him from now on.

She said in a gentle tone that mixed, worry and a bit of despair.

-No! I can help too!

Theodora said, she always looked like the stubborn type, you could see it in her face determination though.

Theodora took out the napkin from the wound and put one hand on it.

Theodora had been using magic for a while now, because her element was special, she had a mana element that was extremely rare, and the most difficult to create if I do say so myself. Life magic, also called Soul magic for religious reasons, it isn't quite a force of phisics like the others, but to put it simply this mana type stimules the cells of living beings to multiply faster, although it still takes quite a while, this wound Alex has will take about forty minutes straight to heal with magic. It is also special because it is basically the only mama type that can be used outside one's own body although fisical contact is nescessary.

But this magic has a very dark side, just as any medicine it can be used as a poison, it can make so the new cells are attacked by the immunity system, sever the nerves and so on and so forth. Even when used to heal the fact that the cells are multiplying rapdly makes so that there is a high risk of cancer.

Nonetheless it's a very useful magic that many people are grateful to have someone having it, although many see them with suspicion.

After twenty minutes, both wounds had stoped bleeding, although they were still open. Antiochius and Moirai having not seen both of them had came there to help after searching for them.

Alex was able to stand, cloth were tied on his knee and elbow to protect and close the wound. After all that Theodora was very tired and fell on her but to the ground. Using magic for twenty minutes straight tired her out a lot. Using mana is like stamina, you can only feel that you are getting tired, and that you are breathing heavly, with mana, the more you use it you start to get dizzy and start to lose direction and focus, but most stop using after getting a bit dizzy, and just like how when you do a sport or any fisical work you get very tired later.

-But how did you fell after all?

Antiochius asked trying to help Alex to stand up.

-I was running away from Theodora, but I think I went to fast and tripped.

Alex said while trying to check how much of his leg he could move.

-...More careful...

Moirai said in low tone.

-I know, I'm sorry, guys, I think I will have to leave for now, it was a pleasure to meet y'all.

-Umu, Let's see each other again tomorrow!

Antiochius said with a smug smile.

-That's right! I will definetly get back at you for tricking me!

-... Meet again...

-Yeah! - Alex said with a smile in his face that was half happyness half trying to hide the pain from his knee.

Carol picked him up, bowed lightly her head in gratitude and went back to the manor, the children waving at Alex.

After Alex and Carol were already out of sight the three of them looked at each other and said.

-So, what do you wanna do now?

-It's almost noon I think we should go eat!

-... Mum must be searching...

-I guess you are right, let's go.

The three of them ran happly to their homes.

Without knowing they just made a friend in someone that will take them to new heights... or not.