“So, they all just…left? You thumped the leader a single time, and they immediately fled?”

  Braden was holding Trixy up, seemingly investigating every inch of her small, furred body. Trixy, for her part, was completely oblivious—sleeping as if she were dead—she literally looked like a corpse. Or, well, Julia had never seen a dead ferret, but she assumed this is what it would look like. She flopped around as Braden moved her to inspect her wounds—completely limp.

  This might have been worrying for Julia had she not already felt the ferret go to sleep in her arms as they were running back to the house. And Braden assured her that she was still breathing at a regular cadence. She was just exhausted, understandably.

  “Yeah. To be honest, I think I got pretty lucky. I was prepared for the entire group to attack me, but they all ran. Could’ve been pretty bad otherwise.”

  Julia cast her eyes downward and waited for the scolding she was sure was coming. Sure, Trixy was being attacked, but she had still assaulted someone. No way she wasn’t going to at least get a lecture for it.

  Julia never interacted much with the townsfolk, and as a result, she had never had any overt conflicts with them. So, this was a relatively new situation for her. Still, she wasn’t sure why, but she was positive there would be some kind of reprimand.

  But as she watched, Braden continued inspecting Trixy—searching for less obvious injuries or signs of internal damage.

  “Well, the good news is that these injuries are all skin deep. There’s some bruising to her abdomen, but nothing serious. She seems to have bitten her tongue somehow, which is where all the blood near her mouth came from. Possibly from a stray kick connecting with her head?

  “The bad news is that, although it’s nothing that’s going to do any kind of lasting damage, this wound on her back is pretty much unmistakably an abrasive one rather than any kind of piercing or cutting. Did you say they were throwing rocks at her?” he asked.

  “Yes. They seemed to be making a game out of hitting her with rocks. They would aim a halfhearted kick at her if she neared the edge of their circle, but I think that was more to keep her corralled than actually harm her,” Julia found it a little difficult to say such things calmly. She quickly clamped down on the boiling emotions that were rising in her throat again at the memory.

  “Well, that’s in-line with this wound, then. Looks like a rock hit her in the back. It was a glancing blow, so it didn’t do any internal damage, thankfully. Unfortunately, the rock must’ve been pretty heavy. Looks like it hit her back and dragged her skin off with it—just sheared the skin straight off.

  “Now, as I said, this is nothing that won’t heal. The reason I say it’s bad news is that this kind of wound hurts. Not just when it happens. The healing process won’t be pleasant.

  “If it weren’t for this specific wound, I would suggest we let her rest and heal naturally. However, I’ll just heal her with magic this time so she doesn’t have to deal with this nasty recovery. The wound is right between her back legs, so any movement at all would constantly reopen it. It would be, at best, annoying for her for a week or two.”

  Julia was heartbroken to hear how the wound had happened, but something Braden said didn’t make sense to her.

  “Why would you let the wounds heal on their own instead of using magic in the first place?” Julia couldn’t think of a reason anyone would want their wounds to linger if they had the option to be healed immediately.

  “Well, first of all, watch how I’m going to heal Trixy. Then, I’ll explain.”

  As he said this, Braden held his hand against Trixy’s back. His hand glowed subtly, and when Julia sharpened her Mana Sense and Sight to it, she felt and saw the mana trickling out of his hand. However, rather than infusing her entire body, like Julia was expecting, the mana seemed to stream across her skin until it found her mouth, where it entered. The inside of her mouth glowed a tiny bit and then stopped.

  The same thing happened with Trixy’s abdomen—where Braden said there was bruising—and her back. Her back glowed significantly brighter than anywhere else.

  Once the glowing stopped, Braden handed Trixy over to Julia, who took her in her arms and cradled her against her chest like a newborn.

  “Now, you saw how I used my mana, correct? You likely noticed that rather than just pumping my mana into her body, I targeted the wounds specifically. This is a slightly more advanced healing technique. Or, well, it’s advanced in the sense that it might not seem obvious to do when you first start using healing magic.

  “Shoving your mana into someone’s body works, but it’s extremely inefficient and dangerous. When you use that kind of healing magic, all you’re really doing is infusing one specific intent into the mana—’heal’—and then jamming it into the patient’s body. One of the problems with doing that to someone’s entire body is that a human body is extremely complex.

  “At any one moment, a body might have hundreds, even thousands, of different things it’s working to heal. The food you eat, the activity you do, even the furniture you sit in can deal micro-damage to the body that it has to heal. If you just flood someone’s whole body with mana with the intent to ‘heal,’ the body is going to divide that mana up for use on all the wounds it’s trying to heal, which means less mana going to the specific wound you were trying to heal in the first place.

  “The second reason that method isn’t recommended is that flooding someone else’s body with your own mana is generally a bad, dangerous idea. Mana inside a body is saturated with that person’s will and intent—if you dump your mana into their body, their own mana can interfere with yours. In the best case, it prevents your mana from doing its job; in the worst, it actively combats it, potentially causing major internal injuries.

  “Now, that’s not as much of an issue when a patient is awake and conscious. Chances are that if they’re awake, they’ve given you permission to use your mana to heal them. So, their subconscious will be accepting of your mana and not interfere.

  “If they’re unconscious, their subconscious is left directionless, and it will likely just fall back on taking a defensive posture no matter your intentions. It will most likely consider your mana a foreign invasion and try to disrupt or combat it”

  Julia puzzled through that information dump for a while. It was a lot to absorb. She started to get a little flustered as she realized something, though.

  “Wait…but, Trixy was unconscious when you—”

  “Yes, she was,” Braden interrupted, “but fortunately, her mana levels were already pretty low. She was likely using Mana Reinforcement to make her body stronger and faster, dodging rocks and whatnot.

  “Plus, not to blow too much smoke up my own butt, but I’m pretty good at controlling my mana. There was almost no chance I was going to mess up badly enough to do any kind of extra damage to her just by healing some surface wounds.

  “Don’t worry, Julia. I wouldn’t have done something risky to your companion when her life wasn’t already in jeopardy.”

  Julia exhaled heavily, her concerns vanishing just like the sudden weight that had set down on her chest.

  “So, she’s going to be alright, then?” Julia inquired.

  “Yup. She’ll probably be sleepy for a day or two. She’ll also probably use a little more of your mana than normal. Even though I used my own mana to heal her, it’s still her body doing all the actual healing. My mana just stimulated it and covered a portion of the extra cost for healing much faster than normal.

  “Whenever someone has wounds to recover from, they’ll end up using more energy than they would normally, which will mean needing to eat, drink, and rest more. Eating for Trixy just means siphoning a little extra mana from you, though.”

  Satisfied, Julia carefully set Trixy down on her little floor cushion. There was one in both the kitchen and living room so that Trixy could sit comfortably with them no matter where they were.

  “Thanks, Braden. Thanks for healing her…are you…not mad?” Julia asked hesitatingly.

  “Hmm? What would I be mad about? As I said, I was never going to put Trixy in danger. There was functionally zero risk for me to heal wounds like these, conscious or not.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  “No, not about the healing…about how I…you know…handled things. How I…assaulted someone…”

  Julia was kicking herself as she said it. The logical part of her brain told her that Braden seemed to have either forgotten to chastise her or hadn’t intended to in the first place, so why would she draw his attention back to it? The other part, the more curious and emotional side, wanted to know why he hadn't said anything and what his opinion on the matter was.

  “Oh, I see. Hmm, well, first of all, I think ‘assault’ is a bit strong for one punch. I’m guessing you held back, didn’t want to injure him too badly?”

  Julia nodded.

  “Right. Personally, I don’t think one punch among children is that big a deal. Especially in defense of your companion. Now, had you just walloped the boy out of nowhere and for no reason, then we would be having some words, but I’m not going to criticize you for protecting your friend. I do have some advice for you, though, if you want to hear it.”

  “Yes, please,” Julia said. She was somewhat surprised that there wasn’t going to be a scolding. Although, thinking about it, Braden never really scolded her. The only time he even raised his voice was to get her attention, like when she had almost reached into the summoning circle.

  She wasn’t sure why she felt certain this matter was going to be what caused him to start scolding when he hadn’t the entire time she’d known him, now that she was thinking about it.

  “Ok, well. Before we get to that, I can tell from what you’ve said and the way you’re acting that you expected to come home and get a lecture from me, yes? Yet, you still came home and told me the honest truth about what happened and your part in it.”

  He crouched down so that their faces were level, and they were looking into each other’s eyes. He put his hand on her shoulder.

  “I’m really proud of you for that, Julia. I’m always here for you, and there’s nothing we can’t do or overcome if we put our two heads together. We’re an unbeatable pair, you and I.

  “The only condition for that is that we’re always honest with each other. We can’t help each other if we don’t know what’s going on. So, I’m proud of you for coming back here and telling me everything, despite thinking it was going to get you in trouble.”

  Julia looked down towards the floor. For some reason, she felt it difficult to look Braden in the eyes right then, despite the warm feeling she had in her gut.

  “Thanks,” she said softly.

  Braden smiled and stood back up. “As for advice: always consider your desired outcome.”

  “Outcome?” Julia asked, turning her eyes back up towards him.

  “Yes. In other words, when you’re in a situation like that, think about what actions to take based on how you want to exit the situation rather than what you’re feeling at the moment.

  “For example, what you did makes sense and is a perfectly understandable reaction to your dear friend being threatened. However, like you said before, you definitely were risking having to fight the entire group of kids, all likely at least a year-or-two older than you when you punched their leader.

  “Not only that, but we haven’t reached the end of this specific path you’ve chosen, yet. Or, I think it’s very likely we haven’t. So, what you did was risky, and it also planted seeds for trouble in the future.

  “Again, I’m not saying what you did was the wrong move or even wrong in general. It was an understandable—and justified—reaction. I would simply advise that you try to keep your calm in situations like that and think about how you would like things to end.

  “Try not to let your emotions carry you away with them. Feel them. Acknowledge them. Then, let them pass. Your emotions exist for a reason. They’re trying to tell you something. So, let them speak to you. Let them tell you their messages, and then use that information as part of your decision-making. Just don’t let them make the decisions for you.”

  Julia contemplated silently for a while. Braden was also silently fixing up the table that was disorderly after the kerfuffle with Trixy. He let her think things through without interrupting.

  After a while, Julia looked up at him. “What would you have done? I keep thinking about it, but I can’t think of anything else I could have done other than to run away and leave Trixy to their cruelty, or use lightning…but that would’ve been…lethal.”

  Braden nodded and smiled at her.

  “Good work, by the way, resisting the urge to use that spell. You’re right. It would’ve absolutely killed at least the boy you struck with it, even with the relatively-small amount of mana you have right now. But, likely, it would’ve jumped between at least a few other kids and killed them as well.

  “Resisting the urge to use power, especially power that you’ve recently acquired, is wonderful work and sets a good precedent.

  “There’s a saying that if you spend your life hitting things with a hammer, everything starts to look like a nail. In other words, if you start lowering the standards required to use lethal force against someone, before you know it, you’re killing people for looking at you funny.”

  Julia shook her head. She thought there was no way anyone could ever become that depraved—especially in her situation. The entire town looked at her funny.

  “Don’t worry. I’m just talking about hypotheticals. Clearly, you’ve already got a firm grasp on your impulse control. That you can resist the urge to use the power you have at eleven-years—”

  “Eleven-and-three-quarters,” Julia corrected.

  “...at eleven-and-three-quarters-years-old, is a great sign for how you’ll perform as an adult…actually, if there’s any criticism, it should probably be directed at me for teaching an eleven-year-old such a lethal spell…good Lord…I gave an eleven-year-old a gun.”

  Braden suddenly went white as a sheet, the end of that sentence trailing off quietly.

  “Eleven-and-three-quarters. And you’re starting to ramble again. ‘What was it you would recommend doing in that situation?’ was the original question,” Julia said with exasperation.

  Despite her exasperated tone, Braden looked thankful for the distraction for some reason.

  “Right. Well, I would say the best outcome would have been to talk your way out of it. Obviously, based on how the boy was speaking to you, that was pretty much out of the question from the get-go, though.

  “I think the next best outcome would be to get out of that situation without making it any worse. To do that, I think the best way would be to muscle your way into their circle and reunite with Trixy. You are pretty far ahead of kids your age in terms of stats, so I think it wouldn’t have been difficult to shove your way past any of the kids that might’ve tried to block you.

  “Once you got into the circle, you could’ve scooped up Trixy and had her use the last little bit of her mana to make you both invisible. Then, you could have sprinted back here.

  “They wouldn’t be able to follow you, and they already know Trixy has special powers, so nothing would’ve changed in their eyes after seeing it in action. They might have even given up on future bullying once they saw Trixy demonstrate her powers…actually, why didn’t she just turn invisible and escape?”

  Julia looked down in shame at the question.

  “I…asked her not to attack anyone after I saw her kill and eat a bird a couple years ago…she probably interpreted using her magic against people, even if it was just to hide herself, as an attack.”

  Julia was so ashamed that she had, even indirectly, created this situation for her companion.

  “I see. That doesn’t make a whole lot of sense to me, but she’s also still an animal. Even with mana slightly boosting her cognition, she can only understand basic instructions.

  “Perhaps this was a strange alignment of unfortunate circumstances. A combination of her lack of complex thought/understanding, lack of combat experience, and desire to fulfill your commands completely led to her not realizing that cloaking herself isn't the same as attacking.

  “Don’t be so down on yourself, Julia. You did cripple her ability to defend herself, but don’t forget that it wasn’t some wild beast in the forest that was attacking her.

  “These were people from the town that she, ostensibly, shouldn’t need to defend herself against. Don’t accept blame for those kids’ horrible actions. You didn’t make them attack Trixy. They did that on their own, so they can accept the blame on their own, too.”

  Julia nodded, slightly vindicated. She didn’t realize she had been holding herself accountable for the kids’ actions, but she clearly had. Still, like Braden said, the responsibility for Trixy’s inability to defend herself rested solely on Julia’s shoulders.

  She was still angry at herself for that, but she also didn’t force anyone to attack Trixy. Thus, it didn’t make much sense to beat herself up over it.

  “Wait, you said before that the actions I took will likely plant the seeds for future conflict? What do you mean?” Julia asked.

  “Well, think about it for a second. You don’t think all those kids ran home screaming and crying and just…forgot about everything, right? They surely went home and told their parents, or their parents noticed their frantic behavior and questioned them.

  “Especially the kid you hit. Even if he didn’t intend to tell his parents, they’d notice a bruise or something and ask about it. I know you held back, but there’s no way he took a punch and isn’t even a little red or something from it.”

  Julia paled at the thought. What was she going to do? Kids around her own age were one thing, but adults?! What could she do about adults!?

  They’re also the ones that really hated her. The kids didn’t really have anything against her beyond what they heard from their parents. They weren’t much older than she was when the attack happened, after all. But the adults? They were there. They remembered.

  Noticing her distress, Braden walked over and put his hand on her head.

  “Don’t worry, Julia. I’m saying this so you understand the point I was trying to make about the consequences of actions and aiming for the ideal outcome. This would be a tough situation if you were alone, but you’re not.

  “I’m here for you. The kids likely escalated to their adults, so you can escalate to your adult, which is me. I’ll handle things from here.”

  No sooner did the words exit his mouth than an angry banging was heard on the front door.