Winter.

My mothers were as good as their word, of course, and I received a number of letters, probably averaging one a month, although some were duplicates. I think they sent several copies of each to increase the odds of one getting through. They also wrote to Hungerford, but he didn't enlighten me as to the contents of his, and I didn't dare ask. 

Both he and I wrote back of course. Hungerford instructed me in how to send a letter, escorting me into the village, and to the shop, an old fashioned – from my perspective at least – version of the US Postal Express, with riders carrying bags of mail on horseback for urgent deliveries. Other post and parcels went by carriage that also took passengers. 

Their letters contained a lot of reassurance that they were okay, and a lot of thinking about me. Mother stuff, which, whilst not very exciting, warmed my heart. I, in return, gave reports on my progress with Hungerford, and how the farm was doing. Certainly nothing about Gisel. 

I was actually living alone in the house with Freia most of the time, as Hungerford stayed in his hut. Now, you can't live with someone without bumping into them, even at night, and I had to say that Freia walked around in quite the revealing night dress. It wasn't low cut or anything, but it was simple, fairly thin, had a rather low top, and was quite short, which allowed me a fantastic view of her very shapely legs. 

It caused me to pause on occasion, as she flounced around in such an outfit. Freia, thanks to her lifestyle and training, was superbly fit. She didn't have big titties, but they were nice all the same, and I'd always been a fan of the pert body. Maybe it was because I was so young she didn't care, but I was treated to a delightful view sometimes as she leaned over. Oh dear! If only I was older! 

I even managed to contrive to walk past the bathing area a couple of times, as she was using it. I'd done this before on occasion, but not so much as my mothers were around then too. Freia didn't seem to care that the door was ajar, which was nice for me. The steam obscured most of the view, but the images I caught I resolved to remember clearly, until my body was old enough to do something about them! If only I had a camera. Maybe for the best I didn't.

I tittered evilly, and then scampered off as she called out.

Apart from those distractions, the season went by uneventfully, and the next thing I knew, it was winter. My meetings with Gisel were cut off as the snow came in with a vengeance. Even my training was paused for a while as the world outside was buried in white.

"It's not usually this bad," Freia said, as we sat around the table eating dinner. Sadly the cold meant that she was bundling up more. Today she was clad in a long, furry robe that went from her neck to her feet. "In fact, I can't remember snow and cold like this." As if to emphasise her point, she stood up and added another log to the fireplace.

"It is not the worst I have encountered here," Hungerford said. 

My sword master had moved into the house when the cold weather hit, as his hut was simply not warm enough.

"However, I haven't seen anything quite like this for some years. It is of concern."

"Why is that master?" I asked, spooning some chicken broth into my mouth.

"Because the last time this happened, it was demonic influence. They were trying to weaken us before a spring offensive. Of course, that was a time of war and chaos."

"You were in a war?" I asked. Hungerford was not usually forthcoming about his past.

He nodded, slowly, in way of reply. "I am not at all old enough to have been in the last major demon war," he said. "However, there are occasional smaller conflicts between the human and non-human. The last of any significance was, perhaps, thirty years ago, before your mothers were born even." He gave me a smile. 

"Oh?" I tried to put on a surprised face, like this was so long ago I couldn't imagine. In fact, thirty years ago I had… My first life. I guess. It seemed like five minutes to me sometimes.

There was an Orc lord, he united the clans, which happens every so often, and gathered a large army to invade. To weaken us, his shamans employed some dark magic that gave us a terrible, and long, winter. Our spies though, had warned us of this, and we were prepared. When they did attack, expecting us to be terribly weakened, we were ready for them. It was still a hard battle, but, in the end, we won decisively."

"I wish I could have fought beside you!" Freia said, showing her fiery nature.

Hungerford gave her a sad smile. "I hope you never have to fight in something like that lass," he said, which put our maid back down in her seat. "I still have scars from that time." He tapped his head, and then his heart, indicating he wasn't speaking of physical injuries.

PTSD, I thought. 

"But the fight! The glory of battle!" Freia wasn't so easily discouraged.

"That glory is written by bards," Hungerford responded. "Who haven't waded through the blood and gore. Who haven't seen their friends, even their loved ones, brutally cut down. War is not glory lass."

"Oh." Freia sagged further. I think Hungerford saw this.

"That said, don't let this discourage you. Your blade work, with more practice, will be even more advanced than mine, so I think. And an honourable battle won is something to be proud of. The butchery of war… that has no glory."

"I understand master," she replied. 

From my perspective, from one who had seen the less savoury side of life and death, I understood what Hungerford was talking about. And yet, to try and explain that to a young, eager, teenager, was not easy. She would find out in time, as millions had done before her.

~*~

"Better! Finally."

"Ouch," was my response. 

The winter was behind us, the snow suddenly having given way to warm weather, and I was back to my routine.

It had been nearly six months since Hungerford had started teaching me the Saint technique. Not that you would have guessed I was learning to wield a sword, because, apart from some new set sequences I'd had to learn, I'd spent most of my time without my wooden weapon in hand.

Instead, Hungerford had me using my wind blasting incantations to put my body through all sorts of acrobatics. He had devised assault courses for me, devious, frankly downright dangerous, courses, which involved me diving, jumping, twisting over, under on, through things. I had to balance on moving beams, run along planks that squirmed underfoot, all whilst blowing metal balls, set to swinging on the end of ropes, out of the way with my magic. 

I had learned a lot though. The incantation I'd planned to use to fly I now used to jump massive distances. I used it to throw myself out of the way of objects and attacks, to make wild, frankly impossible looking manoeuvres, and to blow attacks off course, or even stop and reverse them. 

Most of the time I had one, or both, hands tied behind my back. Literally. 

"The issue with Saint method, is that the fighter generally has to have one hand free to cast their magic. Unless you can manage without that?" Hungerford had asked me, at the start of my training.

"I can, but it helps to use my hand to guide my magic."

"If you don't need to use your hand, we will work on that. Having the second hand free for a shield, or another weapon, would be a huge positive."

And so that was the case. In the following months I had become quite the acrobat. A magically assisted ninja type! Of course, my body was still young and supple, which helped, but the extra strength and speed that Midex had gifted me also made a big difference.

By the time my fifth birthday rolled around, I was like a tumbling acrobat on steroids played on fast forward. 

The intense training meant I couldn't meet up with Gisel quite so much, but both our language skills were now good enough that we could afford to slacken off a little. Our meetings now were more active than before. 

Thanks to Hungerford's training, I had finally acquired the ability to fly, using my magic jets. It had involved a few spills, but I was now able to zip around quite well, and at a fair speed. I had restricted my height though, because it was actually still fairly easy to lose control and tumble to the ground. Maybe if I had some kind of parachute I would try higher. Something to ponder. Perhaps a floating spell, some kind of anti-gravity thing? I didn't have any idea how to even start with that one.

Gisel's magic improvement had slowed up quite a lot. Frankly, I think she had pretty much reached the limit of what she was capable of. Even so, she was pleased with her progress, and was always working on new ways to make more of what she had. I like to think I inspired her with my out of the box thinking.

In return, she had been teaching me how to use knives which, I had found out, were her weapon of choice. Throwing knives especially. 

That time I had seen her with the small, curved, blade, she had actually used all her throwing blades on the bugbear. I'd not seen them on its body, but I hadn't been looking, or maybe it had pulled them out. 

In any case, she usually had a brace of the things strapped around her. In our previous meetings she had just carried a few concealed ones, but now she had decided to teach me, she came with a strap looped over her shoulder just filled with them.

They were slim, small blades with no real hilt. More like slivers of dark black, and very, very sharp metal. It took practice just to hold them properly without cutting my fingers half off. 

"No no, I've told you, like this dummy!" Gisel adjusted the knives I was holding, so I had one ready to throw, and another palmed in my hand to replace it. It really was quite hard. "Yes, better. Now, throw the first one, then slide the second into position."

"I threw the first one, which missed the target (a small tree that had somehow survived my magical practices) and dropped the second blade.

Gisel rolled her eyes.

"Sorry." I picked up the knife, and promptly cut my finger on it.

She sighed, and took it from me as I sucked at my wound. "It's a good job I didn't bring the poisoned ones."

"Eh?" I took the finger out of my mouth rather quickly.

She giggled. Something she didn't often do. Gisel was a serious girl, although, in this harsh world, children seemed to be far less child-like than my old one. They had to grow up a lot faster I guess, due to the brutal reality of survival.

"Do you think these little things would stop someone?"

I looked at her daggers. "Maybe?"

"Perhaps against a smaller human or animal, or maybe with an eye shot, but against any kind of serious warrior or larger creature, they would be pin pricks. Hence they are usually coated with a substance that dries on the blade. It's safe to handle, you can even lick it, but if it enters the blood." She made a face. 

Despite the gruesome expression, I smiled. Whilst her body, and my own, were still too young to pique my interest in any sexual way, Gisel was a very pretty girl. 

This had surprised me at first. The goblin guards I had met, and the one that usually escorted her here, were the height of, maybe, a short man, squat and wide, with a face only a mother could love. Gisel herself, whilst slightly older than me, was only just a little taller. Yet, apart from the colour of her skin, and her ears and fangs, she looked like a human.

I had managed a visit or two to her village by this time, and had noticed that, whilst some goblins were more like the ones imagined back in my old world, many had an appearance far less extreme than I expected. Yes, they were green skinned, had the ears and fangs (and some had claw-like nails too), but apart from being generally a little shorter, many of them had quite human-like features. I saw a few young women who were positively stunning.

And yet, others of the village were much more in line with what I would have expected from a goblin. Shorter, with beast-like features. Uglier, essentially. 

I had brought this up with Gisel, in a polite way, and she had explained.

"It's because most of my tribe are what you would call surface goblins," she said. "Our entire species is actually an offshoot of what man-creatures call the demon race. The demons, as you call them, were in this world before humans, so the stories go, and were handsome beings. When humans came, they displaced many demons from their lands. Some of them went underground, and lived there for thousands of years. In that time they changed, and an offshoot became what you call goblins. Some goblins though, didn't spend so much time underground, and those are what we call surface goblins. The underground ones are not so pretty, I admit." She sniffed, and threw her hair about like a shampoo commercial. "I am one of the pretty ones."

"You are," I said, eyeing the knife she was still holding. Females are females throughout the multiverse, it seems.

Sadly, my time in the village had been limited, partly because of a political problem caused, in a roundabout way, by me.

Gisel's father had promised her future hand in marriage to the son of another chief, but my intervention had clouded the issue, with the life debt and all. She did have a younger sister, but the prospective groom, or at least his parents, viewed her as unsuitable, for whatever reason. Hence my appearance in the village reminded the chief of the problems I had caused him. Even though I had saved his daughter, he generally was no longer so pleased to see me.

The issue may not have been such a big deal, but there was something going on with the goblins, and maybe the monster – perhaps I should say non-human – population to the north as a whole. Some fighting in another land was going on, which was pushing the denizens out of territories, which, in turn, pushed others out of theirs, and so on. As a result of this movement, there had been skirmishes over land, and previously promised alliances were being formed and strengthened, one of which had been Gisel's marriage.

Still, I figured there wasn't really anything I could do about it. The whole life debt issue had been brought up by the goblins, not me, and apparently if they went back on the deal would cause lost face and shame to the chief, so he was between a rock and a hard place.

All of this had only increased Gisel's desire to go with me into the human lands. 

"But it would be dangerous," I said, for the thousandth time.

"Do I look like a coward to you?" she snarled, folding her arms, which were rather more muscled than my own.

"Of course not!" I held my hands out, not wishing to be punched. I had found that goblins had a fairly short fuse, and Gisel wasn't above resorting to violence. I could defend myself of course, but somehow this didn't seem right. Maybe I am too chivalrous, although, not sure where that came from.

"You are always saying how smart you are, you can figure something out."

"I don't recall saying that." I scratched my head.

"Well, I know you are smart. Same thing."

"Let me think on it. We have some time still," I said. 

"Good, now, come on, pick up this knife and try again."

"I'm still bleeding!"