I awoke to a throbbing head and knew I wasn't in for a good day. I didn't move my eyes or open my eyelids right away, as I knew better than that. But that left me silently suffering in the darkness behind my eyelids as it felt like the world spun around me. Eventually, reality regained its balance, and all I was left to deal with was the caltrops lodged behind my eyes. They, too, would eventually fade away as my mental energy returned, but a minor ache in the back of my head would remain for a day or two longer.

"Heergg…" I groaned as I tried to roll over.

"Stay still." Said an exasperated voice, "Just… Hmm, wait a min— Ahh, there we go." I felt a hand press against my head, covering my eyes and pushing me firmly back to the ground. For a few seconds, I was left to wonder what she was talking about, and then I felt something probe my consciousness.

At first, I wasn't sure what was happening. It felt like… water dribbling onto my lips after days of working under the hot sun without a drop. I chalked it up to my imagination, but the trickle soon became a stream of energy pouring into me.

Shock stopped me from reacting momentarily, and the energy entered me unhindered by the natural defenses that should have intervened. As the energy spread through my body, I got past my surprise soon enough and acted. Gathering up my scraps of mental energy and will as I anticipated over-exerted myself, I threw the meager defense at the energy flooding into me.

As the two energies connected, the invading one latched onto mine and… shifted. That was the only way I can describe it. The invading energy entered my body, linked to my mental energy and willpower, and became mine utterly, completely indistinguishable.

It wasn't much energy, about a sixteenth of my total reserves, but it was enough that my head stopped throbbing and only stung. I was happy about being able to defend myself now, but I was thrilled that the ache at my temples that comes after slowly regenerating my mental energy over a day was nowhere to be felt. Well, it might be there, but the lines of pain on my forearm, my neck, and other spots across my back and legs drowned out the pain in my head to nothing.

The hand over my eyes pulled away, and I waited a second before opening my eyes and blinking a few times to clear them. I found myself on my back, looking up at an increasingly dark forest rapidly approaching sunset. The limbs and leaves of the trees overhead groaned in the soft breeze caressing my face and blowing the thick clouds I saw darkening the sky.

Closing my eyes briefly, I enjoyed the wind as it brought the rich scents of grass, trees, and earth. I felt at home as the boldest crickets began chirping, but I knew the moment was over when the creak and groan of leather moving next to me told me the beastkin was moving around. Opening my eyes, I cleared my throat and turned to flash my best smile at the woman. "Glad to see you decided not to kill me."

Her ears perked up as she watched me, and I might have seen concern on her face as I turned to face her, but if it was there at all, the look vanished in a fraction of a second. Because my smile was bouncing off her annoyed scowl like a duck's feathers shed water.

She was seated three feet to my left with her back to a large tree, the roots of the massive old tree poking out of the ground in a half-ring. Combined with a natural divot on the forest floor, we were at the bottom of a bowl. As I turned to look to my right, I saw a boulder making up the last wall of our little shelter. With a few grunts interspersed with throwing more charming smiles at Miss Grumpy Grump in an attempt to lessen her annoyance, I repositioned myself, putting my back to the rock so that we were facing each other.

"We should talk." said the beastwoman in a neutral tone.

I shot a look of concern at her before looking up at the trees and sky over the edge of our hiding place.

She only snorted, "Hump, no one will hear us. So long as you don't break my spell and knock me out… again."

I smiled sheepishly at her and rubbed the back of my head, "Yeah… Umm, sorry about that. I was just trying to talk to you." I didn't add that her smug attitude might have caused me to try and open a mental link between us in a way that some… might consider… rude. Okay, a borderline attack, but I didn't think it would go that way! And this was as much or more her own damn fault as mine. She gave me a flat, unamused stair like she knew what I had added in my mind, which sent a shiver down my spine.

"And that is the only reason that you are still alive." She finally said.

My smile froze on my face at her chilling words, as I could tell that she meant them. Taking a moment, I closed my eyes and then took a long, deep breath to recenter myself. Opening them, I gave her a friendly smile, "How about we have a fresh start. I'm Green." I said, leaning forward and sticking out my arm, though I couldn't help but add, "This is usually the place where you introduce yourself… not run away, mock the other, or anything of that sort."

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She looked at me for a few long seconds, and I stayed in place before she gave a slight nod. "What happened to a fresh start?" She asked dryly. To which I shrugged and smiled back at her. "Kanieta," She finally responded, sticking out her own hand to clasp my forearm.

We firmly held onto each other's hand for a second, looking each other in the eye before letting go and getting comfortable. As I settled back down, I could feel the lightening of the atmosphere in our little shelter after the simple act of exchanging our names. It wasn't entirely friendly, but it was better than our constant tension, wariness, and probing interactions since our first meeting.

There was something to be said for building the foundation of a relationship when both parties had the opportunity to kill the other and chose not to. "So," I said, "Care to explain how you refilled my energy reserves? I mean, don't get me wrong, I'm thankful and all, but it's a well-accepted fact that what you just did was impossible," I looked around for someone in the little bowl, "Oh, and what we're supposed to be doing out here. I guess that's kind of important."

A smile twitched at her lips, trying to overcome the flat mask. "You would rather ask about how I gave you my mana rather than what we are going to do in the forest that will save the lives of tens of thousands?"

"…Yes?" I asked more than stated. I mean, really, I was more interested in the answer at this moment. It might change soon, but curiosity ruled me for now.

Her smile blossomed over her entire face, and she threw back her head, letting out a ringing laugh that lit up her face. Eventually, she regained control, wiping away some tears from her eyes, then looked at me. "Okay, I'll sate your curiosity." She said, "Mana, what we call our energy, is very adaptable. If we inject it straight from our bodies into yours with skin-to-skin contact, it will convert to your psy and refill your reserves, or it will overflow and leak from your body if your reservoir is already full."

"Mental energy," I offhandedly corrected before asking her to clarify her caveat, "What happens if it's not direct skin to skin?"

A look of discomfort and unease passed over her face for a moment, "Searing agony and eventually death. Usually, at least. Sometimes, people survive physically. Their minds, however, typically break under the experience."

Her face twisted with a look like she was remembering something unpleasant. "Some find pleasure in threatening prisoners with that fate…" Then she blinked as a thought occurred to her. "Wait, isn't psy the accepted term for your people? I thought mental energy was outdated."

My back stiffened at the remark, "Psy is the word the human scholars have been peddling the last few hundred years. Mental energy is the traditional usage of us elves. So you are saying that you can completely refill my reservoir once I run dry?"

"Ohhh, I see," She said, a teasing smirk appearing on her face, "And the answer is both yes and no. In my people's testing with mana and psy energies, we have determined that psy users have significantly larger pools of internal energy. For example, how much of your psy pool did I fill?"

I squinted at Kanieta, who was giving me a look like butter wouldn't melt in her mouth. She was the picture of innocence as she blinked at me with an expectant look on her face. Finally, I said, "My mental energy reservoir was refilled to about a sixteenth of its maximum."

"Ohh," she said, holding a hand up to her face and tails lifting over her head with a look of shock and pity, "I'm so sorry. I guess that you're significantly smaller than average. Most are far larger."

My jaw was clenched in annoyance at her, and I really considered using the tiny bit of mental energy I had and picking up a rock and smacking her with it.

"Anyway," she said cheerily, in her sweet voice dripping too sweet honey, "We have found that while we have less mana, we can regenerate our mana far faster. See—" She abruptly leaned forward, poking me in the leg with a finger through a hole in my pants I didn't remember getting, releasing another burst of energy into my body.

"I have already fully restored my mana pool," She continued as she sat back. My annoyance with her vanished as she shared her knowledge, and my mental energy increased. "So we can last longer. Also, whenever we cast a spell — that's what we call our usage of mana — the world itself reinforces our spells, doubling or even tripling its power. So we aren't at as much of a disadvantage as you would think. Also, mana can do more with less training compared to… psy."

I let the information sink in. It was… fascinating. The world itself helping reinforce and power a casting… that would be amazing! But one thing was bothering me. "Do you know why my people are affected in such a negative way when you don't directly inject the energy?"

She shook her head, "Nope, no one has ever been able to figure that out. Or if they have, no one has bothered to spread the information." Our conversation continued as we talked about more complex mana usage and mental energy and if there was any relation, a topic that we both became absorbed in discussing. As we spoke, she would lean forward and push her energy into me occasionally, speeding up my recovery.

"Ahh, there we go," Kanieta said when she injected me with her mana, and I started overflowing with mental energy as she filled me up. "I guess we can get going now that you're full."

"Hmm? Oh, yeah!" I said, getting up as I followed her lead, "Guess I am full of mental energy… Wait! You never said where we are going!"

Throwing a look back at me when she was already mostly over the root mass, she said, "Guess not, huh?" Then, she vaulted over the lip and ran into the night-covered forest.

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