Our 2 day trip was spent mostly Varvial teaching me basic spells, and Lijal telling me about his dad, who's name I learned was Maural. A day and a half into our travels, we were seated around a campfire later at night, eating dinner as Lijal finished up his whole family history.

"And now I got a new baby sister who daddy's takin' care of while mama's workin on her paintin' n stuff! She sells art like I said. My sister's name is Pip! She's real quiet like daddy." I chuckled.

"You miss your dad, Lijal? You mentioned this was your first adventure without him." Lijal paused, and sheepishly nodded a bit. He poked the fire we were sitting around with a stick.

"'t's kinda scary without 'im," he said quietly.

"Aw, no need t' worry, Lijal! You got the rest of yer family lookin out for ya!" Adail was a kind uncle. Loud, but kind. I'd learned that he and Maribea were actually recently married. This was their first trip out since their honeymoon ended. "So, Matthew, I'm dying to know, what's this whole weird aging thing you mentioned?"

"Oh, it's kind of... Difficult to explain. You know what an immortal is?" Adail and the rest nodded. "It's sort of like that. I am connected to a piece of land, I think a better way to say it is that I am that piece of land. And that land is a country, full of humans, who grow and change, make up politics, fall into crisis, elect leaders, everything you all do, and My physical body is affected by how stable this country, my people, are. My country has only been legally established for 150 years now-" I paused. "Oh my god."

"You're 150 years old?!" Adail exclaimed.

"No, no, way older, but, I totally forgot, but when you found me yesterday, it was my birthday." Everyone's jaw propped open.

"Fascinating," Ervil said.

"That might explain one thing," Varvial seconded. "Birthday curses aren't totally uncommon, though they're usually nasty. If you're truthin' on about crashin' yer wagon and waking up in a fantasy world, then there's a chance you caught a bad one. Fortunately, you'll be speakin' to Panala."

"And!" Lijal jumped in. "We can throw you a blessing party! It's what we do for folk who get the birthday curses! It's like, a birthday party and like a religious thing in one! But it's fun, don't worry!"

"Oh, you guys don't have to go through all that trouble for me, but thank you."

"Oh it's no problem for us," Lunin piped up. "We're usually partying anyways, so another won't hurt."

"Well, I guess I can't argue," I shrugged.

"Tell us more about your weird agin'!" Lijal was almost bouncing in excitement.

"Oh! Right. So, as I was saying before, my country has only been legally established for around 150 years, but, I've been around for much, much longer. I wasn't really born, but I was sorta brought into existence once settlers, well, settled. I lived and grew as a colony for about 4-500 years."

"What about yer family?" Lijal asked. "Were you livin on your own until you grew up?"

"Not really. I guess you could say the country, the man, who colonized my home, was my father."

"What's the Matthew Country like?"

"Oh! Right, it's not actually called Matthew. That's just a legal "human name" that I chose to introduce myself to people. Mostly friends call me Matthew, my boss sometimes when we go out for drinks."

"Wait, why do you have a boss? You're the country, you should be leadin!"

"Well, after a while, us countries stopped having a lot of say in how we run ourselves. In the older times, we'd be right hand-men, or advisors, to kings and queens, but since we settled for a larger political system, with cabinets of ministers and everyone doing everything, we're mostly stuck as public figures, or celebrities. We still have to do a lot of paper work, though. Bad deal if you ask me."

Lunin spoke next. "Well then, how about a little insight to your family back home?"

"I wanna know more about the boy you said was like me!" Lijal piped up.

"Ah, Sealand. Yup, he's got a lot of potential, that's for sure. He's what's known as a Micronation. Not big enough to be a real country, but still has its own society. There's a king and queen, and they recently had a baby! You can even buy your own citcenship. His land isn't any island, it's actually an old base during one of my world's wars."

"Oh I like this Sealand! You think if we met that he'd like me?"

"I think you'd both get along perfectly, Lijal." Lijal smiled wider at that. "In fact, you all kind of remind me of the people back at my world."

"Oh, please do share," said Lunin.

"Well, Ms. Lunin, you definitely remind me of one of my caregivers, France. Same eyes, same attitude, but 'e talks like 'zis," I said, trying out my best French accent, and everyone laughed. "Adail, you remind me of my own brother, America. Alfred, unprofessionally. We're fraternal twins, but god, if I had a-a- a copper coin for all the times someone mistook me for him I'd be swimming in gold." Everyone laughed. "Adail, are you and Maural twins?"

"Sure are! Lijal gets his freckles from his mama. Kai's a second cousin of Sylvestre, so she's got the same glowing freckles, but Lijal's only glow when he's usin' magic."

"You hate my mama!" Lijal said cheerfully, but also matter of factly.

"I hate her and she hates me and we hate each other with all the fibre in our very beings," confirmed Adail. "But, Maural couldn't live without her, so I had to step aside. And Lijal's not a bad product of those two." Adail ruffled Lijal's hair. Lijal was a darker skinned child, who's hair was a bit curlier than mine, but his dark roots flared into a fiery orange. He was missing his two front teeth, they were probably going to grow in later.

"Yeah, Alfred's the same with a friend of mine, Carlos. Cuba, professionally. It was war times, Carlos agreed to store some weapons for a coworker of mine, Russia."

"Professionally?" Asked Ervil.

"Professionally. You actually remind me of him, Ervil. Big strong guy, but kind. Though if you get on his bad side, he could scare you to death with looks alone."

"Oh, don't worry, I know all about killing looks. You should have seen the chimera I fought a week back," Ervil smiled through his bushy beard, and I swear I could see a familiar dark aura surrounding him.

"What about us ladies?" Slyvestre spoke up. "Who do we remind you of?"

"You three, well, exactly. You remind me of the big three. Germany, Italy, and Japan are their professional names. I won't get into why they're so big, it'll just be a downer, but no matter what kind of conflict their governments get into, those three are inserperable." Sylvestre, Maribea, and Wiykai all looked flattered. "Sylvestre, you're like Italy. He's much less of a fighter, but he's real fun and upbeat! Wiykai, you're like Japan. A calm, but intimidating presence when need be. And Maribea... Wow. You're strong and amazing and just a natural born leader. But you're also so kind and calm, and I don't mean this in a jealousy way, but Adail has got to be one of the luckiest guys in the world."

"I sure am!" Adail shouted. He planted a large kiss on Maribea's cheek, who was trying not to blush.

"Varvial," I continued. "You're like the man I mentioned before as my father. Though I like to think you had a lot more time for your kids. Arthur was more connected to my brother, spent most of his time with him. I was never the kind to speak up about my lonliness," I said. "But," and as my thoughts connected, for the first time since I was a child, I did a magic trick England taught me. I put out my hand, and from it, as I spoke, many, many small glowing dots floated out of my hand, and slowly scattered around the campsite. "My brother could only see the magic creatures that befriended Arthur, but I could do magic. Arthur would sometimes spend a few days with me, teaching me what he knew. He taught me this, it was a simple trick, taking power from within, and scattering it. And then," And I reached my hand up into the sky, and then pulled it down, and all the floating lights swirled back into my hand in a beautiful spiral. I looked around, and saw that Lijal, sitting next to me, was handing me a hankercheif.

"You're cryin'," he said, a little worried. I brought a few fingers to my cheek, and found my cheek wet with tears. I smiled, and took the hankercheif to wipe my eyes.

"Sorry, I haven't been able to do that in... God, centuries, I think. I lost... a lot of my magic ability when I stopped using it."

"Why'd you have t' stop?" Lijal asked. "That was so pretty!"

I paused, wondering if I should even tell them. I sighed. "I... I'm not completely human. I'm technically immortal. I live and grow with my country, with my people, and my people,, humans can just be so afraid of what they don't understand. And they don't know what else to do except attack. I was staying with my brother in his land, and they came for us, and other magic users like us. But it was a massacre. Men killing innocent women and children, who knew nothing about magic. The people used their fear of witchcraft to hunt innocent people who didn't look or act like them, they got me, I-I-" And I stopped. Lijal was curled up against Adail, who's hand was firmly placed on Lijal's arm protectively. They both looked scared for me.

I shook my head. "Sorry, that got dark. Nowadays, we call those days The Salem Witch-hunts. And no one's used real magic since." I tried creating light once again, and this time, the lights stayed swirling slowly around my hand, emitting a blue light. "Though over the years, I've seen a few real magic users, some disguised as street performers. Hidden in plain sight. And even though I stopped, Arthur never closed off magic from me. It's what connected us, really."

"How'd the bad men get you?" Asked Lijal, quietly. "How'd you get away from dyin?"

"... I didn't." Lijal looked confused, and grew more nervous, shrinking into Adail's sided just a bit more. "That's one more thing about my kind; when our countries are untied, we're very death-resistant. I woke up later, found Alfred in a hiding spot we both knew about, and made our way to a safe village we knew we could trust before England came and took us back to his home to live with him for a while."

After a pause, Wiykai was the one to speak up. "What... what is dying like? We have ceremonies celebrating our fallen adventurers and soldiers who are killed in action, but we'll never know what death is like."

"Well, that's a big question to answer. The way you die, is most of the time, terrifying. If you're not ready to die, it's terrifying. But being dead isn't so bad. I've died many times, from wars and such. It's not scary to be dead. There's a darkness, but it's calming, like you're about to fall asleep in a comfy bed at home, where you know you're safe. I still don't recommend dying, though." A few chuckled. I clasped my hands together, ready to change the mood. "Well, that's enough sob stories from me today! Anyone up for hearing about the year I joined the Olympics?" Lijal energetically raised his hand.

"What's an Olympics?" he asked.

"Well, that's one fun story, Lijal," I responded.