Age Seven
My ploy to start my martial training as early as possible had met with more success than I thought I would get in my wildest dreams. Aikido had been a big hit with my parents.
My mother being the biggest fan. If only just.
Apparently, the idea of her little girl being able to break any would be rapists she might meet in dark alleys appealed to her. I think my father was imagining mostly the same scenario, just with prospective boyfriends. I still haven't worked up the nerve to tell him he's likely worrying about the wrong gender.
Aikido itself, however, ended up being something of a disappointment. At some point since the last time I'd really paid attention to the art, it had become far more 'art' than 'martial'. It's all right exercise, but largely, it's gone the way of Tai Chi.
What it did, however, is act as an excellent gateway for my parents. Once I'd been doing Aikido for a month, I pitch the idea of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, describing it as 'Aikido, only you're lying down'. Which it isn't, but my parents didn't know that, and in their ignorance it was an easy sell.
From there I added Jujitsu, 'It's like Brazilian Jiu Jitsu, only standing up.'
That, with the help of the instructor and a lot of fast talking, segued into boxing. That, without too much more trouble, led to Muay Thai, and then I point out that since I have all the pieces I might as well just go to an MMA gym and do them all together. At that point my parents had pretty much given up, so getting them to let me go to a HEMA (Historical European Martial Arts) studio to learn swordsmanship barely took more than the asking.
It was in Jiu Jitsu class that the biggest change to my planned training regimen happened. I'd been somewhat worried about conditioning, and when I could start weight training, and what it would do to me if I got it wrong. And then I met Sarah. Black hair, blue eyes, the sort of pretty child that would grow up to be just an unfair adult.
Looking at Sarah was almost like looking in a mirror. She's my age, and just as scrappy as I am. We only shared Jiu Jitsu classes when we met, but she recommended the MMA gym we also end up sharing. The only differences between the two of us really are that she's pretty, where I'm plain. She's almost sickeningly cheerful, where I'm much calmer. And she is in the best shape of any little girl I've ever seen. And I've seen a lot of them in the last seven years.
I asked her what she does, and she answered 'gymnastics'.
Which at the end of two years settled my schedule. Gymnastics five days a week, a martial art after them, rotating by day of the week, with HEMA on Saturday. Sunday is left free for anything else I might want to do and family time. As awkward as that can be.
Also, by the time things settled, it got my parents several things that made them happier. I'm apparently much easier to manage when I get home after my various extracurriculars and only have enough energy to eat, wash, and make it to my bed. Homework gets squeezed in where I can. This means I have no time or energy for trouble.
Sarah also became my first, and only, friend. Something I know my parents have been growing more and more concerned with. Most of the time I find children my own age unsurprisingly difficult to relate to. However with Sarah, we're so busy doing things that my relative maturity hardly ever matters. Whenever she comes over to my house we usually end up wrestling, chasing each other, or climbing something.
It's nice to have a friend again.
###
Over time, as I continue to not blow up anything else and improve my imitation of a normal girl with Sarah's unwitting help, my parents begin to gradually relax. They're less obsessive about making sure they're there the moment my time isn't otherwise occupied. Which is why I now have the chance I've been waiting for since about three months after I'd started Jiu Jitsu classes.
Right across the street from the dojo is a used/antique book store. In the city there are more than a few of these, it's a college town after all. But this one has an unusual number of impossibly gorgeous, and stacked, women visiting it.
It's kind of sad that my principal method of identifying something supernatural is how attractive the females are. Opportunities to test this assumption have been few and far between, and so far inconclusive. Fortunately, a small child can ask a pretty lady if she's an angel and nobody thinks it's odd. Unfortunately, trying to catch somebody with potentially several thousand years of experience at lying is an exercise in futility.
Doesn't stop me from trying though.
These are the sorts of things that in ten years my parents will use as stories to embarrass me, aren't they?
Still, it's the best I have to go on, so I'll take my chances while I can to follow what leads I have. Thin as they are. So as soon as class ends and I finish saying goodbye to Sarah, girl is a hugger, I grab my bag without bothering to change and scamper across the street the moment the traffic is clear.
There's a gentle ding from a bell overhead as I open the door and slip in. The store itself is everything I expect from a used book store. A small open space just inside the door with a wooden bargain bin to the right and a counter immediately to the left. Straight ahead are the stacks. Rows of shelves dedicated to mythology, plays, botany, physics, philosophy, fiction and a dozen other topics filled the air with the scent of old paper.
With a grin I start forward, only to be brought up short by a pointed cough. Looking to the counter I finally notice the mildly amused looking goth teenager who's manning the counter. She gazes at me for a long moment, a smile tugging at black painted lips. "Sorry, cutie. Can't let you take a bag into the store, it has to stay here with me," she says, while indicating a sign that says as much in quite clear lettering.
I blush, partially because I really should have noticed the sign, and partially because it's somewhat flattering being called 'cute' by the older girl. With an embarrassed smile I hand the backpack with my normal clothes over the counter, and scamper into the stacks.
I have maybe half an hour before one of my parents shows up to collect me, so I try to work fast. The first place I go is the section where they keep the antique books. Or I try to. There's a very fancy door made of hardwood that just looks heavy. Unfortunately it also comes with a sign that says, 'By appointment only'. So I'm pretty much SOL there.
The occult section is decently large, and unsurprisingly holds things that are either new agey bullshit, or well outside of my price range. Or both. Mostly both. I scan the philosophy section as fast as I can, and find nothing, and then end up in the anthropology section. There I finally hit pay dirt. A book on the history of Norse runes is pretty much exactly what I want. The book costs nine fifty and I have ten dollars on me so I can just afford it.
Clutching the book to my chest I scramble back towards the front, almost clipping the bargain bin on my way past. Dancing around the wooden cart I happen to see a rather large leather tome half buried in the pile of crappy paperback fantasy and romance novels. Mostly just for the hell of it, I pull the large book free to take a look at.
The cover is nothing I can read. No idea what language it is, but it's composed of symbols both flowing and harsh, rigid and light.
Pulling the cover open I find the title page is in English, 'The World Script' it reads. No idea what that is, but it seems a little too convenient for me not to take a chance on. The problem being that the leather bound book costs five dollars. I can get it, or the book on runes, not both.
I struggle for a moment trying to decide what to do. The runes, which I recognize and are supposedly magical, or 'The World Script', which really feels like something deliberately put in my way. Finally I make my choice, and run to put the rune book back before hefting the large tome onto the surface of the counter that's only slightly shorter than I'm. Another two years of growth and working my ass off has done wonders for my upper body strength, at least relative to the standard set by seven year old girls.
The teenager at the counter takes the book and raises an eyebrow as she starts ringing it up, "This seems a little advanced for you," she comments. I try not to feel condescended to. They probably are too advanced for any other seven year old. "What are you up to with this?"
"Magic!" I chirp back at her, trying as hard as I can to channel overly enthusiastic child. I must have succeeded because she just snorts, an amused and mysterious smile curling her lips.
"Five dollars, sweety." She smiles at me again.
"Um... My money's in my bag," I tell her. I get my bag back without fuss, pay and stuff the book into my bag. "Thanks!" I tell her, waving before darting out the door.
Unfortunately, my dad has shown up while I was in the store and is on the edge of panicking at my having 'vanished'. I really hope that I've gotten what I needed on this trip, because I think my grounding just got more strict again.
###
It takes me two days to find the time to really dig into my purchase. Mostly that's my own fault. In my effort to cram as much progress as I can into as short a time as possible, I've done too good a job. I barely have any free time between school, various martial arts, gymnastics, Sarah, and my parents watching my every move. And of course I'm unwilling to take 'The World Script' out of my room, so I can't exactly read it during lunch or anything.
Fortunately, getting time by myself in my room to read a book isn't so hard after I actually have time.
What I find is both the best hope I've had since I got here, and extremely frustrating. 'The World Script' is more of a dictionary than anything else. A seemingly endless number of symbols, their meanings, and pronunciations. In the universal phonetic alphabet no less, so that's lucky. The symbols themselves are structured almost like a Russian nesting doll.
There's a symbol for 'earth', that if altered correctly would mean a specific type of earth, like 'clay'. That symbol can be further altered to represent how the clay has been shaped, such as 'clay plate', which can again be further altered to represent a specific clay plate, as opposed to clay plates in general.
The result being that if you know how to read them, a single symbol can describe everything about an object. How old it is, what it's made out of, how well it's made, the specific kind of clay, even what techniques are used to make it, and every flaw in its construction or damage it's acquired over time.
And there are symbols in the Script for everything.
What the book doesn't have is any information on how to organize or make use of the Script. Nothing on grammar, or sentence structure, and especially nothing on how to use and activate this clearly magical language.
So useful, but frustrating as hell. I'm going to end up tearing my hair out. So close, but still impossible to use. Given the explosions my alchemy had caused, I'm a little hesitant to just start trying things.
Well... maybe? I can probably find something innocuous and harmless. I eye the book again. Fire is a terrible idea. Maybe Ice? That sounds better, I can find the Script symbol for 'freeze' and provide my own water so that when all the water provided is frozen the reaction will stop!
Yeah, this will work.
Nodding to myself, I get up and run down to the kitchen to find a glass and get some water. Running back upstairs, followed by my mother yelling at me to slow down and not spill, I settle down at my desk with the Book, a spare piece of paper and a pencil, and start to try and find what I need in the large tome.
It takes a little bit of work as the difference between 'freeze' and 'frozen' is pretty subtle. But soon enough I have it and scribble the symbol down on the paper. Placing the glass on top of the symbol, I speak the word that goes with the symbol and hold my breath.
Nothing happens.
After I start to feel a little dizzy from not breathing, I decide that something has gone wrong. Organizing a complicated effect with multiple symbols I can see screwing up plenty, but a single symbol? How can I have gotten that wrong? Unless I'm supposed to do something other than draw and speak the Script to get them to work? Maybe they need to be on something specific?
I move the glass of water and examine what I've drawn, comparing it to what's in the Book.
...Well, that line is at a sharper angle.
...And that curve is much shallower.
Okay, maybe I can screw up a single symbol plenty.
At least it hasn't exploded?
###
Sketching becomes my new obsession. I draw everything. A lot of it is the Script symbols, but only while I'm at home. I don't want to explain to my teachers or my parents where the giant leather bound tome had come from. The rest of the time I draw anything that falls into my field of view. People, animals, objects, plants, insects, anything.
I draw more than the Script symbols because I don't just want to get good at drawing whatever specific symbol I'm practicing. I want to be able to see a new symbol and draw it right the first time.
Not to mention I still have no idea how this Script will translate into arcane power just yet. It could be that all I'll have to do is pronounce the word and something would happen. But on the off chance that making use of this will involve writing it in the middle of a fight, I want lots of practice replicating something that I've only seen once.
The other thing I do to start making use of the tome is to check out a book on the universal phonetic alphabet. The UPA is an amazing thing, invented by linguists to have a way to write down literally every sound the human mouth can make. Clicks, tonals, everything. This means that if you know how to read it, you can pronounce a word correctly even if you've never heard the language before.
As it turns out I have no idea how to read it, so my first attempt at the vocal part of Script was epically bad. So that's another thing I need to learn in my copious spare time. Needless to say, I'm beginning to run myself a bit ragged.
I just have to hope that it isn't beginning to show. Last thing I need is my parents trying to get me to slow down on some aspect of my training.