"Hmmmm..." mused Mr. Briswell as he prodded my leg experimentally. "That's... unexpected."

I gulped. In doctor-tongue, "unexpected" usually means "start drafting a will".

"How bad is it, doc?"

"Actually, it's... wonderful! I thought you'd be bedridden for weeks, but the injury seems to have completely healed overnight. I have no idea how that could have happened... Maybe Allison learned some healing magic without my knowledge?" he said, looking suspiciously at his daughter, who was standing off to the side.

"Uhhh... she just cleaned my leg and gave me some stitches."

"No glowing lights, or mystical feelings of tranquility?" he pressed.

"No sir. To be blunt, your daughter was rather uncomfortable to be around."

Allison smirked at me and stuck out her tongue. "I can see why Stella likes you so much." she said sarcastically.

"The hell did I do to her?"

"Oh, nothing."

Fucking women.

"Don't take it personal, kid." said John, who had tagged along with Mr. Briswell to check up on me. "Craterans and Calderans don't usually get along very well, like cats and dogs."

But Stella's a human being, not a cat or a... oh wait.

Mr. Briswell continued to inspect me, checking the areas under my shackles. "No chafing..." he muttered. "Well, Mr. Bradley, why don't you try walking around a bit today? See how that feels, and if there's any issues, send for me."

"You should stroll around town, get to know the place." suggested John.

"Yeah, I'll do that."

"Allison, I can't believe I'm saying this, but go ahead and remove the stitches, it's all healed up." finished Mr. Briswell, following John out of the bedroom. Allison took out a pair of scissors and sat beside me.

"If I make you 'uncomfortable' again, let me know and I'll leave, and you can remove the rest of the stitches yourself." she said pointedly.

I raised my arms in defeat. "Do your thing."

When Allison was finished, I hesitantly got to my feet. No wobbling, swaying, or face-planting occurred; my legs were good to go. In fact, the only part of my body not feeling great was my arms. That voodoo with the ice must have really taken it out of me. Which made perfect sense, in a way. Back on Earth, whenever I took more than a month off from the gym, my muscles would be significantly weaker on the first day back, and I'd be painfully sore the next morning. Counterintuitively, the trick is to work out more, not less. After seven consecutive days of working out, your body adapts to the stress and the soreness goes away. I massaged my aching arms.

First time using ice magic in a while?

Before heading out, I made sure to grab the dagger. After my close encounter with furry death, I wasn't going to leave home without it.

I wandered down the dirt street, checking out the buildings, breathing the air, ogling the girls. It was mostly women out and about; the men were presumably in the fields harvesting crops. I passed a blacksmith eventually, then a general store, and finally, I came to the largest building in town: the church. Or at least, I thought it was a church. It had a steeple with a bell and intricate, symbolic carvings.

If it looks like a church and quacks like a church...

I walked inside, curious to know what kind of hokey nonsense the yokels believed in. Angels and Demons? Five-headed goats of destruction? The church interior was one large room containing many rows of pews, all facing an elevated platform in the end furthest from the entrance. A series of stained-glass windows lit the space well, so I could clearly make out the object sitting on the platform. It was a metal bar, with two large blocks of metal attached to the ends.

Is my inner meathead is playing tricks on me... or is that a barbell?

Excitedly, I crossed the room and ran my hands over the length of the bar.

A cross-hatched pattern for gripping... It's true! This is meant to be lifted!

I gripped the bar and took a deadlifting stance. Looking at the weights, there couldn't be more than 300lbs on the bar, well below my personal best on earth. I breathed in, bracing my core, and pulled with all my might. Nothing. It was like the bar was bolted to the platform.

Fuck, this body is weak...

I caught my breath and adjusted my grip, turning one of my palms out. The mixed grip allows most people to deadlift extra weight, you just have to alternate which palm is out between sets so you don't develop a muscle imbalance. Once again, I braced and pulled even harder, until I started to feel lightheaded. Still nothing.

Pathetic. On earth, I could have done this blindfolded. Not that that would have made the lift any harder...

I sat at the edge of the platform, powerless and forlorn.

That damn hunk of metal just had its way with me... and I couldn't stop it.

The last time I felt like this was back when I was still a scrawny high schooler, before curls and squats and the rest had delivered shown me my true potential: to become a sentient sack of contractile tissue.

But now that I think about it... this body that I'm stuck in is also a scrawny high schooler.

A smile spread over my face.

Except that now, unlike my previous stint as a teenager, I'm not a complete fucking dumbass. I know why I'm weak. I know my problem, and I know that jacking off three times a day to thicc milfs isn't going to fix it.

Took me awhile to learn that one...

Unfortunately, I hadn't seen anything resembling a gym in town. The closest thing to that was... this church. I found grips on one of the weights attached to the bar.

If I lift from one end, then I'll only need to lift half the weight!

I pulled. The weight briefly lifted from the ground, but immediately touched back down. Even at half the weight, I still wasn't cutting it.

Disappointing, but not demoralizing.

One thing was clear: this body was a complete novice to resistance training.

Fuck a bench press, push-ups will be more than enough of a challenge for now.

I got down and did a set. After ten reps, my arms were burning. After fifteen, I was tapped out, gasping on the ground. I tried a few more sets after that, as well as some sit-ups and body-weight squats. By the end of the routine, I had a nice miniature pump going. I flexed my pathetic, exhausted limbs.

Get used to it, you twiggy pieces of shit. This is the first day of the rest of your life.

When I walked back to the orphanage, I saw Stella and Maggie working in the vegetable garden.

Guess that's what I would have been doing if I hadn't fucked my shit up.

As I approached, I remembered what Allison had told me about Stella.

Why doesn't she like me? We're the only people from Earth! We should be supporting each other, not talking shit. Somehow, I need to break the ice with that woman.

I recalled another question I'd asked my father, in days long past.

Daddy, why are there the same number of boys as girls?

Because it takes one man and one woman to make a baby, he responded easily. Then I'd asked my aforementioned follow-up question:

Where do babies really come from, anyway?

And the rest is history.

About a year after graduating college, my online dating enterprise hit a low point: I'd scheduled seven dates in a week with seven different girls and got flaked on all of them. The sheer volume of rejection was hard to process, and I started asking tough questions. Seriously though, why are there the same number of boys as girls, anyway? It takes a woman nine months to make a child. It takes a man nine minutes. Or less, if he's got a plane to catch, or halftime is almost over, or the police are on their way... you get it. With that kind of time disparity, you'd think there would be hundreds of women for every man, not 1:1.

The beautiful thing about the internet is that you never have to not know something. Wanna see the creepiest fucking things that live deep in the oceanic abyss? Wanna know how they fuck? Once anything at all piques your interest, you're only one click away from scratching the itch.

Turns out, the 50/50 ratio of men to women is forced by natural selection. If many more men were born than women, subpopulations that produce a higher ratio of women would be selected for, driving the system back towards parity. Similarly, if many more women were born, the subpopulations that produce extra men would have better luck reproducing.

The tragedy here is that, while the 50/50 ratio will be maintained, there's nothing that sets the percentage of men who reproduce. Naked mole rats are strictly monogamous: they always mate for life. For every female who reproduces, there is a male who also get to reproduce. Walruses, on the other hand, are a bit less traditional. The males keep harems that average more than ten groupies. How is that possible, if roughly one male walrus is born for every female? Where did all those missing men go? Where do humans fit on the mole rat – walrus spectrum (bearing in mind that over 40% of Americans are obese)? Why did I get flaked seven times in a week? Tough fucking questions.

Stella looked up as I drew closer.

I waved. "Hey Stella."

"Oh, hi Brad. Looks like you're doing well."

"Good as new. Stella, how much does a walrus weigh?" I asked with a goofy grin.

She gave me a dismissive look. "Enough to break the ice, duh. That's like, the most common pick-up line ever."

I drew my dagger, cool to the touch, ready for action. I raised it in front of me and concentrated.

Maggie looked up as well. "What's a walrus?" she asked.

I felt it: That feeling of resistance. This time I was ready for it. I pushed against the resistance, slowly at first, then harder, until I started to worry if I would even have enough energy for it to work. I realized in a flash that, though I was holding the dagger in one hand, I could use the strength of both arms to push!

"It's this big, ugly, fleshy ball of-" Stella began to answer, but lost her voice as a pale blue light started to emanate from the dagger.

Yes!

A ball of ice formed on the tip of the dagger, the resistance stopped, and the light faded. I held the icy chunk triumphantly and threw it on the ground as hard as I could, blasting it to smithereens. Stella shrank back in fear.

"Are you sure you've heard that one before?" I asked, still grinning.

Maggie was floored. "Wha- where did you get that dagger?"

"I found it in the cave where I woke up, I don't know who left it for me."

Maggie briskly walked over, grabbing Stella in one hand and me in the other. "Come on, inside. We're going to have a little chat."

We walked into my room, avoiding any of the other children. Whatever Maggie was going to say, she clearly didn't want it to be overheard.

"Do you know why ice magic is the only kind of magic that gets used in Apis?" She began.

"Uhmmm... no."

"Because it's the only kind of magic that was taught at Castella. Was taught, and no longer is."

"Why did they stop?" asked Stella, disappointed.

"To learn magic, you can't just tense up your arms and expect things to happen. You need a magical weapon. By training with the weapon, you learn the feel of the magic. Train hard enough, and you can become strong enough to cast a spell without the weapon. Like this."

Maggie held out her hand, and created a small chunk of ice. "That's about all I'm good for these days. But with your dagger..."

She took the dagger, held it up, and created a much larger chunk, about three times the size of the first.

"As you can see, the weapon both teaches and amplifies magic. So to answer your question, the reason Castella stopped teaching ice magic is that the dagger they used to train students was stolen."

A shiver went down my spine. "You think... I stole it?"

"No, the dagger was stolen decades ago. Besides, if you were the thief you wouldn't have waved it around in front of me to impress your lady friend."

Thank God I'm an idiot.

"So... what now?"

Maggie thought for a moment. "Keep this to yourselves for now. Don't show anyone that dagger. I'll talk to John about it. Okay?"

Stella and I nodded.

"Hmmm... Is that dagger the only special gift you received in the cave?" said Maggie after pondering for a moment.

"No, ma'am. I also have a key. There was a note in the cave that told me specifically to take it with me."

"Can I see this key?"

"Sure."

I opened my nightstand drawer and showed it to her. She held it for a moment, running her fingers along the detailing.

"Pretty... but completely unremarkable. Stella, why don't you head back to the garden? I'll be down in a second."

"Okay." said Stella, and she made her exit.

Rather than following her out, Maggie closed the door and turned back to face me. But something was different. Her face had morphed into a landscape of panic and abject horror.

"The covenant of Matthias... Bradley... who are you?" she quavered weakly.