Hey, Mother.

  Hey, Father.

  How are you two doing today?

  Sorry if I’ve been bothering you two a lot over the past year. Now that it doesn’t hurt so bad when I think about you two, I guess I want to just catch up again. I hope I’m not intruding on your time too much.

  Could you please make some time for this sorry, lonely son?

  I guess I really just need someone to talk to, I always was a bit of a needy person when it came down to it.

  I giggled, caressing the leaves of the peppercorn branch, letting my fingers run through its small leaves and its many tiny, round fruits, popping bright red in the autumn air, whilst deftly avoiding the bristly thorns.

  Look at me, making conversation with plants as if they were my family.

  I guess I really was going crazy. Belle was a bit of a slave driver for the past year when it came to learning magic.

  To be honest, I wasn’t doing that well on that front.

  It was a bit embarrassing to say, but despite my education – having gone through high school, university and college – I was being defeated rather lamely by a ten year old’s beginner course on magic.

  I didn’t think I was dumb or anything; I kept up in my other studies regarding biology, anatomy and herbology rather well as one would expect from an adult trapped inside a child’s body, but, well… magic was… different.

  I wasn’t a born denizen of this world; the mechanics of this world’s rules didn’t come intuitively to me. My previous intuition of how the world worked, of its laws and axioms, just did not really hold up.

  It would be like asking a physics professor to suddenly pivot to teaching literature. Or asking a literature professor to pivot to physics. Both individuals were intelligent in their own way, but that didn’t mean they would be equipped to tackle the world from an entirely different perspective.

  I sighed.

  Sorry, Mother. Sorry, Father.

  I’m rambling.

  I should probably get back to what I came here to do.

  Finally, after many years and months, it was time to harvest these peppercorns.

  I smiled.

  You two might not be with me anymore, but at the very least, I can take those warm memories of our dinner table with me, carrying that little slice of home into this new world.

  Look, I can even show you two a new trick I learnt!

  My new mother, Belle, taught me this. I hope you two appreciate it.

  I focused inwards, letting my mind clear as I directed the mana welling in me through my heart into my hands.

  At the tip of my fingers, a soft, golden light emanated, wisping and frothing towards the prickly spikes on the branch.

  I curled my fingers around the stem, and then gently pulled.

  The spikes softened as my hand brushed by, lazily bending out of the way, greeting me with politeness as I harvested their fruit.

  I quickly scooped all the loose, little bright red balls into a basket, before sweeping my glowing hand over the empty stems.

  The sunlight-like warmth seeped back into the plant, and already, within seconds, I could see new signs of life blooming from the hollow branch.

  It wasn’t really anything more than a party trick, not actually all that impressive compared to the actual healing magic I had started to learn, but I wanted to show you two regardless. This little trick would have saved you two a lot of splinters and cuts when we were trimming our garden, no?

  You see, my natural attunement to the Elements of Earth and Fire manifests in a way that is inherently gentle to life. I take ‘sunlight’ from Fire, mixing ‘warmth’, ‘brightness’, ‘life’ and energy, and combine it with ‘soil’ and ‘nature’ from Earth, and I end up with a skill set that encourages life around me to grow, whether that be healing wounds or letting nature bloom.

  Ah, sorry, I’m rambling again. I’m sorry, it’s just exciting getting to learn about a new part of the world, you know? Even if I don’t particularly understand it and all of its rules are counterintuitive.

  I’m sure you two understand. You must have gone through something similar when you moved away from your homeland and came to a modern country, filled with unfamiliar technology and culture, no?

  I giggled as I retreated from the bush, bringing the bright red peppercorns with me.

  Thanks for entertaining me again, you two.

  I still miss you.

  Do you two miss me as much as I miss you?

  Actually, don’t answer that. It’ll make me sad.

  I’m sorry I won’t get to come back home and eat hot pot with you.

  I smiled bitterly, staring at the regrowing plant in silence, looking on mournfully as a small autumn breeze rolled by, letting those lonely branches wave sadly in their caress.

  I needed to dry these peppercorns out now.

  I’ll think of you two when I eat dinner later. I hope that’s enough for you. I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can do much more.

  I tightened my grip on the basket and turned around, leaving that last little vestige of the memories of home behind me.

  I looked down at the hard, bright red berry-like fruits in front of me, and held the basket closer to my chest.

  The phantom of a lingering, numbing heat, accompanied by quiet echoes of wet coughs and pained sniffles, danced through my ears and nose.

  A few days later, I knocked on the door of Belle’s workshop.

  “Hello, Mother, are you there?”

  I heard a tired groan rumble within the workshop as the woman inside presumably got up from her slouching sitting position and stretched her back out.

  A sigh followed.

  A few seconds later, after a set of slow footsteps towards the door, Belle greeted me.

  “Everything good, Estelle?” Belle mumbled, rubbing her eyes as she spoke.

  I smiled wryly.

  “You shouldn’t be staying up so late, Mother.”

  She had been very, very busy lately. When she wasn’t spending the afternoon tutoring Luna and I in various magical and mundane fields, she was spending the rest of the night locked deep in her lab, hardly ever leaving even when it became time to sleep.

  Belle just winced and groaned.

  “Ugh, yeah, I know, just… old habits, you know? Never fully kicked ‘em. Hard to remember I have to be a responsible adult now, ugh… I’ll work on it.”

  She sighed and rolled her eyes.

  “Anyways, you want something?”

  I nodded cheerily.

  “Do you remember those two things I asked you about a while ago?”

  The witch just blinked.

  “You mean the uh… the portable stove and the divided pot? Yeah, I’ve had them laying around for a while now, you need ‘em?”

  “Yep.”

  “Ugh, yeah, just give me a minute.”

  She ran her fingers through her hair, shoving herself off the doorframe as she wandered towards the back of the workshop, shuffling through the storage closet.

  “Alright kid, here you go.”

  She dropped the two objects, stacked on top of each other, onto the floor in front of the door.

  “What do you even need these for?” Belle raised an eyebrow at the two objects.

  I bent down to pick them up, leaning backwards as I got up to heave them towards my chest.

  “They’re for making dinner,” I stated simply, smiling.

  “Hm?” Belle’s lips pulled into a confused line, “what, the stove in the kitchen not good enough for some reason? Should work fine, especially after I taught you how to light it magically.”

  I just giggled, shaking my head.

  “Oh, don’t worry about it, you’ll see tonight. It’ll be special.”

  I spun around and started walking towards the kitchen, leaving Belle to her own business until dinnertime. It was a weekend today, so it wasn’t like she had any lessons for us, which was perfect, since I would need quite a bit of time preparing everything for tonight.

  On my way to the kitchen, I bumped into my sister, who was lounging in the living room, hanging lazily over the couch as she held a book above her face.

  Her eyes brightened considerably when she saw me pass by.

  She leapt off the couch and ran up to me.

  “Estelle!” She smiled widely, tossing the book to the side, “You’re not going outside today? What’s the occasion!?”

  Her eyes trailed down to the heavy objects I was carrying in my arms.

  Her smile froze.

  Then she pouted.

  “What!? Mother’s giving you your own cauldron already!? That’s not fair! Just because you’re studying with plants and stuff, why do you get it earlier than me! I? I want one too!”

  She whined and crossed her arms, looking at me in jealousy.

  I giggled as I reached out to pat her head.

  Well, I tried to, anyways, before remembering that I was carrying around two very precariously heavy objects that would probably scratch or dent the floorboards if I just let go of them.

  I stumbled forwards to catch my balance, before quickly readjusting the burner and pot into a more comfortable condition.

  “Luna, these aren’t to do with becoming a witch. It’s just a normal pot, modified a bit because I want to do something special with it?”

  “Special?” her eyes glimmered, “What do you mean?”

  “Well, I’ll just say that dinner’s going to be very different tonight.”

  “Really!?” Luna jumped up and down, “Let me help!”

  She reached forwards, wrapping her fingers around the pot handle.

  I panicked.

  “Wait, Luna, no-”

  “Ah!”

  My sister yelped, her arms immediately plummeting to the floor as she stumbled and fell, dropping the heavy pot directly onto the ground…

  And smashing her fingers in the process.

  I sighed wearily.

  I set the burner aside and sat down next to my sister, huddling over her as she cradled a bruised, fractured finger, sniffling and tearing up.

  “There, there, it’ll be alright,” I smiled warmly and snuggled a bit closer to her, brushing my hands over her own and gently pushing her injured fingers into my palm.

  The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

  Sunlight radiated from my hands, flowing through into Luna’s fingers, the mystical, life-giving energy slowly stitching back together torn flesh and split bones.

  “Be a bit more careful, okay? I appreciate the effort, but your sister has everything under control. You’re still just a little kid, you know? Leave the physical work to your big sister, like you always do.”

  I laughed softly, patting her on her head as she suckled on her healed finger.

  “It’s not fair,” she pouted again, looking at my body strangely, “you Fire and Earth healers… why do you get to grow up so full and strong compared to everyone else, just because you’re blessed by the sun, the earth, and Mother Nature herself!?”

  She weakly smacked her fists against my thighs, which had already started to fill out with flesh, then looked jealously at her own twig-like legs.

  I just giggled again.

  “That’s just because I’m four years older than you, dear. You’ll have more meat on your bones when you’re eleven, too. I know you’re excited to become a witch and all, but not everything is because of magic. There’s a simple explanation for things too.”

  Well, she was naturally a bit skinny, which was strange considering we ate the same food in the same quantities, but it really was cute how overnight, she had simply forgotten about mundane explanations for everyday phenomena, and became resolved in thinking that everything in the world happened because of magic.

  It was like the opposite of my problem, in a way. Whereas my jaded experiences and ingrained scientific dogma led me to sometimes reject the wonders of magic, Luna’s childish innocence refused to accept the simpler, logical explanations to things in the world.

  I stacked the pot back on top of the stove and went back on my way, leaving my sister by herself to bemoan the effects that a differing mana alignment had on the development of our bodies. Supposedly, anyways.

  I sighed. If she really wanted to grow up taller and stronger, she should’ve just eaten more.

  After brushing that small distraction aside, I finally made it to the kitchen, and I immediately started my preparations for the night.

  There was a lot of chopping and frying and boiling I needed to do, especially tiring considering that my body was still that of a child’s.

  I spent the next dozen or so minutes simply gathering everything I needed from storage, until there was a whole pile of herbs and spices piled onto the kitchen counter in front of me.

  I had worked very hard over the past two years to build up this collection of aromatics; I grew some of them in our garden, I had to go down to Arden sometimes, there were a couple in the pile that I had just had to wait several months on, fidgeting with my fingers while I waited for Auntie Chang’e to bring them to me.

  And finally, with the precious peppercorns that had just finished drying out, it was time to put it all to use.

  I started by chopping ginger, immediately releasing a sharp, citrusy scent as its cells ruptured when I cut it open. Spring onions followed, mellowing out the sharp tang with a fresh, bright green.

  Next I needed to soak all the dry spices. I would have preferred to get my hands on rice wine, but sadly, Belle only stocked up on white wine to use for cooking. It wasn’t ideal, but it would work for its intended purpose; stopping them from burning when I fried them later and aiding the process of releasing the flavours and aromas within.

  Star anise, the peppercorns I had just dried, cinnamon, a couple cloves, leftover tangerine peel that I had stored and dried after we finished eating them last spring, and a couple of bay leaves that Belle had lying around.

  Sadly, I wasn’t able to find some of the more exotic spices that my parents used back home, maybe they just couldn’t be found in this world?

  I had to substitute the red cardamom with regular black cardamom, and I was completely unable to find monk fruit in this world at all.

  While the spices soaked, I finally turned to the stove; the large one against the wall that we usually used.

  I clicked my fingers, arcane energy snapping between my nails as a flame burst into life.

  That was fun to do, I can see why Belle loved that motion so much.

  I added water to a pot before tossing way too many chillies into it, until all I could see was a writhing, boiling mass of red.

  After a while, the peppers became soft and almost gelatinous, so I took it off the stove and chucked the overwhelming mass of red into a large stone bowl.

  It was funny just how much I was focused on the process of cooking today. Normally, it was something that Belle and I just did automatically without too much thought. Dinner was always more about spending time with my family than it was the actual process of making something for me.

  I suppose it made sense with this particular dish though, considering the importance it had to me.

  I grabbed a large mortar and simply started to grind away at the softened chillies until it became a homogeneous paste.

  I felt something sting at my eyes and tickle my throat.

  A familiar spicy burn started to stink up the kitchen.

  I coughed weakly into my hand, being careful not to touch my eyes.

  I smiled.

  I could hear it in the recesses of my mind; those familiar, loud voices shouting atop one another, one complaining that the other liked their food way too spicy, and their partner complaining back that they were just too weak, a fan starting to roar in the background to carry the burning aroma away. And as the two adults playfully fought, a child coughed as he walked into the kitchen to pour himself a glass of milk, sniffling at the intense burn in his eyes.

  …I was getting thirsty.

  I went back to the icebox and poured myself a cup of milk, letting the chill creaminess take me away to those days of childish ignorance and happy times.

  While I was here, there was one other thing I needed from the fridge.

  Where was it?

  Ah, there it was.

  My knuckles tapped against a solid white block of beef fat.

  I heaved it out of the fridge, before plopping into a pot and letting it melt over the fire.

  And after nothing remained of the block but a golden, luxurious liquid, I fried off the ginger and spring onions until they became shrivelled, golden-brown twigs; mere empty husks that had bled all their flavour and aroma dry into the boiling fat, infusing it with their richness.

  And to the fat I added the pasted chillies, letting everything cook until the liquid reduced and became a bright red oil, and finally I finished it all off with the dried spices, before seasoning it with a touch of sugar and wine.

  I sighed as I took the heavy pot of fat and spice off the fire and threw it straight into the icebox, where it would slowly solidify until it was time for dinner.

  That was a lot of work, and that was just part one.

  I smiled wryly.

  There was a lot of work put into this labour of love. Did my parents really go through all of this every day just so we could have a bit of fun during dinner?

  And that was honestly the easy half of the preparations, next, I had to slice a lot of ingredients.

  I wore the hours away, slowly cutting through the massive mountain of ingredients that had accumulated on the counter.

  All different cuts of beef and pork, from lean to fat, in all sorts of sizes and thicknesses, from paper thin rolls to indulgent carpets.

  Bright green, leafy cabbages were picked apart and tossed next to pale yellow potato slices.

  Piles of mushrooms roots were tossed away, leaving an incredible variety of fungi on the table. From the thick and bulbous heads of the shiitake, all the way to the thin, spindly bundles of enoki, their countless white tips peeking out like soft golden needles.

  And before I knew it, the sun had set.

  I heard Luna and Belle tumble out from the living room and workshop respectively, entering the dining room with a confused look on their faces.

  “The hell’s all this for, kid? Spent all that time making dinner, and you’re still not done? Shouldn’t you have something on the stove? Seems like a waste of time chopping everything all at once instead of doing it bit by bit while you have something burning in the background.”

  I shook my head and smiled.

  “Nope, everything’s all done.”

  I fired up the portable stove, placing it right at the centre of the dinner table.

  The massive pot thunked as it sat atop the fire, a curious dividing line running down its middle, splitting it into two halves, each big enough to be its own smaller pot.

  I went back to the icebox, carving out a portion of the now mostly-solid soup base while also grabbing a jug of chicken stock.

  I tipped the mild stock into one half, let the red blob of fat dissolve into the other as I covered it with water, and I seasoned both with scallions and minced garlic, tossing in extra mushrooms and dates into the clear broth to help it stand out a bit more.

  And then slowly, I shuffled back and forth from the counter to the dining table, bringing over the pile of ingredients one plate at a time.

  “Come on, let’s eat up!” I laughed, grabbing a pair of chopsticks to demonstrate, “you’re meant to cook everything in the soup yourself. Just take whatever you think looks nice, plop it in the soup, and just hold it there for a bit to cook; nothing too long, thirty seconds for the meats and maybe a minute or two for the vegetables. Look…”

  I grabbed a small dish and spoon, leaning over to the side of the table where I had laid out all the condiments, garnishes and seasonings, mixing together a bit of cilantro, garlic, sesame paste and oyster sauce into a simple dipping sauce.

  I held out a thin roll of beef into the dark, boiling soup, holding it just high enough to let the other two watch curiously as the meat rapidly transformed in colour in texture, from red to pink to brown, from smooth and silky to shrivelled and sumptuous.

  And once it was done, I dipped it lightly in the sauce and brought it to my mouth.

  The first thing that hit me was that familiar tingling numb of the peppercorns, backed immediately by the punch of the chillies.

  The sensation was almost enough to make me cry, both from the spice and the familiarity.

  But slowly, it melted away, smothered by the rich fatness of the beef and the smothering of the sauce, leaving behind a slight warm electricity that danced on my tongue.

  “Oh, that looks exciting! Let me try!” Luna perked up, fumbling around with an unfamiliar pair of chopsticks as she replicated my movements, holding a thin carpet of beef over the broth, watching closely as it boiled and rendered right in front of her eyes.

  And then, without thinking, she brought it straight from the soup into her mouth.

  She choked.

  “Agh!” She coughed and hacked loudly as she swallowed the meat, tears immediately welling in her eyes as her tongue and lips immediately inflamed, her cheeks bursting into bright red. “M-my tongue! I-it’s numb! W-what the hell is this!? It’s so spicy!”

  I laughed.

  “Haha, oops. Right, I forgot to mention. You don’t have to eat from that half, that’s just for me. You should try it with the yellow broth, and play around with making a sauce.”

  Belle just raised an eyebrow as she casually flicked a pile of vegetables into the spicy half of the pot, before picking out a couple beef rolls that she had left in while Luna was cooking her singular bit of meat.

  She plopped it into her mouth and chewed.

  “Eh, it’s not that bad,” she lingered on the spice, “I’ve had worse in terms of sheer heat.”

  I reached out to break off a batch of enoki mushrooms, before plunging them deep into the soup to forget about for a while.

  And as I retracted my chopsticks and searched for something else to cook in the broth, I caught sight of Luna shakily holding another piece of meat into the boiling red liquid with tears in her eyes.

  I smiled wryly.

  “Luna, it’s okay. I told you, you don’t have to eat from this side of the soup.”

  “N-no! It’s fine!” Luna shook her head desperately, flinging small tears as her head swung, “I-it’s just a bit of spice! I-I can handle it-”

  She coughed weakly and sniffled, immediately contradicting her own words.

  “I-I have to! I’m going to be the best Fire witch there ever was! I-I can’t be defeated by mere mundane spices! I-I have to prove that my fire is hotter than this petty soup!”

  I raised an eyebrow.

  “Are you sure about that, Luna?”

  My sister just flushed. Well, I think she did, it was hard to tell given how red her face was already.

  “T-this is the food you like to eat! I have to eat it, this is your secret to growing big and strong, isn’t it!? T-they say that suffering build strength… t-this must be how you got so tall!”

  I just laughed.

  Well, I guess, in a way, this food was my secret to growing up well.

  It just wasn’t in the way Luna thought.

  I smiled, looking beyond the two people sitting across from me, towards the three shadows that lurked in the dining room.

  “Ugh, wait, never mind,” Belle grimaced after several minutes, having shovelled the food straight from the soup into her mouth continuously, “that lingers on your tongue quite a bit, doesn’t it? That’s a strange kind of numbness… how the hell do you make it go away?”

  I giggled, feeling my breath warm up on my tongue as fire danced between my lips. I heard the faint crackle of my ears popping and my sinuses clearing as mucus started to flow.

  I shrugged, responding to Belle.

  “You don’t really. Water or milk can help a bit, but you mostly just deal with it.”

  “Agh!” Luna flinched as she put another piece of meat into her mouth.

  “Luna,” I sighed, “you should at least make a sauce for it. You know, even I’m not just eating it straight from the soup.”

  “B-but look at Mother! S-she’s doing just fine!”

  Belle coughed awkwardly, feeling phlegm clog her throat.

  “Yeah, cause I’m an adult.”

  She said that, but her reddening eyes weren’t all that convincing.

  Sneakily, with her free hand, I saw her hastily throwing a bunch of condiments together.

  Then, she made the mistake of trying to wipe the tears from her eyes.

  “Ah, fuck! My eyes!” She reeled, dropping the small cup of dipping sauce onto the table.

  Luna gasped at the sight.

  “M-Mother!”

  Of course, her eyes were not attracted to her suffering eyes, but her apparent betrayal in the companionship they shared as they tried to brave the spiciness together.

  I laughed, watching as they played with their food.

  The three shadows in the background laughed too.

  I closed my eyes, and for a second, I was in a different home, with a different family.

  My mother playfully ragged on my father as he blew his nose with a tissue and gulped down a full glass of milk, panting and groaning as his fingers trembled, unable to resist going for one more delicious piece of beef.

  She jabbed her elbow into his ribs, eliciting an annoyed groan and a sharp retort from him, noting how she didn’t look much better. She just laughed at his weak voice before diving for the pork intestines, only to hack and cough as they almost went down the wrong pipe, burning her throat and earning her a pained laugh from her husband.

  And that little boy sat quietly across from them, putting on a brave face as he went back to the spicy soup, finding the bone broth a little too bland for his liking, his parents having neglected to season it properly, rather spending all their efforts arguing over just how spicy the spicy half should have been.

  The scene changed.

  They were older, now. Their hairs grey, their voices gently aged, shaking with an elderly timbre, filled with endless years of care and wisdom.

  That young man, who should have died a long time ago from that car accident, sat at the table with them impossibly, laughing with them as they played with their food together, enjoying a nostalgic dinner together as they surprised the father of the family with his favourite meal; a strange choice for one, given that he was rarely able to handle the spiciness of it, though how much of that was the fault of the meal itself rather than the mother’s choices was questionable.

  And I opened my eyes.

  Belle piled the cabbage leaves she had left in the pot into her quaint bowl, before wrestling with her daughter over the potato slices, which had taken by far the longest to properly soften and cook out of all the ingredients.

  Luna slammed her hands down on the table and ran away, going to the icebox and pulling out the jug of milk, skipping the middle man of a cup and drinking straight from the source.

  “Oi, Luna! Stop drinking it all, you greedy brat!”

  “No, it’s mine, Mother! You betrayed me first by going for the sauce!”

  I felt the familiar spicy numbness of home tickle my breath as the shadows faded.

  All that was left was the present; the heat on my tongue, the tears in my eyes, the figures of the mother and daughter fighting in front of the fridge, and the bountiful meal that warmed the soul in front of me.

  Mother, Father.

  Thank you for your love. Thank you for your care. Thank you for tirelessly cooking every meal, day and night, for me. Thank you for passing those recipes on to me, letting me carry those fragments of home with me.

  It’s been a long time since we’ve properly talked, but I haven’t forgotten about it all. I haven’t forgotten how much you loved me. Thank you for staying with me, even now, as I eat dinner in this strange, new world.

  And I haven’t forgotten about that last promise I made with you, Mother.

  I’m here, like I promised.

  I’m home, with my family, eating hot pot.