After that exciting incident they quickly moved on after staying the night, not wanting to overstay their welcome. They got the supplies they’d wanted for free and a decent meal out of it. The village head had apparently tried to give them some coin for their trouble, but Mu had insisted this hadn’t been an official Wanderer’s commission so there was no need for such things.

  His mentor’s compulsion to not accept monetary rewards for her work just reinforced the idea in Willow’s head that Miss Mu was a proper hero, despite her other eccentricities.

  At least now he felt comfortable calling himself a hero in training.

  Previously his only claim to the title was his attempted rescue of his Aunt Jieun, but that had gone so catastrophically wrong that he’d started to feel that maybe it would’ve been better if he hadn’t interfered. Despite what his aunt had said on the matter.

  He shook off those thoughts. No use dwelling on them anymore.

  He felt Mu’s gloved hand settle on his scalp.

  “You did good, Willow. Might not’ve found him in time if it wasn’t for you.” Apparently his mentor’s mind was still on yesterday’s incident as well.

  He flashed her a small smile. “I’m just happy that he’s all right.” Memories of a desiccated corpse passed through his mind before he shoved them away.

  “So where are we going now?” He tried to quickly change the topic.

  Mu looked at him consideringly before answering. “Our next stop is a place we’ll be staying for a while. Remember how I said I’d be calling in favours to get you training in the other elements? Well the first one’s coming up.”

  That perked Willow up. “Neat! Are they some kind of hidden master?”

  Miss Mu chuckled. “Nope! They aren’t a slouch or nothin’, but the reason I picked her is more for the other skills she can teach you rather than her ability with water qi.”

  That dampened his enthusiasm a tad. “Oh. What other kinds of skills?”

  “Well not only is she a decent hand at mental techniques, Madame Park is renowned for her etiquette lessons.”

  Willow scrunched his nose. “Isn’t etiquette just a fancy way of not being rude?” That’s how his father had explained it anyways.

  His mentor barked out a laugh. “That’s certainly one way of looking at it, but it’s better to know the rules clan members go by so you can better assess when they’re trying to deliberately snub you. I already have a bit of a reputation so I don’t have to worry too much, but you won’t always have my name to lean on when you’re eventually wanderin’ on your own so I figured some lessons of this kind wouldn’t be amiss. Plus she’ll likely have you workin’ in her tea shop so you can better learn to deal with money.”

  None of that sounded particularly fun, but he supposed it wouldn’t be the worst thing. Besides, it could be interesting to learn the rules other people live by.

  Learning how money worked would involve a lot of counting though, and Willow was not a huge fan of that. Maybe the madam would manage to make the process fun though.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  “All right, Miss Mu. I’ll try my best.” He felt the burst of pride in his mentor at his declaration.

  Though curiosity remained for his potential new teacher. “Is Madame Park nice?”

  Mu winced. “She’s… very dedicated to her craft. And she expects others to have the same dedication she does. I’ll pull you out of there if she ever goes too far with how she teaches you, but try to stick with it if you can.”

  Another thing seemed to occur to the wanderer. “Oh! Try to only show your water spirit when you’re with her. Tryin’ to keep the variety of spirits you have bound a bit of a secret until you come into your own and can take care of yourself.”

  He could do that. He was already used to keeping Change and Harmony a secret. His other friends would just have to be let out a little less often while he trained with Madame Park.

  Willow just reframed it in his mind as an opportunity to get to know Calypso a little better! His raindrop spirit was a little quirkier than some of his other friends so the extra time to try and reach an understanding would hopefully be good for both of them.

  Though there was an aspect that he wouldn’t be able to keep secret whenever he’d be using his water qi.

  “What about when I shift to my water form? That’s not a normal thing to do, right?”

  Mu drew in some smoke from her pipe before letting it out in a sweet smelling cloud around her. “I’ll tell her it’s a bloodline ability or somethin’. It's not completely unheard of for binders to have such abilities though the full transformation you do is a little rarer. It would even provide a decent explanation for why I took you in as my apprentice despite not being a water binder, I love oddities like that.”

  Willow wasn’t sure he liked being called an oddity despite knowing how weird his whole situation was, but decided not to comment on it. “Hmmm, all right. Anything else I should keep secret?”

  Mu thought a bit more before shrugging. “You probably shouldn’t swap between boy and girl around her, but that’s more due to it probably doubling your workload more than anything else. It’s your choice, and we could tie it into your made up bloodline ability if she asks for an explanation on the mechanics of it.”

  That threw him for a bit of a loop. “What, why would she make me do more work if she found out I can do that?”

  “Boys and girls have different expectations placed on them so there are different rules for each. Personally feel it’s stupid, but she’s quite rigid in her thinking and would expect you to learn both sets of rules. Again though, it’s your choice.”

  “Do you think she’d get weird about it like Au-... Like Miss Sarah?” He cared less about how a stranger would react to his shifting nature, but if they were going to stay with her for a time then it was best if there weren’t any points of friction between them.

  Mu considered the question before eventually shrugging. “Not sure. I know crossdressin’s a more common pass time among the people of the lake due to certain traditions, but aside from that it’s not exactly a concept people come in contact with. So how anyone reacts will be up in the air.”

  Willow sighed, but he supposed that was to be expected. An individual person he could generally understand.

  But people as a whole were weird.

  His mentor tried to cheer him up. “For what it’s worth I feel that most would be acceptin’ of it if they think of it as a technique of some kind. Spirits can cause all sorts of weirdness and people barely bat an eye unless it directly harms them. Though no matter what they’ll likely try to place you in some kind of box, it’s just how people are.”

  Willow was beginning to get tired of being stuck as one or the other. Mu had explained the dangers of travelling as a little girl, though he still didn’t fully grasp the why of it, but a part of him had really started to chafe at not being able to switch whenever he wanted. So he supposed there was only one real answer here.

  “I think… I’m gonna tell her. Besides, it could be useful to learn both sets of rules.”

  Mu snorted. “Your funeral, boyo. I’ll try to make sure the old bat doesn’t overwhelm you with work.”

  Hopefully he knew what he’d just signed up for.