Reincarnated as a mana core

Aina sat high up in the moving not-cave-home, as close to the ceiling as possible and waited for the day to begin. A few minutes passed and she could feel the air coming through a small hole in the not-cave-home getting warmer. 

She vibrated in anticipation. The time was near.

Then the tall fluffy one stirred. Daily observation had shown that she was always the first to wake and always did so when the air began heating up.

With her target up Aina started preparing. Silently she dragged herself along the dead-tree-but-not-food she had been sitting on, stopping directly above the sometimes-open-entrance leading to the not-cave of the fluffy one. 

There she gingerly stretched her body over the uncomfortable edge of the dead tree and showed why she was called the bubble master. Creating a no-air bubble between the dead tree and her own body, she anchored herself to the side of the dead tree. Without the no-air bubble she would fall down, but with them and her easily manipulated body she could even move upside down on the ceiling. Secure in the knowledge she wouldn’t fall, Aina moved the rest of her body over the edge and stilled.

By now the fluffy one had gotten up and started putting on the hide-made-of-dead-plants-but-not-food. A few minutes later the fluffy one was finally done and opened the entrance to the not-cave. The time had come.

As the fluffy one stepped out of her not-cave, Aina moved her body to let air into the no-air bubble and fell, landing on the fluffy one with a splat. An unholy shriek of fear woke anyone still sleeping and chaos ensued. Aina was thrown away, popping happy bubbles mid air and jiggled her body around in excitement. This was great!

…

Some time later, after food had been given and the group started moving again, things weren’t great anymore.

Aina was nestled safely in the lap of the tiny one, rocking left and right in tune to the magic being cast above her. The whole world was vibrating and she could feel every bump the not-cave-home moved over on and through her whole body. It was disorienting in the extreme and barely distracting herself was all she could do.

The real problem however, was that she couldn’t understand the legged ones at all like this, not even the general tone of their voice. Filtering out the vibrations for words from all the background noise was already difficult at the best of times, but right now it was impossible.

Aina hated it. How was she meant to learn and practise the words the system had given her so that she would complete her word quests to receive more words?

Aina kept lamenting the injustice of the world, for there was nothing else to do. Then a discordant cloud of mana entered the spell above her, forming a part completely out of tune with her. It was ugly and could not be left alone, so she reached out with her own mana to forcefully bash the part out of the spell form.

The tiny one vibrated in response and picked her up. Aina couldn’t understand though and let herself hang in the air miserably. A few more vibrations of the tiny one and then she was hugged closely to their chest while being patted. 

This was nice and Aina felt safe like before she had been born and was still part of another slime. It was distracting too and after a while she fell asleep, squeezed in the embrace of affection.

…

Much later when the air had long since began cooling down again they finally stopped moving, leaving Aina in much needed silence. She did not like this method of moving, which had to be a slime thing. It would explain why the lazy slime and the two that had come from her had left despite the promise of food and care. Aina was much stronger than that though and stood steadfast in the face of hopefully temporary suffering. She couldn’t leave the beautiful one either, not that she was exactly sure why that was. She only knew that following her feelings was rarely a wrong move.

The prospect of company and a meal lured her out of the not-cave-home and she made her way through the tall grass to the others, snacking on the occasional blade-like leaf. She thought about sneaking up on the legged ones for a moment, but decided not to.

The beautiful one and the one who came from them always saw her, much like she saw them and the sneaky one was very good at spotting her while somehow blending in with the background mana, which made it hard to spot them in turn. Trying to surprise them was no fun. The fluffy one and the tiny one, however, were much more easy to catch off guard as she had aptly demonstrated just this morning.

Without thinking about it much, Aina steered to the beautiful one and moved until she was surrounded by fur and bumped into their side. The beautiful one booped her gently with a very large snout and rumbled a greeting that took her a moment to understand. “Hello Aina.”

Aina, that was herself! She popped a bubble to return the greeting and the beautiful one chuckled, making her entire body shiver pleasantly.

Then the beautiful one lifted her up with a nearly equally beautiful looking spell and put her down on their back. From there Aina moved up onto their head and made herself comfortable between two fluffy ears.

She watched as the others ate from her perch, the beautiful one feeding her in between their own bites and practised feeling the words she already knew out of the air. This continued even after the meal was over and the playing began. At some point though, Aina got tired and the comfortable warmth of the beautiful one called for her ever stronger. She fought against it, struggling to stay awake, but ultimately her mana sense blinked out and she drifted asleep into gentle dreams of fur covered lands.