Sophie had quite a pile of lavender and spearmint going on the side of the garden plot when the wyvern decided to grace her and Elowen with its presence again.

Elowen made a small squeak of surprise as it landed right next to her, and Sophie looked over with amusement.

“You’re back!” she called out to it cheerfully. It tilted its head at her in that strange way, and Elowen took an ever so small step to the side.

“Hey,” Sophie said. “Wait right there.” She held up a hand at it as if telling a dog to ‘stay’.

Elowen rolled her eyes. “It can’t possibly understand you.”

“Well, I don’t know. Just, uh, watch it for me?” Sophie asked. “I want to get something –”

She took a few steps back, keeping an eye on it to make sure it didn’t leave, and then jogged around to the well, where she usually found the little guy, and went in through the side door to the kitchen. She quickly grabbed the last remaining bit of mana bread off of the counter and then made her way back out to Elowen and the wyvern.

To her pleased surprise, the wyvern hadn’t left after all. Instead, Elowen was staring at it with a watchful eye.

Sophie unwrapped the last little handful of mana bread and approached the odd pair slowly. “Here,” she held out her hand to the wyvern. “This is for you.”

She was preparing to kneel down, to set the bread on the ground in front of the creature when suddenly its leathery little wings lifted and in a movement far too fast for Sophie to react to, it landed on her outstretched arm. Its talons pressed against her skin with the imminent threat of pain, but didn’t sink in.

“Ow,” she said, inanely. The little creature made a happy, keening noise and chomped into the mana bread. She could feel some sort of odd buzzing sensation running along its little body, and then it lifted off of her again, landing back on the ground to devour its newfound feast.

“Huh,” Elowen said slowly. “I think it can understand you.”

“What?” Sophie asked, still watching the little creature as it tore into the mana bread. It blinked up at her happily.

“It’s obviously following your directions,” Elowen replied. “And it seems to show no fear around you. Wyverns usually don’t take so well to humans.”

Sophie turned to look at Elowen as if the spirit were mad. “What do you mean?” She waved a hand at the wyvern. “I don’t think it really understands me. It just wants to eat the mana bread.”

The wyvern stared at her with hopeful eyes, as if she might produce more of the delicious treat. “Sorry, that’s all there was of that,” she told it, and it had the audacity to look sad at the news.

Did it understand her?

She didn’t have much of a chance to test the theory because it turned in a circle once, before taking alight again, swooping over their heads in a large circle before heading back off into the forest. She could still sort of feel the spot where it had landed on her arm. It was awfully friendly to her.

“The Universal Language blessing?” she asked, with a sudden thought. “Can it – I mean, does it –”

Elowen immediately cut her off, though. “No, it wouldn’t work on beasts.”

But Sophie wondered…

And then she shrugged, deciding that she had more than enough to think about for one day without worrying about whether or not the little wyvern could understand her. It wasn’t like it did much, anyway.

Sophie went back to cleaning up the garden plot until the mage plants had some room to breathe among the other plants. Sophie could also finally see the border of mana stones around the edge of the garden. She picked one up, holding it in her palm, wondering if it was just decoration or if it helped the garden in some way. She could feel the stone’s curiosity towards her mana, but she withstood the lure of charging it. Maybe another day.

Today, she wanted to try working with the shrine stone again. She hoped she would be able to uncover a bit more about it than she had been able to last time. Mana Sense added an unexpected layer of complexity to it, however, since Sophie could feel how much mana the stone took from her. It was a little more frightening in some regards. At least that last time – she had barely been able to do anything.

But now, she had her own handy supply of Magewort and Mageweed, and Mabel had told her how to use both of them to regenerate her mana. The Mageweed was apparently eaten more like a salad vegetable. The flowers could be dried and used for teas, but the plants wouldn’t flower for several more months, according to Mabel. Magewort, on the other hand, could be prepared much like other herbs – the leaves could be used for tea in their fresh form or dried.

Sophie placed the stone she had been holding back in its spot along the border of the garden and picked a handful of the Magewort to add to her pile of lavender and spearmint. She didn’t want to over-do it since the mage plants had been quite small in comparison to the others. She glanced down at the scruffy-looking leaves and wondered what it would taste like. It smelled much like any other herb – Sophie wasn’t exactly a connoisseur of them – and Mabel had warned her that the taste wasn’t pleasant, but the effects would be worth it.

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Sophie wasn’t that big of a fan of tea in general, although it had grown on her since she had no other coffee replacement, so she figured it couldn’t be much worse.

She took her small handful of Magewort back into the shrine’s kitchen to set it aside for later, and then she went back out to the garden to gather up all of the lavender and spearmint. Now – to find somewhere to hang them up to dry.

***

Sophie scoured the shrine for some twine and places to hang the herbs. She found some convenient hooks inside the back rooms of the shrine, and even some along the back wall of the entryway that the former priestess might have used herself. She supposed no one would be visiting the interior of the shrine for a while – at least she hoped not – so she carefully hung all of the lavender and spearmint.

Her stomach was growling by the time she was done with everything, but she didn’t have much left in the pantry, so she decided to make the trip into Caulis to run her usual set of errands. She grabbed some food at the market before heading to the public baths, glad to get properly cleaned up after all of the gardening earlier in the day. Then she stopped by the bakery to say hello to Acacia and pick up a few more pastries. Acacia was too busy to stop and chat, though, so Sophie headed over to the Crafter’s Guild to schedule for Briony to visit again and take a look at the greenhouse.

The other improvements to the shrine would have to wait. Fixing up the roof above the Dawnwood trees took top priority, even if Sophie had no idea what she would do with the saplings. And finally, before Sophie made her way out of town, she made one last trip to the market to pick up more ingredients for soup.

And perhaps a few more kebabs, some stir-fried vegetables, and a few other very important things that definitely wouldn’t help her procrastinate learning how to cook…

When she finally got back to the shrine much later in the afternoon, Sophie found Elowen in the entryway next to the Magewood tree. It reminded Sophie that she also needed to dig through all of Rosalie’s plant books again… They would have to plant the Magewood tree at some point, if it would have any chance to grow. But without much mana, it sounded like it wouldn’t thrive. It was a tricky problem.

Elowen followed Sophie back to the kitchen area, and Sophie began putting away all of the items from the market.

“Should I try channeling mana into it?” Sophie asked, wondering about the Magewood sapling still.

Elowen shook her head. “I don’t know,” she said. “It might damage it…”

Sophie had been worried about the same thing since talking with Mabel this morning. If this tree was their only real hope to restore the mana, they had to tread carefully. Surely Rosalie had a book about Magewood among her collection, though, especially if she was so interested in them. “We’ll look for more information tonight,” Sophie promised. “But first I want to try working with the shrine stone again.”

“What? Why?” Elowen looked confused. “The last time – it seemed like you had a lot of trouble with it.”

Sophie nodded. “I did, but I’d like to try again. Besides, I need to get used to it. And, anyway, it will give me a good excuse to try out making Magewort tea.”

After all, even if the shrine’s mana was still low – perhaps Sophie could put just enough mana into the stone to allow Elowen to manifest again. She simply had no idea how much that would entail, though, and there wasn’t a good way to find out without testing the stone again.

Elowen didn’t argue with her, but Sophie sensed that the spirit thought the exercise was little more than hopeless still.

She wasn’t wrong.

Sophie could barely stomach connecting with the shrine stone now that she had Mana Sense. It felt like looking over a deep pit, staring into the murky waters of an unknown ocean – she broke the connection almost as soon as she tried pushing mana into it again, resisting the urge to gasp for breath as if she was coming up for air. What was the deal with it? Why hadn’t it been so bad before?

Perhaps because she hadn’t known. She hadn’t been able to sense the lack, where there should be mana.

She didn’t feel drained exactly – she still had about half her mana left, but she felt frustrated with herself. It didn’t seem like a good idea to try again without being at full capacity. “Tea,” she told Elowen. “I’m going to try the tea.”

The spirit followed her back to the kitchen area curiously, watching as Sophie got water ready, heating it up and then pouring some into a cup and adding a few of the Magewort leaves. Mabel had said she’d need to wait until the water turned amber before taking the leaves out when the Magewort was dried, but for fresh it would be a lighter color. It seemed to take much longer to brew than the tea Sophie had found at the market.

She took a hesitant sniff. It smelled…. Herbal? Much like the fresh leaves had smelled before. She wasn’t sure what she had been expecting.

She glanced down at the cup skeptically. She didn’t want to actually consume the leaves, so before trying a sip, she decided to strain them out and pour the whole concoction into a separate cup like she did with her regular tea. It looked slightly more appealing, even with the off-putting smell.

She cautiously brought the cup to her lips, Elowen looking on with no small amount of amusement.

She took a sip.

The strong, bitter flavor hit her immediately, nearly deterring her altogether from the experiment, but then she felt it – a corresponding zing of mana returning. She took several large gulps, trying not to focus on the taste, and then set the cup back down on the counter.

“Well, that was disgusting.”

Elowen laughed, absolutely delighted.

“Your mana seems to have returned, though,” she pointed out, and she was right. The effect was oddly instantaneous.

Sophie wondered if there were any long term effects of the tea, as well. Now she knew why Acacia’s mana bread was in such high demand. Especially if Magewort was the usual method of mana regeneration. It would be difficult to make that taste good.

Either way, her mana was back, and she was determined. She was going to try the shrine stone again. Perhaps this time a bit more cautiously. But she needed to learn more about it. She saw no other way to figure out how to get Elowen back to whatever her normal state was. This time, it was not going to get the best of her.