We travel down the road listening to The Lads from Liverpool. I translate as many songs as I can, mostly just to get used to the mental strain. At first, I can only manage one or two per album, but by the time we stop for the day, I'm up to every third or fourth song.
"Can you do that money song again?" Apricot says as I get down from the horse. "I think it's perfect for our merchant here. Ack, dust." She tries to fly out of the cloud that was stirred up by our passage, but doesn't quite make it in time. "A-a-a-ACHOO!" Her over-sized sneeze is shortly followed by a thud and a cry of pain.
"Well, I think we found out what you got from the bond." I say while staring at the now human-sized, and very naked pixie. "Why do my legs have to be made of jelly right now?" I laugh while hobbling over to her.
"What? I... What?" The very confused, and not so little woman stares in confusion at her body.
"Are you okay, Sweetie?" Amelia brushes past me, almost knocking me from my feet in the process. "What happened?
"I-I don’t know." She sniffles. "My butt hurts."
"I'm sorry for laughing Apricot." I kneel next to the pixie and stroke her hair while Amelia hugs her. She still looks the same as she did before, wings and all. Only they're immaterial now, a fact I discovered when my arm accidentally went through one. "You're okay. I'm sure you can shift back to normal."
"Yeah, I was able to control how much magic I draw and we can control the sensitivity of the bond." Amelia re-assures the crying woman. "You just need to figure out how to turn it on and off."
"Thank you, but I'm not worried about that." She sniffles up at us. "It's just my butt really hurts, I've never fallen that hard before."
"Hahahah. Sorry, sorry." I try to choke back my laughter, but it keeps sneaking out. My mirth quickly infects Amelia, and even Apricot after a moment.
"Sniff. Is this what it's always like for you? It feels like I'm hauling a mountain around, there's so much momentum to even the slightest movement." Apricot slowly moves her arms around trying to get used to the sensation.
"Yeah, it kinda is, I guess." Amelia says. "Do you want to try standing, let me get a look at that tush. Shut it! You know what I mean." She quickly adds when I get a wicked grin on my face. "Why don't you make yourself useful, and make a dress for her?"
"Is the satin alright?" It's probably the least ugly of the bunch. I mean it's still ugly, kinda like they were trying for olive but dropped it in the mud.
"It'll do for now, but you've got to practice your weaving tonight." Apricot says when I show her the bolt of fabric. "I'd much rather just wear plain white. Now, help me stand, I'm not very used to using my legs."
"Yes, ma'am." I do as she commands, and Amelia stands by to steady her while I prepare the dress. It's fairly simple, and I'm just copying what she was wearing before, though without the wing holes since she doesn't need them anymore.
"Aww, man." Apricot groans while looking up at Amelia. "You're still taller than me."
"Only a few centimeters, but your boobs are bigger than hers, so it evens out." I try to dodge a swat from Amelia and fall on my ass. "Hahahah. My tushy hurts, will you check it for me? Hahahahah."
"I'm really going to make your butt hurt." Amelia tries to sound angry but is soon infected by my giggle fit once more. And, I swear I hear the echoes of Temmie's dinging laughter again. Meanwhile Apricot is just cupping her breasts, and not-so-subtly comparing them to Amelia's.
"One really ugly dress for one very beautiful woman." I say a couple minutes later, and present Apricot with her new frock.
"It's... lovely." She holds it up and flips it around. "But, you forgot the wing holes."
"No. I didn't." I pull her into a hug and rub my arms up and down her back.
"What? But." She pulls back and reaches behind to touch one wing, her hand meeting resistance where mine just phased through. "Oh, that is so weird." She says while bisecting me with a wing.
"Just think." I say with a smile. "You can sleep on your back and be little spoon now." I chuckle as Amelia wraps her up from behind. "Alright, you finish learning how to walk, I'm going to collect some firewood." There's still a few hours before dark, but I don't see any deadfall anywhere nearby.
The protected clearing that Amelia mentioned turns out to be a circle of hedges with a fire pit in the center. There's enough room for a couple wagons to fit inside, which is more than enough for the three of us and a single horse.
"Could you do something about that first?" Amelia points to a ditch that someone scratched into the dirt at the rear of the clearing.
"Ugh, seriously?" I wrinkle my nose. "We're surrounded by the woods, and you couldn't walk a few meters to take a dump, or even cover it up properly when you did?" I ask whatever lazy asshole left the mess.
Tossing out a few seeds, I force some ground cover to grow over and absorb the dried up feces. A few small trees come next, and I use their roots to drill a deep hole into the ground before shaping them into a living outhouse. A couple of smooth-barked trees are bent into a toilet seat before joining up with the wall. The walls themselves are made up of a lattice of interwoven branches, and the door a curtain of vines.
"Better?" I ask the blonde who's just standing there with her mouth hanging open.
"What? No toilet paper?" She quips after finally collecting herself.
I just roll my eyes and turn some of the cotton into soft butt wipes. "Only the best for you." I stuff the stack into her arms and walk off to collect firewood. It turns out that having four arms makes gathering branches a hell of a lot easier.
I just dropped off the first load and was about to head back out when Amelia runs up from where she's guiding Apricot around like a mother teaching her toddler how to walk.
"I'm sorry." She grabs my arm. "I could have used my magic to clean that up, but didn't even think of it."
"It's alright." I take her hand with a smile. "And, this way we don't have to squat in the woods later." I grew plenty of mint and other aromatic herbs around the latrine, but our cleaning magics will be more than enough for any smell.
"Still, thank you." She gives me a quick peck on the lips. "And, thank you for those wipes, they're the softest thing I've ever used."
"Don't worry about it." I return her kiss. "Now, it's been a while since I went camping, but I know we're going to need more wood than this."
"Okay, you go be manly." She shoos me away.
"And you stay here and teach the toddler how to walk." I giggle at the indignant look Apricot shoots me.
"Oh, you're lucky she can't chase you." Amelia hides her smile.
I wave goodbye to Apricot and head out again, this time I circle around behind the hedges, hoping that direction won't have had as much traffic. And, my supposition pays off when I find a tree that looks like it got hit by lightning a few years ago. There's a single branch that's still alive, but everything else is dead.
A judicious use of magic frees the deadwood while sparing the lone branch that refuses to give up the ghost. The tree is much shorter now but looks whole once more. Smoothing out the dead section by fusing the branches into the trunk, I then draw out four hand-holds and start dragging it back to camp.
"Is this manly enough for you?" I say with a smirk and drop the entire tree half in and half out of the clearing.
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"Oh. Sorrel, baby." Apricot walks -yes walks- over with a sad smile on her face. "Didn't anyone ever tell you that it's not the size that matters, but how you use it?" This time I'm sure I hear Temmie's *Ding*.
"Oh, I'll show you how I use it." I shape some of the wood into a wide paddle, and heft it menacingly.
"Eeep!" She covers her butt with both hands. "Amelia, save me from this brute."
"Sorry, sweetie." Amelia says with a simpering smile. "Butt, you 'walked' right into that one."
""Ugh!"" *Ding* A collective groan rolls out from both of us and Temmie after that double pun.
"What? You guys can joke, but I can't?" The blonde huffs after seeing our reactions.
"Apparently not." I laugh nervously as she gives me the stink-eye. "I mean, you got a goddess of jokes to groan at that one."
"I'm sorry Amelia, butt that was a particularly bad one. Heheheh." Apricot breaks up laughing when she spots me trying to hold back my giggles.
"No fair!" Amelia stamps her foot. "You used the same damned joke, and now Sorrel looks like he's having a fit."
"S-stop, please." I pant out. "I -haah- can't -haah- breathe." I don't know what it is, but the fiery glare she's shooting me is just the funniest thing ever.
"Oh, that's it! Give me that paddle." She stomps over and tries to take it out of my hand, butt I just hold it up out of her reach. Tears stream down my cheeks as she resorts to wailing on my chest.
"Y-you, you little butthead. Hahahah." I toss the paddle away and pull her into a hug when she collapses against me with a laugh of her own.
"I'm sorry baby, I've just got a bad case of the giggles today." I stroke her shiny locks. "How about I make it up to you by helping you learn the storage spell." She tried on the horse, but it was kinda hard to practice.
"Fine." She mutters and squeezes me back. "But do something with the log first."
"But, Apricot's standing right there watching us." I whisper into her ear just to watch her blush.
"You know what I meant, you butthead." She smacks me lightly on the chest again.
"I know, but you're so cute when you're flustered." I steal a kiss before handing her off to the pixie who steals her own.
"Leave Sorrel to play with his 'log' all on his lonesome, I'll show you some real magic." Apricot pulls her off to the other side of the clearing, and I can't help but play 'I Kissed a Girl' by Katy Perry.
Apricot shoots me a thumbs up when the eponymous line is sung making Amelia blush beet-red. Laughing at her reaction, I quickly separate the tree into logs that I stack up next to the latrine.
I separate a few slices of the trunk and turn them into stools to go around the fire pit since it looks like it used to have some, but they were probably burned up by the same asshole that couldn't walk a few meters into the woods.
"Storage now?" Amelia begs.
"Before that." Apricot interjects. "What is chapstick?"
"Hah!" I bark out a laugh. "It's a type of lip balm, it comes in a little tube that you can twist the bottom of to bring more to the top." I fashion an over-sized model out of firewood. "Like this, only this big so you can tuck it into a pocket."
"Let me see that." Amelia snatches the model from my hand and swiftly extends it all the way out to see how it works. "It's just a threaded rod that goes through a little cup to push up the balm? Can you make this in the smaller size too? You could rake in a ton of copper selling these."
"Sure." I shrug. "It just takes a bit more effort to work on smaller stuff. But, I thought you wanted to talk magic, not merchanting."
"Yeah, yeah." She nods, but I can see coins rolling in her eyes.
"...Storage!" I touch the model, making it disappear from her hands.
"Oh, sorry." She blushes up at me. "Can you do that again, I promise to pay attention this time."
I walk her through it again, and it only takes her a few tries before she manages to make her test log vanish. But, then she got over excited and couldn't retrieve it until she calmed back down. I'm not sure, but I get the feeling that Apricot is able to help her shape the mana properly. Otherwise, I doubt she'd be able to master a spell like that in under an hour.
"Well, done." I smile at her vanishing and reappearing her bags over and over again. "You're now one step closer to taking over the mercantile world."
"Heheheheh." She giggles joyously. "Thank you so much, and thank you too Apricot." She hugs the pixie. "I know this wouldn't be possible without you."
"You are most welcome." The orange-haired terror licks her lips. "But, I'm sure you'll find some way to pay me back."
"Well, you heard her." I say with a wink. "Get started cooking dinner. Heheheh." I laugh when Apricot blows a raspberry at me.
"Why don't you cook dinner?" Amelia sticks her tongue out at me too.
"Because I want to grow some cotton to make a nice fluffy mattress for the three of us. But, if you'd rather 'sleep' on the hard ground?" I shrug and pull out my cook pot.
"Hah!" Apricot barks out. "He's got you there."
"Oh, shut up and give me the food." Amelia huffs and snatches away the pot.
"Here you go." I put the packages I got from the store down next to her. "Just tell me if you need any more ingredients, and I'll grow them."
"This is more than enough." She nods and starts dicing vegetables before tossing them into the pot with some of the jerky I bought. "Can you play some music while you're growing that stuff?"
"Ooh, yes." Apricot hops up and down. "More like that last one, please."
"Like Katy Perry? Sure." I start my [Girly Pop] playlist on random; my music tastes are many and varied, and I am not ashamed to admit that I like so-called girly music. "I won't be able to translate while I'm working on this though."
"That's fine." Apricot starts bouncing around to an Avril Lavigne song. She's too uncoordinated to dance properly, but she doesn't let that stop her from trying.
While the girls are occupied, I lay out a row of seeds to one side of the clearing and start pushing magic into them while pulling mana from nature at the same time. Forcing them to grow in minutes what should have taken months. I soon lose myself to the magic, holding onto just enough consciousness to keep the music going.
Fluffy white bolls of pure cellulose grow on the plants only to fall to the ground and be replaced by new ones seconds later. Grow, drop, roll away. Grow, drop, roll away. Grow, drop, roll away. It becomes a mantra that dances around the music in my head.
"...Sorrel!" A shout and a shake from Amelia wakes me from my fugue. "Dinner's ready, and I think you have enough cotton already."
I blink my eyes and look around to see that over half the clearing looks to have been covered in a snowbank. The 'snow' is over a meter deep right under the cotton plants, which are now good-sized trees. Fortunately, I had the foresight to roll everything away from the fire otherwise, that would have been bad.
"You back with us?" Apricot laughs and flops into the cotton just like a kid jumping into a pile of leaves. It doesn't look like this is the first time she's done so either.
"Yeah, hahaha." I laugh and get to my feet. "So, I think we might have just barely enough here for a mattress. Probably not enough for your new dress though, but it's probably better if you just walk around nude anyways."
"Better than going out in public wearing green mud." She holds up the corner of her dress and stares down at it in distaste. "If it didn't feel good against my skin, I would have ditched it already."
"I'll work on the satin weave first then." I promise. "But, first food. Mmm, that smells delicious Amelia."
"Thank you. And, I hope you can cook just as well, because I'm not going to do this every time." She fills her bowl while smiling at me. "I think you forgot to buy something."
"I did not. And, don't worry; I may just know a recipe or two." Grabbing a piece of firewood I split it into two bowls and a wooden spoon. I then return Amelia's smile and hand Apricot a bowl and my metal utensils. "Ooh, bannock." I snag some of the pan bread she made on a skillet that must have been in her saddlebag.
"Show off." She mutters under her breath. "And, I'd love to make a proper loaf, but it takes forever, and is kinda hard without a good oven. That's the thing I hate most about camping... well, pooping in the woods is number one. But, no bread is still pretty high up there."
"I don't know about making a stove, but there's got to be a way to cheat with magic." I take out the pot of yeast from storage. "Yeast is harder to control than plants, but I should still be able to manage. And, I may only know a simple fire starter spell, but if we could deconstruct that into a general heat spell..."
"Would that even work?" Amelia peers into her bread like it holds all the secrets.
"I'm better at the nature stuff, but heat is heat. Just need to spread it out from a point to a sphere, and up the power." I try on the leftover firewood.
"Nnh, more like this." I can feel Apricot twisting the mana flow, and work to follow along. "You saw me use something similar to roast those seeds." It takes a few moments but I'm able to spread the focus of the spell out to heat a volume of air.
"It's a bit of a mana drain to keep it up, but since it'll cook evenly inside and out, it shouldn't take too long to bake a loaf." I drop the spell before I run out of mana. "That, or you could just use your super pixie powers." I smile at her and draw on nature to refill my mana before the last rays of sunlight fade away.
"I'm better at manipulating what's already there." Apricot states while sopping up the last of her stew. "Amelia is actually able to draw more mana through me than I can pull for myself. I'd be jealous, but like you said my boobs are bigger." She confesses, and blows a raspberry at Amelia.
"Very funny." Amelia rolls her eyes. "See if I cook for you again. But, seriously, are you okay with this bond?"
"I get to play around as a lunker." The pixie gestures to her super-sized body. "What's not to like. But seriously." She looks Amelia in the eyes. "I 'am' magic, I don't need to 'do' magic. That, and now that I'm big enough to do so, I really want to fuck you." She lets out a low, throaty laugh at the blush that covers Amelia's face.
"Speaking of, I really should get working on that mattress. But, first... Glow!" The hedges and cotton plants start emitting a gentle light. "Can't work in the dark after all, and I really want to watch."
Shifting the music to my [Female Vocalists - Sexy Times] playlist, starting with "I Put a Spell on You" by Nina Simone. I take my time making the mattress while Apricot gets closer to Amelia. I really am happy to just watch, and not just because lesbians are fun to watch. But, because I could hear the longing in Apricot's voice just now. I think she's been all alone in these woods for more than just a few weeks.
"Bed's done." I say after a few minutes when things seem to be heating up between them. "Now, you two have fun, I'm going to work on that satin weave for your dress." I beg off when Apricot tries to pull me onto the mattress with Amelia.
"Are you sure?" Amelia asks, her breathing speeds up as she stares up at me from her prone position. Something makes me think she's getting off on the idea of being watched.
"I'll join in later if you want." I shoot her a grin. "For now, I think I'll just watch." Oh, she is definitely getting off on the idea of being watched, so I stuff an oversized cushion to sit on and do just that.
***