"How'd it go?" Amelia looks up from a book that I'm sure I last saw at her aunt's house.

"Good." I smile back at her. "I still need to work on my aim a bit, but at least the arrows don't explode anymore." I take one out from storage and twirl it around in my fingers.

"That's good, and it would be nice to get some fresh meat." She nods and returns her attention to the book. "Do you think you could catch some game?"

"I haven't seen much, but we've been kind of noisy. What's usually around these parts?" I was thinking more self-defense when I got the bow, but I've been hunting before, so that's not too big a deal for me.

"Plenty of fat birds and rabbits and, if you're lucky, you might spot a deer." She answers distractedly. "But, they're smart enough to stay away from the road."

"We've got a couple hours of light left, but I'd rather try in the morning." I walk back to the pile of firewood to start making more arrows. "Ferne, would you like me to make you a mattress? I've got plenty of cotton left." I ask after seeing her fish out a rock from under her blanket.

"Normally I wouldn't want to impose, but I hate camping. So, yes please." Her tone brings another smile to my face.

"Here, you go." I say a moment later. "And, if you need anything, just ask." I go back to making arrows after that.

***

I've got well over a hundred arrows done by the time I notice the sky is changing colors. "Pasta okay for dinner?" I ask Amelia after getting up and stretching out my back.

"As long as I don't have to cook." She marks her place with a ribbon and closes the book. "Do you need my pan?"

"That would help, yes." I start the fire with a spell and set my pot on it to boil some water. Taking Amelia's skillet, I use it to make the sauce, then set it aside to simmer while I make the pasta. I go for simple bowtie pasta, I could probably do something fancier, but I'm feeling lazy.

For the sides, I make a green salad, some magically roasted veggies, and some cornbread that I was able to 'bake' in a wooden 'pan'. Once the pasta is cooked, it gets strained out and added to the sauce along with a bunch of shredded cheese.

"Well, help yourselves." I fill up my magic in the lasts dregs of sunlight, and then set the hedges to glowing. "I meant you too Ferne." I laugh at her reluctance to join in. "I'm not going to make all this, and then say you can't have any."

"Thank you. Mmm, I don't eat this well when I'm at home, let alone in the middle of the woods." She quickly fills her plate.

"I know you said you had some recipes." Amelia says around a mouthful of the pasta. "But, seriously everything you make is amazing. Where'd you learn to cook like this?"

"Oh, our dad wasn't around." I say while adding some honey butter to my cornbread. "Mom usually had to work late, so I would take care of my little sister. Found out I had a knack for it after finding some old cookbooks."

"Ah, sorry about your dad." She looks chagrined.

"Don't be." I squeeze her shoulder. "He was an ass that ran off with another woman. I saw him maybe three times since I turned ten, and the last time he had the gall to ask me for money." I curse him, but there's no heat in my voice, not anymore.

"Shit!" Apricot curses. "He really was an ass."

"I'm sorry." Amelia tries to apologize again.

"Don't worry about it." I wipe away a bit of tomato sauce from her chin. "That was a lifetime ago." A funny smile creeps onto my face when I say that.

"Mhm, okay." She doesn't look convinced, but doesn't say anything else.

"So, what's for dessert?" Apricot asks, I would say to change the subject, but knowing her it's just because she wants dessert.

"Isn't the cornbread enough? I made it on the sweet side." If her expression is anything to go by, it clearly isn't. "Fine, it'll take to long for the rolls to rise, but I know a quick cinnamon blondie recipe. But, I'm going to have to buy or refine some more sugar soon."

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"I'm just glad I told you to buy extra." She laughs as I start mixing up the simple recipe.

"Yeah, ha-ha." I'm running low on dairy too, and here I thought I bought enough for at least a week. "You'd better hope I have enough mana to cook this. Because with the sun down, I can't do that little trick to refill from nature."

"Nng. Amelia, I know you're more of a water mage." The pixie talks to her lover seriously. "But, you really need to learn his cooking spell."

"I'd love to, but I don't think that's going to happen tonight." She laughs and tousles the pixie's hair.

"Don't worry." I do the same to Apricot. "The spell is spherical, so if I stack three pans like this... I can shrink the diameter enough to make it through." The wood worked fine for the cornbread, so it should be fine for this too.

"If that didn't smell so good, I'd be so jealous right now." Ferne says with a laugh.

"Just wait till you taste them." I test with a toothpick to ensure they're done, but not too done, and drop the spell before it drains me dry.

"Ooh! Gimme, gimme." Apricot tries to take a whole pan for herself.

"Hands off." I fend her off with my vines long enough to brush the tops with melted butter and sprinkle them with cinnamon sugar. "Here, you really should let it cool for a moment, but... you're already eating it." I just shake my head and morph the other pans into cooling racks after slicing everything up into bars.

"Hahahah." Amelia laughs at the pixie's antics and grabs a bar for herself. "Oh, my goodness. It's so chewy and gooey. I thought you were making some sort of cake, but this... this."

"If you think blondies are good, wait until I get my hands on that cocoa pod, and can make some chocolate brownies. No, they're related to the Fae." I tell Apricot's raised eyebrow. "Whoever made them was probably better at baking than naming stuff."

"You can make sweets out of those weird beans?" Ferne sprays out a few crumbs. "Dotty swears by that drink made from them, but I can't stand it."

"Yeah, but it's a lot of work to get something good from them." Cocoa powder is easier to get than chocolate, but still requires a lot of steps. "Speaking of..." I take out my baking supplies and try out my idea for using magic to make the yeast rise faster.

It takes a few tries, but I soon figure it out and mix up a batch of dough for cinnamon rolls. I then turn to Amelia with a wide smile plastered on my face. "Could you make some ice? My favorite recipe for the cinnamon rolls has them rise overnight in an icebox."

"Yes, but do we have enough water?" She looks from the magically risen dough to our mostly empty water skins. "I don't want to walk to the brook in the dark."

"Just pull it from the air." I demonstrate my last non-nature based spell. "I picked this spell up in case of an emergency, but it draws too much mana for me to use right now."

"I did not know that was possible." She stares at the small drops that form in the palm of my hand. "Can you walk me through the incantation again?" It takes her a few more tries, and I nearly drain what little mana I have left demonstrating, but she eventually gets it.

After a few minutes of recovery, and watching Amelia play with her new skill. I create a make-shift icebox from firewood with cotton insulation. Amelia provides several large slabs of ice and I seal the rolls inside to rise.

"Ferne, do you mind if I seal the opening?" It's getting pretty late and we should probably go to sleep soon.

"I don't mind, but I'm surprised you have enough mana left to do so." She comments wonderingly.

"Oh, I'm fine for a little nature magic, especially if I use Blackthorne here." I pick up my staff and walk over to the opening. "It's just that when I work outside my domain, I can't take advantage of my natural Plantkin bonuses."

"It's really fun watching him work too." Apricot's eyes start to glow as the branches start to grow together. "It's like all of nature wants to do his bidding, and he just needs to give it a little mana as a catalyst."

"I'd heard about races with powers like that, but never met one before, let alone any Plantkin." Ferne's eyes are glued to the hedges as they weave their branches together to close us off from the outside world.

"Even I haven't met any other Plantkin, but I was raised human, while they tend to stick to deep forests." I chuckle. "And, I am officially out of mana, now."

"Can I ask what happened?" Amelia says nervously.

"It's alright, baby." I sit down next to her on our over-sized mattress and wrap an arm around her waist. "It was very early on in my life when I was found alone on the outskirts of civilization after my birth-mother died." I'm actually talking about when Apricot found me a few days ago, and I did lose several mothers during my stint in reincarnation hell. Fucking wolves!

"I'm sorry." She hugs me back.

"It's in the past." I give her a smile and stroke her hair. "I grew up well-loved, and that's all that matters." I feel kinda bad about lying, even if I am technically telling the truth. But, as much as I like her and Apricot, I did only meet them a few days ago.

"Well, I'm going to turn in now." Ferne states a little awkwardly since the mood was starting to turn a little rose-colored. "I'll see you in the morning, and thank you again for the mattress Sorrel."

"You're welcome." I nod to her and a yawn works its way past my lips. "We should get to sleep too, all that running around earlier wore me out. Come here, Sweetie. I bet you never got to be little spoon with those wings of yours." I lift her up from my other side and set her in between Amelia and myself.

"You look funny." Amelia giggles. "Her wings are sticking out of your back."

"I don't care how funny it looks." The pixie says, somewhat dreamily. "This... this is nice." She reaches her hand out to Amelia and pulls her closer to complete the Apricot sandwich. "I've been cuddled from all sides before, but you're right. It is different without the wings getting in the way." I'm not sure that she's even aware that silent tears start running down her cheeks when she says that.

Amelia and I look at each other, but we choose to ignore the tears and just hold her until we all drift off.

***