The girls loved Horton and all the little Whos in Whoville. I wish I had some allium seeds, so they could play around in a field of lollipop-shaped flowers. But, I end up doing the next best thing and make each of them plush flowers out of cotton.

"Do you know if Seymour has any alliums?" I ask Erick after the girls run off to converse with their flowers. "I've collected a bunch of different wildflowers, but haven't spotted any of them yet."

"I'm not sure about the name." He replies. "But, if they look similar to the one from the book, then yes. I'll ask him to set aside a handful of whatever seeds he has; it's the least we can do to repay you."

"Well, I'm not going to say no to more seeds." I chuckle. "But, I don't really need a reward. I was just doing what any good neighbor would."

"You may not need any rewards, but there are a lot of farmers out there that feel the need to reward you." He counters. "I'll try to keep it small-ish, but expect some sort of celebration. Everyone loves a good party after all."

"Yay." My dead-pan cheer draws a laugh from the man.

"Well, I should be getting back." He smoothes down his outfit. I cast cleanse on him earlier, but there are still a few wrinkles from the water fight. "If you do decide on a reward, just let me know and I'll make it happen."

"Actually." I speak up before he can leave. "The scout you sent over this morning, Nicholas, he mentioned that the guard has special equipment that beastkin use to exercise. The girls finally talked me into dropping the shapeshift, but I'm not going to be comfortable until I can bulk up a little bit."

"I'll have a set delivered as soon as possible." The baron says with a smile. "I have to admit that you're not like most shapeshifters though. Every other one that I've met seems to take it to extremes, often changing how they look several times a day. Sometimes even mid-conversation."

"Oh, I just wanted to fit in, you know." I say with a sad smile. "My homeland was great in a lot of ways, but not everyone was the most tolerant of even minor differences."

"Sadly that tends to be true for much of the world." His expression matches mine. "But, thankfully the Royal family does their best to stamp that attitude out wherever it forms in Larendath. They've even been known to block the goods from countries that treat their people poorly."

"Economic sanctions against assholery, I like it." Erick starts laughing at my crude words.

"It helps that without our ports, goods need to travel a much longer and more dangerous route." He nods. "But, without the Laren's dedication to an egalitarian society, it wouldn't be possible."

"They sound like truly great leaders." I wish everyone in power was willing to what's best, even if it is difficult.

"They are, which I'm sure that you'll learn firsthand when you reach the Capital." He smiles. "I just know that Queen Vivian will want to meet you personally."

"Yay." He cracks up laughing again at the expression on my face.

The man heads over to his horse after that, pausing only long enough to say something to Dulcette and give Rebecca a quick hug.

"I'm going to need more dresses." Amelia is more than making up for my lack of enthusiasm. "You too, Apricot. And, Sorrel, you'll need a nice suit. How long until you can get that silk stuff of yours into production?"

"Melanie has the basics down." I smile at the eagerness in her eyes. "We just need to test pigments and fine-tune the process a little. Speaking of pigments, I need to restock. Not just on those either; I'm starting to run low on cotton and, if I'm going to be bulking up, I'll need a lot of nutritious foods."

"Oh, if only you knew a skilled nature mage who could grow it all for you." Apricot teases.

"Yes, well." I smile at her. "That hypothetical nature mage needs a beautiful pixie to help him adjust that light spell to see really small things first. Plants are great for most things, but I'm going to need some extra protein if I want to put on muscle fast."

"Protein?" Amelia tilts her head to one side in confusion.

"Food has three basic parts. Protein, fats, and carbohydrates" I explain. "Protein is basically just meat, fats are self-explanatory, and carbs are sweet stuff like fruit and bread. Fortunately, there's a tiny algae that is almost two-thirds protein."

"One of those not-plants, like the mana stone?" She raises an eyebrow.

"Sorta." I shrug. "We call it an algae because it uses chlorophyll -that's the green part in plants and algae- but, it's actually a bacteria. I could bore you to death with the details, but I can see you're already halfway there."

"Her eyes were starting to glaze over." Apricot laughs. "Well, show me what you're trying to do. Chances are you won't even need my help though."

"Hey, I will always need you." I tilt her head up until we lock eyes. "If it wasn't for you, I'd be off fucking around in the forest right now. Probably doing my best to wipe out wolves from this part of the world."

"He's right." Amelia backs me up. "The way you told it, he didn't even think about clothes until you reminded him."

"I would have remembered eventually... probably." I smirk. "I love you Apricot, not your magic, not your body, not even that thing you do with your tongue. Though, those are all great, really, really, great. But, I. Love. You."

"Oh, shut up and do your magic, you stupid, sentimental, lunker." She blushes and tries to pull away, but I hold her in place long enough to brush my lips across hers.

"Whatever you say." I materialize a chair and pull her onto my lap before casting the telescope spell. "You see how the spell is focusing the light coming from a large area into a smaller one? I need the opposite of that." I start messing around, and soon have something similar to a magnifying glass.

"I see what you're going for now." With her helping, I'm able to rapidly increase the zoom level until the image becomes too dark to see.

"We're only around thirty or forty times zoom; I'm going to need at least twice that to pick out the spirulina. We need more light." I comment and start to bend more onto the sample, a cloverleaf plucked from the ground.

"I can help with that." Dulcette says from over my shoulder making me jump. "Sorry, sorry." She backs off a couple of steps.

"That's alright." I smile and bring out a chair for her and put it next to ours. "You know some light spells."

"Just the one." She nods. "I was afraid of the dark as a child, so Mom taught me how to summon a sphere of light." She demonstrates the spell and, compared to bending existing light, it's a piece of cake to master.

"That is perfect, thank you." I use the new spell to summon a bright backlight for the cloverleaf. "See, now that there's a backlight, you can just make out individual cells." I drill the focus in tighter. "Nnh... just a bit more and we should be able to see individual stoma... Yes, there's one."

They all jump a little as a weird green mouth opens up.

"Stomata are how plants breath." I chuckle at their reaction. "They take in the stale air that animals breathe out, and then turn that and sunlight into food before breathing out fresh air."

"Uh..." Dulcette hesitates.

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"What about Plantkin? We're a little weird." With a laugh, I ask and answer the question that is clearly on all of their minds, and then replace the cloverleaf with one of my tendrils. "I have plant cells, including stomata but, aside from the extremities, my cells all mimic an animal’s. I'm pretty much just a human made out of plants."

"That is weird." Apricot giggles.

"Says the woman made from pure magic." I retort, earning a laugh from Dulcette and Amelia. "Now, this spell is more than good enough to find what I'm looking for, but do you want to see something cool?"

I grow one of the nails on my left hand into a sharp thorn and prick my right forefinger with it.

"It's green!" Apricot practically shouts.

"Hahaha, yes it is." I smear it out on a sheet of paper and focus on the 'red' blood cells. "Wish I had some proper glass slides, but this'll do. See, the molecules that plants and animals -most animals- use to transport oxygen are almost identical." I create models of hemoglobin and chlorophyll.

"They look the same to me." The pixie turns them over in her hands looking for the difference.

"All except that atom in the middle." I point them out. "Chlorophyll uses magnesium, whereas hemoglobin uses iron. My 'red' blood cells look and behave like a human's, but for that one little change."

"You are so fucking weird." She breaks into full-on laughter. "But, what was that bit about most animals?"

"Oh, there are some creatures with blue blood that uses copper to transport oxygen, but it's a completely different design." A hemocyanin model joins the other two. "I think there are some with light green or violet blood too, but I'm not sure how those work."

I get to my feet then, still holding onto the pixie, and start walking over to the river.

"Are you even going to be able to find what you're looking for?" Amelia asks from my side while teasing Apricot by tickling her feet.

"Oh, yeah, this stuff is everywhere in water." I scoop up a cupful of particularly green looking river water. "I'd be very surprised if I don't find it in here."

Draining away the excess water with magic, I then focus the magnification spell on it. There's a lot of stuff in there, but the spirulina are easy to spot.

"See those little spring shapes?" I say after locking onto some. "That's spirulina." I kill off everything else and send growth magic into the cyanobacteria.

"Ugh." Apricot wrinkles her nose. "It smells like old fish."

"I know." My nose crinkles a moment later. "And, it tastes about as good as it smells. That's why you typically dry it out and add the powder into other food. I'm just going to make some everything smoothies though, so this won't even be noticeable."

"Smoothies?" Dulcette tilts her head to one side.

"Oh, they're these amazing blended fruit drinks he makes." Amelia answers.

"Normally, yes." I counter after sticking the stinky, green cup into storage. "The one I'm planning to make will have a bit of everything, hence the name, and will be more for nutrition than flavor. I figure they'll be good to keep around if I need to use a lot of healing sap too."

"You'll make some good ones for us though, right?" Apricot looks up at me with puppy dog eyes.

"Yes, I'll make you something tasty." I give her a quick kiss and walk us back over to where we were sitting.

Once there, I start up the nearly forgotten leavener production, but Amelia stops me with a "Let me handle this, you grow what you need to." She was paying attention while I was working earlier and is now able to handle the whole operation on her own.

"Thanks, Babe." I pull her in for a kiss, squishing Apricot between us.

Now that I don't have to worry about that, I pull out a tea plant and erect a tarp over it.

"What are you doing?" Apricot asks when she feels me focus all my magic on the plant. "And, when are you going to let go of me?"

"When you ask me to, and not a moment sooner." I squeeze her tight. "And, I'm trying to make matcha -powdered green tea- but, it needs to be shade-grown for a few weeks before harvest. I'm trying to get a feel for that so I can replicate the effect with magic."

I try a few different things on different branches until I get some feedback that just feels right. I then proceed to give the plant a few weeks' worth of shade growth and harvest just the leaves from the upper branches.

Those leaves have their veins and stems removed before being dried out and magically ground into a fine powder. Testing a small pinch on my tongue brings a smile to my face, and I quickly produce a pot of usucha. Usucha, or thin tea, is lighter and slightly more bitter than thick tea, koicha, but I like whisking up the froth.

"Mmm, that's good." I can't help but let out a pleased moan after my first sip. "This is usually served with a delicate sweet that is meant to be eaten beforehand, but I've got nearly as large of a sweet-tooth as my girls, so I just drizzle in some honey."

"Sweets?" The pixie perks up as expected.

"Yeah, I haven't cooked many eastern dishes for you yet. I'll have to break out some of those recipes."

"This..." Dulcette closes her eyes to savor the taste. "is really good tea."

"Yes, it is." Amelia agrees, and even Apricot seems appreciative.

"I know, right." I just breathe in the scent for a moment. "I didn't drink it often because of the cost, but sometimes it's the small luxuries that really hit home. And, before you ask, because I know you will." She sticks her tongue out at me. "Tea was cheaper back home, so something like this would be worth several gold, even a crown or more per kilogram compared to the prices I saw in the market. But, that kilo will get you a good five-hundred cups. Less if you make it thick, but that's usually only for tea ceremonies."

"Your people had ceremonies for tea?" Dulcette asks in an amused tone.

"A country to the east of mine, actually." I answer. "If I remember correctly it was part of formal dinners, just a ritual they follow to make an everyday activity special." I was always more of a 'hot anime girls' type of weeb than a Japanophile, so I don't really know about the whole concept of "Wabi" and "Sabi" or whatever. Not well enough to explain it, at least.

"Well, I can certainly see wanting to make a special occasion out of tea this good." She goes back in for another sip.

"My thoughts exactly." I agree. "And, even better, the powder can be used in a lot of recipes to give them that green tea taste. Or if you just want to turn it green for whatever reason." I add with a laugh.

We finish our tea and I set out a tray of cookies at Apricot's prompting before slipping back into grow mode. I alternate between regular growth, shade growth, and harvesting on the tea bush until I have several kilos worth of matcha. One of which I boxed up and gifted to Dulcette.

I'm not a nutritionist, so I'm sure there's some ideal mix of foods I'm missing, but I figure mixing a bunch of different so-called superfoods should be good enough. And, that's what I grow; from dark green veggies, and sprouts, to seeds, nuts, and legumes, to berries of all kinds. Then were the odd choices for a smoothie, stuff like pumpkin, sweet potatoes, beetroots, and a bunch of different mushrooms.

The girls gave me some strange looks, Apricot especially when I added ground cocoa, but the final product didn't turn out that bad. I ended up drying out and powdering the more savory elements. And, once they were mixed into the blended fruits and nuts you could hardly taste it.

"Hmm? I've had worse smoothies." I comment after taking a sip. "It won't win any prizes, and could stand to be a bit sweeter, but I can drink it. That's good enough for me."

"I'll stick with this one, thank you." Apricot looks sideways at the cup in my hand.

"I'm going to become spoiled if I hang around you for much longer." Dulcette says with a laugh right before her daughter comes running up. "Do you want some sweetie?" The little girl's eyes go wide at her first sip and I find myself having to make more for her, Willow, Myra, and their parents.

"This is good." William comments. "But, I'm not sure how you'd make one without magic."

"I guess blenders don't exist here." I draw a quick sketch of a generic blender. "I guess you'd need rubber for the gaskets to make it work. But, yeah, it's just fast-spinning blades in a pitcher. The ones I'm used to were enchanted, but I've seen purely mechanical models. I'll add it to the list of things to reinvent."

I'm about to start sketching up some ideas when a wagon and three riders draw my attention to the road. At first, I thought it was whoever Erick sent over with the strength training equipment, but the wagon was heading towards the city.

"Is that Ferne?" She's being escorted by the three female guards that were with the baron's son. "Ferne! Wait up a second." I hop up and rush over to the road, a squealing pixie still in my arms.

"Sorrel? Is that you?" She looks at me askance.

"Oh, yeah." I shift back for just a moment to how I looked when we met. "Sorry, shapeshifter; this is what I actualy look like. I was new to the area and wasn't sure how well I'd be accepted. Hi... Bobbi, Jo, and Ashley, right?" The guardswoman that kept Roddy up that night and the two sisters, all smile and nod.

"Hello Sorrel, Apricot, Amelia... Miss Dulcette." Ashley bows to her from the saddle. "I see you've settled in already."

"Yeah, it's been a crazy week." I smile before turning serious. "But, are you doing alright, Ferne?"

"I'm still not sure what to think of all that happened." She sighs.

"I'm sorry." I frown slightly. "But, the reason I stopped you was to tell you that Rozelle is running the guild now."

"That's a bright spot at least." She perks up a little. "I was afraid that Olivar would have taken the office for himself."

"Oh, he tried." My frown shifts into a subtle smile. "But, she found an ally that helped her win everyone over. Now, I'm sure you and the guardswomen want nothing but a long, hot, bath, and a good night's sleep. So, I'll let you go, but don't be a stranger, okay."

"Thanks, Sorrel." She sends me a smile; it's a tired smile, but still a smile. "I'll see you later."

"Bye." I watch as she and the guards get moving again before heading back to my seat.

"An ally, eh?" Amelia says with a smirk.

"Heheheh." I chuckle softly. "I'm sure she'll learn who it was soon enough. I'm just glad that she's doing alright. I feel bad for the guards though, they looked a bit worn down."

"Bet they weren't expecting to make the return trip so soon." Amelia nods. "I wonder if we should let Roddy know that Ashley is in town."

"She won't have to leave again, at least not right away." Dulcette offers.

"We'll have to stop by the warehouse tomorrow then." Amelia gets the same look on her face that my sister used to have when she was up to mischief. "I'm sure that Mom and Dad will love to hear about her." And, there it is.

"We can finally finish our shopping trip too." I nod along excited. "No more improvising meals with two camp pots and a skillet."

"I'm almost afraid to see what you can do with a proper kitchen." She nods and Apricot snickers a bit.

***