After laughing at the hungry elf, I quickly throw together a plate for her. All while trying to ignore Apricot and Amelia teasing me with their stocking-clad feet, just out of Lauren's sight. It looks like they want to get a little more payback for all the teasing I did to them yesterday.

"I know I wasn't exactly on board with all this exercise when you first started." Amelia admits and traces a finger over my arm when I sit down next to her. "But, I think I'm starting to come around."

"Oh, you should have seen him when he shifted for Elise. Mnh." Apricot bites her lip and lets out the sexiest little moan.

I close to close my eyes and take a deep breath just to keep myself from taking the two of them right in front of Lauren. Luckily she's too caught up with the food to take notice.

"Mhm. I-I think that form might be a little too muscular now." I struggle to keep my cool when Amelia moves her hand down my arm and onto my thigh. "I may have overdone things just a bit after what happened this morning."

I forgot all about only pushing myself as hard as I would during a big healing, but it definitely paid off. I'm now much closer to feeling comfortable in my own body again. I'm not sure if it's the smoothies, my already increased mass giving me more of a buffer, or if the healing just takes more out of me than exercise does. Maybe it was just a mix of all three. But, I was able to push myself well past my limits, before the run, and yet I feel fine now.

"Did something happen?" Lauren mumbles around a mouthful of syrup coated goodness.

"Nng." Amelia nods with a grunt. "You know the little girl that I told you about? Well, the slime of an alchemist responsible for what happened escaped from the guard and tried to break into the lab late last night."

"No!" Lauren stops chewing as a shocked look fills her face.

"Don't worry, Apricot spotted him as soon as he stepped foot in the yard. Sorrel, then wrapped him up tight for the guards to pick up." Amelia wraps 'me' up tight where I'm straining against the fabric of my trousers.

I let out a cough to cover up the groan that would otherwise have escaped from my throat. "It was nothing, I'm just glad that no one was hurt this time." Amelia eases up after that, but I have a sinking feeling that I'm in for an entire day of this kind of treatment.

"Mhm, thank the gods for that." Lauren nods before returning to her food.

"So..." I draw out the word and change the subject. "I still need to find a seamstress to work with and a spot in the city for the lab. Preferably near a guard station or at least on one of their routes." I plan to load it up with as much security as I can, but still, better safe than sorry.

"Oh, we should swing by the warehouse." Amelia says. "I'm sure Daddy will know who to talk to about getting the property. They'll be happy to see us again too."

"And, I'd be happy to show you around the clothing district." Lauren offers. "If you make me a copy of anything good that I see." She adds with a sly smile.

"Same old Ren-Ren." Amelia chuckles before getting up from the table. "But, before we go anywhere, Apricot and I need to get dressed. Come on, Sweetie." She pulls the pixie along with her on the way to the stairs.

"Ooh, let me come too." Lauren shovels in the last few bites on her plate before washing them down with some juice. "I didn't get the chance to dig through your closet yesterday."

"We'll be here all day if you do that." Amelia teases her friend. "But, yeah, you can keep us company while we get dressed. If Apricot promises to be good, that is." She swats the lecherous pixie on the rump.

"What?" Apricot puts on her most innocent face. "It's not like I was going to slip out of this robe and parade around in front of your friend completely nude. I am wearing stockings after all." She slips out of the robe before Amelia can stop her, revealing that that's all she's wearing underneath.

"Hahaha." Lauren busts up laughing when Amelia starts chasing the near-naked pixie around the kitchen. "Don't worry, you and Lianna are the only ones of us into girls. Well, maybe Delilah too, but you know her, she's always kept her lovers to herself. I'm more interested in those leggings than the body wearing them."

"Ugh, whatever." Amelia gives up the chase with a groan. "Just get upstairs, you little pest."

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I have a feeling they're going to be a while, so I decide to make that licorice I was teasing Apricot about last night. The recipe is pretty simple, with the most difficult part being the anise oil/licorice root extract. Fortunately, I have plenty of recent experience with steam distillation, so the anise oil is no problem.

I want to make a batch from licorice root too, but that needs to soak in alcohol for a few weeks to make a proper extract. I also don't want to annoy Apricot's sensitive nose while making this snack, so I pop outside where I spot the alchemists and Ed back to pouring over the table full of extracted elements.

"Hey, Melanie, do we have any licorice extract?" I ask when I remember that I bought out an entire alchemist shop. "I want to make some candy."

"Nnh, sorry." She shakes her head with a wince. "I sold it off along the rest of the stuff we weren't using."

"No biggie." I reassure her. "I'll just use anise instead. But, Ed, do you mind if I use some of this quartz? And could I borrow a little iron?" I already made a few rubber gaskets with mason jars in mind, I figure I might as well make one now so the smell doesn't leak out and bug my sweetie.

"A small price to pay for what you've shown us today." He hands over an ingot of iron.

"Thanks, man." I fashion the quartz into a couple of large jars, one with a matching quartz lid and one with ridges for a screw-top to grab onto. It takes me a moment to get the hang of working iron, but it soon gets drawn out into the standard two-part mason jar lid. And, a thick wire for the hinge type lid.

"Why two parts like that?" Ed asks, while curiously examining the mason jar lid.

"A mixture of cost savings and food safety." I explain. "After canning the food, you remove the outer ring so you can see right away if the seal fails."

"And it's a lot easier and therefore cheaper to make a simple disc if one gets damaged." The earth mage nods along. "This sure beats using tin and wax to jar foods, but you should probably coat those in something like tin to keep them from rusting."

"Oh, yeah." A rueful smile slips onto my face. "I'm so used to everything in the kitchen being made from stainless steel, and even then, the ones I used before had some sort of coating on the inside."

"Stainless steel?" Ed cocks an eyebrow.

"Any alloy that doesn't rust, or at least not easily." Pointing to one of the bowls on the table, I add. "I'm pretty sure that chromium is the key ingredient for it."

"Really?" His eyes light up and he starts playing around with the powder in the bowl.

I leave him to it and get back to my candy making. Aside from the actual licorice root/anise oil, all you need is flour, sugar, molasses, condensed milk, and a little butter to grease the pan. But, I have seen recipes that call for gelatin, and of course, you want to use something less bitter than molasses when making red licorice.

Willow and Myra must have sensed that I was making something sweet because they drifted over before I even started mixing everything together.

"Uncle Sorrel, what are you doing?" Willow asks, all sweetness and light, but her eyes are locked onto the sugar.

"Oh, just something to tease Apricot with." I let a wicked smile play on my lips. "She doesn't like the smell of anise, and I want a snack that she won't just steal from me." That sets their mom and Melanie laughing, but the girls seem to have gotten stuck on the word snack.

Normally, I'd need a candy thermometer to make this. But, being able to control the temperature directly with magic makes using one unnecessary. It also speeds things up a lot; no need to wait for it to cool after mixing, not when you can pull the heat out with a spell.

"It looks like you're going to have it stolen from you anyways." Sophie says with a smile as the girls close in before I can even cut the pieces out.

"Oh, that's alright, I can always make more." I smile back at her and cut the licorice into rectangular chews. Each girl gets one, and the rest goes into the hinge-top jar that I hand to their mother. "Here, it should keep well in this."

"Oh, I couldn't." She tries to hand the jar back.

"Don't be silly." I just smile and refuse to take it. "I need someone to test out the jar for me anyways. You'd be doing me a favor."

"You know." Melanie interjects. "You can never have too many testers, and that is what you hired me for after all."

"Hahahah. Fine, I can take a hint." I make another jar for her and get started on a second batch.

Sophie gives up trying to return the jar and starts handing out candies to the other adults and Cat instead. Apricot, Amelia, and Lauren exit the house then and the pixie's eyes light up when she sees we're eating something, only for her whole face to fall a second later when she smells what it is.

"Don't worry, Sweetie." I bite back a laugh. "I'll make some for you too; I just need to pick up some fruit extracts when we go into town. That and Ill look into speeding up the process of making my own with magic. And, speaking of extracts." I fill the mason jar with dried licorice roots before covering them with leftover moonshine from last night.

"You'd better." She grumbles, and then again, only louder when Amelia takes a piece from the jar I just filled for Melanie. "Oh, that tastes so good too."

"You want to try a nibble?" Amelia holds the half-chewed candy up to her lover's lips.

"Nnh. Sorry, it's just too strong." She pulls away and scrunches up her nose. "There's just something about anise. I don't think I've ever met a pixie, or any other Fae, for that matter, that could stand it. The same goes for licorice root, it's just too similar."

"That's a shame." I pull her into a hug and cast cleanse on the air all around us. "Is the jar sealed tightly enough for you? I can bury it underground until it's ready so it doesn't bother you."

"No need to go that far." She chuckles and stretches up to give me a quick kiss. "Just promise to make me a big batch of the fruit-flavored stuff."

"Yes, Ma'am." I lick the taste of her off my lips. "You three ready to head into town?"

"Yeah, but we have to stop by the market for those extracts on the way to the warehouse." Everyone with a piece of candy laughs at the envious look Apricot sends them.

"I think we can manage that." I sense Amelia cast her version of cleanse on her mouth before pulling the pixie in for a kiss of her own.

***