The two of them ate breakfast sitting at the shop counter. There wasn't anywhere to sit upstairs so they had brought their food down to the shop. It was a simple meal of oatmeal porridge sprinkled with a few in-season berries. As they ate in silence Elise noticed just how ravenously hungry she was. She had forgotten to eat anything the day before she realised. Too wrapped up in what she was doing to pay any attention to herself. It had been alright to neglect such things when she was alone. Was it really alright for her to take in an apprentice? She could barely even look after herself. The fresh memories of this morning lept back into the forefront of her mind. Her grip on her spoon tightened. She couldn't help but be angry at herself for that whole incident. The sight of a terrified Willow telling her she was scared of being kicked out again wouldn't leave Elise.

When the food was finished Elise set about clearing one of the workbenches of all the objects that had accumulated on it.

"This'll be your work station," Elise announced as she laid out a bunch of spare tools on the newly cleared workbench.

Most of the tools were woodworking tools made to sand down, shape and engrave the wood. There was an entire assortment of weirdly shaped knives meant to carve the sticks and branches into pleasing wand-like shapes. Elise talked Willow through every one of them giving her a little demonstration for each as she went. She reached the varnish and paintbrushes.

"Now I should have given you wood paints as well but I haven't got any. I just varnish my work and don't generally give them any decoration. Personally, I appreciate things that are utilitarian as do many of the customers you might find in the lows. But I don't expect you to abide by my aesthetic tastes. So I'll need to get you paints. Oh, now that I think about I'll need to get you an apron. Wait I forgot to ask; are you a Reader? It'd make things easier if you are,"

Willow shook her head. Her eyes never leaving the desk and the tools laid out across it as she did so.

"No worries, I'll have to pick a testing box up as well then. Now, for the time being, I want you to get a stick, remove its bark, try to make it nice to hold (remove any bits that make gripping it awkward), do anything you want to make it look nicer and then put a finish on it. Everything you need is on this desk already and there are a bunch of sticks in the box under the table. If you make one that's good I'll call it a win,"

Willow didn't look up from the table.

"What-what if I fail. What if I can't"

"Dead gods Willow is there anything in that head of yours but worries about failure? If you screw it up get another stick. You can try this for years if you want. But somehow I doubt it'll take you years to figure out how to strip the bark from a branch, sand down the knobbly bits and dip it in varnish."

Elise's disfigured hands took hold of Willow by the shoulders and gently turned her around so she could look her in the eyes.

"Willow stop worrying. If you think you are one minor mistake or misstep away from severe consequences you are mistaken. You don't need to be walking on eggshells here. Do you know why I make wands? It's not because of a hunger for coin, I can tell you that. I do it because I enjoy it. My shop is my playground, Willow. There are places that are high pressure with instant consequences for screw-ups. But those places are not here. I do not seek perfection in my work to please my customers I do it to please me. My customers can go screw themselves,"

Elise reached down into the box below the table and pulled out a stick. It wasn't a particularly good stick for wand making. It was too thin and pointy near the top which meant less material to burn channels into. But it would do. She held it out for Willow to take it.

"I do not ask for perfection from you. I ask that you have fun with it. I ask that you make something you enjoy making. It was impulsive of me to invite you here I know. But you reminded me of myself and I thought I could share the enjoyment I found in focus crafting with you. I thought it might help you. Stop worrying Willow because none of this is about success or failure. It never was. And I tell you what; you make something that looks like a wand, I'll show you how to burn channels into that sucker! Which is where the real fun begins. But if you don't then don't worry,"

Willow plucked the stick from Elise with newfound eagerness. She stared at it, turning it over in her hands as she did so before gripping it tightly in her hands.

"I'm sorry," she whispered "I didn't mean...I've always been trying not to fail. I guess I was failing by trying not to fail,"

She carefully placed the stick in the centre of her new workspace.

"I can do anything I want with this right?"

"Make whatever you want. Play around, familiarise yourself with the tools, experiment. Go nuts!"

With a rare and subtle smile, Willow started working on the stick. Elise watched her long enough to see that she was using the tools the way she had shown her. She would rather not have Willow split her tumb open. It was clear that wouldn't be an issue. Her actions became more and more confident as she worked. She adapted fast, Elise could see. Far faster than the young girl herself probably realised.

It was a shame such a person had such twisted beliefs about themselves. But Elise knew where her complex about being a failure came from. She had had to deal with much the same treatment in her own life. Not outright hated, disdain or disgust just the clear belief that you could never amount to anything embed in the words and actions of almost everyone around you. All they saw was the short line and that was it. Limited magic meant no future. The worst was when it was from people who cared about her talking in concerned voices about how she could survive if anything happened to them. When that happened especially when she was young it got under her skin and into her head. When everyone around you seemed to be genuinely convinced of something it rarely took a long time for it to convince you.

Elise turned away from watching Willow fumble and then adapt. She had promised the girl a focus ring, hadn't she? Even if it was a tad overblown and a bit too complicated it was almost done. No point in not finishing it. She picked it up to continue her work only to be immediately interrupted by a loud obnoxious knocking on the door. Elise took a deep irritated breath before marching over and flinging the door open.

A twelve-year-old boy stood there wearing an apron over his clothes, smelling of wood shavings with a book clutching in his grasp.

"You're lucky I'm up I wouldn't normally even be awake at this hour. So what it is it?"

In response, the young lad produced an excited string of words and noises that could loosely be defined as speech.

"Ohoh my master sent me to give you a book but only if you could guess his name he didn't say why but he said you'd forgotten his name and to make sure you remember it maybe that was why anyway I ran all the way down here from the plaza why is your shop in the lows you can afford a better shop can't you also wow those are some scars what happened do people normally mention them or are they all polite about them how'd you get them oh oh did you hear the news?"

"You do know you can breath when talking right? Take a breath, start again only slower with a pause or two in between sentences,"

"Okay, okay, okay, my master sent me to give you a rule book for some reason but specifically told me only to give it to you if you guess his name correctly?"

Elise looked the boy up and down, his line was on the shorter side of medium length. From his attire and the objects poking out of the pockets of his apron, it was pretty clear this kid was an apprentice to some focus crafter.

"Devlin?" Elise guessed.

"Declan" Willow's meek voice quietly corrected.

With a mischievous grin, the boy at the door pushed the book of guild rules into Elise's hands.

"Does Declan often have his apprentices up and about this early in the morning?"

"Oh no no no, but I was there in his workshop telling him the news and he told me to run some errands for him. He told me to run a lot of errands. Oh, wait yes have you heard the news!"

Elise sighed a dispirited sigh.

"No I haven't but I suspect I'm about to,"

The boy practically lit up. The prospect of sharing his gossip made him visibly giddy.

"The Obsidian Witch has come out hiding! With the festival coming up to celebrate her victory I might get to see her! I can't wait to see what she looks like! What is the person who killed the Undying Empress like!"

Elise's face contorted into one of incredulous disbelief.

"I'm sorry, could you repeat that?"