Tabitha snuck out of Hanne’s first thing in the morning. She didn’t want to disrupt Hanne who was still sleeping in, but her main priority was to not wake Runa. Tabitha needed some privacy if she wanted to work on a gift for her.

Now, when it came to what sort of gift would be perfect for Runa, Tabitha first thought of making her a collar.

But there were a few things wrong with that.

One, Runa might have had dog-like features, but she wasn’t an actual dog, obviously. Giving her a collar and assuming she would like it just because she had canine features felt like it would potentially be incredibly offensive.

Then there was the idea of giving her a normal necklace or maybe a ring of some sort. But… those felt too stereotypically feminine. Not every woman liked jewelry just because she was a woman. Tabitha was a prime example of that.

But when it came to gifting something to another woman, Tabitha struggled to really think of what to make. The only person she ever got presents for before was her grandpa. And when it came to receiving presents, she only had experience with getting presents from her grandpa, too. Those presents were usually things like moonshine, guns that the federal government would absolutely not approve of if they were aware of their existence, and fireworks that weren’t just bought out of state but bought out of country.

Most people who wanted good fireworks simply figured that driving over the state line to a more fun state would do the trick. They had no idea what sort of explosive fun they could get up to if they went out of the country completely.

Unfortunately, gifting moonshine, illegal guns, and potentially deadly fireworks were all out of the question. And while they were all incredibly fun things, none of them were really meaningful.

That was when Tabitha came up with the idea of making an insignia for them—a badge with a symbol on it that represented their partnership. That sounded like a good idea. And to properly represent them, Tabitha could use a hammer to represent herself and a sickle to represent Runa! A hammer and sickle insignia!

Then she remembered what that symbolized back on Earth and couldn’t bring herself to do it out of her sheer desire to stay away from anything and everything political.

She was a crafter, not a politician, and she planned on staying that way.

That aside, she still liked the idea of making them matching badges of sorts. And a hammer was absolutely representative of herself. When it came to something that represented Runa and that wasn’t a sickle, she came up with a pickaxe.

But that represented miners rather than miners and crafters. Of course, it was a new world and not Earth, so it didn’t have to mean that, but if Tabitha could shake off Earthly meanings of symbols then she would have stuck with a hammer and sickle.

Maybe I’m overthinkin’ this, Tabitha thought to herself inside of Joseph’s workspace while he sat outside smoking his morning pipe. She took a couple puffs of it herself just to see what his blend tasted like. It turned out to be made with the Reliever tag to help his muscles. Even something like a tobacco blend for a pipe could have tags on it in this world. Though, it wasn’t technically tobacco. It was just similar to it as far as she could tell.

Back to the point, she already made a couple of badges for them out of sheet iron that Joseph had, adding more onto her tab of what she had to get more of for him. All she needed to figure out was what to mark them with.

Then as soon as she figured out what she wanted to do, she lit up and got back to work.

“That… took way longer than I thought it would,” Tabitha said, looking over the result of her work.

“Looks good to me,” Joseph said now that he was back inside with his own things to work on. “Amateur quality, but I’m sure that girl will be happy with it.”

“Ya think so?”

“You could probably give her a blade of grass and she’ll appreciate it.”

“Oi, that’s just insultin’.”

Joseph grumbled and waved a hand at Tabitha before going back over to his own project.

Unfortunately for Tabitha, even though Joseph thought it looked fine, she couldn’t help but to feel that it was… unfinished. It needed something more still. Something to really make it stand out.

“When are you going to do that quest?” Joseph asked. “You’re feeling better now, aren’t you?”

“Don’t worry, I’ll get it done,” Tabitha replied. “I’ll do it… tonight. That’s it! I need some of that glowin’ egg juice!”

“Glowing egg juice… that’s one way of putting it.”

“Those buggers are only easy to find at night, right?”

“Right.”

“Then I’ll have to put this on hold until I can go and get some of that. Ya mind if I keep these WIPs in here?”

“WIPs?”

“Works-in-progress.”

“Huh. WIP. I like that. And I don’t care as long as they’re not in the way.”

“Thanks, old man.”

Joseph grumbled some more and made sure to keep his back turned to her. Even so, Tabitha still saw a hint of a smile.

She wasn’t going to tease him about that, though. What she was going to do was get started on her next project since the gift for Runa couldn’t be completed until later.

And that was working on a cauldron.

Now, as far as Tabitha was aware, even something like a small pot could be used for alchemy, but that just didn’t seem right. Alchemy brewing needed to be done in a cauldron! It just wasn’t the same otherwise!

But as soon as she told Joseph that her next project was a large cauldron…

“You can’t,” Joseph said. “At least, not here and not with metal.”

“How come?” Tabitha asked.

“The kind of cauldron you’re talking about, you’ll need to go into the city for the kind of tools you’ll need for that. That’s cast iron in a mold. Now, you could make a riveted pot that’s in the general shape of a cauldron, but I feel like you wouldn’t consider that the same.”

“Yeah… it wouldn’t really be the same. So, the problem is that it needs done in a mold with cast iron. I wouldn’t just be able to take a sheet of iron and hammer it into shape.”

“You might be able to, but that would be a long, hard process likely to result in a pretty deformed looking cauldron.”

“Hmm. The reason for usin’ a mold is so that ya don’t have to really shape it yourself or anythin’, right?”

“More or less.”

“And hammerin’ a sheet into shape wouldn’t work that well, either.”

“Not unless you want to spend far too much time on it.”

“Then tell me somethin’ real quick. Has anybody ever tried makin’ an alloy out of iron and slime before?”

Joseph stopped what he was doing and looked into Tabitha’s eyes with his own now-inspired eyes. “They have. That might work if you’ve got the slime.”

Tabitha crossed her arms over her chest and nodded with a smile. “I was plannin’ on usin’ it for somethin’ else, but I could always go huntin’ for another slime sometime. For now, I want me a cauldron.”

“Then let’s make you a cauldron.”