"Man, I need to clean up this yard." Is the first thing I say when we get home. "Please remind me to tidy up a bit after talking to Melanie."

Previously, I just set the exercise equipment in the middle of the yard before enclosing it with a hedge that I then cut wide paths through. The climbing wall is cool and all, but I don't really need it and it does kinda stand out.

"Don't forget that you promised me a playground of my own." Apricot says while waving to the neighbor girls playing on the swing set.

"How do you feel about water slides?" I offer, walking into the shop? "I need to run a pipe upstream for the turbine anyways, no reason I can't run a second."

"You found the machinist?" Melanie looks up from the rubber mixer. Her poor apprentice immediately stops pedaling and starts staring at me with pleading in her eyes.

"One self-contained waterwheel ready to hook up to an upgraded mixer." I materialize the new equipment. "It cost me a fair bit of coin, but hey. I got a clock I don't need out of it too." I set the timepiece on a shelf; I figure the alchemist can use a better timer than her hourglasses. "And, don't be surprised if a grumpy old clockmaker named Sinclair stops by to have a look at the equipment."

"How long will it take you to set everything up?" While Melanie is examining the turbine, her apprentice Cat is staring wide-eyed at the clock.

"Don't tell Amelia I said this." I say to the young girl in a conspiratorial whisper. "But, it's just money. I'm sure that if you hang around long enough that you'll earn more than enough to buy your own over-priced timepiece."

She sends her master an 'is he for real?' kind of look, but only receives an eye roll in response.

"Quit teasing my apprentice and get this installed already." Melanie demands.

"Hold on, I want to copy it first." I dump a bunch of wood on the floor, most of which starts burrowing into the ground to form the pipe going upstream. A bit of it though, separates from the rest and molds itself into a handful of duplicate turbines while I form the needed rubber parts. "Do you want the mixer where it is, or would you prefer a different spot?"

"Mhm." She seems to be struggling with an internal dilemma for a moment before closing her eyes with a sigh. "We should expand and re-organize the lab. We don't need the storefront, but I don't want people walking straight into the lab. Can you move the break area over there and expand the lab in that direction instead."

I just nod in response, knowing that having a copy of her master's lab meant a lot to her. And, that this decision could not have come easily for her.

"Wait. Are you even going to be able to move the stone that Ed put in?" Now that she's made the decision, it's clear that she just wants it done.

"It may take me a moment, but I got a good look when he was moving stone around before." I've been meaning to practice my earth spells anyways.

While Melanie is grumbling to Cat about my blasé attitude towards magic, I finish assembling the turbines. Those taken care of and the pipe sent as far as I can get it from here, I focus on the stone.

Thinking about the material coating the lab as clay rather than stone is all it takes for me to start moving it around. Apricot helps guide my casting, but earth magic is so close to nature -at least in my mind- that I find myself wondering why I haven't tried this before now.

"What's this?" I send Melanie a smirk when the bathroom wall comes down revealing white quartz fixtures. "I don't remember asking Ed to upgrade this room too."

"..." She just purses her lips.

Shifting everything from the bathroom and kitchenette into storage, I then move the water and septic lines over and start remodeling the former storefront. The warehouse is also mostly unused thanks to Melanie being able to use storage now. So, it gets folded into a larger, more comfortable break area complete with a nice sitting area that has a couple of large sofas that could double as beds if needed.

"Ah..." I pause in the new doorway of the much larger if only half-done laboratory. "I may have forgotten a minor detail."

"You don't have any stone?" Apricot says with a smug smile, the amusement clear in her voice.

"There's, uh... plenty in the river." I counter lamely. "I just need to go swimming for a bit."

I hear Catherine asking her master "what just happened?" as I stalk out the door.

"Sorrel just happened." Melanie's laughter follows me outside. "Don't worry, I felt the same way when I watched him build this place. You'll get used to it... eventually."

"Not a word!" I glare at the pixie who is jogging merrily beside me.

"What?" She shoots me her most innocent look. "I just want to see you half-naked and dripping wet."

"..." I just shake my head and strip down to my underwear. "I just hope the water isn't too cold." I use my vines to cover up the package her eyes are now glued to.

Smiling at her booming laughter, I wade into the river. The bottom is still covered with soil, but it's a lot thinner than up on the farm. This makes it much easier to separate and collect the underlying stone, even if I have to do so at the bottom of a river. Fortunately, it only took a couple of dives to grab enough to finish up the lab.

"Cheater." Apricot grumps when I walk out of the river. The water rolling off of me, leaving me just as dry as when I started.

I just smile, not at all ashamed about the warming spell I kept in place. That water was very cold after all. My clothes flow back onto my body and I start back to the workshop.

"Uncle Sorrel, Uncle Sorrel." Willow comes running up with her sister in tow as their mother looks on with an amused smile. "Why did you go swimming in your underwear? Did you need a bath?"

"Hahaha. No, I just needed some stone." I pat her on the head. "There was less dirt in the way at the bottom of the river."

"You're weird, Uncle Sorrel." The precocious little thing sticks her tongue out at me and smoothes her hair back down. "Who's that new girl? Why did she turn red and run away right after you came out of the water?"

"Snerk." Apricot chokes on dry air at the news that I was being spied on by a thirteen-year-old.

"That was Catherine." I say while trying to keep a straight face. "She is Melanie's new alchemy apprentice. Would you like to meet her? Maybe you can ask her yourself why her face turned red."

"Maybe some other time." Their mother steps in with a laugh. "Sorrel has a lot of work to do and you girls have chores of your own." While Sophie tows the disappointed girls away, Apricot is doubled over trying to hold in her laughs.

"Remind me to enclose the exercise equipment again when I tidy up the yard." I say while waiting for the pixie to get herself under control. "I remember all too well what it was like to be Cat's age, so there's no need to make it any worse for her."

"Did creepy little teenage Sorrel go around perving on all the pretty ladies." Apricot teases. "Or did you even need to with your magic picture boxes?"

"Internet porn certainly helped." I chuckle. "But, I'm sure I did my fair share of creeping. Teenage hormones are not to be denied."

Heading back into the lab, I ignore Catherine's blush and start coating the expanded walls in stone. The stone I gathered is lighter in color than what Edsel used, so I pull down what he used and spread it along the bottom of the room. The river stone goes on the top with a gradient along the walls blending the colors.

"That looks great." Melanie nods to me once I finish up. "I can see why Ed is jealous of your skill."

"Mhm. My magic training was somewhat unorthodox." I try to explain. "So, I rely heavily on visualization, feelings, and instinct, I suppose. And, it's just that the earth feels so connected to nature to me that moving stone comes as naturally as moving plants. Having someone who lives and breathes magic pointing out my missteps doesn't hurt either."

"As a recipient of her tutoring myself, I can't argue with that." Melanie smiles at the suddenly bashful pixie. "Now, let's get this place set to order..."

The next few minutes were spent shifting the lab equipment around at Melanie's commands. I did most of the work; though she did have her apprentice move some of the less fragile stuff around. But, I think was more for form than anything else.

"Goodness, Cat." Melanie motions the girl to sit down on one of the stools. "You're not getting sick, are you? Your face is more flushed than when you were running the mixer. Sorrel, you're studying healing, can you tell if she's getting ill?"

"..." I set down the heavy stone-covered table I was carrying and step in front of a choking Apricot to block her antics from sight. "She'll be fine, I think she's just a little... overworked. Why don't the both of you take a break while I go finish running the waterline?"

"Yeah." The alchemist nods after a worried look at her apprentice. "Come on, Cat. Let's lie you down on one of those new sofas. I can't be having my first apprentice wearing herself out on me."

I swiftly drag Apricot out of the room. I practically had to shove a tentacle down her throat to keep her from giggling and she has been biting it this whole time. "I think I may need to find a new location for the lab sooner rather than later." I say once we're out of earshot.

"That, and maybe quit lifting heavy objects around the poor thing." The pixie titters while I check over my poor, mangled appendage. "I thought her eyes were going to pop out of their sockets when you bent over to lift that table."

"..." I just sigh and start walking up the road.

The river meanders back and forth, and there is a good section that nears the road about a kilometer from here. That should be more than enough pressure to run the mixer and any other devices I hook up to the turbine. Now that I'm using earth magic to move the soil out of the way instead of just drilling through it with wood, the pipe goes down much more quickly.

"Looks like we're good." I cap the inflow with a stone mesh to keep fish and other river critters out of the pipe. "I don't want to go back though; this whole situation is just too cringey."

"Oh, you poor baby." Apricot pats me on the arm consolingly. "Don't worry, I'll protect you from the mean ol' Kitty Cat."

"..." I shake my head with a sigh and start back to the lab.

Once we get there Melanie is waiting outside with a serious look on her face. "Sorrel... Uh, Cat just told me..." She can't seem to finish her sentence.

"That she saw me in my underwear?" I finish it for her. "Willow told me already, I just didn't want to embarrass her by saying anything. It's alright, I'll just try to keep my distance from her for a while."

"I am so sorry." The alchemist hangs her head. "I can dismiss her if you want."

"No need to go that far." I shake my head. "Just, uh... talk to her about acceptable boundaries, please. Now, come on, let's get the mixer installed so I can tidy up the yard."

Poor Cat stays hiding in the break-room the whole time I'm in the lab.