"Thanks for dinner, Babe." Amelia leans back with a contented sigh. "But, what are you working on now?" She asks when I start making some wax paper.

"Old tradition from back home." I explain with a smile. "The healers there would keep a jar of lollipops and, if you were a good patient, you'd get to leave with a sucker."

"Now there's a tradition I can get behind." Apricot says with a laugh.

"Mhm, just try not to steal them all, please." I already know that I'll have to make a bunch extra just for her.

I should be making cellophane wrappers for these, but Melanie has already gone home and I don't feel like messing around in her lab. I don't have much wax, but there is enough for a couple thousand candy wrappers. And, I can always send someone to buy me some more tomorrow if I run out.

"So, what flavors should I make? Wait, let me guess. Everything." I add before Apricot can, and then laugh when she sticks her tongue out at me. "Don't worry, Sweetie. I'll give you something nice to suck on in just a bit."

Of course, the first thing I made was a batch of penis-shaped suckers for Apricot and Amelia. Amelia rolled her eyes but started sucking on one anyways. After that, it didn't take long to make all of the candies needed to fill the wrappers, but I kept going since we could keep as many as we want in storage without worrying about them sticking together.

"There, that should be enough candy to last you at least until tomorrow." I tease the pixie while cleaning up the kitchen. "Now, I really should catch up on my sleep before tomorrow, but I think we both have a bit of teasing to make up for to Amelia." I pull the blonde into my arms and carry her upstairs to our bedroom.

...

"Mhm, morning." I wake with a smile as Amelia shifts to snuggle up closer to me. Apricot is playing big-spoon for once so Amelia is sandwiched in between us right now.

"Hi." She replies with a sleepy smile. "I can see why Apricot likes this; it's all snuggly being in the middle."

"Mhm, it was a little weird not having her hold onto me all night." I say with a smile for the pixie's new handholds. "But, it looks like she's found a decent replacement."

"It also looks like the sun is coming up, you should get moving. The crowds are always the worst first thing in the morning." I don't want to leave, and I can tell that she doesn't want me to either, but I promised Elise that I'd show up.

"Nnh, alright." I whimper, just a little. "Send Apricot over once she gets tired of playing with those. I love you two." I kiss each of them before slipping out of bed.

There's no time for breakfast, but I have plenty of smoothies. So, I just suck on one of those, and will my clothes into place on me while heading for the front door.

"Morning, Will." I call out to the farmer and jog over.

"Morning, Sorrel." The man greets me with a wide smile. "Amelia told me about the warehouse. You didn't have to go through all that trouble, especially not that fast, but I thank you for doing so."

"Don't worry about it." I return his smile. "I've got to get into town, but I made some suckers last night, and thought I'd leave a jar for the kids."

"Heheheh. Those two are going to get spoiled because of you." He shakes his head but accepts the candies. "Thank you, for these, and for volunteering today. The city always needs more healers."

"Yeah. I'd better get up there though. You have a good day." I pat him on the shoulder before jogging to the road and into the city.

Amelia wasn't kidding about the crowd, I had an easy time running through the city, but as soon as I got close to the market area the streets became nearly impassable.

"Ugh, I'm never going to get through like this." I groan and quit trying to slip through the crowd and make my way to the nearest building instead.

A few people were shocked to see me jump nearly two stories straight up, and then grab a window ledge and use it to swing myself the rest of the way onto the roof. But, it was either go over the roofs or under the ground. I certainly wasn't going to announce that I was a healer and try to get through the crowd that way, I'd have just gotten swamped worse.

...

"Sorrel, I was wondering when you'd show up." Elise doesn't even bat an eye when I drop down off of a building next to her.

"Sorry, I kinda slept in." I say with a rueful smile. "I'm just lucky Amelia warned me about the crowds, I was going to take time for a nice breakfast before coming in."

"Well, now that you're here, we could really use your diagnostic skills." The sun has barely risen and she already looks tired. "It usually takes us most of the morning just to filter out the healthy from the sick. I'm hoping that you can cut that down dramatically."

"Just tell me where you need me and what to do." I say and she does.

I learned quite a lot about how they do medicine here too. I was already somewhat familiar with most of the herbal remedies in use, but not all of their applications.

I spent the next hour with the crowd being herded past me by the guards. I scanned everyone as they walk past; the healthy just kept going, while those with minor issues received a prescription, and those that needed actual healing got pulled aside.

The healers aren't the only ones working today though, there are plenty of alchemists, apothecaries, and herbalists here. That and just about every street food vendor in the city is set up nearby filling the air with a mix of scents.

"That looks like most of them." I say with a relieved sigh as the rush of people finally slows to a trickle. "I need a few minutes to rest up, is it alright if I put a big tree down over there?" I ask while pointing out an area free of obstructions.

"Of course." Jana, Martin's apprentice, replies with a laugh. "After that, I'm sure they'd let you turn half the market into a forest if you needed to."

Jana is in charge of the apprentices here today; Elise handed me off to her and the other apprentices after I got a handle on the basics. It's normally their duty to handle the diagnostics, but with me doing all the heavy lifting they've mostly just been helping to move the crowd around.

"Oh, just the one should do." I reply with a smile. "I'll even keep it in a pot so the ground doesn't get messed up."

I use some of the stone I collected yesterday to craft a pot large enough to hold several thousand liters of soil, which I also collected plenty of yesterday. It's a little light on the nutrients though, so I mix in the leftover compost that was still sitting in my storage.

The market place goes still as a single acorn shoots up into a full-size adult oak in just minutes. "Ah, that's a little better." I hop up onto the pot and sit down with my back against the trunk and just luxuriate in the feeling of having my mana pool refilled.

"Hey, Sweetie." I smile at the pixie when she flutters down to land on my knee a minute later. "Guessing you felt that."

"Mm-hmm, I was mostly just waiting for you to get the boring stuff out of the way though." She titters. "That, and for the crowd to clear up a bit."

"Tell me about it." I groan. "I never was one for crowds either, and that was like the first day of college meets a water park on the hottest day of the year."

"Didn't you say that you were going to make me a water slide or something?" Apricot cocks a tiny eyebrow at me.

"Mhm. Sorry, I keep getting distracted." I bring out mini-me for the first time in a while to give her a kiss. "Too much crap to do lately and it seems like every time I turn around something new has been added to the pile." I turn my head to look at Elise who is walking over to us.

"Sorrel, thank you so much for handling that so quickly." The healer bows her head to me. "But, we have a pregnant woman who just showed up that I was hoping you could look at. Jana passed her along to me since you were busy." The healer smirks up at the giant tree. "I can tell that something is wrong, but she's too far along for me to get a clearer read than that. Have you recovered enough to check her over?"

"Of course." I hop down from the over-sized planter and follow her over to the tent she was working out of. Apricot lands on my head a second later to watch the show.

"Tasha, this is Sorrel, the one I told you about." Elise introduces me to a rather worried-looking young mother-to-be.

"Is my baby going to be alright?" Tasha asks while rubbing her round belly.

"May I have a look to find out?" I take a free stool next to the worried woman and hold my hand out towards her stomach. "My connection to nature magic makes it much easier for me to see through the body's natural interference."

"Alright." She nods, reluctantly. "Just please tell me the baby is going to be alright."

I place my hand on her stomach and close my eyes for a moment before saying anything. "Oh, I see the issue now." I beam a bored-looking smile at Tasha. "There's just a minor septal defect, problems in this area are very common with babies. It'll probably fix itself before birth, but if you want I can take care of it now. Save Elise the hassle of dealing with it later if it doesn't."

"See." Elise lets out a relieved chuckle as matches her smile to mine. "I told you there was nothing to worry about; I just couldn't make it out well enough to be sure. But, if you're still worried, then Sorrel can give you a potion that will take care of it right away."

"Please." She nods, and then swiftly downs the shot of healing sap I hand her.

"There, all better." I flash her my most winning smile. "Would you like to know the baby's sex?"

"You can tell?" Her eyes go wide.

"Oh, yes." Elise laughs. "And, at least he didn't just blurt it out this time."

"I want to know." Tasha nods.

"She's going to be a beautiful little girl, just like her mother." My smile widens when she blushes.

"Don't forget the lollipop." Apricot reminds me. "You went to the trouble to make all of them and you almost forgot to give one to your first patient."

"Oh, yeah." I bring out a large quartz bowl filled with wax paper wrapped suckers. "There's an old tradition where I come from that you get a lollipop after seeing the healer. Help yourself, there are all sorts of flavors."

"Oh, uh, is this red one cherry?" I tried to color them all as best I could, but I need to work on some food-safe dyes in the future.

"Yes." Apricot answers for me after a sniff, and I materialize a pixie-sized mana stone lollipop just for her. "Aww, when did you make these?" She pops it into her mouth with a happy smile.

"When you weren't looking." I tease before turning to Elise. "So does one of these tents have my name on it, or should I make my own?" All of this easy banter is mostly just to help Tasha get rid of the last of her worries.

"You're right next door, just between me and Martin." She answers with a smile and steals a sucker for herself before I leave her tent. "I'll tell the guards start queuing up patients for you."

I head over to the tent and Elise drifts over before the first of my patients arrive. "Thank you for working on your bedside manner. But, how bad was it really?"

"There was a small hole in the wall separating the two halves of the heart, like I said." I explain while sucking on my own lollipop. "There was also a much larger hole in between the ventricles, and the pulmonary valve was malformed. Other than that she was fine."

"..." The healer just shakes her head. "Thank you. It would have taken both Martin and I to repair that much damage after birth... if she even made it that long."

"Don't worry about it." I send her the same winning smile I used on Tasha. "The healing sap is a bit of a cheat when it comes to babies. Now, I really should get to work. For some reason, my line seems to be the longest." I chuckle when she snags another sucker before leaving.

...