While Sryine was undergoing the complexities of her lunchtime scenario, Vwyx had yet to make it that far along her own day. Her parents were actually out collecting wood, leaving her sister alone to deal with everything in the workshop over lunch.

“Oh, I guess it would be about lunch time now, maybe I should see what I could put together for you and your friend. I noticed she didn’t take my invitation for her to come inside, nor for a place to hang that backpack she's still wearing.. actually, so I worry she might not be interested in a meal as well.” “Knowing Riyxia, she probably just didn’t want to get in the way. She never really did have much of an interest in any sort of crafting, not even most instruments. However, she made a killer breakfast this morning, so I don’t think she would feel out of place if we started talking about food.” “Really? Wow.. I remember she was supposed to be associated with a lot of doctor stuff.. and I’m pretty sure she was the real doctor of her family. Did you know that after you left, her family got denounced from actually being real doctors, even considering the sort of stuff they had done. The village leaders though stood up for them regardless, mostly the young master of their family. He insisted that the only problem was that their family had run out of the supplies needed to keep up with such a feat, that they would have to wait for stock to arrive from the city.. but it never did. However, I’m pretty sure he was talking about you three. Everyone else though sorta forgot about it since then, though no one is really holding that family in a grudge anymore, they are just.. there. Thinking about it though, the lady of the family has done a lot of things since to help out with our food preparation, so hearing that their daughter is good with food isn’t actually that surprising either. Thinking about it like that though, I’m not even certain how much of a lunch I could make for our family’s guest.” “Well, if we’re so worried, maybe I should step up and give things a try myself. That way you can see what your big sister is capable of, and I can see if I can return any quality to the breakfast Riyxia prepared. Go and let her know what’s going on, I’ll be in the kitchen getting started.” Vwyx’s sister ran off as instructed, leaving Vwyx to confront the kitchen and figure out what she was going to do. The first step was to go to the kitchen and figure out what she might have to work with, from there she could figure out everything else as she worked.

For being a woodcrafting family, you would have thought she would have had more things to actually work with. Vwyx wasn’t so concerned about the supply of food as she was concerned about the supply of things for food preparation. Sure, her family was rustic, much like the rest of the village, instrumentation wasn’t a big thing, but they had hardly any helpful equipment beyond that. It wasn’t wooden stuff she was worried about, from tables to spoons, the kitchen was full of useful wooden things to prepare food with. What it really lacked was many useful things made from metals or stone. Wooden fire pits instead of stone or metal stoves, the worst selection imaginable of pots and pans, even the camping equipment they had packed was better than what she had on hand. Right, some of it was being carried right now by Sryine, she didn’t have everything.. but if no one was watching, no one else had to know that. Making use of some of the spare firewood in the kitchen, she crafted up some metal and stone cooking equipment with which she could work from. Most of the designs were emulated from the stuff they had purchased, though she knew that honestly this did devalue some of the purpose for buying some of it in the first place.. when she could simply make it for herself. It was still a smart move, she hadn’t been in a good position at the time to create such stuff. It was smart they simply had it handy and ready for their needs when they did, and it wasn’t as if making the Qeld back would be very difficult.

Now, from what she could remember of the state and expectations of her family food stocks, it was looking like they had a lot of unfortunate shortages. However, a selection of vegetables was doing very well, possibly due to the autumn harvest.. but in an amount that showed such harvests were actually doing plentifully well. It presented such an opportunity to make a really nice vegetable stew. Such really might not be much, but after some of the normal from the hunters they had endured in the past, this would still be a major improvement. More so, this would actually be similar, so she had a good idea how to make everything work. The first step was properly preparing the vegetables for cooking, which would require some dicing and often peeling. Rather than do anything by hand, she simply figured out what would be required and made something that would instantly do it for her, to decrease the chances of her making any dicing errors. She knew such a stew would also need a sauce base, that’s what gave such a thing its body, made it more than a plate of diced things. That’s also where such a thing got complicated, just how would she make this work? Some of the vegetables though had an assortment of creamy juices, there just wasn’t enough of it, and it wasn’t thick enough. She could use the vegetables to complete it, but she would have to dice them really really.. really tiny. She pondered one of the vegetables to that end, wondering how exactly she could make this work. Cooking was obviously complicated, this wasn’t exactly her area of crafting.

This could have been a lot easier if she could simply reshape the stuff much like anything in her typical crafting, but such food was made of living properties, forcing it into another shape would spoil it. Wood for example used to be alive too, but it’s completely dead before she did anything with it, leaving it in more of an inanimate form instead. If she pulled around the fibers of something actually alive, she would disturb the composition that actually gave it life, something she actually had no ability with. Stripping food of anything that brought it life brought it to the deepest part of its death and decay, and that’s only if she had the ability to force the chains of its life to break apart like that. Honestly, it was far easier to just kill something the normal way than to fight the filaments of its life so directly, even augmented would make such a task unreasonably challenging for even such a tiny food item. That consideration was why Riyxia’s ability to simply unmake the living actually fearsome in all honesty, she was then doing that very thing with hardly any effort at all. In her case though, that was because that was the sort of thing she was good at.

Vwyx then needed to find her own way to get things done. If she couldn’t rend apart such a food item, she needed an instrument that could decimate it into a thick paste. Something like that would also probably make a huge mess, so she needed a way to contain it in the process. She was in the middle of making use of such a wild innovation when Vwyx’s sister and Riyxia poked their head in, curious about all the noise. Vwyx froze, not exactly certain how she would explain such a thing, but Riyxia giggled and drew Vwyx’s sister from the room. Vwyx heard something about being ‘crazy like a certain pie baker’ as the other two left. Vwyx wasn’t sure about that remark, she couldn’t even recall the last time Riyxia might have enjoyed a pie. Also, she wasn’t being crazy, that was what Sryine did, she was just solving practical needs with practical solutions, something Riyxia should totally understand. Oh well, it didn’t really matter, at the very least her idea actually worked. With her sauce prepared, all that was left was to actually cook everything.

The cooking was an extra feat, considering she wasn’t all that proficient with it. Complex instruments would make everything a lot easier, but she knew she needed to make this part count. The proper balance of heat was important, saturating the whole thing in warmth without a cost to its other flavours. Of course, that was because ambient heat had become a sort of flavour for them, a very refreshing one. Riyxia had delivered upon it with great proficiency, a clear demonstration of how much she had known her own nature. However, she had also assumed neglect over how much impact frost could have over heat qualities. Vwyx meanwhile had come to realize just how much value she could achieve from sufficiently manipulating frost to the benefit of the flame. She suspected too that, if the sauce was too thin, she could also take care of that with a suitable composition of wood element, something to reverse the influence of water.. which might in turn depend on her control over the elements involved. The flame was really good at asserting control over elements, adding a slight touch of wood.. probably flour would be best for the sort of thing, set it to draw upon the water, then compel it to her will using the flame. It made sense to her at least. Getting the heat working the way she wanted it to was going to be the biggest challenge.

The equipment here was all about directly exposing the food to the flame, which would turn foods black rather quickly if enough heat was desired. What she needed to do instead was to double insulate with a thermal conduit, making use of the frost to draw every last trace of frost from the food, separating both. The easiest place for such a cold to go would probably be the lid for the food, that would provide the cold a wind passage from its origin to its destination. The metal meanwhile had to capture and endure every last trace of the fire.. but leave no escape for its heat. This would draw all of the extra heat into the space abandoned by the frost, heating the food. She would need to have something suitable to make frost from.. but supposedly water was very eager to take up frost to create ice, so it might be perfect for this process. This took a bit of careful work though, she couldn’t actually directly have her gift process water into ice as a matter of alchemy. It was instead the darkness of the food that provided the best opportunity to instil it with a touch of cold. She also needed to make sure the food itself didn’t get cold, she had to pull away her work the moment she accomplished even a tiny aspect of it, so almost in time with the heat building up below it. After a lot of careful work, the whole thing had finished its steam bath. Next time, she would have to figure out a suitable way to have an instrument replicate that later part of the process as well, it was far too difficult to manipulate everything directly.

Vwyx showed up not long after with everyone’s food, served and plated. Her sister took a portion of the food from her own plate and took a bite, instantly finding everything too warm for her mouth. Riyxia however felt the warmth wasn’t exactly scalding, but was still very powerful and savoury, finding such heat to be absolutely delicious. The vegetables too were very soft and tender, a remarkable texture for having used so much heat. The sauce was even exceptionally thick, not very liquid at all.. but also very warm and smooth. None of them had expected such a refined taste from their friend that was always so willing to just eat whatever was on offer, but clearly Vwyx had outdone herself this time. Riyxia’s plate was thus emptied before Vwyx’s sister could feel the whole thing was even safe to eat. However, once the food had cooled enough for everyone to enjoy, there was plenty of agreement that Vwyx had really done a remarkable job. While Vwyx’s sister took to her own dish to catch up to the two warmth eaters, Riyxia and Vwyx took an opportunity to just relax in their chairs.

“It’s looking like our arrival is going to really pan out well for the village, they would have been in for a rather rough winter otherwise. Stocks are really low, and the village is having a bit of trouble. Your sister says that they’ve also been short on metal pieces for a while, a certain delivery guy hasn’t been around for a while, which has left things rather difficult for the family business too. Things should improve a bit with the instruments we brought, but we only brought a sample of stuff, and they still will have no idea how to use any of this stuff, so winter still won’t be very easy around here. At the very least, there is plenty of extra wood, but that won’t solve all of their problems. What is troubling is that there is a trend to the shortages within the village, everything points to the same subtle influence that is disrupting the regular order of the village. I worry she hasn’t even realized the sort of impact her actions have been having, she won’t even realize things have gone to a disaster far beyond when it is too late.” Riyxia was being subtle, but it was obvious who she was talking about. Vwyx understood that Riyxia was referring to Liyuzhe’s work, her single minded pursuit of her ambitions, without care as to most of the consequences. To a slight degree, Vwyx could understand that sort of ambition, she could feel that sort of compulsion from a fragment of herself that desired things and was totally willing to neglect anything else in the process. She had however learned to work with that side of her, to come to terms with its strong needs, and to form a lasting compromise. After all, totally neglecting things around by having tunnel vision to the goal could not only make things harder, it could also allow for unexpected surprises.. including interruptions of new goals that followed after. Mostly, it didn’t work well with the rest of her, and having her work as a united whole was far better at getting things done than if she was divided.

More than that worry, there was a particular of the information Riyxia had offered that really bothered her. Stupid Fhyernx was also being so single minded towards the goal that he had apparently stopped his agreement with her family. That part really bothered her.. made her very upset. She stormed out of the room and went into the storage, again leaving Riyxia to calm down their host and to lend assurance that everything was alright. Far too much wood, far too little metal, no wonder her sister was having such a hard time. Vwyx carefully weighed her options and came to a careful conclusion. She knew they had to keep things discrete, they knew there was a huge problem in leaving too many lasting signs of their blatant augmented gift usage in plain sight and with obvious signs something was wrong. It didn’t matter, she would just have to figure out a good way to bluff her way out of this. Submersing herself in her augmentation, she started sorting through the wood of the storage.. in the same way as she had counted wood in the past to be traded away to Fhyernx. The biggest difference, she wasn’t touching any of the wood, the room was almost flowing by itself. Once she had picked a sufficient.. and actually large supply of wood for removal, she turned her gift upon the pieces targeted, turning the selected pieces into complete metal logs. Then she took account again of the exact balance of each metal part they had in storage, and thus an account for how much might be needed. The metal logs thus rapidly split into tiny pieces, each formed carefully into the shape of the parts that were needed in stock. She just didn’t provide what was needed, she ensured there was a dramatic surplus, not only to make up for any loss that might have already been suffered, but to also ensure there was enough supplies to go without any new delivery for a lot longer. Fhyernx might not even be considering keeping up this ruse, he might actually be done playing the role of delivery guy, so there would be no one who would complete these deliveries. However, it wasn’t like the three of them had no sway with the society beyond the village, Vwyx was adamant that she would find someone to replace the old service, ensuring stock for years to come. With that completed, Vwyx returned back to the others, trying to calm back down as she sat at the table.

“I’m guessing things have changed a bit then? Should we tell your sister about the surprise you had brought along for her now, or do we save it for later?” “Oh, uh, I guess you should check the storage shed then sis. I’ve already made sure the entire trade has been processed, you don’t have to worry about anything.” Riyxia didn’t even look surprised, Vwyx shrugged in silent apology. Vwyx’s sister perked up from cleaning up after lunch to go and check what Vwyx was talking about, leaving the room to get a look as recommended. “So, Sryine says she’s on her way, by the way. She’s actually had an eventful time of her own, from what I was able to watch.” “Wait, right, you aren’t shimmering at all. You’re with her then?” “Following her back, and clearly she has a lot of things she wants to talk about. Being with a family has made her question things like family, saying things like she feels the three of us are actually more of a family at this point than any family ties left by another lifetime. Obviously I would agree, but my situation is really a lot more unique than either of you.” “I guess that actually makes sense, yeah. It felt like I wasn’t just making food for my sister.. I was making food for two sorts of sisters. Which sister do I feel is a closer sister? Well, spending time with you so much might make things a little biased, but I don’t think that’s the whole of it either. I’m supposed to technically be the only human in a bunch of elves.. at least to anyone who doesn’t know any of the particulars.. but I honestly feel more like you both than any human I know. I honestly have to question my humanity at this point, even. So yeah, I think Sryine has this completely correct. Even so, this might be a bit less of my family than my closest one, but I still feel they are important to me. You told us not to ignore the fragments of ourselves, and that’s part of it. If this family here isn’t doing very well, I really want to do what I can for them. They might not be my closest family.. but they are still my family.” Riyxia nodded at Vwyx’s assessment, understanding completely.

“Beyond having a cooking adventure of her own, it seemed the subject of birthdays had come up.” “Oh hells, did we completely forget about that? By the divine, did I miss mine?” “That’s probably around why she’s questioning the entire idea as a concept, none of us really were left to put much concern into the idea through everything, because it was the birthday of another lifetime, the new life she has now was much more important. We did get her a gift for her birthday, mostly out of respect for her, but it never did become much more than a passing occasion.. clearly a forgettable one, too. She then offered the idea that all of us instead celebrate the day we all came together in the workshop, back at my awakening.. when we sort of all awakened together in our flames. Now, I personally feel there is no point in celebrating anything like that at all, but that again is sort of based upon my own circumstances, and I understand that it then wouldn’t be fair to either of you. Having something we all share though might be a fair compromise. It is something to think about at least, though we should probably save it for when we’re all together again. You can tell she’s missing the options to communicate as easily.. clearly, she asked if you could look into what would be needed to set up a cell signal around here. Considering the fact this place is going to need more metal parts in the future, I think it’s another idea you would probably agree with.. again, something for you two to talk about once she gets back. The one thing that is still blowing me away was that it seems she was talking to her brother about her own marriage opportunities.. and how Jwyexzn was fitting into that whole equation. When you said it was just a lunch date, I really thought you were just joking around, not that you were actually being serious.” “Wait, what? I-I was just joking. Is she serious? By the divine.. how.. when did that happen?” Riyxia realized that Vwyx actually didn’t know either, this was just something Sryine had been achieving on her own. It did provide a lot of things to discuss once Sryine got back.. and it was fortunate that they wouldn’t need to wait much longer.

Vwyx’s sister opened the door again, leading Sryine inside to the others. She arrived to find her two closest friends.. sisters in their own right.. staring at her with demands for an explanation.