Circe was already at the edge of the woods on the other side of the clearing. She waved to me and I quickly followed her. [Telepathy] was active again only connected to my friend. We would soon leave the range of the others.

“Let’s go!”, she said and held out her arm.

I landed on it and met her smile with my own.

“Your face is really expressive”, Circe said before walking on, her staff in her free hand.

As we left, the voices from the witch hut slowly faded into the background. It seemed like Mum and Joanne were getting along much better than anticipated. Both had a lot of questions and were interested in how the other lived. From what I heard, Mum was likely planning to get my little brothers an apprentice Class. I was curious if they would end up growing up in the village proper after learning the language.

I refocused on our immediate surroundings. Circe was likely relying on me for safety so I had to keep my eyes and ears open.

“Do you know where everything is?”, I asked.

“Yup! Well, mostly. Master showed me what to look out for to find everything.”

“What do we start with?”

“The stinging nettle. They’re everywhere and I know a few particularly good patches. Look out for nests on the way.”

I bobbed my head and started scanning the branches.

The list Mira had written down sounded a little weird but who was I to tell her how to do magic? Well, witchcraft at least. She asked for five things in total, three of which were likely difficult to locate without some good luck. The ‘abandoned nest of a songbird’ was one of them I was likely much better equipped to find than Circe. After all, songbirds were on my diet plan. It barely took three minutes before I spotted the first one but it was not abandoned. It might be in a few days from the way the chicks were moving around, though. In the end, we would not have to wait for that. The very next nest was empty and only a few remains of egg shells were left. I carefully dislodged it from the branch and carried it down to Circe on a tendril of darkness.

“Just like that! I didn’t even see it.”

“You just need to know what to look out for”, I said.

“Like what?”

“Birds want to build their nest where it’s safe. That means there needs to be proper cover from the branches and leaves nearby. If you look where it’s difficult to see, you’ll be more likely to find one.”

“Okay?”

Circe furrowed her brows for a moment before brightening up again.

“Well, let’s keep going!”

It took another few minutes to find the nettles she was looking for. We needed three stalks of stinging nettle which were easily harvested with my darkness and put away in my storage.

“This really is convenient”, Circe said, “I want a Skill like that, too!”

“Focus on finding a familiar first. That seems to be a big part of becoming a fully fletched [Witch].”

She sighed and sat down on a protruding root.

“I know”, she pouted, “But I still want you!”

She glanced at me and I held her eyes for a minute.

“Where does that focus of yours come from?”, I asked, “Why does it have to be me?”

“It doesn’t! I just don’t know! It just… feels right?”

“… is that so?”

I opened my storage again and took out the supersensory matrix. The item was a purple vis crystal held together with gold and magic. It could connect two souls similar to [Telepathy] but formed a much more intimate connection. I broke off the Skill and pushed my mind into the item. A careful flex of my will and Circe flinched back. The girl blinked rapidly.

“What was that?”

“This”, I said as I held up the supersensory matrix, “Let’s see how you deal with flux and warp.”

I pushed further into the connection. Back when I first met Alexandra, she instinctively knew how to make it safer by setting up a sort of hub for all souls to connect to. Right now, I was breaking that intermediary down to establish a direct highway between Circe and me. I carefully observed the girl as it happened and to my relief, she showed no signs of weakness or sickness. Going this far seemed to be perfectly safe.

The next step was establishing communication. I decided to start by sending her an image of my vision, of course with a warning beforehand. And yet, she did not react favourably to it.

“This… urgh… My head hurts!”

“What’s wrong?”, I asked.

“It just looks so… different. Like, there are so many details! How can you see that much?”

“I have good eyes.”

“Yes, but this good? I can see the ants on that root over there! That’s at least fifteen metres!”

“How do you think I hunt?”

“… what?”

“I fly high above and look for prey. I need to make out mice a hundred metres below, sometimes even more.”

“Oh. It’s not a Skill?”

“It is a Skill as well. That is why my vision is this good. My hearing as well.”

“Is there anything you can’t do?”

“Let’s see… speaking without a complicated magic item or Skill; using complicated tools without magic; smelling… That’s just from the top of my head. Interacting with people is also difficult. Remember how scared you were when we met for the first time? If I make one misstep, I will be hunted down.”

“Right… sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. How are you feeling?”

Circe rubbed her nose.

“I’m fine? I don’t feel any issues. That image was just a little overwhelming at first.”

“Okay. I’m going to try sending you a continuous stream of my vision. Close your eyes and tell me if anything hurts or feels weird.”

Circe nodded, her lips pressed into a thin smile.

When I pushed my sight through the connection, there was a small flinch from her but no other reaction. I could see how her eyeballs moved below their lids. Then they stopped.

“This is so weird”, she said, “I can see myself.”

“Well, sort of.”

I swivelled my head slowly and scanned the trees. My vision slid over every single detail while my ears listened for any signs of warp or flux from my friend. Surely she would react if something happened to her.

“I’m… getting dizzy. Can you stop?”

“Of course”, I said and let out a sigh of relief.

Circe opened her eyes and shook her head.

“I enjoyed that but it’s a bit much.”

“You’re fine. How are you feeling? Any headaches? Nausea? Muscle pain?”

“Nothing. I’m good.”

“Interesting”, I said, “Well, that’s a first step.”

“What for?”

“For seeing how much warp you can take.”

Her face slowly lit up as she realized the implications.

“So you’re thinking about it?”

“If you can deal with me not being there all the time, I could consider it.”

Her smile settled just shy of a grin.

“Thank you, Fio.”

I bobbed my head and pushed her to move on. We still had a few things to collect. We needed bark from a dead evergreen, a chicken-in-the-woods, and the last bit was a bucket of mud and water. That one would be taken fresh from the river next to the hut.

Circe led me through the trees and explained that chicken-in-the-woods was a particular mushroom growing on the side of trees. When we found one half an hour later, I knew why it was called that. The mushroom grew as a set of bent, wavy plates directly attached to the bark. It had a soft orange colour throughout most of it with red spots in the gaps between the plates. There were even some white spots. In short, it almost looked like someone had stapled a chicken to the tree.

We turned around after that and took a different path for our return trip. About halfway back we ran into a fallen-over tree that still had a good bit of bark attached to it. The needles all over the floor let us know it was what we were looking for.

With everything we needed in my storage, we returned to the hut. Circe ran ahead as we reached the clearing and picked up a bucket from behind the house. She left to fill it as I made my way onto the patio. I placed the items next to the door and tried to push it open with my darkness. I needed to focus and make a thicker tendril to actually move it but then I could easily enter without shifting inside.

My mum and Joanne were still talking while Yuuna had moved into the workshop with Mira. I jumped up on a chair and connected to them with [Telepathy] as they turned to me.

“We’re back”, I greeted, “How are you doing?”

Mum bobbed her head.

“Good”, she said from her arcane speaker, “Thank you.”

“Indeed”, Joanna added, “We have had some very productive time. Thank you for introducing us, Fio.”

“What are Yuuna and Master doing?”

“Something about treating injuries. I believe Mira is showing your sister which herbs can help stem bleeding.”

Grunk croaked at me. I hooted in answer. Then, he bobbed his head. I bobbed my head in thanks.

“Do you understand each other?”, Joanne asked.

“Sort of?”, I sent, “That was mostly just a greeting. I knew he wanted to tell me Yuuna would be fine, which I appreciated.”

“That is quite amazing. I wish I could understand him more easily. It is always difficult to be here and not be able to know what he wants.”

I tilted my head.

“It’s not that hard to get a general idea. You just need to understand how others show emotions. It is different for many animals but once spending some time with humans, or humanoids, they will adapt their behaviour to make their emotions more easily known.”

“I see…”, Joanne said. She was rubbing her nose.

“True?”, Mum asked.

“Yes. As far as I have observed, at least. It’s simply the most convenient approach.”

“I need to learn.”

I bobbed my head

“You have a lot of time to learn.”