"M-miss Amelia, M-master Sorrel." She stammers after running over. "When did you get to the city? You were still going to come visit weren't you?" She looks like a kitten that was left out in the rain when she asks that. "I've been working hard on being more mindful and mature, you can ask Aunt Marta. I've been keeping the kitten with me everywhere, even if I still get shivers when I look in its eyes." She pulls the figurine from her bag. "Oh, the news of Circle Orchard is everywhere. None of my new friends can believe I actually passed right through it."

"Relax, girl. Relax." I start laughing. "We just got in yesterday, and this afternoon is the first chance we've had to explore."

"Oh, it's so pretty. I never got a good look at it before they left." Apricot pipes up, almost causing Abigail to drop the statuette. "Up here girl." She waves from her perch in Amelia's hair.

"F-f-fae?" She looks like she's going to faint.

"Easy there." Amelia wraps her arms around her shoulders. "You really are an excitable little thing aren't you?" She chuckles.

"Oh, be nice. This is decidedly tame compared to some people’s reactions." I say, but start chuckling too. "Abigail, this is Apricot. She was back at the dungeon too, just didn't like to show herself back then."

"There you go, just breath. That's better." Amelia helps the girl get herself under control. "What have you been up to since you came to the Capital? Is it a lot different than what you were used to?"

"Ah, thank you." The girl blushes. "Aunt Marta has been teaching me how to mix paints, and I've made friends with a lot of girls in the neighborhood." She takes a deep breath. "We even went to see a few Fire Mages at the Guild house. Aunt Marta said I was ready, but... I was kinda hoping... That you would." She barely whispers that last bit just loud enough for us to hear.

"Hahah, I'd be happy to. Maybe we could come over for dinner sometime."

"You're not gonna have to dance with this one too, are you?" Amelia teases, getting a titter from our pixie, and a confused look from the girl. "We'll tell you the story later." She smiles down at Abigail. "If just seeing a pixie almost made you faint, then hearing this tale definitely would."

"Oh, yes please. Dinner would be great. Is tonight too soon? Aunt Marta just sent me to get some ingredients, I could get extras, and-" Her words rush out before I cut her off.

"Abby! Breath. We don't have plans for tonight, but you should ask your aunt before inviting guests over. Here." I hand over a map with the warehouse and Amelia's parent's house on it. "We're headed for the warehouse here, and will probably have a late lunch there. Ask, your aunt, and then you can send us word." I point out the house. "And this is where we're staying, just in case something comes up and you miss us. Okay?"

"Thank you, thank you. I'll go ask her now." She stuff the kitten statue back in her bag and runs off down the street, followed by our laughs.

"Oh, boy. Now I know what Apricot felt like when dealing with the Princess."

"That girl makes Faye look tame." The pixie shakes her head. "That light show you put on for her really made an impression."

"Oh, that's not the only thing that made an impression." Amelia chuckles darkly before telling the story of a curious little kitten.

***

"Thanks for letting me store this stuff here." I say to Turner as I offload a couple dozen crates of Uncle Charlie's Butt Wipes. "Any Idea when Charlie will be back in town?"

"Not a problem, Charlie said he was making a run to the coast, he should be back within a week or two. And, I see our little Amy girl has raided every sweet shop in the Capital. Heh." He snorts out a laugh.

"I wish." I say softly, looking around to make sure she isn't in hearing distance. "This stuff is just from the shops in this area. She already filled both our inventories." I hang my head, defeated.

"Oh, lad." He commiserates. "I overheard her telling her mother how happy she was to be able to eat all the sweets she wanted now. But, I never imagined she'd get this bad. Where'd you even get the coin to pay for it all?"

"Turns out Mana stones are worth a small fortune, and I can pretty much conjure them from thin air." The coins start rolling in his eyes. "Yeah, that's the look she got right before she dragged me off to the nearest sweets shop."

"Hah." He barks out. "Well, at least I'll never have to worry about my little girl going hungry. Thank you so much for taking care of her." He turns serious. "She didn't say a lot about it, but she had a lot of trouble dealing with what happened. If it hadn't been for you..." He trails off.

"I needed her as much as she needed me. It was a blessing from the Gods that brought us together." One of them, at least. "I lost everything, but I gained her." A sad smile crosses my face as I look across the warehouse to my love. I shake my head to clear the dark thoughts away. "Come on, let's go get some of those sweets before they eat them all."

"Sure thing, son. Sure thing." He says with an expression I don't care to examine.

"Hah, looks like we've got dinner plans, Amelia." I call out as I sense Abigail entering my detection range. "That girl's practically floating, she's so excited."

"This is that Fire Mage that stayed at the dungeon for a night?" Turner asks. "I thought Awakened were supposed to be rare, and here you've found three of them, four if you count the Princess."

"I'd say it's more like The Queen found me. But yeah, I have run into a few un-Awakened."

We walk up to the girls, and I can just make out Amelia speaking to Apricot under her breath "...no teasing. She doesn't know that we know." Before she speaks up and calls out to Abigail. "Abby, over here. I take it your Aunt said yes."

"Yes, she did." Abby nods. "And I'm sorry for acting so weird earlier. I wasn't expecting to see you two walking down the street, it threw me off a little bit." She has a self-deprecating smile on her face.

"Oh, that's alright. It's a big city, and.. You never know what sights you might see when you turn a corner." Amelia sends me a look, but Apricot has to cover her mouth with her hands to keep from losing it. Fortunately she's mostly hidden in Amelia's hair. So, I just give off an innocent smile and continue. "What time should we arrive?"

"Is an hour after sunset, okay? Marta likes to paint until she loses the light, then it'll take her a bit to get cleaned up. Oh, and she marked our house on the map you gave me." She returns the slip of paper I gave her earlier.

"Thanks. She gave us the address before, but I haven't had a chance to learn all the street names yet."

"No. Thank you. I'm finally getting my magic." She looks like she wants to squeal. "I need to run and get everything ready. I'll see you later, right?" She asks, afraid that we're going to stand her up.

"We'll be there." Amelia re-assure her. "It doesn't look too far from the shops we were planning on checking out later." She says, looking over the map.

"Good, good. Thanks again. I've gotta run if I want to get everything. Bye." She jogs out the door.

"Heh, excitable little girl. Reminds me of Amy back when she was little." Kaitlyn comments.

"You want excitable, you should have seen the Princess during the movie this morning." Amelia sighs out.

"What? The Princess?" Her mother's eyes go wide.

"Sorry, we forgot to mention she stopped by to see Apricot earlier." Amelia explains. "Stayed for breakfast and one of Sorrel's movies, almost made us go deaf with her squealing at the pivotal scene." She uses her finger to clean out her ear dramatically.

"Oh, my. We had Royalty in the house, and I wasn't even there." Kaitlyn looks like she's going to cry.

"Oh, Momma." Amelia hugs her mother. "She's just like a regular little girl and, between Apricot and Sorrel's movies, I'm sure she'll come by again sometime. If you want to cry for something, cry that you missed the new cake he made for us." She jokes to lighten up the mood.

I lean over to Turner and warn him in an undertone. "She was there incognito, but the street was also full of poorly disguised guards. So, don't be surprised if your neighbors give you a few weird looks." He just shakes his head with a rueful smile and rubs his wife on the back.

"Katey, we had dinner with the Queen herself just last night." He tries to reason with her. "Our daughter's bonded to one of the Fae, and our future son-in-law is an Archmage. We're going to be inundated with all sorts of nobility and royalty in the future. All you really missed was a screaming little girl and, like Amy said, Sorrel's new dessert." He smiles down at her and wipes away the tears gathered in the corner of her eyes.

"Well, when you put it like that." She huffs playfully. "Was the cake really that good?" She asks Amelia.

"It's called angel food, and it easily lives up to the name." Apricot answers. "And he made this treat called a trifle with it by layering cake bits, pudding, and fruit. Sooo gooood." She moans out getting a laugh from us.

"She ate the last slice." I motion to the pixie. "But, I'll be happy to make you some later. Speaking of sweets." I turn to my sweetie. "Why don't you bring out your haul, so I can organize it; I've got plenty of free space now."

"Thanks babe." She gives me a hug, then drops ten giant bags full of sweets on the ground in front of us, and I add two of my own. "Uhh." She drones out. "I think I may have bought a little too much."

"Really?" Her mother lets out an exasperated sigh. "Amy girl... Oh, this is so you." She finally breathes out. Only to break into laughter a second later.

"Mommy, don't laugh." She pouts. "I didn't really see it all stacked up like this. We just went from store to store picking up whatever looked good. This is all your fault Sorrel." She tries to shift the blame onto me. "Why'd we have to stop in that magic shop first? Who knew those rocks you make in your free time were so valuable?"

"I told you learning Mana Control was worth it." I laugh at her antics. "I just didn't think it'd be worth more than its weight in gold."

"Oh, ha ha." She deadpans, defeated. "Just get this mess sorted out for me, please. And then, can we never speak of this again?"

I just smile and get to work making a handful of portmanteau style cases full of racks to keep everything sorted. Levitating the whole lot up, I'm then able to sort everything from over a dozen large bags into less than half that many crates. And, everything is easily accessible now, so she doesn't have to dig through a bunch of bags to find what she wants.

"There, that's not so bad." I pet her on the head. "And, now you can get at everything nice and easy. And, hey. Just think, if Mana control bought you this many sweets. Imagine what you can buy once I unlock Mana Mastery."

"Oh no, there won't be a sweet left in the entire kingdom." Her father teases.

"How are you going to do that?" She ignores her father. "I thought you were reaching a bottleneck in Control. You said Embiggened helped a lot at first, but now?"

"Remember that movie screen I gave the Princess, and what I said you'd have to do to make it look realistic."

"Moving millions of beads dozens of times a second?" Her eyes widen as she thinks over just how difficult that would be. "Should only take you about a week, you over-powered thing, you." She teases.

"If only." I shake my head. "I could handle a fifty by fifty grid okay, but even ten times the number of beads would stretch me. Even if I used Plantshaping on different colored flags, I would still have trouble moving twenty-five-thousand dots. Let alone two-hundred-fifty, or more. This is gonna be a long term goal."

"I may have to have you make me something I can use with my Water Magic. Might finally push me over into Control, I'm so close I can taste it."

"You just want to buy even more sweets without being teased don't you." I kiss her on the forehead. "Speaking of, why don't you put these away so we can have lunch then go finish our shopping for the day. Oh, and we should pick up a gift for Marta too, I know she likes wine. Know of any good shops for that around here?" I ask Turner.

"Oh, don't ask him." Kaitlyn butts in before he can speak. "He may know how to sell the stuff, but he never developed a proper appreciation for a good wine." She snatches up the map. "You want to head over to this street, there's a few good shops there that should be able to help you pick out something appropriate. There are some better places, but they're all the way across town, and it's not long until sundown."

"Thanks Mom. Do you think you could feed Mittens for us when you guys head back home." Amelia pleads. "I'll pick you up a couple bottles while we're out."

"Of course dear, there's plenty of meat in the ice box thanks to you, and we can't be having the cute little guy starving."

"Oh, that reminds me." I take a small bag out of one of my 'miscellaneous' boxes from my inventory. "I got these to examine, but there's no reason you shouldn't use them."

"Oh, my." Amelia's mother exclaims when she opens the bag. "It's a full set of runes, and not the cheap ones either."

"Your Amy girl talked the shop owner into throwing those into the deal, in exchange for my coming back next week with another sack of stones." I pet her on the head again as she cringes under my use of her nickname.

"That's my girl." Her dad beams with pride.

"Come on, we've still got some shopping to do." She tugs on my arm, embarrassed.

"I thought we were going to have lunch. You filled up on sweets didn't you?" I accuse the blushing blonde.

"Quit teasing me." She whines, dragging me outside to her parents laughter. "You are such a butt?" She swats me on the shoulder before giving the spot she hit a kiss at my melodramatic flinch. "Why did you let me buy so many sweets? Mom's going to tease me about this for years." She starts laughing at herself.

"It made you happy." I kiss her on the lips. "That's all the reason I need. Now, let's hurry. The wine shops are a bit of a walk, and I still want to check out a few more shops along the way."

"Fine, but no more sweets." She says adamantly.

"Yes, Ma'am."

***

"And, here I thought you were bad when you spotted the sweets." I hear Apricot mutter to Amelia as I charge into a shop.

"Oh, hush. He's been looking for an exotic foods store all day." Amelia says with amusement clear in her voice. "I know you're excited babe, but we're gonna be late to dinner."

"I know, I know. Just gimme a couple minutes, I think..." I trail off after spotting a familiar looking pod. "Identify! Yes! Shopkeeper, I'll take this basket of cocoa pods, and oh... Let me get a handful of everything else." I levitate a few of everything in the shop into mesh bags I make on the spot before setting it all in from of the stunned store owner.

"Yes sir, Master Mage. Happy to be of service." The man snaps out of his shock quickly and tallies up my purchases.

I pay him and toss in an extra fifty percent for not wasting our time. "Thank you. And if you come across anything interesting, please hold a couple samples aside for me." I nod to the man and start walking out the door just as the girls catch me up.

"Yes sir. I get new shipments weekly, delivered via mage courier to insure freshness." He calls out excitedly as I leave.

"That's the exact same look the store owners had after you got done with them." Apricot says to Amelia. "Though, Sorrel seems to have left the stock more intact."

"So, is that what you've been looking for?" Amelia ignores the jibe to ask about the pod in my hand. "It doesn't look very edible." She wrinkles her nose as I open it up to expose the beans covered in a translucent white pulp.

"Not in it's raw form, no. But, I have read that the pulp tastes like lychee fruit." I pull out another discovery I made at the shop. It looks a bit like a bumpy strawberry, at least until I crack it open to reveal a similar pale flesh as the cocoa. "The real trick is in the processing, it can take weeks to go from bean to bar, as they say. Thank goodness for magic." I grin.

"Well, get on with it." Amelia flaps her hand. "You've been building this up, it had better be worth it. And, don't think I didn't see you over pay back there." She fake pouts.

"Heheh. Trust me, it'll be worth it." I chuckle and start separating the beans from the pod. "First the beans need to be fermented.. Don't worry, I learned my lesson after that first horrible attempt at wine. I won't mess this up." I say quickly after seeing the look on her face.

"Let's hope so."

"After they finish fermenting they're then dried and roasted." I process the beans as I speak. "Remove the cracked shells and we're left with the cocoa nibs. These are then either pressed to separate the cocoa powder, that's used in baking, from the cocoa butter. Or, the nibs are ground together into a paste with extra cocoa butter and sugar for up to three days." I complete the process in under three minutes while we walk.

"Well, that looks better than that weird pulp, at least." She comments on the shiny, dark brown mixture floating above my hands. "Smells good too, maybe a little bitter, but still good."

"It can also be mixed with powdered milk to make milk chocolate, or you can just use the cocoa butter, milk, and sugar to make white chocolate." I make samples of both. "Now, we're almost done; the chocolate just needs to be tempered, like good steel." I control the heat precisely to insure perfect crystallization while molding the three chocolates into bars.

Snapping a corner off of the dark chocolate, I pop it into my mouth. "Mmm, not bad." I close my eyes as it melts onto my tongue. "I can see some room for improvement, but for a first attempt, that's pretty good." I take a corner from the other bars before splitting them for the girls. "Go on, try it."