I had spent way too much time watching the fire, engaging in the thought of how to get Ard's spell to work. The water inside was deep brown, and I didn't have a way to filter out the water in a way that would work. I had a basket, that was true, I could dump the water and let it flow out of the basket that way, but would it burn the material? Most likely not. But I hadn't brought the basket over with me. Was I thinking at all when I brought everything over here?

For now I'll dump the water into a hole, go get the the basket once I refilled the pot with water and got as many of the nuts inside to boil once again. The ground should filter out a good amount of the water away, letting me pick it up with my bare hands.

Preparing the hole by taking a stick and breaking apart the ground below, and then scooping out the dirt and throwing away towards some other area, I once again cast Ard's fire handling spell, pleasantly surprised by how easy it is to do so once I've figured out the basic concept, and grabbed the pot. It didn't burn, just like last time, and I could easily handle the pot and maneuver it towards the hole. Dumping out the brown water, the acorns coming out with it, I realized the water wasn't being filtered into the dirt. The hole wasn't deep enough for me to dump all the contents of the pot into, either, so I couldn't let it sit there to cool, either.

This isn't working, then. I set aside the pot and started to run towards my shelter. It's a twenty minute walk, but if I ran it should take me significantly less time. In total roughly fourteen minutes, I'd guess. That's not too bad. And I definitely had enough energy to run.

So I do so. Arriving at the camp, checking the fire momentarily. It was still burning and would keep burning for hours longer, most likely. But just in case I threw a couple more sticks in it, then grabbed the basket and ran back to the basin. I need to be more careful about these careless mistakes, one day there won't be a faery to save me from the consequences. Luckily the mistake I've made isn't so terrible as to ruin all of my acorns. It hadn't ruined a single one, most likely.

The basin was where I had left it. The fire was still burning, and the sun had barely moved from the last time I saw him. All I need to do is set the basket down and pour the rest of the acorns into the basket. The basket itself probably won't get ruined from the water, it's not like I'm boiling it directly. Either way I placed the basket on a portion of the ground that was sloping downward, so that the water didn't spread out evenly throughout the floor but instead harmlessly downward.

Inspecting the hole I dug into the ground as well, some water did filter out. But it wasn't enough to have been efficient. Scooping out the acorns with my hand, the fire resistance spell still in effect, I plopped those into the basket as well. Then I refilled the pot, placed it back in the fire, and placed all the acorns into the pot and let it boil once again. Finally, now I should have food, food that I had gathered by myself, by the end of today.

Happy, and somewhat excited, I made my way to my yet to be shelled acorns and began to crack them open for the next batch.

Once the water brown enough, once again, I went over, the fire resistance spell still working, so no need to recast it. Grabbing the pot, I prepared to dump the water into the basket. The pot felt slightly heavier than it did last time, probably because there was more water in it considering how long I let it boil last time. Thinking nothing of it, I poured the water, watched as the acorns fell into the basket and the water through the gaps and into the ground, I repeated the same pattern of filling the basket up with water and setting it on the fire.

The spell worked surprisingly well, and consistently. I could still feel that my version was vastly inferior to what Ard had cast, but if it works this well even despite my inexperience, then it was a very, very good spell indeed. The quality of my own spell compared to hers was in the same vein artistic in essence, something I hadn't experienced before or have been told about in any lessons on spellcraft. Normally there's a strict procedure, with strict steps, that if failed to do properly, the spell itself wouldn't work.

Perhaps the magic of the faeries was different in fundamental axioms than man. For one, internal control over external control, at least in this spell, was the method of casting, and that in itself was unique. Both my master and Brenna, even Aiden, had been much better at controlling things external to themselves than they were at what was internal. We never could figure out why that was. At least one other villager, one that had the sight, reported the same ability of better understanding of internal control, similar to me.

Moving over to the basket, I prepared to dump the acorns into the pot. As the mouth of the pot was too small for me to just tip the basket over so the acorns fell in. But I noted something strange. First of all, I couldn't feel or hear much of anything. The sound of the crackling fire was distant, and the feeling within my right hand didn't eist. But, ever since the incident, I couldn't feel anything on my right anyway. But I felt, or didn't feel, that same thing on my left.

Looking over to my left hand, palms facing up towards me, my skin was red, the skin on it torn but not bleeding. Almost like fabric, the skin was ripped, revealing soft and tender skin, a light red taking over it, some parts white. I knew this. This was a burn, a pretty bad one at that. It would soon start blistering, and if unattended might lead to my death.

Why couldn't I feel it? And why didn't the spell work? Taking a closer look, as best as I could, I couldn't see much of anything. Not elementals, it was as if I had lost the sight. Oh.

I've experienced this before. Exhaustion, magical exhaustion. But this was different. I didn't feel that loss of self, that feeling of my soul leaving my body. I was still here, present, but my body was sluggish, and the feeling was significantly muted. But the symptoms were too similar. Had I left the spell on for too long? It barely cost anything to cast and maintain, was I wrong to leave it on? I had thought since it costed me so little, and that I didn't get that sensation of leaving my body, and that my physical vision was still functional, that it would be harmless.

The situation was similar on my right hand. My right hand isn't going through the best of times right now, at all. Alright. My plans are ruined, then. I didn't have any herbs I could use to heal the burns with, and neither did I have a way to work with the acorns anymore. I would have to hope, at least with the batch I had now, that I could eat it without causing me major discomfort. Most likely I could, but it wasn't the optimal amount of preparedness.

Right. Another failure, this time caused by an oversight. This kind of injury would take two or three weeks to heal on its own, and without herbs a risk of infection was real and present. But hands are vital, without them I wouldn't be able to do much of anything.

I sat down on the ground, next to the basket, and watched as the fire moved and shifted against the pot, and waited, considering what I could do. I could wait for Ard, hopefully she'll know where to find me. I could take the basket, leave the pot here, and go to the camp where she would most likely know where I was. Those are my two options, anything else I could think of would just damage something or make the situation worse.

I couldn't meditate to pass the time, but thankfully for the same reason I didn't feel much of the pain from the injury either. Guess I'll just sit here. I definitely wasn't crying from frustration and helplessness, not at all.

Fuck.

Hours passed by, my mind more hazy than functional. Perhaps some of the symptoms of elemental exhaustion was still in effect, just not in some areas as strong as I was use to. The burns turned into blisters, and the pain was slowly starting to come back to me. Slowly, I could only feel a very minor irritation even after hours of resting.

Eventually Ard did come, nonchalantly.

"Hello, Fathach. I am back, had you learned how to work the spell I showed you yet?" She said, walking close enough to me to inspect me in full. She looked down at my hands, and stared for a while. "I see."

Crouching down she touched my wrist, a portion of skin that wasn't burned, and stayed like that for a while. I could sort of feel her doing something, or checking on something. After roughly half a minute I could feel a cooling sensation on my left hand. I looked down and saw that the blisters had started to recede, and the skin had begun to heal. Not form into scar tissue, but almost knit itself back into the form it was before.

"I can guess at what happened. You used the spell for too long, lost feeling, and then burnt yourself in the process." Ard looked at me in the eyes. I nodded, not returning her gaze, too mesmerized by whatever it is my hands were doing to want to look away. "Did you hurt your eyes as well? How? They're swollen." She made to touch my eyes, but I turned away. Does she not know what crying is?

Not that I was crying, of course.

"Oh right, your kind sprouts water out of your eyes when you're in pain." Stopping her attempt to touch my face, she sits back down next to me and watches me. I attempted to move my hands, but everything felt painfully slow and sluggish. My hands didn't hurt, but I couldn't move all that well. Elemental exhaustion, most likely. She either couldn't or was unwilling to fix that.

"I would've thought you knew what would happen if you used too much magic at once. Perhaps some magical lessons are in order. Not now, however. You're probably not in the right mind to practice right now, it should take a while for you to get back enough of your magic to function normally again. This is my fault, I think. I over estimated the amount of knowledge you had of the art of magic." Ard's tone was almost apologetic. I appreciated the fact that she healed my injury, through what magic I couldn't even feel, but being constantly looked down on even for things I knew about was starting to annoy me.

"Are you still in pain?" I shook my head. I couldn't feel anything like pain, either because there was no pain to be felt or because I was too exhausted to feel it. My hands could move, and they looked fixed. My right hand, I'm pretty sure, had the exact same scar pattern as it did before the recent burn. Whatever she did was extremely effective.

"I'm guessing you can't move, either. How did preparing the acorns go?" Ard picked up a shelled acorn and inspected it. "Boiled the toxins out enough?" I shook my head.

"Want me to do it for you?"

That hurt. Ultimately, even the acorns I had gathered wouldn't be truly prepared solely by me. Even if they were, the pot I was gifted rather than self made. And the fire was something Ard had given me already. I clenched my teeth. Rationally, I knew it was better to accept her offer, especially if she herself was offering to help. But, it hurt my pride to accept so much help, without being able to give anything back in return.

I didn't answer, Ard kept playing with the acorn in her hand, watching me with her emerald green eyes.

"I'll do it. Don't worry about it." Saying so, she brought the acorn to her mouth and nibbled a chunk off of it. Her teeth were dreadfully sharp, and the nut seemed to melt off rather than be bitten off. She chewed for a bit, then brought the basket over to the rock I had been using as an anvil. I didn't respond, perhaps I should've. I nodded, just to assure myself that I accepted her help. I don't think she noticed, though.

Ard began to break up each acorn into smaller bits using the same hammer stone I'd been using. The chunks weren't too small, nor too large, she didn't pulverize them. Once a large enough pile of acorn chunks had been made, she dumped it back into the basket and brought it over to the pot. The pot had most of its water evaporated, so she picked that put and filled it with water once again. The water sizzled as the pot made contact to it, telling me that the pot was very, very hot.

Getting enough water inside she placed it back into the fire, and then poured the acorn chunks into the pot. Using her hands to scoop up the acorn, since, as I already noted, the mouth of the pot was too small. Finally she brought the basket with her to the anvil once again and set it beside her. She started to shell more acorns, and did so without saying anything. I watched the entire process. Probably for too long, but I don't think Ard ever cared about being stared at anyway.

"Why are you letting water out of your eyes again, fathach?"

Was I? I moved my hand slowly towards my face, not because I wanted it to move slowly but because I couldn't move it fast, and felt my eyes. Probably even without feeling it I could tell my vision had become a bit more blurry. I could sort of feel my eyes being wet. Damn, maybe I was crying again.

"Are you in pain?" I shook my head and let my hand fall back into my lap. Ard kept peeling at the acorns, not saying anything for a bit.

"Do you do that for any other reason than pain, then? We láchs might whimper when we're distressed or in pain. Are you distressed, then?"

Frustrated was more like it. I had been crying much more recently, it's not as bad as it was two days ago. The pain of Brenna's death, and the fact that I had killed her, still haunts me at times. Minor mess ups send me into depressive spirals, and being unable to do anything for Ard in return is starting to send me to those same spirals. I don't know what to do anymore, simply letting myself die isn't an option either.

I nodded.

"Why?" Ard didn't stop her shelling. She would glance at me every once in a while, too concentrated on her work to do anything. I couldn't answer, so I didn't.

"How old are you? Blink the amount of your age." She looked at me and waited. I blinked fourteen times, I'd be roughly fourteen this autumn. Ard stared at me for a while, and finally spoke up. "You're just a kid, younger than me, despite your size. I had thought you were older. I don't know how long your kind lives for, is fourteen young? I myself am thirty, thereabouts. My kind count their ages by the decade, not by year."

Decades? She's thirty? She's as old as my parents! But she's so small. How long do faeries live for if they count their lifespan by the decade rather than by the year? She stared at the anvil, not doing anything, an acorn that was in the process of being shelled in her hands. She shot up her gaze suddenly and her ears started to shift from behind her hood.

"Oho. Are you frustrated that you can't do anything, Attie?"

She called me by my name, and she had hit the target on why I was crying, probably. It could've been because I was frustrated over her helping me, but it equally could've been something entirely unrelated. I don't really know myself. I don't get what's going on with me. And, she called me by my name. She's only done that once, she normally calls me fathach, or giant. I looked towards the fire and nodded.

"Then you really are a kid. I may only be helping you because I've made an oath, an oath that might've been a bit too rash, but know that I'm helping you now not because of that. You've attempted to survive by yourself, which I appreciate. You're injured, and that injury was partially my own fault." That's not true at all, I had made a mistake and that mistake was solely on me, I knew the consequences of elemental exhaustion. "I think it's fair to help you with these acorns. You'll be out of it for a couple of days, so please, just rest."

"And I won't take no for an answer. If you want to repay me, then hurry up and complete the trodding spirits' spell, or whatever it is they've been doing, and maybe teach me more about your kind. I'm very interested in the habits of different creatures."

I heard her give out a light chuckle a few moments after. I guess faeries can laugh. I don't know why she was chuckling.