Back on earth, it was common to have work restricted to daylight hours, especially before the advent of electricity. On the world I'd come to know as Aytvatum, this was much less common, almost exclusively due to the glowing plants. Many houses kept them in all but the bedrooms, to better allow for existing past when the sun would allow. There was even a particularly hardy and low maintenance plant called a Floralum, which bloomed in mostly blues and purples, which was often used as a desk side plant in much the same way a candle might have been used back home.

The nicest benefit of the difference, to me at least, was getting to work out of the sun. Sitting in the glowing field, the first hint of starlight beginning to dot the night sky, after having watched the sun dip below the horizon only an hour prior, and getting to see the faces of the various Volsew illuminated by the soft yellow glow of the grain we were harvesting, filled me with a sense of beauty I often felt in my new home. 

I sat now on a slightly raised platform keeping the magic circle filled, with full vision of everyone in the field. The spell I was powering only gave a mild benefit to those working, but Myphra had been insistent on its usefulness, and I certainly wasn't going to argue. In the past two weeks since I'd arrived, I had been put to task attempting to get every bit of value Myphra could wring out of my mana pool that she could. Most of my effort went toward cooling down the freezer that was essential to Myphra's business, which freed up much of her own mana, since I had it in spades. The extra cold space had allowed her to take on many more orders, and she could afford to pour mana into her cleavers now, each of which had an inscription from Sinsa on them. The glowing edges seemed to slice through the meat like butter, and it sent shivers down my spine to watch that weren't related to the cold. 

Outside of that, I had walked the entirety of Myphra's fields, casting a spell that detected nearby weeds, found failing crops, casting the multi target buff I was currently maintaining, and blasting parts of the field with wind to get rid of unwanted bugs and loosen the crops for harvesting. That last spell was to blame for the flattened corner of the field I now winced at, a reminder of my first attempt at the spell, though Myphra had only laughed at the lost crop, waving off my apologies. 

As the last bushel of grain from the field was cut down, a small cheer rang out from the farmpaws, as Myphra called them. There were seven in the group, and all of them began congratulating each other in their own way. Dinte and Dintu, twin Volesew though not identical, Dinte being a tad taller and his fur a darker shade of grey than his brother's, both lifted their scythes in the air and started jumping in celebration, an arm around each others shoulders. Jegra, the shortest of the bunch, with fur a shade of light brown, made her way toward Wenku and Horda. Wenku was probably too young yet to be worth having in the fields, but Myphra had taken pity on him and let him make a wage, since he and his older sister Horda had had both their parents leave to the conflict in the east. Mirko simply laid down and stared at the sky, happy to be done with work, and probably excited to get back to his painting at home. The last member, Yelfa, made her way over to me. Her fur was a light grey, almost silvery, and she was the one who had been working for Myphra the longest. She had been the first to make an effort to talk to me, which had helped break the ice with the others.

"How long are you planning to sit up there, we did it! Get your butt down here so we can celebrate properly!" her voice rang out as she approached.

"I'll be right down, just a moment." I carefully wrapped up the spell, and put it back in its case, a round leather satchel that held all the spells Sinsa had made for me, and the one's Myphra was loaning me while I was working for her. It was well reinforced, and resisted both heat and cold well enough to shrug off a blast of fire, though anything too prolonged might still be able to damage it.

I hopped down to meet Yelfa and started walking toward the group with her. "I see you're finally out of those clothes you arrived in, though, it's a bit of an odd getup." I looked down at the clothes I was wearing. Sinsa had lent me a pair of his pants, since he was the only one in the village whose legs worked the same way mine did, and thus was the only one whose pants fit me. He owned only robes for tops though, and since they were much too big for me, ill-suited to farm work, and had four too many arm holes, I was wearing a tunic of Pransai's. We were almost the same height, though it hung a bit loosely around my chest. Given my circumstance, I could hardly complain about it, and I actually liked the soft yellow color it had.

"Yeah, they should be dry now that they've been hung out all day, but this outfit works too, at least for now." Yelfa nodded her head at my explanation. We made our way over to the rest of the group, and Dintu immediately lit up. "Hey, three cheers for Korey, made clearing this field a breeze, especially that bit in the corner!" Dintu broke out laughing at his own jest and had the group cheer to various degrees of success, Mirko catching on to what was happening only for the last "hear!" and Wenku being quite quiet in his cheers.

"Thank you but I really didn't do much. I just got to sit there, you all were the one's who had to do all the work."

"Bah, my lack of aching back begs to differ. Without your fancy pancy spell, I doubt we'd even be through the first field." Jegra rubbed the small of her back to emphasize her point.

"We are on track to finish before the cold sets in, without you here we likely would have fallen behind." Horda's tone was serious, as it always was, but I'd come to learn she didn't really have any other modes, so she was probably in good spirits. Maybe. I had no idea.

"Alright, I'll accept the praise thank you. Though, I would be useless without all of Sinsa's spells. Maybe a few cheers for Sinsa too?" 

Dinte immediately took the queue and started the cheer again, surreptitiously trying to tip his brother over during each cheer, until he caught on and immediately started retaliating in kind.

The cheers finished and Yelfa laughed a little "Glad to see something of Sinsa's was useful for a change." A small laugh rang out from a few of the group, and everyone mostly went back to chatting.

"I feel like most of Sinsa's spells are useful, or have I only seen the best one's?" I asked Yelfa. I had been wildly impressed by everything Sinsa had done, but maybe I had just been taken in by the idea of magic in general.

"Oh, don't get me wrong, Sinsa is a great spellcrafter, but most of the spells he makes tend to take way to much mana. I mean, even the cooling spell Myphra has been using took all the mana she could generate every day to keep it going."

Hearing our conversation, Mirko spoke up "Or, even when they don't take all your mana, they tend to be... uh, a bit unusable for what they are supposed to do? Like, he knew I liked painting, so he made me an easel that could follow me around, but he's never seen me paint, so he made it hover just barely out of arms reach. I can't even reach it!"

"Yeah, just this week he made me a plant light with a spell on the pot that switches its petals from red to green. I'm color blind." Wenku chipped in.

They were all still impressive spells, but I could understand where they were coming from. The spells clearly came from a place of care, but Sinsa seemed to be quite introverted and nervous, and probably didn't know much about the intricacies of their hobbies, or specific details about them. I'd still give him credit for the effort he put in though.

"He still tries though, but I get it. Well, should we start heading back? Myphra had said drinks were on her once the field was done." As we headed back together, my mind continued to ponder Sinsa. He tried so hard but had trouble connecting with people, something I understood. Recently especially, he had spent almost all his time working on new spells at home, barely leaving the house at all. I hoped he was doing alright.

***

***

The soft blue glow of the Floralum on my desk illuminated my current experiment. I wasn't sure exactly how long I'd been relying on its light; when I'd started, the window had still been framing the sun outside. Now, I squinted as best I could on the circle as it took shape before me. My hands were steady, two holding the paper perfectly still, another measuring the lines as I drew, and a fourth guiding the pen across the paper. Each circle had started basic, as I was trying to conserve materials. I slowly added changes with each failure, until the circle contained too many symbols, and I needed to start again fresh on a new paper. 

I had managed to effect change in a plant just days earlier, on a circle that was simple enough to fit onto a small pot, which had made me feel better about my progress. The world of transformation was not one I had been familiar with, but I was finally starting to make headway. At least if I could try and understand the basics, I would be starting from a place of knowledge for future projects. 

I hadn't wanted to bother Korey with questions, at least when I could help it. They had immediately made themselves busy, and had done a relatively fantastic job of making a good impression on the people they met. That was not a skill I had, the ability to talk easily with another person, especially new. It always felt like when my words came out, they were just barely the wrong ones, based on reactions, but also like no one really knew what the right ones should have been. Pransai and Casai were the exception, they had taken me in when I'd arrived in Tinsen, and had made me feel welcome. Pransai especially stomped right over every one of my failed attempts at conversation, and still wanted to talk to me afterwards.

Korey seemed like they might be falling into that category too now. They didn't shove past my faux pas in the same way, but they didn't seem put off by them either, and helped course correct. It was a different kind of acceptance I got from them, and I deeply appreciated it. And, they were really interested in spellcrafting too, even though they were now convinced that the things they wanted from it were impossible, thanks to my floundering.

I had to get this spell down, adding thorns to a plant that should only be able to grow them under specific conditions. If I could accomplish it, I'd be that much closer to making something of the spell Korey had inquired about when they were first learning about magic. Something that could transform a person. I wasn't sure exactly what it was they wanted, but I wanted to be able to provide that for them. It's why I had spent so long at my desk these past weeks, doing my best to make this work. 

I finished sketching yet another small tweak to the spell, and set it to activate using mana from a spell Korey had filled earlier that day. The sound of footsteps came from behind me, stealing my attention away from my experiment.

"Sinsa, how long have you been sat here today?" Casai voice was somewhere between worried and exasperated.

"Oh, um... I th-think its been..." I hadn't the slightest idea how long it had been.

"Your poor dinner has gotten cold." Casai moved to take a bowl that I had long since forgotten about from the desk. She feigned as though I had irreparably offended her. "If you truly hate my cooking so, at least make your vitriol known." She rested a paw against her forehead as though she was about to faint, her poorly hid smile betraying her acting.

"Sorry C-Casai, slipped my mind." She scrunched her snout at me. "No need to be sorry, I'm not the one who's going hungry."

The front door opened, and Pransai made her way inside. She was home later than usual, it had been dark for... some amount of time longer than usual. She didn't look as though she had just returned from hunting, her fur was brushed, and her clothes lacked the coating of dirt that was usual when she returned. She was always beautiful, but I was struck by it especially now as she strode towards me, her face glowing with a smile.

Her gaze wondered to the bowl of cold stew, but she chose not to comment on it. I'm sure it worried her; many of the things I did worried her, but the lack of taking care of myself especially did so. She put a truly monumental amount of effort into keeping us provided for, and I couldn't even remember to take advantage of that work.

 "Sinsa, Casai, I have presents for you!" She moved to embrace Casai and then me as she brought a bag she had been carrying behind her. 

"Where did you g-get those from?" I questioned.

"I made my way to Lestub, Korey was kind enough to power the teleportation circle so that I could make the journey today." The circle I'd crafted for our town hadn't gotten much use, as it required a good deal of mana, and only connected to the next town over, but Korey had made it much more feasible for casual use since they'd arrived.

"Casai, you had asked for more sewing material," she produced some fabric, string, and a few needles from her bad "and for you Sinsa, I've got more paper, ink, Rinta powder, and this book on spellcrafting that you had eyed last time we went into town." The sewing supplies were reasonable, but the amount of things Pransai had gotten me were astounding. The Rinta powder especially was surprising. It was what allowed spellcrafters to paint a circle in the air, and allowed changes to be made to a spell mid construction. It was incredibly useful, but was hard to justify given how quiet our life was. I wasn't really crafting many spells on the fly in this little town.

"Th-thank you, b-but are you sure we c-can afford all this. I c-could be able to make d-due with..."

"Nonsense, you will accept this gift, you have been practicing with Korey, who has already payed for the cost of the materials with what he's learned. That is why you need more, correct? Besides our anniversary is only once a year."

My stomach churned. I calculated and recalculated the date in my head, and felt the knot in my stomach tighten. We had been officially dating for 2 years to the day, and it had completely slipped my mind with how busy our life had been.

"Oh no... P-Pransai, I... I'm so sorry b-but I d-don't have a g-gift, I should have..."

"No, no apologies, you have never been good with dates, and you have gotten me far more gifts on random days than I have for you. It should be a happy day, no worrying." Pransai's voice was reassuring, but the shame still was nearly overbearing.

"B-but still..."

"I am sure you would never choose not to get me something if you had remembered, and I am sure you will get me a gift for our anniversary, and whether that is today, tomorrow, or any time in the future, I am certain whatever you give me will be wonderful. I love you, and I know you love me, and no gift is necessary to prove that." She said, planting a kiss on my forehead.

Before I could wallow further in my own self pity, the door opened once more. Korey stood in the doorway looking tired but in good spirits, their clothes hanging somewhat awkwardly off them. 

"Korey! Wait there, I'll be right back." Casai immediately exclaimed as he entered.

She scrambled up the stairs, leaving Korey standing there wide eyed, and returned an instant later hiding something behind her back.

"You haven't had anything to wear while you've been here, so I spent the past few days, making these for you. If I need to make any adjustments let me know, but I have a pretty good eye for these things." Casai smile wrapped all the way around her face as she presented a light blue tunic and pants she had sown.

"I... thank you so much, I really can't thank you enough... You really made these for me?"

There was joy and gratitude and something else in Korey's expression, as they held the new clothes in their arms and gave Casai a small hug. She had warmed up to Korey surprisingly quickly; she was usually quite a guarded individual. 

"How did the day find you?" Pransai asked Korey.

"Oh, quite well. We managed to clear another field, and afterwards Myphra had drinks ready for all of us. Dinte got up on a table, and..."

As Korey continued to explain the events of the small party, I felt a small seed of wistfulness as Korey described how easily they had integrated with the farmpaws, but I refused to let it blossom into jealousy. I could hope for nothing more than for Korey to be doing well in this world. If I wanted to have what they did, I would need to work for it, prove to myself I could do it, and prove to Pransai that she didn't have to worry about me. So she didn't have to put in such soul crushing effort to keep all of us afloat.

As the others moved off, I started cleaning off my desk so I could join them and do my best to make up to Pransai for my forgetfulness. My hands moved in tandem, one sorting the papers, another putting the cap on the ink, a pair putting each drawing utensil in its place, the last grabbing the experiment plant... 

YOWCH!

I felt a pinprick in my hand, and when I drew it back to inspect it, I found a small trickle of blood running down my finger. I looked back to the plant, and felt a small shock go through my system. A single drop of blood fell from a thorn that now protruded from the plant. I'd done it.