She nods, then tilts her head. "Oh, useful context: the five of us are all dating each other. So, if you had a girlfriend as cute and innocent as Ruby, wouldn't you want to hurt things that made her cry?"

"—yes but I think probably it'd be a bad idea most of the time."

"She doesn't cry very often, so it doesn't come up a lot, but yes, you're right, it would tend to be a bad idea more often then I appreciate. I often have to restrain myself just to cutting remarks instead."

"Oh, I'm no good at those."

She snickers just a little. "We like you, so don't ask me to demonstrate."

"Okay, I won't."

"It's frustrating. We're going to have to do a lot of work to make technology from our old world behave itself here. Worth it, though."

"Does this mean no iceless iceboxes for a while, or are those a different thing from uh, tiny lightning mazes?"

"Iceless iceboxes?" says Hazel, intrigued.

"Tech from our old world called refrigeration. Uses a powered compressor and the behavior of gasses when expanding and compressing to consistently pump heat from one side of a wall to the other. The result is that the inside of an insulated box becomes colder, and the heat gets vented outside."

"Hmm! I'm afraid I don't know enough about the behaviour of gasses to know whether that should work, but the basic principle seems sound, and as an alchemist I'm always excited about the possibility of more convenient preservation methods."

She smiles lightly and nods, then looks down at the basket. "Think it's been long enough?"

She starts writing her name down on the label.

"Yes, I believe so."

She ties the label onto the vial, then cuts her wrist, deftly catching the blood in the vial and filling it up. A few drops spill to the ground while she caps it off, then she hands it to Hazel and holds a cloth to the cut.

Hazel tucks the vial away in the basket. "I'll see about analyzing these over the next week or so, and let you know what I discover."

"Thank you, Hazel," she replies with a nod. She hums thoughtfully for a moment. "How difficult is it to cultivate the ingredients you use in the color change potions?"

"The flowers themselves are relatively easy to come by; the reagents I use to refine them are a bit trickier, though I manage well enough. Why do you ask?"

"We switch multiple times a day. We woudn't want to start swapping heights and figures and color palettes that often unless we were sure we supplied enough of everything to make up for what we used."

"Sensible," says Hazel. "I could easily sell you two or three simple colour change potions per week; anything more complicated, such as separate potions to change eye and hair colour, or a specific layout of multicoloured hair, would be more difficult, and if you wanted one colour change potion per day let alone several I would begin to run out of reagents. Though I suppose I could take that as a cue to see if I can make my process any more efficient."

She nods. "So we'll need to hold off on letting our appearance keep up with our switches for now, then. Perhaps we can start cultivating the reagents ourselves once we build our home and lab. For the meantime, we'll just savor what we have."

She looks up at the sky, notes the angle of the sun. "We'd better head back for now. Thank you both for your time and company."

Hazel nods. "It has been a pleasure to meet you all. Torok, if you stay a little longer, I'll get you that armour."

"Sounds good." He looks to Hailey and says, "Anytime you guys want me to come with you to the city, just come find me on the north shore, or wait for me at Palla's around mealtimes."

She nods firmly. "Will do."

And then she stands, looking back toward Palla's.

The western shore of the lake curves away to the north and east, ready to be traversed at her leisure.

When she looks back toward them with a serene smile, it's Maya. "For now, however, we're off."

She looks toward Palla's again, and sets off.

She has the heart of a shipgirl, even if she was born as something like a tulpa. Her destination is always a core part of who she is, as is warping space to reach it. The distance between herself and Palla's hut should be immaterial. She will make it immaterial.

Step.

Step.

Step.