Anortha was surprised how much of her life was occupied by Pochi. When Pochi went away to visit her family, she felt lonely. Even her bed felt empty at night.

 

The next day, Anortha decided to do all her studying and work early in the morning so she could play with Pochi to her heart’s content afterwards. However, she was suddenly interrupted when some grey furry thing scattered her books and papers. She might have let out a few screams too, but when she focused on exactly what came through her window, the first thing she thought of was that it was Pochi. But Pochi would never come through the window, and this one looked a bit different. Bigger for one. It also looked incredibly cute, and before she knew it, she grabbed it and began petting it all over while rubbing her face in it.

 

She only stopped when Pochi came into her room. She simply shifted the lupo into her left arm and used the other to give Pochi a nice hug. That only lasted a short while though, since one arm apparently wasn’t enough to stop the other lupo from extricating itself. It then hid under the bed, its tail still sticking out.

 

That just meant that both of her arms were now available to give Pochi a hug, so she did just that. Anortha would have continued the hug for a lot longer, but she had questions, and Pochi could only reply by writing, so with great reluctance, Anortha separated from Pochi.

 

“So is the lupo under the bed going to be staying with us?” Anortha asked.

 

“Only for a few hours. Preferably before your parents come back. I also apologize in advance if she breaks something or does something rude, since she’s not exactly well versed in elven customs.”

 

“The same thing was true for you though, and it worked out fine. Also, you sure she doesn’t want to stay with us longer? Even permanently?”

 

“No. Our parents won’t be happy. Also she is actually as old as she looks, namely four years old.”

 

Anortha remembered that lupoy had a much shorter lifespan, but from what she just heard, Pochi has a sister that was four, and Pochi herself was thirty-two, so how old were her parents when they had her? Well that would explain why her sister should be sent back, and why Pochi is worried about her behavior.

 

“So,” Anortha said, “Is there anything you wanted to show your sister before she goes back?”

 

Pochi wrote, “My sister seemed extremely interested in magic when I showed it to her.”

 

“Oh, maybe I could teach her some magic too!”

 

“I thought you were the one who said that elves don’t teach magic to their children until they grow to a certain point.”

 

“Oh, right. But your sister is actually bigger than you already.”

 

“Adult lupoy in general are much bigger than I am, you know. I guess you should just show her some magic tools and show off your magic.”

 

“Sure thing. Although I can’t really do that if your sister is still under our bed.”

 

Pochi made some strange noises, and her sister responded in kind. Eventually, she came out from under the bed.

 

Pochi wrote, “My sister claims that your hugging technique needs a lot of work. You’re too loud, you squeeze too hard, and she claims that her fur is not for you to rub your snot on. Try using a leaf instead. Three out of ten, would not hug again.”

 

She got her snot on her fur? “I am so sorry. Actually, why not take her to the shower room so we could get her cleaned and also show off magic at the same time?”

 

A quick conversation happened between the lupoy, and then Pochi wrote, “Sure. Although let me do the actual scrubbing and stuff because I still have nightmares with your horrendous technique.”

 

Anortha just let out a steady flow of warm water for the two of them to wash, since Pochi commented that she would also like to shower too. They were speaking to each other the entire time, which was quite a feat given that there was water spraying everywhere, although the fact that they could communicate with their mouths completely shut was an advantage.

 

Once Pochi signaled that they were done, Anortha gave them a nice blast of hot air to dry them off. Pochi went and got dressed, and then dressed her sister, only for her sister to take them off moments later.

 

“I might have some old clothes that are a bit bigger if she doesn’t fit in yours,” Anortha commented.

 

Pochi wrote, “She claimed she prefers to go without them, probably because she isn’t used to it. It’s also only for a few hours anyways. On another note, lunch time is almost here, and I hope you don’t mind a bit more meat than usual. She seems to not like vegetables as much.”

 

“What does she usually eat then?”

 

“Deer.”

Anortha frowned at that, and said, “Well isn’t this the perfect time to feed her delicious vegetables to get her to change her opinion?”

 

“More meat than usual for you is still a lot less meat than typical for my sister. Actually, when I mentioned our usual diet, she offered to hunt an entire deer and bring it over.”

 

The elf looked at the seemingly innocent lupo and could not imagine something so small and cute would be capable of something so barbaric. Persuading herself that the lupo would change after eating Pochi’s cooking, the elf decided to ignore the matter.

 

Given that the kitchen was filled with magical appliances, Anortha thought it would be a good idea to bring the lupo there, forgetting that having a four year old in a place with lots of sharp objects and hot things is generally not the best idea.

 

Anortha’s only role when it came to cooking was just the water provider, and thus she could only watch as Pochi began to pull out assorted food ingredients from the fridge. The younger sister began asking lots of questions, and Pochi replied. However, apparently Pochi had no idea about the answer for some of the questions, so she asked Anortha, “Do you know what animals these meats are from?”

 

The elf looked at the chalkboard, then turned her head to look at the pile of meat, and replied “That over there is either from a koko¹basically a chicken or a koketo²basically a smaller species of chicken, and uh, that’s probably from a shafo³basically a sheep, and I really can’t tell the rest.”

 

“Why did your parents throw away the original packaging anyways?”

 

“Probably to save space in the refrigerator?” Anortha said as she read what Pochi wrote.

 

When they both turned their attention back to the food, they saw the lupo happily taking a bite out of the raw meat. Pochi immediately began yelling at her sister, who looked apologetic.

 

After the scolding, Pochi began slicing the meat into thin strips. To Anortha’s surprise, Pochi handed the knife over to her sister, and then wrote, “She wanted to try cutting with the knife to see the difference between the metal and stone. You probably don’t need to worry about her hurting herself, since she can butcher an entire deer without any aid.”

 

The elf didn’t know what to say about that, and instead watched as the lupo chopped the meat… and also the wooden cutting board underneath. The lupo made a squeal of admiration at the knife, and chopped with less strength, beautifully cutting the rest of the meat in equal shape and size, with minimal extra damage to the cutting board.

 

Pochi let out a sigh, and wrote, “She clearly wasn’t expecting the knife to be as sharp as it was. I’ll replace the cutting board later.”

 

Meanwhile, Anortha really wasn’t sure how to treat her sister. She jumped through the window and could accidentally cut through the cutting board as if it were butter, all without the aid of magic. If she did learn magic on top of that, how overpowered would she be? And she was only four! Pochi did mention she was a lot weaker for her species, but the elf didn’t expect the gap to be so big.

 

Pochi began taking out all the other ingredients and prepared them. Anortha began water duty as Pochi began washing some of the ingredients. Anortha guessed that her sister asked to sample them, since Pochi cut a small portion after washing them of course, and fed them to her sister. Her sister also went and smelled all the various sauces and spices that Pochi was adding.

 

Eventually, Pochi activated the fire magic stones in the stove, which was a cue for Anortha to resume water duty. As she followed Pochi’s signals on when to add water and when to stop, she thought that whatever Pochi was trying to cook, it was more fancy than usual. It was quite touching to see the lupo put in extra effort for her sister.

 

When the meal was actually served, Pochi’s sister completely ignored the spoon and fork provided, and proceeded to lift the plate and eat directly from it. Naturally, some of the sauces would end up stuck to her face because of that. Anortha thought that was at least better than scooping up the food with hands and eating off of that, but it was still concerning. Then again, she was still very young.

 

Once they were done eating, the elf applied a burst of warm water to wash the sauces and food from Pochi’s sister’s face, and it was off to showcasing more magic tools. Not all of them were of interest to her new guest though. For example, the elf could tell that she had no interest whatsoever in the large clock that was extremely accurate to the second, and that was even with Pochi explaining it to her.

 

Once the elf ran out of magic appliances to show her, Anortha asked, “Should we take her to the general store then?”

 

“Let’s not, just in case. Since if she breaks something really expensive, that’d be a problem. Actually, I think it would be better if we simply just take her back outside and show off magic there. She’d be happier and I wouldn’t have to worry about her as much.”

 

“Sounds good.”

 

When Pochi relayed the decision to her sister, there was some talking, and then what looked like pleading, until Pochi went off and came back with a kitchen knife. Anortha was concerned that Pochi would actually threaten to stab her own sister. However, what ended up happening was Pochi handing over the sharp object to the four year old child, who looked happy as she was waving it around. Now Anortha was concerned for a very different reason and decided to give her a very wide berth just in case.

 

Apparently, Pochi probably had a similar concern too, and asked Anortha to make a stone sheath for the knife, which the elf was more than happy to do. Anortha wasn’t the best at earth magic, but there wasn’t much of a rush, and Pochi helped shape the rock as well. There was clear interest coming from Pochi’s sister, which was rather surprising since making the sheath wasn’t exactly flashy or exciting. In fact, it was rather slow, as the entire process took around twenty-four minutes.

 

The elf hoped that her planned mini-fireworks would still be of interest, since she really had no idea what would be interesting to her.