After sharing an emotional and exciting hug between us, I became Emily’s new coworker. We still had to work out the details as I still wanted to be there for my parents as much as I could while living with them, so we kept to the same rotating schedule of one day on and one day off with Emily picking me up and bringing me home on the days I worked. For pay, we decided for the betterment of the shop to hold off on a permanent salary while I was still in training and Emily would instead feed me each day I would come over to work and cover the grocery expenses for my weekly shopping trips. Once we started taking on service contracts, I would get a more stable salary but until then it was just an upgrade of where I was previously.

She also gave me a bit more flexibility on material in the shop to experiment with as I was currently only using spare parts lying around the workshop. Now I could get more hands on work with the products we sell out front. She also mentioned she would start asking her regulars if they needed any small projects done at a training rate to get me more experience.

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That night after Emily dropped me off at home I told my mom the good news.

“So Mom, you remember that I’ve been helping Emily around her shop and learning more about aether working right?,” I said, smirking a bit.

“How could I not. You only mention it nearly every night when you learn something new or blow something up at her shop,” she said. 

“Well, I’m glad to say my escapades of blowing things up and helping Emily have finally led to something exciting. I was working on an automatic door opening contraption from Emily’s grandfather’s notes and I finally managed to get it to work today. I showed it to Emily and she was super happy about it...not to mention she started crying when I mentioned it was from her grandfather’s notes.”

“Oh sweety, that’s great. I’m glad you were able to do something special for her and it sounds like you’ve moved further along than just blowing up crystals,” she said.

“I’m glad that I can finally be of more use to her than just being a crystal charger. Actually, that’s where the next part of my story comes in. After showing her the working device, Emily asked if I’d like to work with her more as an official employee. So now, I guess I’m officially working with Emily as an aether worker at her shop.”

Mom put down the knife she was using to peel vegetables and came up to me to give me a big hug while stroking my head.

“Oh deary, I’m so happy for you,” she said, rubbing my head. “I know this means a lot to you so congratulations on your new job.”

Standing there while mom hugged me, I didn’t notice that I started crying from everything that happened. Honestly this still felt like such a dream to me. One day, I died at my old job and was reborn into a new world full of new things and ideas. I experienced the pain of dying twice, getting harrassed by the upper class, and the feeling of uselessness with my new disabilities. But now on the other side, I felt so close to my new mother and was extremely happy to have her in my life. In my past life, I couldn’t remember having such a caring mother but I’m glad that things worked out this way. 

Even more, I met Emily at one of the lowest points in my life. Her smile and laughter started to become my rock everyday and I was the most comfortable I’ve ever been around her. She treated me as someone who was more than just a disability and instead as her best friend and I wanted to do everything I could for her as she continued to open up so many more doors for me. All this past through my head as I cried into my mothers arms smiling. 

“Thanks mom,” I said weepingly. “I...I never expected things to turn out this way, but I’m glad that I have amazing people like you and Emily in my life.” 

With that, we let go after a few more minutes of hugging and started finishing dinner as I continued to explain to my mom about my job going forward.

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My next few days took on a new sense of excitement as I continued to progress with increasing my knowledge and ability with aether working. Emily true to her discussion earlier this week started giving me more to do around the shop by having me repair a few broken contraptions in the back with her own store stock for practice. 

She also put out feelers to her regular customers telling them she was ready to start taking on commissions again for a trial period while I gained more experience as an apprentice. I had become more comfortable getting up and meeting with the customers in the morning as I introduced myself to them as the new apprentice. Mostly I was received with positive reception and excited as they promised to look around for repairs to bring in for me. Those who were less than receptive were met with a stern gaze from Emily which I greatly appreciated.  

And now, we are here today with a local upper class-restaurant owner stepping through the door of the shop.

*Ding*

“Hello, Welcome to Knole Aether Works!,” Emily exclaimed. “How can we help you today?”

“Actually, I heard from one of my regular customers that you were taking commissions again. The old owner actually was the one that built the door opener at my store, hmm..must have been 10 years ago. Needless to say it broke last year when a customer threw the door open a bit aggressively and I haven’t been able to have it repaired since.”

“Oh! I’m sorry to hear about the door and the customer. Yes, we are once again taking on commissions for a trial period.,” she said pointing to me at the counter. “This is Lilly, our new shop apprentice. She’s still relatively new to aether working, but she has been able to recreate my grandfather’s door opening designs from his notes quite well so I’m sure she can repair your device. Naturally we’ll be charging a reduced rate for the repair because of this and we ask that you also let us be flexible on the time to finish.”

“Oh my, that’s great to hear,” he said. “I was worried about taking it to another shop as your grandfather treated me so well over the past years. I’m glad to let you try working on it. It’s not like I’m losing too much if you take more time on getting it right since it’s been out of commission for about a year now.”

“Great,” Emily clapped. “Let me draw up a contract with you. Can you have someone deliver it, or should I come down and pick it up myself?”

“Oh it’s not a problem to bring it down here. I’ll have someone from my staff take it off the door and walk it over this afternoon if that works for you,” he said.

And with that, Emily and the owner who I later found out was called Harold finished drawing out the contract and I signed it as the craftsperson. Later that afternoon like Harold said, a younger man walked into the shop with a box containing the broken door opener for me to repair. As it was getting late in the day, Emily suggested that I take my time on it and start working on it the next working day.

autumnrayne92

Thank you everyone for your continued support as I continue to write my first work. As I mentioned before, I will not be posting weekly like I was doing earlier due to my increased teaching load and grad school work...and my thesis...so much going on. I will swap over to a post every 2 weeks for my own sanity. Thank you for keeping up with the story so far and I hope you keep reading as Lilly' and Emily's stories continues to grow.