That night, Grace and I slept side by side again. At first it hadn't been a sure thing, but we'd shared a look as we arrived at our floor that had solidified the arrangement. Settling down next to her had been… it was nerve wracking and wonderful. Until a bunny hopped into the room, lay down on the floor and promptly flopped to the side. That seemed to break the ice a little as we shared a chuckle.

We didn’t immediately dive into sleep however. Instead we talked about things, about how the journey was going, about the grove and about Avonside. I got to learn a little more about Grace’s past too, how her family was tight knit, which I’d known, but also about how she used to play tennis back when she was in high school. By the time we were actually ready to go to sleep, I had a huge smile on my face and a pleasant glow in my heart.

The next day saw my second row of trees having grown nicely, and more than once I saw bunnies hopping around sprinkling little dustings of growth energy on things. With that taken care of I went ahead and placed down a few fruit trees near the tower, apricots were a favourite of mine, as were peaches, so those were first. Berry bushes of all sorts went down as well, as did some nut trees. Pretty much anything that would grow in the climate of my plateau.

After that I started work on the final layer of windbreak trees and their supporting growth plants as the day moved into the afternoon. Several fir trees went into the ground that I made sure to put a limit on this time. I didn’t want a ring of not-so-little happy trees after all. Besides the height limiter, I planned to turn them into some sort of defence when I knew how, but as it stood I was a massively ignorant novice. Maybe I should dedicate another day or so to watching the plants outside.

Our third day spent back in the grove consisted of me slowly building up patches of the various plants we’d need as resources later on. It was about when I got to making the latex that I realised I had an opportunity once I got back to Avonside. With the help of both chemists and biologists, I might be able to design a tree that could give us some truly unique and useful glues that might relieve some of our reliance on things like screws and nails.

Once I’d planted a bunch of different resource crops, trees and the like, I moved on to a task I had been dreading. The lake. See, unlike with plants, I needed to use my own raw magical energy to manipulate my grove into changing itself, moving dirt and rock around. I wished I’d thought of all this when I’d created the place. It had been so easy back then.

There was only one way this was going to happen, and that was by doing it, so I began to slowly move earth out of where I wanted the lake, beginning what would be a small hill in the process. As soon as I began, an army of bunnies swarmed the site and I stopped to watch in confusion. Then they began to dig.

“Holy shit, what… what are they doing?” Grace asked, from behind me. Turning around, that first glance at her had me floored.

She was wearing shorts and a tank top, sports bra visible beneath. Covered in sweat and grass stains, she dabbed at her forehead with a little hand towel as she watched the bunnies dig, completely oblivious to the stunned girl next to her. I couldn’t help but drink in the sight of her, and if she hadn’t been amazed by the feat bungineering happening nearby I might have been caught in my stare.

“They’re… um, they’re doing… they are digging. My lake, I mean, they’re helping me dig the hole for the lake,” I said, stumbling and tripping over my words as I tried to tear my eyes off her. “What have you been doing?”

“Troy has us training again,” she replied pointing back towards the area that he’d claimed for the purpose.

“Is it helping?” I asked, temporarily dropping my gaze to pet her emotional support bun that had followed her over.

“Yeah, although keeping up with Adam is a pain in the ass. The guy is a tank,” she grumbled, watching me pet her bun. Frowning, she pointed at it. “That little guy has been following me around for days, helping me out and shit. Why is that? Is that just what they do?”

“Um, no…” I mumbled, feeling embarrassed about what I’d done. “I assigned a bunny to each of you as like, an emotional support animal, because we all need something cuddly and cute to help relieve all the tension we’ve been dealing with.”

“Oh, wow… that’s actually incredibly thoughtful Ryn,” she said with surprise, and I glanced up to see her smiling at me all funny again. She’d been giving me these looks and smiles recently that seemed almost sad, but not sad at the same time. I couldn’t figure out what they meant.

“Thanks,” I smiled awkwardly, turning back to watch my bunnies digging. Could they dig me a hole that would let me hide from my own awkwardness while they were at it?

They were going at the task with truly impressive gusto, and I idly began to help out again, moving dirt with my mind.

Grace noticed, watching as the dirt floated through the air with her eyebrows raised. “Damn, I wish I could do that.”

“Soon, don’t worry,” I replied. “We’ll figure something out.”

“It’s not a big deal, I’m not going to get upset over it,” she said with a calm shrug of her shoulders. “Plus,” she went on, tapping me gently on the arm. “One of my best friends is a mage! Why do I need to be one too?”

My cheeks were heating as she gave me yet another funny smile, and I had to take a few deep breaths just to calm my heart rate. Why did her words of platonic affection hit me so hard like that?

“I don’t… know,” I finally said, almost gasping it out around my exploding heart.

“Exactly,” she chuckled, her eyes following the bunnies as they dug up the landscape.

We stood in silence for a minute or two, me moving dirt with my mind and her watching it all happen. Progress was slow with the lake, I could only move so much and the rabbits were just using their hands. They were trying their best, but it just wasn’t very effective.

“We need to get the little critters some tools,” Grace said, evidently having followed my train of thought along with me.

“Yeah, maybe I could get Troy to carve them some wooden ones or something,” I mused, and then a thought hit me. “Or I could carve them myself…” I whispered, forming a single mind vine before me.

Esra hadn’t really spoken about the telekinesis much beyond teaching me how to move shit around with it. Technically speaking it wasn’t made of vines either, that was just how I thought of it. The reality was that it was just a force, and you exerted it on the world around you using your mind. Could I sharpen that force? Make it so that I was pushing on something with so fine a point that it would cut it?

Since I’d been planting bamboo recently, I grew a shoot of it next to us, the stalk rising out of the earth with ease. Bamboo almost didn’t need my encouragement the way it shot out of the ground.

“Um,” Grace began, but I ignored her in that moment as I focused on contracting the point of my willpower into as fine an edge as possible.

Once I was certain it would work, I slashed it sideways through the bamboo. Or, I tried… instead the bamboo simply shook from the impact, and there was a small dent in where I’d hit it.

“Damn, that would have been so cool,” I sighed, glaring at the annoying piece of greenery.

“What would have been cool?” my friend asked, smiling as she watched me. “Also it’s really cute when you pout like that.”

That got my attention, and I blinked up at her in surprise. She thought I was cute when I pouted? I’d been pouting?

“I mean, like… cute like one of the bunnies… like… because it’s… um. Yeah, you are… I don’t know,” she babbled as she realised what she’d said, her cheeks going red with embarrassment. Stepping forward, she reached up and ruffled my hair quickly, mumbling, “Um yeah, good luck with the digging, fluffy cute girl. I mean that in like, a not weird way. Fuck. I’ll go now.”

Before I could recover from whatever had just happened, she was off back towards the sparring area.

Seriously, what the hell had just happened? She’d just… freaked out and started babbling, then run away. Did I do something wrong? I racked my brain for any ideas as to what had just caused that and came up empty. Wait, no… had she somehow figured out that I was into her? No that couldn’t be it… she’d have had a larger reaction to that.

Making a decision, I rushed after her. “Grace! Wait!”

She stopped in her tracks, her power walking coming to an abrupt halt as she turned to look at me in surprise.

“What… what’s wrong?” she asked nervously.

Stopping in front of her, I stared into her expressive green eyes intently. I could see that I’d definitely done something wrong. The way she was standing, the way she wasn’t meeting my gaze, even her expression was closed.

“I’m really sorry! Whatever I did, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to make you feel weird or whatever,” I told her quickly, my expression and tone just two steps away from desperate.

“What? No, it was me being weird!” she said quickly, taking a step back towards me. “I called you cute, but in like, a weird way, not a friend way.”

It was my turn to step towards her, and I took both of her hands in mine. Crap, I’d just started touching her again without thinking about it. Too late now though, we were only a foot or so away from each other, and I was hyper aware of that fact. Her hands were soft on the tops, but I could feel a few calluses forming where her armoured gloves didn’t fit perfectly.

“Grace, it’s fine. I like being called cute by you,” I murmured, suddenly unable to look her in the eyes.

I stared at our clasped hands instead, the way hers had curled to capture mine back. They were so strong under her delicate skin, each subtle shift of weight and balance between us sending shocks of sensation was shooting up my arm.

“You do?” she breathed with such aching emotion that I had to look up.

Her eyes were so full, so wide as they pulled me into their grey-green depths. I was powerless under that stare, under her touch, and even just in her presence. Heartbeat thundering in my ears and ordered thought rapidly retreating from my mind, she was all that I was aware of. This beautiful girl in front of me was my world. I wasn’t even trying to go anywhere as I pressed towards her, just swaying like a sapling under a forceful gust of wind.

She didn’t step back, didn’t move away. Rather, her hands gripped mine even tighter, her expression drinking me in as I leaned over, closer and closer until… my forehead bumped into her collarbone. I blinked, wait… what had just happened?

Grace’s arms moved around my shoulders, pulling me gently against her. “Thanks Ryn. I’ve always had a problem with being so fucking awkward with female friends. I just… I always mess it up one way or another, so it’s really nice to have someone who doesn’t judge me when my tongue gets all tied.”

“Right,” I murmured, my brain fizzing and popping as I tried to comprehend what I had thought was happening versus what had just actually happened. “You’re a great friend,” I said, my mouth almost in autopilot.

Letting go of me, she beamed down at me from her slight height advantage and stepped backwards. “Thank you Ryn. Anyway, uh, break is over, back to throwing the boys around! Talk to you tonight!”

“Yeah… see you… good luck,” I said, still a little stunned.

Then she was off again, trotting happily back to the sparring area, no idea what she’d just done to me. My brain was… fried. I’d almost felt the ghost of her lips on mine for a few moments there, but instead… “friend”.

I turned back towards my lake project with a new weight pressing down on me. Life had gotten just that little bit harder.