Sand?

Ash woke up around 6:30 PM feeling refreshed for the first time since Ruby came barreling in through his window. Well, that wasn't entirely true. It was more like for the first time since he had been forced to flee his old home.

Sleeping underneath bushes or in caves out in the woods wasn't the most restful thing in the world. Even once he got here and had a real, albeit rather disgusting, bed again, it didn't change because he couldn't stop thinking about the horrors he had seen.

He was doing his best to put it out of his head but Blair reminding him of what he lost yesterday hadn't been pleasant. He was trying to pretend it hadn't happened so he could stay clearheaded enough to take his revenge.

If he thought about it too much, the rage would take over and he would likely destroy everything around him. Again. The furniture had been covered in filth but hadn't been broken when he first arrived.

Ash would have thought that Blair's reminder yesterday would make it impossible for him to sleep but he was tired and Ruby's freaking out about not having electricity had served as a sufficient distraction. He owed her one.

She was surprisingly self-reliant. She only fussed about the problem for a couple of minutes and that was primarily to laugh at herself for not realizing it sooner. Immediately after, she got to work on a solution even though it took some effort and she injured herself slightly in the process.

A quick glance in the kitchen told him that Ruby had been busy today as well. Her appliances were all set up and she had a plastic shopping bag filled with discarded food wrappers hanging off the back of a chair.

Where was she? It was too late to be out in the garden. The sun was rapidly sinking in the sky so the inside of the castle was getting dark.

There was some sort of strange lantern sitting on the counter. Ash figured Ruby must have another one turned on where she was. All he would have to do was follow the light to find her.

To his surprise, the light was coming very faintly from down in the dungeon. What would she be doing down there now that her food had been moved upstairs?

Ash crept down the stairs, not wanting to startle her again by being too loud, and saw a rather strange sight from around the corner. She was sitting cross-legged on the ground back in her human glamour and was concentrating very hard on a pile of sand with her hands outstretched above it.

He was about to ask what she was doing when the pile of sand suddenly glowed golden. It disappeared and in its place was a pane of glass. He had to blink a few times and rub his eyes to be sure he wasn't mistaken.

He stayed silent and watched as Ruby moved that pane of glass over to the side of the room and labeled it with a scrap of paper before struggling to lift the sand bag and dump more onto that spot on the floor.

Ash wasn't mistaken; she did it again and repeated this three more times until her stack of glass with little labels on it grew higher and higher. The real question was how.

What kind of power was this? He wasn't at all familiar with earth fairies but weren't most of their powers supposedly plant-based? He had thought she was the same based on how excitable she was about flowers and trees in the garden before.

He thought about it. Sand came from the earth too. It wasn't terribly different from dirt, was it? Was her power manipulating dirt? But then how would it turn into something else?

Humans in his home country centuries ago had searched for the answers behind alchemy; turning things into gold. Was this power anything like that seemingly impossible human pipe dream?

Ash had to wonder if this was how Ruby was making her money. It seemed that she was capable of mass producing glass but it wasn't terribly valuable these days, was it? He had no idea what humans valued anymore.

He had heard rumors of glass being formed naturally in places such as volcanoes. It was a naturally occurring phenomenon that had to do with the earth. Maybe she had a glassmaking power.

He recalled his conversation with the water fairy the day before. She said her power was shooting water out of her hands and that she had to practice to adjust the pressure.

She had one power that wasn't terribly changeable even though it had many applications, such as the power wash function. Was Ruby's like that too? What would it be then; sand manipulation?

Whatever the case, Ash felt like he had seen something he wasn't supposed to. She had said what she was doing wasn't illegal and it appeared to be true. He didn't care what she did as long as it had results.

He was curious—who wouldn't be after seeing something like that?—but he had already made the decision not to get more involved with her than he had to. Their partnership was one of necessity and nothing more.

Ruby hadn't been messing around when she said she could take care of herself. If she hadn't fallen through his window and hurt herself, she would be long gone living the high life by now.

Instead, she was stuck here in a derelict castle trying to help him fix things up. Ash suddenly felt ashamed of himself. He didn't have to threaten her. He could have let her hide without any other conditions but he was in a bad mood and took it out on her for disturbing his already restless sleep.

Besides, she offered her help first once he threatened to turn her over. Nobody living in squalor would be able to turn that kind of deal down.