Chapter 13

The cabin was small and it left Soul with little to do, but sit on the side of the bed and wait while Acerol finished her bath. Once he realized that she was going to take her time, he reached into his coat and took out a plain glass bottle. He opened it, did a brief estimate of the many pills rattling silently inside, and popped one into his mouth.

He took a long sip from his flask in order to wash away the acrid bitter taste of the pill. Eirwen's medicine tasted terrible, but it was preferable to the alternatives.

Soul would've preferred to eat something before taking his medication, but there was nothing to eat. The area had plenty of raw ingredients for use, but the last time he had tried cooking… well it was the first he had ever frightened Eirwen. He was sure she had been overreacting though, he couldn't have been that bad at cooking.

From his seat on the side of the bed he looked at the large pile of foraged goods that they had stuffed to the corner of the cabin. He put the pills back into his coat having, at the moment, decided to take stock of what they had gathered instead of sleeping. The pile was taller than he was, and he struggled to figure out how they were going to carry all of it back to her place. Granted magicians made sure their clothes had plenty of large pockets to hold things, but he and Acerol might've gone a bit overboard with their foraging.

"Maybe we could make a large bag or something," he muttered to himself as he jumped off the bed and kneeled down next to the pile. The issue was he had no experience with weaving, so he'd have to rely on Acerol for that, if she even knew how to in the first place.

Soul began to split up the pile into several smaller piles with their own categories. Medicinal, poisonous, magical, and edible. For the goods that applied to several of these categories at the same time he would simply put into even smaller piles in between them. He quickly lost track of the time as he organized every item they had foraged.

Eventually the Levin set the last mushroom down, stood up, and looked at the end result with pride. However even when neatly organized it still didn't solve the issue of how they were going to bring all it back.

"Probably going to have dump some stuff outside," he mumbled to himself

"That seems like a waste"

Soul turned around to find Acerol standing in the doorway clad in a just a t-shirt and a small pair of shorts that only reached to her thighs. "Well do you have any ideas of how we're going to carry all this stuff all the way to your house?"

"We use this." Acerol threw something at him, which he caught on instinct. He immediately regretted it as soon as he realized it was that damn cube again.

"Don't just throw that thing around!" Soul shouted at her as carefully set it down on the floor in front and made sure that the seal was pointed away from him. "You know how dangerous that thing is!"

"It's empty now, practically harmless and weren't you the one to use black magic to tear down a good section of the forest? You realize that its forbidden for a reason."

"To be fair I didn't know it was forbidden until Eirwen had already taught me for a few months." Soul pointed at the cube. "And how is that thing going to help us anyway?"

"It's a dimensional space. We stuff the stuff sensitive to magic in this container," Acerol pulled out a large metal container, "and dump it in the cube with everything else. Why are you so afraid of it anyway?"

"The one time I used that thing it nearly buried me in a damn cave with a ten-ton boulder."

"Why would you use it an enclosed space?"

"I didn't know what it did at the time and I had a dire wolf on my ass. Would've preferred the wolf if I had actually known what Eirwen had stuffed in there"

There was a brief period of silence that even Soul noticed as Acerol began to ponder over something. "When did you kills those wolves again?" she eventually asked

Soul took a few seconds before responding. "Why do you need to know?"

"Those wolves wouldn't happen to be related to Ottie now would they?"

Soul had some idea at this point had some idea as to how she figured it out. "No." Doesn't mean he had to admit it though.

"Really? Because that seems like a huge coincidence." It was clear she wasn't convinced by his answer

He growled. "Let's just say that Ottie does have something to do with those two wolves I killed. If that was the case then don't mention it to her."

"So she doesn't know-"

"And finally, what does any of this have to do with you," he interrupted her.

There were a few seconds of awkward silence.

"Sorry," Acerol replied. "I was just curious I didn't mean to bother you about it."

"First me destroying that shrine, then Eirwen's spot, and now you're putting Ottie in danger. You really don't know when to stop prying don't you?"

"To be fair the first one was by accident, didn't know it was you until I actually talked to the thief, the second one is my fault I'll admit that, and the third one I figured out because of the information you willingly gave me."

Soul let out a long sigh. "How did you figure it out?" he had to ask. He should've expected it at this point.

"It wasn't hard. Dire wolves aren't that common and Felix told me you hunted a pair a few months ago. It kind of just matches the timeline."

"They were her parents. When I found her in that cave, I didn't know what to do with her so I gave her to Eirwen. And well…"

"I won't tell Ottie about this," she responded assuredly. "It's not easy for you. Is it?"

Soul was silent. When Ottie had first started living with her he had tried her best to stay distant from her. He really did, but she just wasn't someone who would let herself be ignored. She always found a way to force herself in and he had to live with it. If he did try to push her away at this point he'd end up hurting her and she deserved better than that. None of this was her fault.

"It really isn't," he conceded, for a lot of reasons.

There was another long moment of awkward silence between the two, before Acerol would suddenly clap her hands. "I'm hungry, let's get something to eat"

"There's nothing here," Soul responded

"There's a stove and a pile of fresh ingredients. I'll cook"

"Really?" Soul wasn't quite convinced. The only time he had eaten something she made, apart from coffee, was those cookies and they weren't very encouraging to look back on.

"Trust me," Acerol said as she began to rummage through the pile for ingredients. "We've got a lotta good stuff here. Go take a bath, I'll be done soon." She began to shoo him away.

"Fine," Soul conceded. He got up and took a towel hanging in the cabin. "Try not to poison us." Even though he had organized everything there were some ingredients, particularly the mushrooms, that looked quite like each other despite being in different categories. If they didn't get poisoned there was always the possibility of psychedelic hallucinations from the objects in the medicinal pile.

"Got it," replied as she casually reached for something without looking away from the stove.

That wasn't very encouraging. Still hr needed a bath and a nice long soak in the spring was what he needed to wash off the dirt and grime of the day's events. It was also an opportunity to wash his clothes and dry them with a bit of magic once he was done. They were a bit stiff once he started putting them on, but it was a far cry better than having to wear them while they were still covered in sweat, dirt, and grime.

Entering the cabin once more, Soul was enticed by the smell of the plate that now sat on the small kitchen counter.

"Food's ready," Acerol said. She had already started eating without him.

Soul grabbed a stool so he'd have a better angle to look at the plate. Stir fried vegetables and mushrooms with a bit of salted meat that he had been carrying around as a snack. He grabbed a fork and took a bite.

Eirwen was a better cook, but it was perfectly fine, especially on an empty stomach. It didn't take long for him to empty the entire plate.

"You eat fast," Acerol commented still only half-way through her own plate despite the head start she had.

"I was hungry, and it wasn't bad."

Acerol smiled a bit at his praise before going back to eating her food. "I'm surprised you don't how to cook, the critic that you are."

Soul shrugged. He had been told before that he had surprisingly good palate, but unfortunately that didn't translate well to his cooking skills. "Its fine Eirwen does the cooking anyway"

"What do you do in the house?"

Soul opened his mouth only for nothing to come out. Eirwen, with the help of her magic, would often do the cooking, cleaning, and most of the other miscellaneous housework that needed to be done. He did the laundry for three of them, but that was a far cry from the amount of work that Eirwen put in. Especially when he didn't have to pay rent.

"I do the laundry and I look after Ottie?" He wasn't quite sure if he was even doing that at this point. She had been becoming increasingly independent.

"Sounds like you're mooching off her" she replied bluntly.

Soul couldn't disagree with that. Even if the witch could be difficult to live with he and Ottie were living off her generosity. Ottie at least had her youth and inexperience as an excuse.

Acerol suddenly slapped him on his back. "Why don't I teach you how to cook?" she suggested.

Soul nodded and headed to the stove awaiting her instructions. It was about time he learned, and he couldn't have been that bad at cooking.

***

Acerol rolled around in bed, unable to get any sleep. She glanced at the Levin who was somehow able to slumber on the floor despite what he had just done hours ago.

Fire so much fire and the abomination that he would end up creating, would haunt her nightmares and tongue for the next few days. It was at that moment that she swore she would never let him touch a stove ever again.