In the following weeks, almost every second that Theora was busy, Dema spent visiting the Shade. When Theora picked flowers, Dema was with the Shade. When Theora did laundry or washed up, Dema was with the Shade. When Theora took a foot bath, or studied maps, or decided to sleep for two days straight, Dema would be there.

Except that one night Theora spent crying because she’d remembered being banned from the Observatory, and was missing Lostina. Dema did not spend that night inside the interdimensional attire; she spent that night cuddling with Theora and distracting her with silly stories she was making up on the spot.

“Thank you,” Theora murmured the next morning when she woke up in Dema’s lap.

“Why hello there, sunshine,” Dema said, looking up from her notes.

“Are you making progress?” Theora asked.

“Hm? With what?”

“Your scheme.”

“Ah.” Dema nodded. “Slowly, yeah! I mean I only spent like an hour total inside the attire — from that perspective.” She squinted, clearly also having trouble figuring this stuff out. “But yeah. Progress, big time.”

“We could go in together,” Theora suggested. “That way, you could be there longer, and I wouldn’t have to miss you.”

“Gotta remember that if we’re both inside for too long, time here’s gonna pass in a blink.”

“Oh… Right.” Theora shuffled her head over Dema’s legs. “I mean, you could also switch the latch on the device,” she mused. “That way, time inside goes by quicker, and you could get a lot done.”

Dema put her chin in her hand. “Yeah, but… that’s gonna spoil all your stuff!”

“Not if I ask the Shade to help me get it all out first. We retrieve everything that would spoil, then you go inside, switch the latch, and finish your business. Can take as long as you want.”

Dema’s eyes widened. “Why, you’re so good with time-logic. I never would’a figured that out!”

Theora gave a proud smile. It was a hard-earned expertise she’d accumulated through countless embarrassing misapprehensions.

“We’ll get to the volcanic area tomorrow. If it’s alright with you, you could finish up first and then we try storing lava.”

“You wanna store lava? But wouldn’t lava cool down quickly even in your clothes?”

The truth was, Theora had no idea what exactly the time conversion rate of the device was, but this sounded worrying. Her Skill made her tea stay fresh for longer — well over a hundred years by now — but she generally preferred making tea right before drinking. So, whenever possible, she would like to store ingredients instead of the finished brew.

“Let’s try anyway.”

With that, Theora made a motion to rise, and was immediately met with a noise of complaint.

“I wasn’t done yet!”

Theora tilted her head. “What do you mean, ‘not done yet’? What were you doing?”

Dema turned her notes around, showing a big tally list. “Counting freckles.”

On reflex, Theora hid her nose behind a hand, and then put another hand on her forehead.

Dema giggled. “Can’t count like that! I gotta know how many you have so I can recognise you.”

“Oh, do you still have issues with remembering faces?”

“Getting better,” Dema said. “But yours is important, big time. Also, what if there’s an impostor and they just one freckle wrong? I gotta be able to unmask them.”

“If there is an impostor, they would not show up on your party screen.”

Dema pouted.

“But,” Theora added, “it’s alright. I will let you finish your count.”

“Yay!”

And so, she kept counting the freckles, while Theora tried her best to withstand the attention and focus on the bird’s singing instead, and the breeze, and Dema’s soft thighs, and Dema’s cute eyes. And she tried her hardest to make it through the times when Dema would gently pinch or stretch Theora’s skin, and bow down to look closer.

“Alright, done with the face,” Dema finally let out when Theora was already a hot mess. “Way easier when you’re awake.”

“What do you mean, ‘done with the face’?”

“Well, I gotta count the other ones too. You have ’em on your arms and legs and such, right?”

‘And such.’ Dema couldn’t possibly hope to count all of them, could she?

“But what if they change?” Theora asked. “They can change with time, I think.”

“Oh?” Dema let out, and nodded slowly, thinking. She scratched her head, then shrugged. “Guess I gotta count every year then.”

Every year.

Theora’s future was looking grim. There would not be enough time to cool down; she’d melt. “Alright,” she said, getting up. “We should hurry. I need to find the Fragments of Time.”

And so, Dema stopped diving into the interdimensional travelling attire until they reached the volcano, and they immediately had much more time together, which Theora appreciated a lot. Even if they didn’t talk, it was nice to have Dema there while picking flowers, or knowing she was nearby while Theora was asleep, or knowing she could have Dema manage social interactions in the event that they met another traveller somewhere.

Soon, they got close to the area with openly flowing lava, and Theora couldn’t wait to drink some green lava tea again, or maybe experiment with other brews. She could take another foot bath too.

“There we are,” Dema said. “You’ll be good on your own?”

“Yes, I think so. Do you know how long it might take you?”

Dema shrugged. “’Til I’m happy with it, I guess. Shouldn’t take more than a few hours for you?”

Huh. A few hours for Theora might translate to days in the coat, so Dema definitely seemed to have big plans.

Theora nodded, and before Dema could even think of asking out loud, she ‘undressed’, and safely put the attire on a rock pedestal. Then, she proceeded to ask the Shade for everything that could spoil, like food and clothes that might degrade over time. It was more than Theora had initially expected, so with the help of Dema, it took them almost two hours to get it all out and sorted. The volcanic landscape looked a little bit like a flea market towards the end.

“There you go,” Theora went, and sighed. “Thank you for your help. I think I’m ready now. See you later?”

“Yeah! I’ll change the latch once I’m inside.” Dema folded her brows, and pulled her mouth to one side. “I’m thinking we gotta be careful with changing the setting of the time thingy.”

“Yes,” Theora said. “If we mess it up, and have the wrong mode going and fall asleep or such, we might lose a lot of friends by accident.”

Dema nodded. “Shouldn’t be too much of an issue as long as we are in different time zones. But we gotta be careful if we’re in at the same time.”

Then she dove into the interdimensional coat, and Theora was left behind in the sulphury, smoky volcanic air that smelled nothing like Dema, but was close enough to feel a little at home.

The first thing Theora did was scoop some lava out of the river to watch it cool and harden in her hands. It turned dry and rocky within minutes, but as she crumbled the rock apart, the tips of her fingers felt a welcome burning sizzle — the inside had stayed mushy.

Oh, this was great. It meant lava was exactly like bread. The outside would harden, but keep the inside warm and soft.

In other words… if Theora stored a very large chunk of lava inside her coat… Perhaps the core would stay warm and liquid even as the outside cooled?

Theora breathed a sigh of relief. If this worked, she could have her very own loaf of lava right with her all the time. At that, she remembered her little jar of dough, and decided to feed the little monsters hiding in it. She mixed in some flour and water, then stirred. Touching active dough always made Theora happy; it was so fluffy and light, and knocking out the bubbles was really satisfying too.

That taken care of, Theora went on to the highlight of this day: Making tea.

Having all the ingredients fanned out right in front of her made her a bit more daring. She was the only one who had to drink it, after all. Giving someone else something like ash tea felt a bit rude, but drinking it herself was totally fine. Maybe she could make lava sourdough tea… She imagined it might give other people an upset stomach.

As she looked around for more ingredients from the environment, her eyes fell on something in particular.

It gave her a thought.

A thought powerful enough to make her skin prickle.

She got up and stumbled through the rocks to collect what she found growing between the flows of lava. Within the hour, she’d made dozens of brews and tested them on herself. It seemed to be working.

Oh, this was beautiful. Why had she not thought about this before?

She couldn’t wait for Dema to return. It took almost all of Theora’s willpower to hold back from just hopping into the attire and pulling Dema out. She just stared and stared, waiting.

And then, finally, Dema violently pushed her head out from the fabric, sweating a lot and smiling brightly. Her mana was completely drained. “All done!”

Theora swallowed at the glow of Dema’s eyes in the night. “Welcome back,” she said. “So, you were successful?”

Dema nodded, fully emerging from the fabric, then wiped her forehead with her cloak. “Took a while. But all done. Can’t wait for you to see it.”

Theora really wanted to know what Dema had been doing, but she also really wanted to share her new invention. Torn between the two, she just kept staring.

“So what’ve you been up to?”

Theora twitched, and averted her gaze. “Making tea.”

Dema’s eyes lit up. “Can I have some?”

Alright, so it was decided. Theora nodded and looked around. “Perhaps we should tidy up first?”

“Right!” Dema said, picked up a random garment at her feet, and stuffed it into the coat. “Let’s do that.”

Putting it all in went a lot faster than getting it out, since the Shade helpfully took care of sorting the inside. Theora still couldn’t help but feel undeserving of that effort. Sure, she provided the Shade with food, but providing someone else with food if one was able to seemed like the basic requirement of civility, and Theora didn’t really want to make the Shade feel like it had to work to make up for it. So instead, now that she knew she could physically visit the Shade, she could at least go inside and give it hugs and thanks and ask if there was anything else she could offer.

When they were done, Theora put the attire back on, found a good place for them to sit down and… and…

Her heart started thumping as she stared at the gleaming cup of tea she’d spent hours brewing, specifically for Dema. What had she gotten herself into?

“Maybe this is a bad idea after all,” she mumbled.

“Hey, no fair!” Dema let out, laughing. “I wanna drink it!”

“I messed up a little. I experimented. I have no idea what that tea might do to you.”

“I’m gonna be fine, pretty sure.” Dema sat down with a plop and stretched, showing off all of her muscles. She seemed to have exerted herself a lot for that new scheme of hers.

“Alright.” Theora sat down too, placing the single cup between them on the ground. It was a lava-based tea made of an assortment of dozens of different blossoms, gleaming in soft hot iron glow, translucent, with little glitters of pollen floating inside. She left a few petals in to make it pretty, while using the assortment itself to infuse the cup with her own voice. “The flowers might be a little poisonous. And the tea might be a bit hot. But, I think that should be fine.”

Dema nodded, picked it up with both hands, and breathed in to catch the scent, eyes closed. She giggled mirthfully. “Smells like flowers, alright. So nice.” Then, she put it up to her lips, and sipped. Her throat bobbed a little. Her face lit up in disbelief.

[Tea Brewing] advanced to Level 244.

[Flower Language] advanced to Level 173.

Dema started sobbing.

She placed the tea on the ground, the other hand grabbing her scarf and rubbing her eyes. “Why, that’s a little unfair,” she said, trying to hide her face. “No warning, either. I’m gonna cry.”

“You are already crying,” Theora said, and moved to Dema’s side to pull her into a hug.

“Guess I am. Stealing the show today, big time.” Dema pushed her head against Theora’s chest. “I was gonna make you cry. How’d you even do that? I can taste words on my tongue.”

Theora was already crying too. “I used both [Tea Brewing] and [Flower Language] at the same time. I was not sure whether it would work, but it looks like it did.”

Flower language tea. Combining both of Theora’s most beloved Skills, the tea’s taste would be enhanced by the feelings she had for the recipient, while at the same time conveying an intricate message.

She’d made a concoction filled up to the brim with… everything.

The way Dema always cared for her. The way Dema spoke in Theora’s stead when Theora was too shy or overwhelmed. The way Dema smelled, and how soft her touch was, and the way Dema made Theora want to smile. The way she reached out to people who were isolated, to offer them a place to stay. The way Dema could easily befriend anyone, the way she could be scary and make Theora feel hot.

“Damn, you got such nice Skills,” Dema said, her voice muffled by Theora’s clothes.

These words gave Theora shivers. She’d finally found ways to express herself that didn’t invoke permanent destruction or stumbling on words. Dema was still trembling in Theora’s arms. All it had taken was a single sip.

It was scary to wield that much power.

It took a while for Dema’s tears and sweat to dry. Theora felt guilty for imagining that she must be tasting even saltier than usual now. Totally inappropriate, so she kept it to herself. She’d have to manage her salt intake in ways that didn’t involve making Dema cry.

Finally, Dema disentangled herself and clumsily jumped up, taking a few steps while stretching some more. “Alright,” she said. “Yes, fine! Y’know, I figured you liked me since you stick around but damn, that much?” She smiled, and rubbed her eyes. “Gosh, that tea’s a menace. My heart!”

“I-I’m glad you liked it.”

“I did!” Dema cheered. “Your Skill makes it stay fresh, right? Can you, like, put the rest into a bottle so I can drink it whenever I feel bad? I’m gonna go cool down. Be right back!”

With that, she ran off, and Theora took the opportunity to collect her thoughts while self-consciously fulfilling the request. After a moment, Dema came back covered head-to-toe in grey clay. She must have thrown herself into a mud pond.

“Alright.” She walked up to Theora, coming to a halt right in front of her, and stared down with a mischievous smile. “My turn!”