Leka raised her eyebrow, “Master Tikal, you know that the temple budget is not able to cover anything fancy, and the shield enchantment would already take the budget we discussed.”

  ”Consider it a gift to our new hero and her companion.” Tikal pointed to the embroidered end of the scarf. “I have added a spatial pocket enchantment to the scarf.”

  ”What?” Anika gaped at the man and examined the embroidery, which took the full width of the scarf. The lines of magenta thread, slightly darker than the color of the scarf, spiraled towards a central circle, reminiscent of a line drawing of a black hole. The circle at the center held a small runic symbol made from the same embroidery thread. Anika didn’t know the meaning of the symbol, but the curving lines of the rune matched the styling of the larger embroidered area.

  ”Ooo what does it do!!” Lily jumped, bumping into Tikal’s hand where it pointed to the enchantment.

  ”It is a small Aether enhanced spatial pocket, but it will allow Lily to carry her own armor, when we make it, as well as give her a small space to carry her identification tablet and a few other small items. You did say she and Epona were getting her own identification tablets. It is easy for the pegasus to carry her own tablet, as it is small compared to her size. But our fine capybara friend here would have trouble with any traditional bags with her size.” Tikal patted Lily on the head and Lily seemed torn between leaning into the scritches and continuing her enthusiastic wiggles.

  ”Tikal, an Aether enhanced pocket is too much of a gift!” Leka’s usual demeanor changed as she challenged the Master craftsman.

  Tikal waved dismissively at Leka, “Nonsense! This variant of the enchantment relies on Lily’s gift to activate, which means I will need her to come with me to finish the final stage of crafting. Without having to imbue the Aether magic for anyone’s use, the enchantment is significantly cheaper.”

  Anika watched the interaction with interest and noted Leka seemed slightly mollified by the type of enchantment. Anika had no concept of the cost of this enchantment, but she remembered Leka explaining the first day that there were two types of spatial pockets, one that was effectively a giant hole with no ability to selectively take out items, and one that allowed the user to remove specific items. She assumed that ‘Aether enhanced spatial pocket’ referred to the second time, but she still had no concept of how much money it would cost. Not that it would help, as she didn’t really have a concept of the value of money in the first place. She didn’t necessarily want to be indebted to the crafter for this gift, but she also wanted the best for her companion, and this scarf would help Lily and give her a feeling of independence.

  Lily did not have any qualms about the expense of the gift and practically levitated with excitement when Tikal said he needed her help to finish the enchantment. “I will use my magic! I want to learn! My scarf is the best! And I have a pocket! Where do I go? What do I do? Let’s go!”

  Anika turned an apologetic look on Tikal at Lily’s rambling not quite thank you “Thank you for such a gift. I do not know the cost of it, but I know it will help Lily and I appreciate it. I hope that we can repay your kindness in the future. What do we need to do to finish the spatial pocket?”

  Tikal bent down to remove the scarf from Lily’s neck, “We’ll need to take it off in order to finish the enchantment. Follow me into the back - I have things set up. Leka, dear, you can wait here with Philip. It will get a bit crowded back there otherwise.”

  Tikal turned to walk into the back, Lily hot on his heels. Anika followed them into the workshop area. As they left, she heard Philip ask Leka if they could go find snacks. Anika sighed at Philip’s seemingly single minded ability to snack constantly.

  While she had seen the crafting area from the shop, Anika hadn’t paid much attention the first time they visited. Now, she looked around with curiosity. Work tables lined the walls with shelves and hooks on the walls holding supplies. About half the benches looked like what she would expect of a leatherworking bench, with leather stamps, hammers, oils, and other assorted tools. The other benches contained a variety of different, unrecognizable equipment, including some stations with multiple vials of liquid, dust, or other clearly magical supplies. Some larger equipment took space in the center of the room, including large tanning racks with different colored hides on them.

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  Tikal led them to a low workbench in the corner that had a contraption that looked like the top half of an hour glass filled with fine, shimmering dust. Several vials of glittering liquid lined the back of the work table, as well as multiple glistening thread colors. Additional devices hung on the wall behind the bench and several patches of fabric and other tools lay set to one side. Tikal lifted Lily onto a stool the same height as the work table as they arrived next to it, and Anika stayed behind to watch.

  Lily looked around at the table as Tikal positioned the scarf under the hourglass contraption. “There is a lot of stuff here! What do I need to do?”

  “First, we will need to prepare an essence potion that will allow us to bond the enchantment to you. This will require a small amount of blood.”

  Lily backed up in surprise, letting out a whimper and almost tumbling off the stool before Anika caught her and pushed her back on and moved closer to prevent it from happening again. “Blood? Why blood? I don’t want to bleed!”

  “It is a small amount of blood to assist with the magical binding. Blood is a common ritual enchantment ingredient.” Tikal reached over Lily to pick up a cylindrical device about as long as a pen but twice as thick. Made of frosted glass, it had several dark circles on one end. He pressed one of the circles and the device began to glow faintly. “Now don’t you worry, it won’t take more than a moment!”

  Lily shrank back again, pushing her body back against Anika and turning her head to look away from Tikal. The capybara let out a series of mewling cries that Anika would never tell her sounded far too cute to indicate distress as the crafter lowered the device to Lily’s shoulder. He pressed another of the buttons and the device promptly took on a blueish hue.

  “All done!” The crafter pulled down a glass vial and unstopped it, holding the pen-like device over the mouth of the vial to allow a single drop of blood to fall into the opaque vial.

  Lily immediately stopped crying and looked over at Tikal, her eyes wide, “It’s done? I didn’t feel anything!”

  “Of course not, we use magic here, not barbarism! Did you think we would slice you open with a knife?” Tikal chuckled as he put the stopper back on the vial and put it on a small metal plate in another device which immediately began to spin.

  “I… didn’t think of that…” Lily sounded embarrassed, so Anika scratched behind her ears again.

  “Don’t worry, Lily, I would have thought the same thing. Where I come from, they prick us with needles to get blood! And I hate needles. I always freak out and hyperventilate!”

  “So, what’s next?” Lily’s tone was more subdued than it had been earlier, like she was trying to overcompensate for her fear with feigned maturity.

  “Once the binding infusion is ready, we will soak the embroidery with it. Then, you will need to use your Aether magic to manipulate the aether dust and apply it to the embroidered enchantment. However, it is not as simple as just manipulating the dust. You must also channel your magical energy into the dust as you apply it. It will cost a significant amount of mana, but the dust is designed to absorb and imbue your power into the enchantment.”

  “So I just put the glitter on the fabric and put my mana in it? I can do that!” Lily leaned towards the table again, putting her nose close to the scarf where it waited under the hourglass contraption.

  “You must focus and use as much of your mana as you can.” A soft ding sounded, and Tikal removed the vial from the metal plate, swishing it twice before uncapping the vial. He poured the liquid over the embroidery on the scarf until it and the surrounding fabric were fully saturated. “There, now it is prepared. I am going to turn on the imbuing sifter and it will begin to slowly dispense the particles towards the fabric, at which point you will guide them into the embroidery. Try to cover the embroidery evenly!”

  “Right! I can do that!” Lily crouched down, her face taking on a look of intense concentration as Tikal turned on the machine.

  The aether dust, which had shimmered initially, started to glow, and the contraption vibrated slightly as a small stream of dust began to fall. Anika watched with fascination as Lily captured the dust with her magic and manipulated it into the threads of the enchantment. Tikal occasionally murmured instructions and affirmations as Lily focused on her task. As the glowing powder touched the enchantment, the threads began to glow silver, slowly lighting as Lily poured more mana into the magical dust.

  After 5 minutes, Tikal turned off the machine “Very good! I can tell you were able to pour a lot of mana into the enchantment! It may even have created a slightly larger space! You are talented with your aether manipulation!”

  Lily collapsed, flopping onto her belly, her feet straight out from her body. “That was hard. I am very tired. I want to nap now. But can I put on my scarf first?”

  “I suppose Leka can help you with learning to use the enchantment, no need to take up more time with explanations here.” Tikal handed the scarf to Anika.

  Anika noted with surprise that the embroidery was no longer wet and the glow had faded back into the plain white threads of the enchantment. She carefully wrapped the scarf around Lily’s neck as Lily began to snore. Carefully picking up her exhausted companion, Anika followed Tikal back to the front of the shop.