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The days to follow began a new routine for her. She awoke, had breakfast, and played with Myn for an hour or so. The little dragon was now quite the flier. Once airborne, she could stay aloft seemingly indefinitely, and before long, she was able to take off from the ground rather than a rooftop. Once the flight was over, either through the fatigue or choice of Myn, Myranda would stop by Deacon's to look for any tips before venturing to Cresh's hut.
Once there, she would learn the next step in a long string of earth magics. Despite the language barrier, Cresh was a very good teacher, managing to coach her through refining the size and direction of her tremors, identifying the qualities unique to each type of earth, and even coaxing plants to grow faster, larger, and stronger. This last topic was the most difficult, and required nearly three weeks to complete. In this time, Myranda found that she had come to understand his odd language well enough to not rely so heavily on the gestures.
Her time with Lain was the most trying. Over a week of battle was needed to finally convince Myn that Lain and Myranda were not fighting out of anger again. This, however, was not completely true. Myranda's apology for her behavior prompted no response at all from Lain. He fought in almost complete silence each day. She managed a pair of well-placed counter attacks, several days apart, but they differed from her other achievements. She stumbled upon them less in a moment of epiphany, and more through some new instinct that she was developing. They were almost mechanical in nature. Lain's only words on the topic were to remark that such was as it should be.
Further trying was the fact that, with each passing day, sparring with Lain was becoming more difficult. A bit more speed and a bit more accuracy found their way into his maneuvers every time they fought. He was keeping his skill level just beyond hers. Before long, the clear openings for her to attack vanished, and the split-second openings for counterattack were shaved thinner and thinner.
Five weeks after starting her work with Cresh, the dwarf indicated that it would be a fine time to offer her the final test. There had been no warning that the end was near until now. At least, none that she'd managed to understand. He produced an apple from his pocket, proclaiming it to be, apparently, the last fresh one to be had in the village. Myranda wondered where the others had gone, and how many there had been, considering in all of her time in Entwell she'd seen neither an apple nor an apple tree. The latter fact, it would appear, would soon be remedied.
Cresh took a bite of the fruit, dug his fingers into its core, and retrieved a seed. The dwarf launched into a speech that was apparently very amusing, as he punctuated it with stifled laughter. A quick tremor churned up the earth beside his hut enough to yield to the seed when he dropped it. After pushing it into the soil, he requested that Myranda replace the lost apple, as well as supply the pantries of the whole village. Her success would hinge upon how the apples tasted. He expected to be sinking his teeth into one by sundown.
"Sundown!?" she objected, hoping that perhaps she had misunderstood him.
The dwarf replied with the beginnings of yet another long-winded exposition on one subject or another, but the vigorous nodding that preceded it was all the answer she needed. Had Myranda known that the test would be on this day, she would have arrived earlier. The sun was only a few hours from the horizon. She set to work immediately. The method was one she had practiced time and time again. She would mingle her energies with those of the seed, coaxing it to sprout. Once the growth had begun, she would provide for its every need from her own strength. Until now, she had only done so with weeds, and in some occasions, flowers. The tree required far more nurturing than any of the previous plants.
Halfway through the first hour, the sapling of the tree had emerged from the ground, and leaves were beginning to form. This test was unlike the others. Whereas the fire and wind were enormously taxing to keep fed for the appropriate amount of time, they required only one type of energy. The tree's needs were many and varied, requiring her to call upon nearly all of what she knew of earth magic to meet them. The elements in the soil had to be drawn into the still-growing roots at many hundreds of times the speed that nature would have allowed. Similarly, Myranda's spirit took the place of the sun as the source of energy for the leaves to feed on. Only water was provided by Cresh, as water was not the point of this test.
Another half-hour saw a tree as tall as she.
The task of growing the tree, while growing in intensity, decreased in complexity as the end grew near. Though dizzied by the energy she'd spent, Myranda was able to push enough of the spell to the back of her mind to be able to appreciate the completion of her handiwork. It was a sight to behold as new cracks in the bark appeared. The leaves shriveled and dropped away onto a growing mound beneath the tree. Almost immediately, the greenish brown leaf-buds reappeared, followed in turn by the brilliant white apple blossoms. A breath of wind that she conjured pollinated the flowers and the resultant fruits plumped before her eyes. She cut off the flow of energy just as the last of them reddened.
Through the virtue of her magic, she had brought this tree through two dozen seasons in the space of an afternoon.
The sun had, by rights, set a few minutes prior, but as the sky was till rosy with its light, Cresh decided that the time requirement had been met. He reached for an apple, but found the lowest of them just be out of reach. He raised the crystal-tipped root he used as a staff. The tree lowered its branch as though it had a mind of its own, and shook an apple free into his hand. The dwarf sniffed the fruit thoughtfully before taking a bite, considering the flavor as a connoisseur might sample a fine wine. Finally, he declared the endurance test to be complete.
Myranda heaved a sigh of relief, as she had far more strength and clarity left now than she had entering into any of the other tests of dexterity.
Myranda was led inside of his hut, and the door was shut behind her. A table was in the middle of the room, and a chair had been grown before it. Atop it was set a bowl filled with gray sand. A pair of empty bowls was set beside it. Cresh spread a pinch of the sand on the palm of his hand to reveal that there were actually fine grains of black and white mixed thoroughly enough for the bowl's contents to seem uniformly gray. He then produced a blindfold, which he secured over her eyes. She was to separate the black and white into the separate bowls without the use of the eyes or her hands. With that, Cresh retired to another room.
She reached out with her weakened mind. The differences in the energies of different types of earth were difficult to detect in the clearest of mind. Despite her many impairments, the black grains were soon clearly unique enough in her mind's eye to separate. The spell to manipulate earth was one she had learned well, but with so much of her concentration devoted to keeping the two types distinct, when the time came to move them, they seemed as heavy as lead weights. Moving them more than a few at a time seemed impossible, but she pressed on. By the time the last white grain found its way to its own bowl, she felt as though she'd moved a mountain.
Cresh pulled the blindfold from the weary girl's head and patted her on the back, chuckling. She opened her eyes to the light of a torch and smiled weakly at the reason for his laughter. While she had succeeded in separating the sand, she had been less precise where the sand landed. Rather than in the respective bowls, she had managed to scatter the sand anywhere but. The only clear spot was the bowl that the sand had formerly occupied. Fortunately Cresh was satisfied. He handed her an apple and helped her to her feet and out the door.
The hour was late. None of the admirers and well-wishers were awake--save Deacon, who had remained despite being required to wait outside of the hut. He helped her to her hut and set her on her bed.
"Well, this is a refreshing change. You finished a test and did not need to be carried home," he said.
"A personal best," she said, lying down. Myn hopped atop her immediately.
"Sleep well. When you recover, you shall begin work on the final elemental magic," he said.
; Myranda likely hadn't been awake long enough to hear the end of the sentence.