[youtube]93C63lAEKwk[/youtube] The little girl in green disappeared among the crowd, blending seamlessly into the fellow festival-goers also clad in green tunics. Her emerald eyes were transfixed forward, tiny legs charting herself a clear and direct path through the crowd, much unlike the other children content to run in circles playing tag and dueling with wooden swords. Her golden fairy flitted about her head closely before finally nestling into her ponytail, becoming fed up with keeping her eyes on one child dressed as a Kokiri among scores of children dressed as Kokiri. Mila wore a contented smile. She liked blending in for once. She wasn't very welcome among the other Kokiri because she was a Tumbleweed except among her sisters, and Sola was mean and Efa was bossy anyways. And she often attracted the eyes of strangers when she was traveling on the road. A Kokiri outside of the forest was quite rare, but not unheard of, but there was stigma in being a Tumbleweed, even to the Hylians. Some of them were ignorant and wanted to treat her like a child, others were fearful of her, believing her to be a practitioner of powerful witch's magic. A few of them didn't even know what a Kokiri was, which was all well and good, but most didn't believe her when she told them. She felt like she belonged in the crowd of other people of every race and creed, dressed from head to toe in knock-off Kokiri garments. The ebb and flow of the crowd grew slightly more intense, and the Kokiri girl began to bump into the others as they rushed past her. "Excuse me. Sorry. Excuse me," she announced as she slipped through the people pushing and shoving to get by, scrambling in the opposite direction she was heading. The little rusty-haired girl stumbled through everyone as best she could, but a harsh glint caught her eye. She cast her gaze downward toward the slight green glow, finding a single Rupee. She snatched it off the ground quickly, grinning at her luck as she inspected the gem in the light. And just as quickly her luck left her. A hand reached out and stole the Rupee straight from her grasp. "Hey!" she called out, but the mob began to swarm around her, and the little girl was thrown about like the waves in a maelstrom. As she jerked this way and that, mercilessly being tossed around by the frenzied people, she felt another evil hand drive itself inside her pack. "Hey! Stop it!" she shouted at what happened to be a bearded middle-aged man as she tugged on his arm, his enclosed fist trapping itself inside her traveler's pack. As he moved he drug her with him, and Mila fearfully turned her head around and clamped her teeth down on his arm. He screamed, more in surprise than in pain, and let go of her, wrenching his arm back empty-handed. The forest child ducked and darted beneath the waists of the adults, tripping and stumbling [i]them[/i] for once as they carelessly charged forward in their haste. The Kokiri child dusted herself off after escaping the throng of agitated festival-goers, peering over her shoulder at them. "Now what was [i]that[/i] all about?" she mused aloud. Toddling herself over to the protection of an adjacent booth, she slipped her pack off her back and rummaged around inside to make sure everything was still there. Bottles, check. Slingshot, check. Dagger, check. Wallet- Mila crinkled her nose. 35 Rupees. Ten of them had gone missing. She scowled at the crowd to her back, watching them in their greedy frenzy. It was super hard to believe in the good of the world when she was getting robbed. Perhaps Shila was right after all. Like always. Before Mila placed her pack upon her back once more, she pulled her dagger free and affixed the sheath to her belt. The next rogue to try to steal from her would be receiving something nastier than a bite. Her good mood soured, Mila trudged herself to the well and plunged her leather tarp in, sloshing it around to get it nice and wet. ----------------------- Mila and her fairy companion shuffled up the street, now with a full pack and some shaved ice the little girl was jovially slurping, leaving her mouth and tongue purple. The remainder of her Rupees were gone now, having bought a batch of five bombs with twenty-five of them (Yangoro originally wanted thirty for the five, but she knocked him down a little) and the rest going toward her shaved ice and rations for the days to come, and with the deals she brokered she could hold a feast for a small group with the provisions she had acquired. Her spirits were lifted after a short while, but she still warily watched the crowd for signs of thieves, her fairy similarly watching her blind spots. The little girl walked behind her stall, letting the ivy flutter behind her like a natural curtain. Her equipment was still there, just as she had assumed it would be. It would be very silly to attempt to steal a hot cauldron, and the rest of her inventory was nothing but odds and ends only useful to an alchemist such as herself. Why would someone run off with a sack full of vials of blood, powders, and metal shavings? She let her hefty pack fall to the dirt, taking her damp tarp and stringing it up next to her cauldron. A wet tarp wouldn't burn, and it would help to heat the potion more evenly. Kaboom Potion couldn't be brought to a boil if the brewer wanted to keep their eyebrows... and the rest of their face, so it was important that the temperature was raised slowly. Mila scooped her dry ingredients into a bowl, careful not to do so carelessly, and began to fill the tarp/cauldron with Green ChuChu jelly. And a little Yellow ChuChu jelly because she was feeling exotic. Most of the potion was ChuChu jelly just because the thicker and more gelled the potion was, the less chance there was of it to detonate in transit. [i]"I'm not certain why you are crafting that potion anymore, Mila. It was clear to me that you were swindled. He will not return with your goggles,"[/i] harped Shila in her I-told-you-so tone of voice. "Just in case he does come back..." Mila responded flatly, focused on her task of brewing the potion and keeping the both of them intact, disassembling one of her bombs and dumping the contents into the tincture. "He gave me an idea anyways. This is a mining town, and the locals will go wild over anything that can make their lives easier. Bombs are selling well, so why not offer something a little more powerful than a bomb? If it's successful, I can make up the loss on markup." As she was very cautiously adding the Deku Nut extract, one of the few ingredients capable of blowing her booth sky high, to her magical concoction, there was a small noise at the counter. Shila twinkled over to see the old man who they had conversed with earlier that morning. [i]"I'm sorry, Mila happens to be a little busy, could you wait a moment or two?"[/i] she asked. [i]"Milaaa! It's Elder Lyontus!"[/i] the fairy called back. "Just... a... momeeeeeent..." the Kokiri girl mumbled, dribbling the yellow liquid into the brew. Upon the change in color of the potion and some [i]extremely[/i] careful mixing with her spoon, Mila skipped to the counter to meet her friend. "Hi old man!" she greeted childishly. Upon the reception of a croak, her eyes flitted over to the toad in the jar. A look of wonder overcame her face as she hefted the jar up to examine it. "Ooooh... Is this the frog you wanted to show me?" she asked, her eyes combing over the specimen. It was an ordinary forest toad, nothing special, but not inherently useless for alchemy. She didn't think it was poisonous, but its sweat, legs, warts, and eyeballs could be harvested for ingredients. "I recognize this one!" she announced, "It's a simple forest toad. But you can still use it for polymorph potions and cure-alls and potions of leaping and scar removal and-" Mila began to prattle on endlessly, attempting to state every potion and mixture one could effectively use a forest toad in. Which, of course, were numerous, and it was impressive just how many she could cite from memory.