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Prpsi was a good friend, he thinks. He helped Maicis with getting her arrows, crafting them beautifully himself. only the very finest for his bestie!
So, as his friend, She helps him in turn.
Right now she was keeping guard at the Shyllien Nature Reserve, protecting him from the mutated rabbits and carnivorous plants while he concentrated on condensing the Shyllien patches into physical shards.
"Do you think these things realise how weird they look?" Muttered Maicis, glaring at the purple and pink rabbits hopping around,
keeping her bow loaded with an arrow in case one noticed their presence and began to attack.
After finishing gathering a fragment, Prpsi turned to Maicis and laughed. "Nah, they probably dont even realise anything happened to them!"
crouching down to pick up the newly-created crystal, Prpsi continued. "They might see us as weird, though. Probably explains why they wanna use magic against me."
he says, jerking his thumb towards one of the Carnivorous plants wiggling its tentacles around and briefly flashing with magic every now and then.
Maicis hums. "How does that one not finish casting Lightning Bolt and electrocute you?" Prpsi rises from his crouched position to face the plant fully, smirking and resting his chin on his hand.
"I'm just out of the range where it can hit me! I've gotten fried by these things enough that i've figured out the sweet spot."
Prpsi starts to go on about how smart he is, how he has such great perception-
Maicis narrows her eyes, putting away her bow on her back and her arrows in her quiver, stalking towards Prpsi. "Really. Just out of range, huh?"
Prpsi pauses, tilting his head towards her. "Yep! that way you dont have to kill 'em and risk more sprouting closer!"
"It would be a real waste of my master-crafted arrows..." Prpsi sighs, looking back to the plant, not noticing Maicis creeping closer to him with her hands open.
Then, Maicis is suddenly right behind the distracted man, Smirking slightly. "So if you were only a few feet closer..." Prpsi jumps as Maicis starts pushing him closer to the plant ready to zap him.
"Wha- What are you doing!? Stop stop stop!!" Prpsi protests, turning around to try pushing back against her attempts to get him closer.
"How are you stronger than me?!" Prpsi shrieks, terrified- "Bows take a lot of arm strength." Maicis smoothly said, never pausing in her push to make him a lightning pole.
Prpsi gaping at the ridiculous comment, "And my swords don't?!"
Maicis was going to respond with affirmation, but she saw the plant about to finish charging up.
Giving Prpsi one last thrust into the oncoming lightning, She hopped away to avoid any danger.
Prpsi shouted and quickly dodged out of the way, barely avoiding crispyness.
Getting up from diving to the ground, he put distance between him and the elf, shocked that his friend had almost succeeded in getting him hurt.
"Are you even my friend?!" Prpsi whined, eyebrows furrowed and ears lowered in sadness. Maicis shook her head, explaining "You have two sets of ears. That's weird." She pointed to his fox ears, which stood up straight at the accusation.
"You can only see because of Eweca! That's weirder!" Prpsi returned, pointing at her eyes lacking in pupils.
Maicis huffed. "And you can only see because of contact lenses. How is my way of seeing weirder?"
Prpsi sputtered, flabbergasted. "How do you know I wear contacts?! Have you been spying on me??" Rolling her eyes and putting a hand on her hip, Maicis simply stated
"We live in the same house. It was inevitable that I'd see into your bathroom." Maicis waved her hand dismissively, Prpsi heaving a sigh of relief.
"Plus, there's an odd amount of Eweca gathered in there. I can see inside it even from my room."
Prpsi shot his head up, stuttering, "Y-You're not helping your case at all! seeing into my bathroom from that far IS WEIRD!"
Maicis walked towards the still wary Prpsi, patting the shorter man on the head. "Don't worry. I won't judge the weird things you do in your private time."
Prpsi's ears lay flat on his head as he sputters, shock clear on his face compared to the stalwart expression on his companion's face.
"That's-- you saw-" Maicis interrupted him with a "Yep." Prpsi closes his mouth and freezes, red as a tomato.
after a few seconds, Maicis sees that their bags are full of the crystal fragments. "And I don't care." Maicis finishes. "Dont you think its time we head back?"
Prpsi snaps out of his petrified state, his ears lowered as he stomps away, shouting and flailing "AUGH! fine! we're going back to the workbench!"
"Yes sir."
----
Back at his workbench, Prpsi refines the shyllien crystals into pure Shyllien while Maicis silently watches.
Soon, She pipes up. "How do you do that?"
Prpsi lightly glares over at her casually leaning on his workbench, completely unfazed from her murder attempt.
"It's... pretty simple. I just extract the mana from the crystals and reform them into a more stable state."
His ears flick. "You'd probably be a natural at it since you're so in tune with Eweca." He grumbles.
Maicis blew some hair out of her face, shrugging. "I've never been good at actually using or transferring mana." She paused, looking away.
"All my magic is very weak. using it makes my vision blurry... and I'm always losing mana without casting anything."
Prpsi perked up, Interested in the topic. "Really? could it be since youre basically always drawing from the surrounding mana to see?"
"Its the best explanation I've found. If I don't try to cast magic, I'm fine." Prpsi hummed, rubbing his hand against his chin.
"Maybe you'd be able to make the Shyllien bullets? I've already formed the Shyllien, So you'd just have to contain it."
Maicis looked back over, crossing her arms and tilting her head. "Hm. I don't think that would be a good idea."
Prpsi scoffed, waving his hand and grinning. "It's fiiine! Worst that could happen is it doesn't work! I wanna see if you can!"
Maicis gave a huge sigh, relenting to the man's prodding. "Alright."
"But if I end up ruining your materials, I am not going to be held responsible."
"Of course, of course!" Prpsi moved away from the workbench, giving Maicis the go-ahead to try and assemble the bullets.
...And after failing a couple of rounds of bullets, Maicis was pretty frustrated. "Why can't I do this? I can make fancy dresses like it's nothing."
Prpsi gave her shoulder a reassuring pat, "I think you're getting better! It's way different from tailoring, don't beat yourself up about it!"
Looking over her failures, Prpsi saw some room for improvement. "Instead of assembling the container around the shyllien, I think you should try to make it first, then seal the shyllien in."
Prpsi picks up one of her attempts. "See? on this one, you didnt create a tight seal, so it didn't contain the shyllien, so it didnt work!"
"Go ahead and try again, I'm sure you can get it this time!" Seeing Prpsi's beaming face, full of confidence in her, Maicis took a deep breath in, and then out.
"Fine. But if it doesn't work this time, you're going to just have to make my bullets for me." "Can do!" Following the critiques from him, She made the container, Took the Shyllien, and held her breath as she put the top onto the bullet.
It had worked. Unlike her other attempts, this bullet had started to emit a soft blue glow. Widening her eyes at this, Prpsi jumped and shouted, "You did it! you did it, you did it, you did it!!"
Maicis stumbled to the side as Prpsi hug tackled her, excitement eminating from the small man. Maicis wrapped her arm around him, muttering. "Alright, alright, calm down, I made *one* bullet. that doesnt mean I'm suddenly a master at it."
"But since you made one, that means you're capable of it! Your mana problem won't stop you or anything!" Prpsi countered.
Sighing and patting the fox-eared man, she lightly smiled. "You're the one who helped me with it. Without you, I'd have given up after the first few."
"Is that a smile?!" Prpsi beamed, while Maicis quickly changed to a scowl. "Yes. Because you're finally useful for something other than arrows."
Hugging Maicis tighter, Prpsi laughed. "You liar! You liiiike meee! You're my friieeend!" He sing-songed all while giddily stomping his feet. "That's enough, that's enough."
Maicis unwrapped herself from Prpsi, "Don't flatter yourself. You're still weird."
"That's not a rejection! We're besties!!" He shouted, arms straight in the air in celebration.
Sighing in exasperation, Maicis grumbled "We still have to make more. come on, help me with the rest of these."
And so, the two friends made more bullets together, Crispy Prpsi attempt completely forgotten.