One day, everyone trained hard.

It was a bright day in Reingale, and the training of the employees was underway at Witch Café Wisteria. Pecan and Doe were training for their upcoming witch test amid helping to set up for Reingale History Day.

So far, the training consisted of Derry giving them a very simple spell, but they were mostly making sure they could infuse magic into many different liquids. They were finding that the thicker the substance, the more difficult the process became. It seemed that Pecan, who had a lot more experience than Doe with the process, was having an easier time.

Cups filled with many different substances of varying thicknesses lined the counter, two by two. For example, two cups simply had water, two had tea, two others had seed milk with tea, others just had seed milk, two others had syrup, and the last two had honey. Derry was looking for thicker and thicker things to use as Pecan and Doe infused as much as they could.

As Doe tried to infuse the cup of seed milk on its own, sweat began to pour off him. He breathed out a breath of exhaustion and took a seat.

“Geez, you look spent,” Pecan muttered, just a bit concerned.

Doe nodded tiredly as he whined. He smacked his cheeks, but whatever effect he was hoping to get from doing so didn’t seem to do much for him. He slumped in the chair and whimpered. “This is a lot.”

Pecan raised her brows at her fellow employee’s lack of energy. Usually, Pecan saw him as an annoying ball of loudness, but he seemed pretty limp right about then. She quickly gave him a cup of ice water and he mumbled a word of thanks.

Derry came from the back room with a bottle of tree sap and excitedly sang out. “Look what I dug up…!”

“Nice,” Pecan said as Doe died a little more inside.

Derry eyed Doe with concern. “Looks like Doe’s… just about had it.”

In what was perhaps Doe’s most spiteful moment, he glared up at Derry as he drank his water slowly. It was as if he didn’t quite have the energy to say, “No, really?” Perhaps he was getting a little of Pecan’s sass. The café owner decided to ignore such an attitude. Everyone has their days after all.

Pecan, on the other hand, was able to infuse the seed milk just fine. In fact, she was already trying to infuse the honey. Unlike usual, she held the cup in her hand and tried to infuse the magic into the honey from the bottom. It wasn’t really working, but Derry stepped in.

“That’s… a good idea in a way. That’s hella hard to do though,” the teacher pointed out as Pecan set the cup of honey down.

“Is it?”

Derry nodded. “Yeah, it’s… how do I explain this? It’s just hella hard. But if you can infuse that, you can infuse almost anything.”

“Sorry, Derry, but uh… why is it hard? Explain it like I’m five,” Pecan requested.

That was another thing the employees of Witch Café Wisteria were working on: training Derry to be more clear and teach in a more accessible way. She made a frustrated face at first, but quickly stopped to think to herself.

“…The layers. You… over the cup the stuff is right there. Under is another layer. A hard layer,” Derry explained. She picked up an empty cup and pointed to the bottom. “Check it. You pour a drink? You don’t pour it into the bottom, right? Same here.”

Pecan realized what she was saying. “Oh uh… yeah I get that. That was kinda stupid of me, huh?”

“Nah. You can do it from the bottom, but it takes a hella lot of work,” Derry said, pouring honey into the empty cup, clapping, and grabbing the vessel from the bottom. She didn’t break a sweat as she infused magic into it, the honey glowing yellow right in her hand. That was the owner for you. She wasn’t a high-level witch for nothing. “For the first witch test, no one expects you to be able to do that.”

Not that Pecan wasn’t up for the challenge, but she decided to leave the high-level spells for later—especially since she hadn’t quite mastered the lower-level spells. “Alright. I’ll keep doing it like this.”

With that, Pecan infused the honey with the simple spell that Derry had taught them, allowing it to glow a faint yellow. “Aw. Almost.”

“Yep, hit it one more time,” Derry said.

And so, she did. While the second time didn’t quite work, the third did. She calmly breathed out, “Cool, good.”

“Yes, good work…!” Derry cheered. “Are you alright for the tree sap? Maybe you want to catch some z’s like Doe?”

Pecan wasn’t sure what Derry meant by that at first, but as soon as she looked over to Doe, she understood completely. Poor Doe was knocked out asleep. The training really must have been draining him.

“Uh… I can do the tree sap, though maybe I’ll rest a little after that,” Pecan whispered.

Derry poured a cup of the tree sap for Pecan. The apprentice clapped and hovered her hand over it. Much like the honey, it took a while to infuse anything into it, but eventually she was able to do so.

“That’s it! That’s… all I’ve got for the liquids right now!” Derry exclaimed as she clapped. “Keep practicing and then you’ll be good to go on that! Good work! We’ll keep it rolling once Doe wakes up.”

Hearing that, Pecan draped herself over the only part of the counter that had free space and groaned out a “thank you”. She definitely wasn’t as tired as Doe, but it was all still very draining. Magic isn’t easy, after all!

“Poor Doe though. I thought he would have just uh… powered through this,” Pecan said as she lazily started stacking her cups.

Derry hummed in thought as she watched over the sleeping Doe, thinking of how she wanted to explain what she wanted to say. “I think he’s a little too excited. You can have his usual energy for things like thin drinks, but this stuff is hella thick. You have to keep it chill.”

With a pondering “huh”, Pecan buried her head into her arms. “That was a good explanation. You’re getting better at it.”

“Thank you. I’m… straight up awful at it, but I’m trying,” Derry said with an uncomfortable laugh.

Pecan stood up and flashed Derry a sleepy smile. “Uh... I dunno, I think you’re trying good at least.”

Derry returned her smile and only a bit of time passed before a guest came into the café. “Welcome to Witch Café Wisteria,” Pecan and Derry called out as Doe slept.

“Oh, I remember you. You’re uh… mn… Leticia, right?” Pecan asked as she wiped her eyes. The café wouldn’t want to have a sleepy employee, right—or perhaps that wasn’t the case since Doe was fully asleep right then.

Leticia waved with a smile, looking a little less shy than last time. “Yes, that’s me…”

“How did your confession pan out?” Derry asked.

The girl shook her head but maintained her smile. “It… it didn’t go so well. That’s fine though, because after that I realized if I could do that then… then I can do more than I think. So, thank you.”

“Aww, that’s the stuff I like to hear,” Derry beamed as she resisted every urge she had to pat her guest on the head. Sometimes it’s hard. Some people just seem like they deserve a good, wholesome pat. Nonetheless, Leticia did not receive a pat.

Pecan was also moved by Leticia’s outcome. “Yeah, that’s uh… actually is great. I’m really happy for you.”

Leticia was about to say something else but noticed Doe sleeping. She was a little confused, seeing as the lady who was working there the last time was gone and now some potentially lazy man had taken her place. “Oh… what happened to the other… the other lady you were training?”

“She quit,” Derry began, “She’s going to start her own… health café. Something like that.”

The girl’s eyes widened. “Wow… she looked so… so confused…? Back then I mean. I’m surprised…”

Derry shrugged and grinned. “Oh no, she’s hella smart, but she was under a spell. Don’t worry about her. She can get it going.”

“Much to our possible dismay,” Pecan muttered. Jade’s café would still be a rival to their own if she set up in Reingale, after all.

Eventually, Leticia ordered a Good Luck Tea which Derry chose to prepare so that Pecan could rest while Doe could continue his sleep. She couldn’t possibly give Leticia a half-baked magical drink!

A little after Leticia left, Doe awoke from his sleep. “Hmm… oh no! I fell asleep!” he shouted.

“You sure did,” Derry chuckled as she tapped the cups Doe had yet to practice on. “And you have some ways to go.”

Doe frowned and groaned. “After this training, can we train the foods we talked about onto the menu too?”

Being relevant to her interests, Pecan was all for such an idea. “Good one. I uh... concur. Yes. Food. Good.”

However, Derry wasn’t about to start the conversation on foods again. She smacked the counter a little impatiently so they’d drop the subject and focus on their training.

With a sigh, Doe hopped off the chair and slammed his hands on the counter, glaring at the cups as if intimidation would get them to infuse easier.

“I was telling Pecan… that you’re probably hitting this with too much energy,” Derry told Doe.

However, Doe kept the same energy and nodded as he continued to stare down the cups.

“…Well, while Doe’s doing whatever he’s doing, let me get you set up, Pecan,” Derry said as she grabbed an empty cup. Curiously, Pecan watched as Derry went outside and filled it with sand from the roads. “And that set up’s going to be infusing magic into things… that aren’t liquid.”

Pecan and Doe looked over to each other with break-neck speed then turned back to Derry just as fast. “That’s a thing?!”

“Sure it is…! This isn’t even the half of it. We probably won’t even get to cover everything before the test.”

And so, the rest of the day was spent serving drinks to any guests and training Pecan and Doe. Hopefully, the two would make it through! However, Reingale History Day was approaching fast. Their focus would have to shift soon enough!