Lodda is running down the path as if she were five years old, although, Svartalf and I know for sure that she is more probably hundred years old. Small growths resembling pearls on her wrists and hands are proof of this. Soon we will come to Roseville: a small mountain road has flown smoothly into a wide tract. On the way, humans and nonhumans start to be seen. They ride on horses, sit in carts loaded with goods, some of them sit on huge fluffy sheep backs, and they get everything there! Fabrics, pots, bales, cages with birds and other animals among which are not only rabbits and pigs, but also outlandish lizards with small wings suspiciously resembling dragons.

Elfia pretends not to pay attention to anyone, nevertheless, a lot of merchant travelers openly keep on staring at her. Of course, experienced carriers have encountered all sorts of living beings, and I am sure that this is not their first elf, but youths (merchants’ sons, helpers, and serfs) screw their necks to admire her fabulous beauty. She walks along the road like a queen to her throne, an ideal rose among ugly weeds.

"Everyone is looking at you," elfia says quietly and sternly.

I don’t immediately understand that she is addressing me. After the mermaid suggested that I practice magical transformation over her body, my boss realized that she was supposed to stay with us longer than she expected.

***

"I don't think this is a good idea. When did you last time practiced any transformations?" Svartalf asked me apprehensively.

I rubbed my wrists preparing for a mini show. I always enjoyed creating magic in public. It is insanely pleasant to feel above the rest of my fellow humans and other creatures. If someone could deprive me of magic, I would definitely not be able to live. Sometimes, it seems that it is magic that makes me special, without it I am just nothing. "Of course. Three days ago or so."

"I ask you about a real complex transformation!"

I pursed my lips. She was right. I just turned a small stone, the size of a chicken egg, into a needle, and a tree bark into a coarse thread. Iron on iron; tree on hemp thread.

"I know what I’m going to do. Unlike you, I don’t need hair to create clones. Mermaids are anatomically changing creatures. In spring, they sometimes drop their tails on land to seduce men. Stop whining, babe. Don’t you feel sorry for me and my poor tired back?" I look slyly at elfia who’s face is like a cold stone.

Lodda joyfully clapped her hands, more likely, she hasn’t gone ashore without her tail and carnal pleasures for a long time.

"Why can’t she do it herself?" elfia asked irritably. She looked at her red shawl like a basilisk at a silver mirror. The mermaid’s wound almost healed thanks to my magic and golden horn moss that I, by pure chance, found between the stones. Rare luck! Maybe I’ll ask the mermaid to given me several of her pearls or scales from the tail and wrists to keep them like a rabbit’s foot?

"Do not twitch! So, here's what's about to happen." I mentally signified myself with a classic Amixantra’s two-finger gesture on my forehead (my stupid religious habit from childhood that I can’t get rid of), then I pushed out of my palms a magical stream, thinking about mermaids’ and humans’ anatomy. My magic, like blood and vital energy, flowed through her veins, arteries, and capillaries.

Well, new legs, in my critical opinion, turned out to be not the smoothest ones: scales shone and glowed in some places. The transformation of her skin cells was not perfect, but in general there were no functional disorders. The mermaid, like a newborn foal toddled around us holding on to my hands. Becoming a little bolder, she ran down a winding road jumping over the roots of trees like a little dryad.

***

"No one is looking at me," I reply in surprise, examining people. Everything is as usual. Everyone around pretends to admire the singing birds and dusty flowers along the road. I chuckle. Oh, that's what she meant. I'm already used to being looked at. Firstly, with indignation: she wears pants! Secondly, with fear: damn, this is a witch… Oh my, oh my! It’s better not to look into her eyes or my child will be born blind (or whatever the peasants and priests from the most orthodox temples of Amixantra talk about us).

The funny thing is that no one looked at the owner of two brand new limbs. Although there's nothing to see, since she behaves like an ordinary young idiot, you know, there's a lot of them out there and everywhere.

Lodda runs up to one traveler or the other, clinging to everything with a long skirt, which Svartalf, surprisingly favorably, lent her. Everyone treats the mermaid kindly: someone even treated her to an apple that she had already gnawed. One old man on the largest cart with his personal robust troll guards gave her a blue ribbon for her loose hair, shedding a tear. It's just that you, you remind me of my late wife, Goddess, save her poor soul!

I shrug my shoulders and snap my fingers defiantly, creating a small harmless electrical discharge like a lightning for those who hasn’t yet understood who I am. People jump aside. Previously, all this would have only amused me. I would have already found someone to ask to sit on a cart; maybe I would earn extra money by painlessly removing a bad tooth or treating a couple of minor wounds, but today I am somehow not feeling fun, not feeling myself. I don’t like elfia's mood, and it obviously makes me ill at ease.

I clutch her shawl in my pocket. It's good that the mermaid gave it back to me when she got better.