#14 - Greedy for Ingredients

"Oh the Lake." MJ only just noticed it, so consumed by her task. "I wonder if it would be safe enough to skate on. Has anyone tried?" It was common for her to ask questions like this aloud since she was used to Max being next to her, answering them or asking his own.

Ah, she missed him now. He would have loved looking for potion ingredients together.

Still, chin up! MJ looked around, squinting around the gloom in the boathouse. She spotted an old, metal bucket, left along a wall and decided it would be good enough to stand on so she could check the top corners. MJ dragged it to the first corner, stood upon it and stretched up into the darkness. 

"Now, let's see—" She whispered, hoping her eyes would adjust to the lack of light to make this task easier.

MJ considered her options.

She could fumble with her lovely warm gloves on but risk ruining the egg sacs. That would then mean no usable ingredients for her, which was far from ideal. Alternatively, she could take her gloves off which would help improve her grip and hand-eye coordination in collecting the sacs but would mean her hands would get cold. It was a debate that happened for a few moments until she gave a sigh (and her breath puffed out before her in a cloud).

For the sake of usable ingredients, which was entirely the whole point of this endeavour, she would gladly deal with cold hands.

She bit the end of her fingers and tugged the gloves off, safely stowing them together into one of her pockets. MJ knew she would need to put them back on as quickly as possible once she was done, so she made sure they weren't stuffed in too deep. Now she had her bare hands to help with the task but her troubles were far from over. Now she had to concentrate on retrieving the eggs while balancing on the bucket.

Perhaps not the best choice of something to stand on but there weren't many other viable options (in her eyes). Still, she persisted, reaching up and attempting to carefully pull the egg sac away from the cobwebs. It would be easier to open and take the eggs out when she wasn't on top of a bucket, she reasoned to herself. Hopefully, luck would be on her side and she would have something to show for her efforts.

The sac comes away easy enough, bringing with it a trail of cobwebs, "Gross." MJ chuckles to herself, stepping down from the bucket and checking over her find. Thankfully it was in tact and MJ let out a sigh of relief. She carefully pinched the soft lining and pulled it open, eyes widening in awe at how many eggs were inside. 

"Totally gross - amazing!" She grinned. 

Now with those pocketed, she wanted to try and find some Mercy's Lace. She knew it had to be growing near or around something submerged, or so she had read, so MJ put her gloves back on and carefully approached the water's edge to check.