#humans!

"And I realized how much more complicated life is without the benefit of magic. Rubbing linseed oil into my blistered hands, I thought wistfully of how magic lets you skip over the steps of things. That is what makes it so appealing. But, I thought, the steps of things are where life is truly found, in doing the day-to-day tasks. Caught up in the world of enchantment as I had been at the castle, it had been the routine things I had missed most, which was why I had set up that laundry room and insisted on doing my own washing. But I had missed so much. Sitting at the table back home and peeling potatoes with my mother and sisters in a companionable silence. Feeding the chickens, their urgent feathery bodies crowding my legs, and looking up to see Neddy coming back from the fields. Going on one of my long exploring walks, having a blister come up on my heel but at the same time stumbling upon a fox den and catching a brief glimpse of a mother fox nursing a brand-new litter of kits. And though I might have wished away the blister, slowing down to favor the pain in my heel was part of how I came to see the kits."