Letting the Cat out of the Bag - Tea Time! (P1)
Keir left, and Khaalida found herself standing with Shaakir and Yuri. Kir, she was familiar with, but Yuri she had only met on the journey there as the white stallion had simply seemed to appear in the middle of a conversation about tea and whether or not Coyote should be able to freely visit.
Really, was a castle all that bad? Khaali didn’t think her house was quite a castle (even though many called it that), it was more of a… fancy manor house.
But that was beside the point. She now found herself standing with the two stallions, facing… a very icy spot in the swamp.
“I mean. This is kind of pretty, are you sure we have to fix it?” Khaalida said, looking around at the way the ice glittered on the limbs and vines, and couldn’t help but be relieved by the lack of mosquitoes.
“He said to investigate it,” Yuri said, looking around. “So I’m assuming so.”
Khaalida glanced at the two stallions with a bit of a grin. “Well investigate doesn’t quite mean fix completely…. The lack of mosquitoes really is a nice change isn’t it?”
The trio took a spin around the icy patch, checking out where it ended and how it transitioned from the muggy swamp to an immediate temperature drop. Khaalida’s Cat sat on her back, for one step on the ice had the cat hissing and retreating to higher ground. Yuri had given a chuckle as the feline basically clawed her way up Khaalida’s leg in her haste to avoid the cold ground.
“She is pampered,” Khaalida sighed, and Yuri nodded, shifting slightly to reveal the fairy tucked under his mane. It was sort of creepy looking, but also kind of cute, Khaalida had to admit.
“Not a fan of the cold either,” Yuri replied. Khaalida smiled slightly, before glancing over to Shaakir as he investigated on the other side of the icy patch, his Phoenix watching from the branches.
“Seems like none of our companions are that fond of the cold,” Khaalida said. “I find it somewhat charming, though. Especially in the swamp.”
“Not a fan of the swamp?”
“Unlike our mystic friend here, I tend to avoid the swamp,” Khaalida admitted. “It hasn’t always been the best place for me to be.”
Kir looked up at the mention of himself, and snorted slightly. “I’ve lived here for years, it’s fine.”
“So says you,” Khaalida muttered, but there was a teasing light to her eyes. “So anyway, how do we want to go about this?”
There was a pause as they all looked at the land around them, before Yuri spoke up.
“What kind of magic do you all have?” He asked.
Khaalida and Shaakir shared a look. “A lot,” Khaalida admitted. “Both Shaakir and I are lesser deities.”
Yuri nodded, his mind already puzzling over what could be done. “Do either of you have fire magic?”
“Not really,” Khaalida admitted, “I do have Weather Manipulation though.”
“I have a phoenix,” Shaakir supplied, and Yuri nodded, looking between them, considering.
“I do have Plant Magic though,” Shaakir finally admitted under Yuri’s gaze.
“Good,” Yuri said, with a nod.
“What are you thinking?” Khaalida asked, curious about where Yuri’s mind was going.
“Here is what we are going to do,” Yuri said, and promptly began bossing the lesser deities around.
Khaalida focused on her magic, letting it flow through her. Calling upon her Weather Manipulation, she began to warm the air around them, thinking of the warm desert winds and hot sand. It was perhaps a bit selfish that she focused on hot dry weather instead of swamp weather, but really, she just was not in the mood for those dreadful biting bugs.
The ice began to melt, and as she strengthened the flow of magic she watched as it both melted, then swiftly dried up under the hot weather she called in. Kylo Hen helped as well, the phoenix gliding through the air releasing sparks and helping melt the ice higher up. Khaalida’s own familiar, however, stayed firmly planted on her back, wanting no part of this.
“Your turn, Shaakir,” Yuri called out, and Kir approached the drier ground.
Khaalida took a step back to watch, standing by Yuri’s side, and smiled as his fairy came out of hiding and looked around, enjoying the warmer weather.
“I… didn’t know magic worked that way,” Yuri said with a surprised tone. When Khaalida looked back over to Kir, he was….
Oh boy was he licking the dirt?
“I’ve never used that technique to talk to plants,” Khaalida said, voice layered in confusion. “Maybe… Mystics just… work differently?”
“Maybe,” Yuri said with a shake of his head. “Or maybe he is just weird,” he added with a swift grin.
“That’s also likely,” Khaalida agreed as Kir turned to lick a tree. “More and more likely by the moment.”
Silently the pair watched, and when Kir finally looked up and saw their baffled expressions the Mystic snorted.
“That one is good for tea,” he said, and gestured to a plant growing on the outskirts.
“That's… great, did you find anything out about the ice?” Khaalida asked.
“It came suddenly, the plants never saw it coming,” Kir reported.
“Well, that makes it more likely it was a magical attack and not a weird stormfront,” Khaalida said, somewhat to herself. “Well. Yuri, your turn!”
Yuri replaced Kir, and used Magic Eater to draw the magic into his body, cutting off the flow of additional magic just in case.
“So what we know is it was most likely magical in origin, it happened suddenly, and the plants don’t know what happened,” Khaalida said, and the two stallions nodded.
“What do we do now?” Yuri asked.
Khaalida shrugged, with a bit of a grin. “I mean, Keir said investigate, and we did that,” she said. “Shaakir, you said that plant made a nice tea?”
Shaakir nodded slightly, before seeming to realize where this was going.
“You want to make tea?”
“Between all our magic combined we could make something real nice while we wait for Keir to come back,” Khaalida said.
Yuri grinned at the idea, especially the mental image of Keir coming back to find them enjoying tea. “That sounds like a great idea.”
Tea brewed, the trio relaxed with their familiars and enjoyed it, watching as the ice began to reform over the branches and ground, and waiting for the Swamp Deity to return.