reality_crossroads | (no subject)

Just because he's a Mage doesn't mean Mistral can make food appear out of thin air. He's texting a delivery place he knows on his phone-style PINpoint.

*Mordred grins. It's so nice to actually be helpful for once.*

The other two Waltzes have, by then, retreated to the office - not that Blaze had gotten further than the door to the greenhouse. Kitty, as well, has decided to curl up near Red for the moment.

Elec just blinks when he arrives at the given coordinates. He remembers that buttered mammoth incident. The cow, on a plate only a fraction as abnormally large, is already dead and skinned. The assorted meat scraps are in large buckets - a suggestion arrived at during some back-and-forward texts. While they usually had the day's kitchen scraps on hand, they didn't tend to keep meat that was too rotten for sanitation reasons. It's unlikely the various plant-creatures will care. Elec's already wrinkling his nose at the scent from the nearby shambling mounds. He's only too happy to leave once Mistral's paid for the food.

Mistral then starts happily distributing scraps, figuring Mordred will recognize which is the cow and help himself. Two buckets of fresher meat and three of fish are set aside for the moment. Once he's handed over the less-fresh scraps to the needlefolk - who help out in feeding the other plant monsters - he'll take the two buckets of assorted scraps to Red, and one of the fish buckets to Kitty. Which leaves two buckets of fish, as he retrieves his bell from a pocket...

*Mordred grins when he sees the cow, then changes and starts to feed. Hopefully the sight of a giant spider webbing up a whole cow won't scare anyone too much.

*Not that he cares either way, really. His only focus is on being a-hungry and then being fed.*

Mistral doesn't may any mind. He's made his way out a side-door to an empty lot with the last two buckets of fish. Once out there he'll freeze an area of the ground, covering it with an inch-think sheet of ice. And then he'll ring the bell he has with him. There's a twisting of reality and then a huge ice-monster where there wasn't a huge ice-monster before.

Mistral just starts feeding Sealion fish, while Sealion makes happy rumbling noises like a cement truck full of icecubes.

*Mordred quickly finishes his meal, leaving nothing but a husk, then crawls over to see what in Creation that noise is.*

The noise is a happy Sealion who is now getting careful scritches from the shortest of the three Waltzes.

*He shakes his head.* Bit o' a loud beastie, that one.

"Well, he's big. He can't really help being loud," Mistral calls down from where he's perched on Sealion's head. And somehow manages to stay there even when Sealion coils up like a dragon preparing to nap. "Don't worry, he's not going to eat you. He likes fish and octopuses, and you're not either one."

Speaking of dragons, the baby red has crept his way - as best as a dragon can - past the collection of plant monsters. Once safely past he'll give a happy little roar and bound over to curl up next to Sealion. Apparently, the confused little thing has adopted Sealion as a stand-in parent, when the larger monster is around.

*He laughs a little at the dragon's child.* I'm hardly afraid o' that, sai. I can more than take care o' myself.

"Good," Mistrals says. "Too many people keep thinking my pets will eat them. Or they think Sealion's angry and growling. This is a happysound."

Generally folken be more worried I'll eat them.

"Hmph. You'd better not try," is Mistral's comment to that. "I don't like anyone hurting my pets." He won't feed you again if you upset or try to eat his pets.

When did I say aught about the beasts, sai?

"That's enough, both of you," Arashi says from the doorway to the office. "If you're still hungry, we can send for more food." He's not in the mood to put up with some kind of threat contest that might escalate out of hand.

This gets a 'hmph' from a grouchy Mistral, who points out, "We're still in the Nexus, anyway."

Don’t worry, sai, I wasn’t meanin’ ye any harm.

"Me either," Mistral says with a sigh, stroking a patch of Sealion's scales that are still deformed from old injuries. "Sorry." Even a mistaken threat to his pets tends to make him grouchy at best.

Kitty pads her way over and gives a brief glare to the ice before extending her claws and picking her way across the frozen patch. She will not suffer the loss of dignity caused by slipping! Once she's close to the little red dragon she'll retract her claws and hop up on the hatchling to curl up. One thing about having a little red dragon around, they made for a warm kitty bed.

*Mordred is highly amused by the apparently-floating cat.* I do so wish I had companions such as these . . .

"This isn't even his entire menagere," Arashi says, in a not quite deadpan as he fails to conceal traces of irritation, exasperation, and amusement. "And I don't mean the small army of plants." To Mistral he adds, "You're not keeping them."

"Hmph. Of course not, Arashi. I don't think the cold would be good for them at the lodge, and they wouldn't want to stay in the village with the other mages. Though maybe in the forest..."

"He has a knack for making 'pets' out of creatures anyone sane would consider dangerous," Blaze comments to Mordred.

Mistral overhears that. "It's what Summoners do, Blaze." Nevermind that they still couldn't completely figure out how that particular wild talent had developed. It couldn't have been 'inherited' from Rydia back when he was Black Waltz One after all. But then, he'd only had Sealion then.

Just don't try ta make a pet out o' me, sai. I'd not appreciate it, for all that ya seem likeable enough.

Thankfully for everyone's ears, Sealion has quieted down into sleep by that point.

The shortest and oldest of the Waltzes chuckles at that. "Of course not. People don't make very good pets." Not that he's ever really tried... the dragonlet and displacer beast are the closest to borderline there. Red is still nearly a baby, as much adopted child as pet. And Kitty is just amused that Mistral hasn't figured out just who is the pet from her perspective. "I'm not sure about some of the plants, either, for that matter," Mistral adds. "I think some of the cactus-bug ones were talking to each other before."

"Well, that would solve the problem of who to give the rest to," Arashi says. Though Mistral had still promised them a better home, so there was still the matter of relocating them somewhere.

"Maybe," Mistral says, "but they're scared of the really big one..." And he's most tempted to keep that one, if he can find a way to slowly swing Arashi around to the idea.

"I don't blame them," says Blaze, managing to sound bored of the whole thing anyway. The Waltzes had a high resistance to various mind-altering affects, but he'd still noticed something... unsettling... about the tendriculos. And not just that it was almost two tons of semi-intelligent plant with a 15 foot reach and an appetite for anything it could grab. ... Honestly, he's surprised Mistral isn't already insisting on keeping it. And he'd bet Arashi is expecting that too, given the comments the third Waltz had made since they first saw it.

I'm not always recognizable as a person, sai, an' my other form matches your kind o' pet quite nicely. Not that I'd mind playin' with your pets or huntin' with ya, but I won't be caged or collared. So don't try ta keep me if ya value life.

"I won't," Mistral says. "And I don't like or use cages, unless they won't let us in a town otherwise... and then I'd rather stay outside anyway. I only have collars on Red and Kitty because Red's is charmed to shrink him if we have to go into a town so we don't get chased off by guards. They don't bother us as much if he's the size of a small dog. And Kitty's collar has all kinds of charms on it to help keep her safe."

Displacers didn't have the benefit of dragon-tough hide, if someone happened to work out just where they were. And Kitty's smart enough to have grasped the usefulness of the gift and would likely turn anyone trying to remove it into Kitty Chow... unless it was Mistral so a new protection spell could be added.

"But I don't make pets out of people," Mistral continues - he's not really aware yet of how intelligent Red might be full grown, what with the baby being the only dragon they've encountered so far. "I also don't steal other people's pets or try to use my Bell on fire lizards, since they might be linked to a person."

*Mordred smiles shyly, then changes. It's rather enlightening and quite disturbing.* (Well met are we upon the Path. I would be happy to be thy friend in this form as in the other.)

Kitty perks up from where she's resting to give Mordred a look. Ooo, it's one of those leggy-things! It's so fun to bat those around until the legs fall off... But this one had been someone they were talking to just a moment ago. She gives Mistral a glance and then settles back down in her spot. Not a Kitty-toy then, sadly for her. Oh well. Maybe the next leggy-thing will be.

Kitty's shifting rouses Red from his dozy post-meal state enough for the little red dragon to raise his head and give Mistral's face a nuzzle before curling back up. This keeps Mistral from answering anything right away as he has a faceful of baby dragon muzzle.

"Well, now I'm going to second-guess every spider we come across," says a faintly amused Blaze. Though if they attack him he's still going to set them on fire. Friends/Associates get exceptions... random dungeon crawlers do not.