AUGUST CATCH-ALL

[leicesters]

🧙 WHO: Claude and CR
⚔️️ WHAT: August catch-all log
🕒 WHEN: Throughout the month
🗺️ WHERE: Around Avalon
⚠️ WARNINGS: Nothing yet, will add as necessary.

Comments

[leicesters]

[Claude takes a concerned step towards his friend when he looks ready to keel over, but Lorenz manages to right himself in time before he faceplants.] Easy, Lorenz. No need to overdo it this early on.

[Then he frowns, wondering how to explain it to Aerith.] My magic lets me tell how plants are... feeling? So I don't think it's unfair to call them unfriendly. 'Mischievous' might be the most charitable word for it. Regardless, we should be careful.

[It's a concept not too strange to him, when Petra had once talked of trees having spirits and feeling things like anger, but actually experiencing it with magic is another thing entirely.

He offers a hand to help Lorenz up.]

I'll take the lead for now. If there's any change in the forest, I'll be best-placed to react first.

[inemeraldfaith]

[A hand poises at her chin and Aerith nods slowly.] I have some friends who have similar magic, but they told me it was for affecting the growth of plants. I didn't know that you could communicate with them.

[Maybe Makoto and Claire don't know that. She makes a mental note to drop that information to both when she sees them again.

More over, she's actually a bit pleasantly surprised that the Green magic appears to be something similar to what she has by default. Rather, purely by circumstance. It's like being in the presence in another Cetra. In other words, for those moments of realisation, Aerith doesn't feel quite so alone.

Her attention turns onto Lorenz and she straightens herself right up. The mystery of the forest and its mischievous life remains.]

I can keep an eye on things behind us and play look out.

[silky_bearing]

[Accepting Claude's assistance getting back to his feet is perfectly natural when he's not huffing or sulking about things. It's all for show whether he'll admit it or not. Still having Claude lead makes sense... having Aerith insist she take up the back makes him feel a bit useless. Perhaps they'd have been better without him tagging along.

But he's never going to get better at the magics if he's never in a position to really stretch his understanding of it all.]

We both can.

[Directed at Aerith, trying to make it clear she doesn't need to baby him. But he still lets her fall in step behind him, keeping a hand on Darby's lead and an eye on Claude even as he tries to keep his magical senses extended somewhat, searching for the things Claude has said he recognized within the forest as well as any changes.]

[leicesters]

Right, right. It's not a competition.

[Claude tosses over his shoulder as he goes ahead, aimed in Lorenz's general direction. As they proceed, the journey is initially uneventful, although soon the canopy thickens overhead until the sky becomes impossible to see, aside from the wind stirring the branches, allowing the smallest streams of light through.

Something catches Claude's eye and he gives a short 'oh!' and goes off-track, sliding down a short incline, then moving to examine the base of a tree. On closer inspection, he's crouching down and looking at... some very strange blue-green mushrooms.]

Ahhh, I wish I could take these. I bet they have all kinds of interesting properties!

[inemeraldfaith]

[Lorenz's reaction is almost a surprising one. In truth, she's thought he'd go take the front line with Claude. Or maybe Aerith's just content to let them play escorts and bodyguards, though she is, to some extent, very capable of handling her own. It's sometimes wisest to portray one's self as the least suspect. Underestimating her is safer.

Either way, she can't help but laugh a little at Claude's interjection.

She follows along with them, occasionally casting a look behind her.]

The further in we get, the more vast it seems. Like there isn't an end in sight. This forest must be huge.

[When Claude moves down the incline he's found, she follows after him. Leaning over to get a look at the same mushrooms that have caught his attention, she offers a momentary glance to the path they've stepped off of. It'll be wiser not to leave it for too long.]

Is there anything really stopping us from taking some? I came here with the intentions to take samples of the plant life in hopes of growing it at my shop. Mushrooms are plants. Let's see if we can dig them up.

[This can't possibly go anywhere good.]

[silky_bearing]

[Lorenz is perfectly content to let Claude lead but he's hardly surprised when the other man gets distracted so soon. But it is rather what the purpose is so he finds it strange that Claude of all people would be exceptionally cautious.

For once he agrees with Aerith.

Still with the both of them off the path he's not quite comfortable leaving it so he crouches down himself at the top of the slope they went down, not more than a step or two from the path.]

She's right. You had the same plans and don't try to pretend you didn't. What is stopping you from taking this particular plant?

[Though as they are discussing disrupting the plant life Lorenz does tug a kerchief from his pocket, prepared to cover his face if they do decide to take a sample. Just in case.]