Kestrad's tales of birdy Keep misadventures

[Kestrad]

and then they all died jk

__

The explosion knocked Lachesis backwards and onto the floor, stunning her. Calida was flying circles anxiously over her when she came to. Lorelei's worried face floated into view a moment later, followed by her waving hand. "Lachesis? Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," Lachesis croaked, taking Lorelei's hand and pulling herself upright. Her back felt like one giant bruise, and the fall had definitely winded her, but she'd been in worse shape before. Her shield spell was gone, presumably having done its job. "What happened? Did we do it?"

"Yup!" Lorelei exclaimed, turning to point behind her. Where the pile of spell materials had been, there were now two glass jars with miniature fireballs hovering inside.

Lachesis stared. "That's the egg?" She opened her magical senses, feeling around the room. Sure enough, her magic reacted to the jars the way it did with Calida and the desgolo, a gentle, pleasant pulsing sensation - the telltale sign of a magical creature. "Any idea what it'll hatch into? How does it hatch, actually? Do we open the jar?"

Lorelei shook her head. "I distinctly remember there being an open jar that looked like this in the room we cleaned up," she said. "Given that we merely got an explosion, and not a bunch of scorch marks as well, I'm going to guess that opening the jar right now is the wrong way to go." She moved to examine Lachesis. "Follow my finger with your eyes, okay? Ah, good, you're not concussed."

"Why weren't you affected as much by the explosion?" Lachesis grumbled, as Lorelei sent a gentle wave of light healing magic through her. The magic was cool and soothing, and in its wake her back stopped aching.

"Dunno," Lorelei replied, pulling Lachesis to her feet. "I suspect since I fell backwards, I was a bit further from the blast. And since I was already down, what the shield spell wasn't able to absorb just pushed me along the floor."

"Thanks," Lachesis said, bending to pick up the jars. She passed one to Lorelei. "Well, guess we'll just have to wait and find out what hatches from these things. Hopefully whatever it is will be worth it."

*

"Aughh, no, not the closet," Lachesis wailed, as the comet that had hatched out of the jar less than an hour ago zoomed around the room and, having already set the bed, the bookshelf, one particularly unfortunate quail amagnae, and Lachesis' homework on fire, crawled through the crack under the closet door. She ran over and flung the door open, only to find the little fireball merrily inspecting her outfits, leaving scorched through holes and burn marks on every outfit she owned. The draft from opening the door caused several clothes to burst outright into flames - including her favorite dress, which had taken the better part of a year to save up the money for.

Lachesis yelped and screamed out the first anti-fire spell that came to mind, which unfortunately resulted in dumping a gallon of water over the entire contents of her closet and herself. The air in the room, only just recently cleared, once again filled with acrid smoke and steam. The comet weaved frantically, zooming away from the spray and towards where Calida was perching. The cinersi hadn't involved herself, electing to observe the mess in an "I told you so" way. Calida watched the comet fly towards her and chirped sternly - and to Lachesis's surprise, the comet stopped in its tracks, bobbing up and down, as if unsure of what to do.

Before Lachesis could throw herself at Calida's mercy and beg her to take over caring for the comet, the cinersi gave one more disapproving chirp and flew out the window, followed by the last of the quail and wugu amagnae who hadn't yet fled. Lachesis expected to have to slam the window shut, to prevent the little comet from escaping, but it stayed put, apparently thoroughly chastened by Calida's scolding.

A moment later, Pele, Lachesis's first companion, flew in through the window. Lachesis recoiled despite herself from the flames the phoenix threw everywhere, but Pele's control over fire was much more refined than the comet's. All the sparks winked out harmlessly. She threw a slightly offended glance at her magi.

"Sorry," Lachesis began, but Pele's attention was no longer on her. The phoenix cocked her head to glare at the comet, who seemed to actively shrink a bit. Pele gave a sharp chirp, and the comet slinked into a (thankfully empty) corner, where it dimmed, sulking.

Lachesis sighed with relief when the comet seemed content to stay where it was for the time being, and set to work cleaning up the mess. "It's good to see you," she said to Pele, after she'd spelled all the water to turn into mist, and then summoned a breeze to whisk it out of her room. Her phoenix generally stayed in Voltar these days, where she led a flock of wild phoenixes. "Did Calida ask you to come?"

The phoenix nodded, glancing at Lachesis reproachfully. Lachesis sighed, grabbing a broom to sweep up ashes. "I know, I know. This was a silly idea and I really should heed warnings about advanced rituals instead of letting Lorelei talk me into doing them anyway. At least she's probably also learned a lesson this time." She finished sweeping up and focused on Pele again. "Why did Calida ask you to come, though? She seemed to know what to do."

Pele fluffed herself and spread out her wings, showering the room with flames. "I guess that's fair," Lachesis conceded. Pele was made out of fire and literally impervious to whatever the comet might do, and so better equipped than Calida for the job. Lachesis turned to contemplate her ruined closet, books, and bedding. The bedding she could probably request a replacement for from Keep stores. The books, fortunately, had mostly just had their covers singed. Her clothes, though...most of them were in ruins, and what wasn't in ruins desperately needed patching to be remotely presentable again. She sighed, thinking - there were localized time reversal spells in existence, specifically intended for repairing things, weren't there? Could she find one to apply to her closet, and maybe her homework while she was at it?

Pele chirped in alarm, breaking Lachesis out of her reverie. She whirled around, just in time to see her phoenix swoop down and snatch the little comet away from the broom, which had blackened and started smoldering.

Lachesis sighed, beating out the fire, and decided against fixing her clothes for the time being. Maybe after the comet grew up and (hopefully) had enough control to not set everything on fire all the time. She slipped Pele a few crickets when she was done scolding the comet, and sat down to rewrite her essay, only to realize that her quill had perished along with her homework.

Lachesis sighed again, rubbing her temples as she felt a headache coming on. It occurred to her she had no idea how long flaming comets took to grow up. Whatever amount of time it took, it was going to be too long.

[Kestrad]

Kieran knew he should have just stayed in bed that day. He'd come into his office to be greeted with a literal ream of papers on his desk, filled with notes on the latest ritual the spell creation department wanted him to help with. On top of the stack was a hastily scribbled "we really need this working by tomorrow morning please" from one of the spellmasters. Several hours of wading through horrifyingly messy notes and scribbling suggested modifications later, he looked up to find Lachesis sitting in a corner, reading a book. Her pose was rather unnatural - it took a moment for Kieran to register that it was because her arms were encircling a squirming dragon hatchling in her lap.

Kieran sighed, resisting the urge to smack his face against his desk, and reached for his quill knife - his last few notes had been starting to splotch. "Why the dragon?" He asked, as he reshaped the tip of his quill.

"I've never seen you so focused on anything before," Lachesis mused, not immediately answering his question. "I can wait if you're not done."

Kieran resisted the urge to stick his tongue out at her, re-inked his quill and finished up the notes he'd been working on. "Surely you came here for more than just to watch me work and make snide remarks," he drawled as he wrote. "You don't even make social calls to Lorelei unprompted, let alone me."

"Who's making snide remarks here?" Lachesis retorted.

Kieran sniffed, but well, fair enough. He capped his ink bottle and put away his quill. If his corrections to the ritual didn't salvage it, well, then nothing would. Probably. He moved the stack of papers to one side so he could steeple his fingers and observe Lachesis over the desk imperiously (he hoped). "So? What can I help you with?"

Lachesis didn't look particularly impressed, but she put down her book and stood up, pulling the dragon hatchling into her arms. She brought it up to Kieran's desk and deposited it there.

"Hey!" Kieran protested. "I swear, if that thing destroys my work..." He trailed off as he realized what he was looking at. The dragon hatchling was black and gold, with a subtle skeleton pattern traced over its - her - scales. Kieran tentatively reached out to touch the eldritch dragon hatchling, holding his breath. Her scales were smooth and surprisingly soft. After a second, the hatchling wiggled out from under his hand and sniffed it. Fortunately, she seemed to have no interest in his papers whatsoever.

"I assume you've put a fear ward over her?" Kieran asked, after the hatchling lost interest in him and began poking at his quill. Lachesis nodded, so he allowed himself to indulge his curiosity. "So, why the fuck do you have an eldritch dragon and why the fuck is it at the Keep do you know how irresponsible that is?"

Lachesis raised an eyebrow at the last part of his outburst. "You're the one who sneaks into people's rooms and jumps out their window when caught."

Kieran groaned. Of course Lorelei had shared that story. "That was one time! And it was for a good cause!"

"What, putting a young, fiery dragon near extremely dry, flammable brush?" Lachesis retorted, grinning. Kieran opened his mouth to respond with something rude, but Lachesis cut him off. "I'm just teasing, Kieran. If it were up to me, I wouldn't have bonded with an eldritch dragon in the first place."

"But?" Kieran prompted, irritation promptly forgotten. There was definitely an interesting story here.

Lachesis made a face. "Did Karz or Lorelei happen to tell you about the eldritch dragon incident we had about a year ago?"

Kieran shook his head. He thought Tyrone had mentioned something in passing about Lorelei dealing with a dragon, maybe, but he knew nothing more.

"Well then," Lachesis began. And then summarized the incident.

Kieran shook his head again when she was done, this time in amazement at how stupid birds were. Some previously unknown self-preservation instinct kicked in though, so he refrained from saying as such to her. "But how does this end up with her here?" he asked instead, pointing at the dragon on his desk. She'd gotten bored of poking the inkstand and had taken to playing with his blotting paper. Kieran kept a sharp eye on his stack of work papers, but she continued to ignore them.

Lachesis sighed. "Well, Karz's dragon apparently hatched the egg and then parted ways with the hatchling, since eldritch dragon hatchlings don't need tending in the wild. And that should have been the end of it. But she managed to get to the Keep and just wandered up to me last month. Somehow, having spent several days in my room as an egg was enough to bond us. It certainly explains the nightmares around that time..." Lachesis trailed off, shuddering, presumably remembering said nightmares.

"That still doesn't explain why she's still at the Keep," Kieran pointed out.

Lachesis glanced away. Kieran could swear she looked faintly embarrassed. "Well, most eldritch dragons are raised in a very remote, specialized set of caves in the Alasre mountains, right?"

"Yeah, that's kind of the point of this conversation," Kieran said. "Why isn't she there?"

Lachesis sighed. "I don't have any skill at emotion magic, okay? Literally none." She flushed a bit. Kieran snorted - so that was what she was embarrassed about. Not being good at an extremely esoteric form of magic. Seriously, some magi had weird hangups. Lachesis glanced reproachfully at him, but continued. "So I can't get within ten feet of the caves without potentially losing my mind from fear. And the hatchling won't let me leave her sight."

Kieran's eyebrows shot up at that statement. It was common knowledge these days that eldritch dragon hatchlings didn't need any tending from their parents, and with most magical creatures this translated to not needing much care from a magi companion either, beyond some baseline bonding. "Why not?" He finally asked, unsure what else to say.

"I was hoping you would be able to tell me," Lachesis replied, entirely seriously.

Kieran groaned, hiding his face in his hands. "Why me?" he asked. He really should have just stayed in bed today.

[Foleo]

THAT'S HIM......THAT'S MY BOY

you never fail to astound me with how you can take my middle school emo edge character and turn him into someone so lovable.....kestrad you are doing the lord's work

also i love the episodic feel of these stories combined with the fact that everything is linked together!!! can't wait to see how they get out of this one

[Kestrad]

We interrupt your regularly scheduled sporadic updates with a special chapter, because birds!
--

Kieran picked his way down a familiar hall in the Keep and knocked tentatively on Lachesis's door. They were due for their regular tea-and-complain-about-spells session, started impromptu about half a year ago when Lachesis earned her alchemist robes and promptly started studying spellcrafting instead. Naturally, every time she had anything to gripe about, she somehow ended up in Kieran's office. And the evil birdbrain had quickly figured out that Kieran would tolerate a lot of distractions if it came with caffeine and sweets. It had really ended up being easier just to make those sessions official.

He would never admit it, but Kieran was vaguely worried. Lachesis hadn't been by to bother him for quite some time now, which was unusual. Either she'd run into some problem, or - Kieran hoped for the sake of his sweet tooth that this wasn't the case - she'd decided he was no longer useful.

"Who is it?" Lachesis called from the other side of the door, after a few seconds. It was hard to tell from such a short phrase, but she seemed a bit out of breath. Kieran shrugged and pushed her door open, figuring that was the quickest way to answer the question, and then gaped as his brain struggled to process what he saw behind the door.

"...but why? How?" Kieran asked. He wasn't sure he was capable of parsing this many chiolins in the same place. Also Lachesis's attempts to dance, but the less time spent dwelling on that, the better. There was a whole flock assembled before her, imitating her movements, and frankly doing a much better job. There were so many chiolin hatchlings that there was barely any area in the room with visible floor. Seeing so many birds move in sync on the ground was fascinating and also highly unsettling.

"The benefits of being friends with a very large flock of arkai," Lachesis said, thankfully coming to a stop. She flushed, whether from exertion or embarrassment at being caught, Kieran couldn't tell. He decided not to comment, focusing instead on her deflection.

"I don't care how you got this many birds," Kieran said, and he meant every word. The less he knew about how Lachesis got her birds, the better. Otherwise he might get pressed into helping her acquire even more, and Kieran had more self-preservation than that. "How did you get so many notably aloof birds to live together with you like that? How do you function with so many birds taking up all your space?"

The first question answered itself before Lachesis could, as the chiolin hatchlings, having stopped dancing, began squabbling amongst themselves. Almost instantly, several wugu amagnae dashed out from under her bed, wading through chicks to chirp sternly at them. Kieran was surprised at how effective the amagnae were - in only seconds, the arguing chiolin chicks turned sullenly away from each other. Squabbling thus dealt with, they began breaking into small groups to play and dance together under the watchful eyes of the wugu amagnae adults. Several wandered towards the fireplace, staring intently at the crackling fire dancing in it, only for a phoenix to poke its head out and shoo them away. A few started wandering towards the open doorway where Kieran stood and were firmly accosted by a pair of quail amagnae stationed on either side.

"It's not too bad," Lachesis assured Kieran, carefully picking her way across the room to her desk. "I just move carefully, and if I need to use something, scoop the birds there out of the way." As if to prove her point, she pulled out the chair, scattering chiolin chicks in its wake, and relocated the three particularly enterprising hatchings who'd climbed onto the seat to the desk. "Why are you here, anyway?" she asked, as she began sharpening her quill, and every so often nudging the curious hatchlings a safe distance away. "Surely you have better things to do than pester me about having too many birds."

Kieran shook his head. "Your words, not mine," he pointed out. Lachesis scowled at him; he ignored it. "Anyway, I'm here because you owe me some cake."

"Just because I bribe you sometimes to help me with spells doesn't mean I owe you cake regularly," Lachesis retorted, shooting him a glare that could have turned a person to stone. Fortunately, Kieran was used to having that directed at him, and paid it no heed.

"What if I brought the tea this time?" Kieran asked, snapping his fingers to materialize a small tea set on a mini trolley beside him, steam wafting gently out of the teapot's spout and the two cups. Okay, admittedly he hadn't actually needed to snap - it just looked so much cooler when he did.

Lachesis set down her penknife and quill, squinting at the cart for a long moment. Finally, she snorted. "If you can arrange for all that to be ready at a certain time and place just so you can shadow teleport it at an appropriate moment, you could have asked the kitchen staff for some snacks to go with it as well."

Kieran gasped in mock offense. "You think I don't know how to steep tea properly myself?" He gestured dramatically at the tea set. "As it happens, though, I prepare for everything. Which is why I also asked for cake to go with the tea, since obviously you're not going to provide any." He snapped again, and several heaping plates of small cakes and fingering sandwiches appeared on the second level of the cart.

Lachesis's eyes widened, which Kieran took as pleasant surprise. "C'mon," he said. "Birds can wait, whereas my latest gripe about the Artificer's Guild's attempt at inventing a foolproof fire suppression spell won't."

"Kieran, you absolute idiot," Lachesis sighed, which was absolutely not what Kieran expected to hear in response. At that moment, he finally registered that everything was far too still - because all the birds had stopped their dancing and playing. At least forty pairs of beady eyes stared at him. No, past him - at the food.

"Oh, crap," Kieran said, which was all the words he had time for before a swarm of voracious birds flooded through the doorway, bowling him over.

*

"You know, I'm impressed," Lorelei commented as she poked Kieran with a wand, sealing a deep peck - one of about a dozen she hadn't gotten to yet. "I didn't get this banged up when Lachesis had a flock of wild amagnae chicks in her room."

Kieran was seated on Lachesis's bed, after they'd finally herded all the chicks back into her room and sent a quail amagnae to fetch the healer. Said chicks were now back to running around, climbing all the furniture and getting into squabbles. Fortunately, they mostly avoided the area where Lorelei was working on Kieran. Lorelei gave another peck a poke and he hissed, wincing as his flesh knit itself back together. Healing of this sort was either quick and painful, or soothing and slow. Kieran had chosen speed, and Lorelei was happy to comply.

Behind her, Lachesis was at her desk, carefully prodding at a few chiolin chicks who had gotten burned by hot tea, Calida presiding anxiously from a perch beside her. Kieran squinted at Lachesis's work to distract himself from the pain. She didn't have much talent for healing, but drawing on Calida's inherent life magic and directing it into the chicks seemed to be sufficient.

"How was I supposed to know she would have so many birds in her room?" Kieran grumbled. "Poorly behaved ones, at that." He glared at a chiolin chick that was trying to hop onto the bed, jumping and then flailing its wings as it clung to the mattress before falling back off.

Lorelei snorted, drawing her wand over a claw mark, earning another hiss from Kieran. "It's Lachesis, Kieran. What did you expect?"

Kieran shook his head. "Not this many birds. How does she live like this?" A thought occurred to him then, and he added, "Is this why Donovan absolutely refuses to come down this hallway ever, and Verdandi's no longer on speaking terms with Lachesis?"

Lorelei grinned. "Welcome to the club, Kieran."

[WingsOfFireDragon]

Moderator edit: No eggspam!