[prp] serotiny (lily + eve)

[cibarium]

"Been wondering when I'd see you back here," Eve said, observing Lily seated in one of the comfier armchairs at the back of her store. "How's the reading coming along? I'm sure you've found some wonderfully ugly wiccan blogs by now."

amitotic

 

[AMItotic]

"I had to do some grocery shopping first," Lily replied, a paper bag precariously held upright in both hands as she shuffled her way into the room. She set it down on a side table with a gentle heave, and then began pulling out a series of items--a three-ring binder, a bottle of sriracha, and some pens for starters.

"I used some basic google fu. There's a lot of internet, and a whole lot of bad font usage," she continued, setting down a bag of dollar store tea-light candles and a dropper of costume fake blood. "But yeah. Got some notes about it somewhere, I brought some stuff from the apartment that might work for us."

She sat down in the armchair next to Eve, pulling the binder into her lap. "What I got is that fire's an extroverted masculine energy, represents passion and creative drive, gets used to cleanse a space when burning certain herbs. Or 'herbs'." It was hard to tell from under her bangs, but she might have been waggling her eyebrows.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

The hot sauce got a momentarily confused reaction from Eve, but she didn't comment on it. "There's no substitute for blood, unfortunately," she said instead, gesturing to the fake kind Lily had brought. "But the color red has been used to invoke elemental fire. Sounds like you're getting the right idea."

Eve had begun a page in her notebook devoted to the task at hand after the first meeting with Lily. She had it out with her, tapping her pen to a diagram she'd drawn as she spoke. "I have a burning ritual figured out... just needs something appropriate to burn. That'll take a trip to the woods," she said. "And your climbing prowess."

amitotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily shrugged, putting the bottle of fake blood back in the bag. "Eh. Figured it was worth a shot." Her expression perked up at the idea of climbing, and she closed her notes.

"Done. Just tell me where we're going." This was already shaping up to be the best field trip she'd done on account of the otherworld, and they hadn't even left yet.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

"We can head out once I've closed the store," Eve answered.

An hour and some later she and her chair and Clover were safely buckled up and packed away in Lily's car, heading towards the ever-relevant Waite State Park. "So there'll be a certain type of pinecone we're looking for," she was saying, a heavy botanical textbook opened in her lap.

amitotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily's sedan was not a glamorous ride, but it had four wheels and got the job done, even if the engine made a strange noise or two on the way out to the park. She pulled into the parking lot and parked near the visitor center, shutting off the engine and the early 2000s pop punk and climbing out of the front seat, surveying the treeline before remembering to focus.

She crossed around the front of the car and opened the door behind Eve, unpacking the chair and Clover before opening the door for Eve herself. "As long as it's not actively on fire, I think I can grab pretty much whatever," she nodded, holding the handles of the chair to give Eve the stability to climb in on her own. "Is this thing made for off-roading?"

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Clover was there to give the needed assistance to Eve, who laughed a little at Lily's question. "I don't think so. Makes me miss shapeshifting even more," she admitted. "And I'd just figured out you can transform on this side before that happened.

"As it is, I'm just here to tell you whether or not you grabbed the right thing..." She pointed at the book for Lily to look at. "It's a species that can only open when burned. We're looking for a closed one. They can be rather high up, so you'll have to be a fisher for it so I won't spend the whole time worrying I've sent you to fall to your death."

amiotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily took a moment to process what Eve said about shapeshifting in the mundane world, and then her eyes lit up in her surprise. "Holy s**t, are you for rea--", she began, cut off by the change in her vocal cords as her body shrank down into its fisher form. It wasn't the quick and graceful maneuver she'd come to learn in the otherworld, but there she was, in broad daylight and outside of spookville, smelling the smells of mundaneness, and lacking the ability to speak she could only express herself with an excited chittering and wiggling in place.

She rolled and shifted back to her human form, letting out a wheeze as she sprawled out her gangly limbs. "Oh my god everything hurts and I'm dying," she sighed contentedly, staring up at the sky. "This is the greatest news I've had all week."

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

It was a bittersweet moment to see Lily transform in front of her when she still couldn't, but fortunately for Eve the emphasis was on the sweet. It was almost like getting to spend time with her as a moonwalker again.

Almost.

"Does that mean you think you can pull this off?" she asked, smirking down at the girl.

AMItotic

 

[AMItotic]

"Yeah, I think I got it," she grunted, giving a thumbs up from the ground. Slowly, she dragged herself to her feet, rolling her shoulders and shrugging the dirt off of her arms. "It's way more work on this side, though, so I'll save the shift for whenever you think we're close."

Arms stretched above her head, she breathed deeply and started walking towards one of the paths. "So we just...look for trees, I guess? Do you know how far in they might be before I start climbing?" A thought struck Lily, and she jogged back to her car, popping open the trunk for a couple of bottled waters. "You want one? I'm gonna be hydrated as <******** class="quote">

cibarium

[cibarium]

Eve accepted the water bottle graciously. It was a good idea. She also brought the heavy Conifers Of New England tome with her, tucking it into a bag for the moment. "We're looking for pitch pines," she explained. "They should be in the area. Leila stayed up late helping me search for the specifics... there's a nice description of them on Wikipedia, or I have the page in the book marked."

She started carefully down a wooden walkway path with Clover attentively following just behind. Eventually they found trees (as it was a forest), and down a more precarious path there were stray pine needles among other leaves.

"Down there?" she suggested. "The right kind should look sort of twisted up... probably fun to climb."

AMItotic

 

[AMItotic]

Lily tried not to steer too far from Eve, but even as far from the full moon as they were she felt the urge to climb, to get off the ground and feel herself suspended in air. The air smelled stale in comparison to the crisp notes she'd tasted only moments ago, the colors too vibrant, but she had Eve with her and she was determined to be patient, looking over her matron's shoulder for a clue as to what they were precisely looking for.

"Pitch pines, huh," she repeated back, typing it into her phone. It took longer than she would have liked for her reception to cut through with where they were on the trail, but she managed to get at least a few pictures of the trees pulled up, thumbing through the google results with a critical stare. She nodded when Eve pointed down a path, pocketing her phone and beginning to shuffle her way down the steeper path.

"I'll let you know before I go noodle-mode," she nodded, tilting her head. "But once I do, uh...one squeak is yes, two squeaks is no." Lily ducked under the branch of some deciduous tree, nearly knocking into the gnarled limbs of another in the process. "Something like this?" She asked, putting a hand on the tree in question. It looked vaguely pine-y.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

The pine needles on the ground were denser around that particular tree -- and there were also a few open cones here and there that looked about right according to Eve's reading, so she nodded. "They need to be closed, and... not green," she said. I'll wait right here, she signed a bit cheekily. Not that she minded communication by squeak.

AMItotic

 

[AMItotic]

At least according to the crunch her boots made as Lily navigated the ground around this particular tree, the area was promising. "Alright," she called up to Eve, rolling her shoulders, "Gonna go noodle, I'll yell if I see something cool." She bit her lip and snarled as she willed her bones to crack and slide and knead themselves into something new, but after a few moments of discomfort she stretched her long fisher body and sneezed, whiskers twitching as she tasted the air and decided on a route.

She sprung into action with a single bolt, shimmying up the side of the tree and across a low-lying bough. The first outcropping of cones were definitely open, but she kicked them down anyway, letting them fall to the ground below as a matter of record keeping. The next bough was slightly more fruitful, and had cones of varying colors and openness. She knocked down the ones that she could, and for a few that were stubborn she pried them away with her teeth, holding them gently so as not to choke on the wooden spines.

After about a minute or so, she scurried back to the forest floor, a particularly promising cone cradled between her teeth. She trotted back towards Eve and her chair, looking up expectantly as she leaned forward to offer the gift.

cibarium

 

[cibarium]

Eve reached her hands down to accept the cone, smiling approvingly. "As far as I can tell, this looks right," she said. "Do you mind shaking down a few more? Don't want to risk needing a second trip, and Clover should be able to help carry them over." The cone was put in a reusable produce bag she'd brought for the occasion, and with that done she took a moment to appreciate Lily's help. It was very, very different to interact with her as a fisher when she wasn't a fox, but that didn't make it bad at all.

AMItotic