[PRP] Daffodilly dallyin' (Shiloh & Kaleb)

[Melancholies]

Shiloh's eyes were wide, mouth slightly gaped like he was legitimately surprised (mostly because he was legitimately surprised). Been looked between the two of them as if it was expecting something. Suddenly Shiloh's arms shot upwards into the air and he whooped, "KALEB YOU DID IT!" He sounded so proud, it was the kind of exuberance you got from your overbearing parents when you got an A on a test, that is: it reeked of second hand embarrassment, but he was so happy? Holy ********? "Dude! Dude! You're right! You just—!" He repeated the motion, drawing another line of light.

And then he started to laugh, light and airy and so exceptionally pleased. "Try to do it again!" He scooted over to sit closer (Bean squeaked; stop moving!) but Shiloh didn't seem to notice too much, so caught up as he was. He gave Kaleb a few encouraging elbow nudges.

Grey Dragon

 

[Grey Dragon]

When Shiloh finally let out that sudden holler, Kaleb flinched like a bomb had just gone off. But as the genuine praise was heaped upon him, that fright ebbed away to let in a sort of giddy confusion. He really... did it?

"I just... thought about what you did, and it just happened," he explained timidly, a nervous smile working it's way onto his face. It was impossible not to smile when his friend was laughing like that, like the best thing in the world had just occurred and Kaleb was the one who had made it happen.

As Shiloh slid closer and literally nudged him to try again, he felt butterflies in his stomach. He raised his hand again, this time shaking slightly, and drew another squiggly line in the air. "It's working!" he squeaked, astonished by his own repeated performance.

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"That's awesome though!" Shiloh was still sort of raising his voice, "I'm not crazy then! It makes sense to someone, it makes sense." He watched as Kaleb did it again; the grin on Shiloh's face couldn't get any wider, "That's so cool." His own finger reached out, drawing a line perpendicular to the one Kaleb had. They intersected in the middle like a perfectly drawn line plot.

Bean was clapping wildly, its too-big-for-his-body head flailing around with overflowing enthusiasm. Before long it couldn't take it, and the tiny thing started to flail around Shiloh's lap.

"See! I told you!" He nudged Kaleb with his elbow again, and then settled for grabbing Kaleb's shoulder with his hand instead, shaking the fellow teen back and forth gently, "I told you! I told you! I knew you were capable of magic." He made a fist, "And this is only the start too! Mine started with a little ball of light, you have a line of light, soon you'll be like—I don't know—doing crazy telepathy stuff! Or, or you'll... like... uh... grow plants!" He threw his arms up in the air again. Dandelions erupted all over his shoulders.

"O-Oh uh, oops..." He looked sheepish... "Maybe that's just me..."

Grey Dragon

 

[Grey Dragon]

Kaleb laughed as the dandelions seemed to explode all over his friend. Shiloh was pretty incredible, all that excitement over a little line in the air... But it was like having a weight taken off his shoulders, seeing his friend genuinely pleased with what he had accomplished, and looking at the possibilities without heaping on the expectations.

"I said I was going to maybe practice some things," Kaleb offered meekly, but after that enthusiastic response to a little bit of magic, he felt more open to sharing his work in progress. "I'm not very good at it yet, but..."

He trailed off and held his hands out, and a bubble appeared in front of them. It was only as tall as the sitting teens were, but it remained fixed about an inch above the rocky beach, and shone like glass in the sunlight.

"It's not as great as Jeremiah's shield, but Horace was able to punch it and it wouldn't break. And now it stays until I make it go away, when I started it used to just pop after a bit... I still can't do anything magical on our side, not that I know of, but at least I won't be completely useless here..." The nervous explanations trailed off as Kaleb ran out of words, and his cheeks started to turn slightly pink.

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

His eyebrows immediately shot up into thin archways, the exaggeration on them almost cartoonish. "Whoa..." Shiloh's hand reached out without even thinking about it, his finger pressing against the side of the bubble with a childish kind of wonder.

"Personally." Shiloh was staring at the bubble as he spoke, "You shouldn't compare yourself to Mercer. It's like... I mean, I have a lot of magic too, but he's... he's something else." His lips pursed, "But like, this is really good." He flicked the side experimentally, "If getting better at practicing magic is what you wanna do, you're on the right path. Doing magic on our side is kinda hard too..." He sighed. "I mean, I can only do it 'cause of the Court. Being a Noble means you carry a part of the Otherworld with you wherever you go..."

He paused for a moment.

"If you want though, I can try and help work with you too." Shiloh turned his attention back to his friend, "I mean, I specialize more in plant magic and defensive sort of stuff, but... I wanna help! Y'know?" He nudged him again, "We're friends and stuff. And I think what you've got so far is really great." He grinned, "You don't gotta be nervous when you talk to me."

Bean had found its way to the ground, and was now experimentally building a tower out of beach pebbles.

Grey Dragon

 

[Grey Dragon]

"I don't think- I could never... It would be impossible to put myself on the same scale as him, but you should have seen it, the bubble just covered us both, the air was all cool inside, and the magic was like... crystals." Kaleb's stammering ended almost abruptly. How was he supposed to describe the magic he had felt inside that bubble?

"Defensive stuff." He said, a bit more decisively. "That's what Jeremiah wanted to teach me, so I wouldn't have to be so afraid... " The hesitance crept back into Kaleb's tone and expression after the flicker of determination, as he remembered how strange and new everything was. "But I'm still afraid, and I don't... I don't have any experience in magic or in being friends, so both are very frightening sometimes."

The shield bubble vanished in a way that could only be described as popping.

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

"That's okay." Shiloh said very simply, his expression earnest as he nodded. "Until last year, I didn't really have any experience with being friends either." The bubble popped, but Shiloh didn't flinch. Bean did a tiny flail, but didn't seem all that deterred from its tower-making project.

"So it'll be like we're learning together, right?" Shiloh smiled. It felt pretty refreshing given all the stress he'd been dealing with lately. "Man, you're making me wonder what my magic feels like..."

His own magic felt pretty mundane to himself, at least as far as spiritual sensations were concerned. He could feel his blood itching under his skin, the feeling of vines and plants and flora wanting to bloom through the pores of his flesh, but other than that? It wasn't anything, well, magical.

Grey Dragon

 

[Grey Dragon]

"You're a really good friend though," Kaleb murmured softly, his shy face turned down towards his hands. He wasn't sure how to say those kinds of things, or whether it would be embarrassing to hear it, so it was said only very quietly.

Even just the threat of embarrassment made his cheeks turn slightly pink.

"Your clovers... The magic felt like sunlight." Kaleb still felt a little nervous, trying to describe how the magic appeared to him didn't really capture the feeling itself. "Like a little pocket of warmth in the summer, in between one breeze and the next that cool you off... And it's light was sort of indistinguishable from the heat. When the air shimmered it was like a cloud, and then it formed little shapes. And the clovers came from the ground to fill the space the magic had made for them."

Maybe he wasn't making any sense at all, sometimes everything was just all muddled within his range of perception when it came to magic. It was like the seamless blending together of smell and taste, except across many senses all at once. Hopefully Shiloh wouldn't fault him for it.

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Quite the contrary actually; Shiloh's eyes were shiny and sparkly with Kaleb's explanation. "Wow..." He drawled out after a while, legitimately struck, "You got all of that just from my clovers?" He looked at the tiny bushel of them. Without his attention, they were starting to fade and crumble in under its own weight.

"I think that's something really special, Kaleb." He said this seriously, "I can't... get a reading on magic like that at all." Maybe it differed from person to person? Even so, it wasn't like anyone's magic had a certain taste or feel or sensation associated with it, not for him. "I bet if you honed that, you could use it for bunches of stuff."

Bean approached the duo again with a rather precious find; in its little arms was a shiny looking stone, smoothed out from the battering of the waves. It offered this prize to Kaleb.

"Aw, he likes you." Shiloh laughed, the sound light and warm.

Grey Dragon

 

[Grey Dragon]

"Magic sometimes feels like a lot of things all jumbled up together," Kaleb admitted sheepishly. "It takes more words to describe, that's all..."

He nudged his glasses higher up on his nose, to little effect. "This place is full of magic though, and I can only sense certain bits and pieces, like something has to be... active, before I can tell it's there. It has made it a bit easier to find portals out of here though."

Hearing the stones shift under teeny tiny feet, Kaleb looked up to see Bean with it's treasure. Shiloh's comment on top of that made him blush even more than before. "Wait, you don't want me to have it, do you? It's a beautiful stone."

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh nodded, "No, no, I get you. But you did a really good job." He held his palm out and made a fist with his other hand, the two of them crashing together as he had a thought, "It's like art! Like when you get all those pretentious ******** in one place and they start critiquing. Like don't get me wrong, critiques are super necessary when it comes to art, but ugh. Maybe I made the curtains blue because I liked the color! Not 'cause it represents my crippling depression." Shiloh was being very dramatic.

"Oh, not that you're a pretentious ********. I just mean the amount of detail you put into describing it had a lot of depth." Wow Shiloh, you're talking with a surprising amount of depth for a "reckless idiot hooligan" or whatever motif you're going for.

Bean was squeaking—so pleased—as it waved the pebble around. Shiloh laughed again, "I mean, I'll take the rock if you don't want it Kaleb."

Grey Dragon

 

[Grey Dragon]

Kaleb had no experience at all with art, his leaning had gone quite dramatically towards the sciences, but he thought he knew what Shiloh was talking about. In high school English courses, how many times had he wondered if a writer was not trying to use metaphors for deep life lessons that required in depth analysis and comparison, and just wanted to tell a good story for the fun of it?

"I once read a case study about a man who grew up blind, and he became an artist. Whenever he painted houses, the roofs were red. No symbolism, it's just how he painted them." Kaleb grinned lopsidedly. "It's really amazing what people are able to do, even without magic."

The little sprout's enthusiastic flailing was too cute and too persistent, Kaleb had to laugh and hold out his hand. "If Bean wants me to have it, I'll definitely keep it. It's a beautiful gift, thank you!"

Melancholies

 

[Melancholies]

Shiloh blinked slowly. Kaleb was such a nerd, but he supposed he was like, his nerd-friend. Having smart people around wasn't bad he guessed, especially considering how reckless Shiloh could be at times. Kaleb hadn't yet experienced that side of him. Maybe it was for the better?

Bean looked so happy. Once it had deposited the rock into Kaleb's hand, it started to headbutt it furiously not unlike a Pikmin. Afterwards it settled on rolling all over the ground. What the ******** Bean.

Shiloh was amused at least. "Man. I never get rocks." Only unconditional love, come on Shiloh. "But yeah, see? You get me." He gave Kaleb a thumbs up.

"Anyway, did you wanna try training some? I can try and help you out..." He started to brush some invisible dust off of his pants, "Or like, we can go to the other side and hang out, I don't mind."

Grey Dragon

u wanna ftb on either or? o: WE CAN ALWAYS START MORE!

 

[Grey Dragon]

It was only Shiloh's lack of concern that kept Kaleb from freaking out a little during Bean's bizarre little rock-related fit. Was this just how sprouts expressed happiness? He laughed, a little nervously, but it was still a laugh.

Kaleb glanced down again, taking a moment to experience it all. He was new to a lot of things, and still did a lot of overthinking, but right then it sorta felt like things would be okay. It was amazing what just a little bit of friendship could do.

"I should probably practice a bit, that's what I said I was going to do after all... Might as well make use of the time while I'm here." Kaleb smiled lopsidedly. "I wonder how far down the beach we can go before our glowing air lights run out?"

Melancholies

Sounds good! ^o^ This post can conclude things on my end~

 

[Melancholies]

Stooping down, Shiloh scooped Bean up into his hands, "C'mere Beanie..." Bean was still wriggling around, but seemed to be in the 'calming down' stage. What a weird little thing. Shiloh turned to Kaleb with the dumbest grin on his face, "I mean, there's one way to find out, right?"

Shiloh wasn't taking no for an answer. Instead he started off down the beach briskly, a little too much pep in his step. Shiloh was a loyal friend, but he was easily an exhausting one too.

At least it'd be in good fun.

Grey Dragon

HELLA