It was an easy life, living in the Palace. Nedies always cooked for the residents, there were luxuries abound, and the cinema... Oh! It was decadence incarnate.

But even little Pollens got bored, sometimes.

Even with her assigned job as gardener, she had nothing to do. Watch more television? She already saw the episode that's playing. Work on gardening? But that was work! And don't get her started on bothering the other residents. She couldn't even bear to visit Eggbert at a time like this, not when she just needed to do things.

Maybe it was her trip down to Polaris. She was fairly certain Rodd had been in that tunnel between it and Ursa, but she wanted to go back to that supercharged place and feel the magic on her face. There, she felt alive. Here? Here she had a job that she was blowing off, if only to throw rocks into the river like some despondent teenager.

Wait. Better idea: pulling her arm back, Pollen curled her magic into her vines, making it cup the rock. There. Turning it around, she watched as her weapon rose high up, before she whipped it out.

It cleared the river, hitting some bush on the other side.

Shrinking her head into her shoulders, Pollen guiltily looked behind her, uncertain if anyone saw that.

@Aethril

Something hit the bush behind her.

Aethril was still largely exhausted from her trip to Polaris, her trial with Emuh, and from creating a new font of corruption within the Palace. Yet, here she was: back in her spot just beyond the river.

She needed to practice, still. She had to keep training herself. She didn't want to let herself fall weak and fragile, even with a comfortable amount of bodyguards around the Palace willing to lay down and die for her. Aethril never quite liked the image of a pretty damsel for herself-- not while she had so much power at her fingertips. What good was such power if she didn't use it, after all?

Ghastly, corrupted winds whipped past her as a vacuum opened nearby, bringing a gale swinging through her hair and clothes. It was just when that spell ended, with sweat beading down her neck that she'd noticed the stone and the bush and turned.

Let it be known: Aethril did not know what Pollen was supposed to be doing in this moment. Nor did she actually care enough to find out. Nor did she especially care to scold her for it-- hell, for all Aethril could have known, there was a moment in Pollen's schedule that called for Throwing Rocks And Shit.

But, it didn't stop her from padding along the riverside towards the bridge. "Not trying to hit me, are you?" She asked. "Practicing?"

@Pollen

Pollen's head whipped around at Aethril's voice, her eyes wide. Oh, no. She'd been discovered! Scrambling to her feet, her hands latched together with worry. "I'm sorry! I didn't know you were there!" she began, watching Aethril approach.

She wouldn't be in trouble, right? No- she had to pretend she knew what she was doing, and she straightened herself out, smoothing down her crumpled fur like she was patting down a dress. "I uh- I was practicing, a little. I wanted to be ready in case, um- if something happened."

What would happen? She flicked her ears down at that, uncertain. "Not like- not for you, I mean. I wanna be ready if I uh--" the muta sucked in a hard breath. She was digging herself into a hole. Her solution to get out? "-- I don't know." Good enough.

One hand uselessly held up her whip, as she tried to make it curl. It didn't even work then- and she frowned, frustrated. "I've been doing the whip stuff with my magic, but I don't want it to get cut off and have my magic too low to do anything about it." Her attention was at the end of the vines as she fiddled with it with her other hand, pointedly not looking at Aethril. "What um- what are you doing?"

@Aethril

Aethril's eyes were already beginning to glaze over.

Pollen was rambling, stumbling over her words, giving... excuses, it seemed like, in a situation where she needed none. The possibility that Pollen was afraid or intimidated by her very presence flew right over the Hand's head-- instead, she was thinking of her other duties: map. Training. Feeding the Valkhound (she'd considered naming it Epoch, considering it didn't seem to have one of its own). .... Naming the Valkhound.

Eventually, though, she was coming back around. "Make another. One to hold, one that can't be as easily cut. Learn to use it with your hands instead of your magic," she was advising. The brief thought-- need to get a sword --pinged through her head and then was added onto the 'things to do' list.

"I'm training," the Hand sighed. "My magic has been... weaker, since waking up. It fails me quite often-- but," and this but was important if anyone were overhearing, "I'm getting better. Eventually, I'll be something to be feared again."

She flashed a grin, good-natured. Debatably, Aethril was already terrifying enough with a less-than-predictable temperament and an unfortunate willingness to simply obey the voice of Chaos in her head-- but this wasn't anything she thought of, much less something she'd bring up to Pollen.

After all-- her own power, as it was now, couldn't hold a candle to what Lord Dhracia could do.

"Come across the river, before you end up hitting one of the swans," Aethril said, fingers beckoning Pollen away from the bridge.

@Pollen

Pollen hesitated, finally looking to Aethril. Another. Yeah, that one made sense, actually, but she wasn't certain on what could be stronger. Metal? But metal didn't move, so she was hesitant on that. Besides, she couldn't control that with her magic. What if she needed to do something with it?

Well, then again, most whips didn't use magic.

She'd stick with training with the vines, then, just until she got something better.

Her ears flicked up to Aethril's words. Even she needed to train, huh? She seemed to be in a good mood, too- did she not know Pollen was meant to be working right now? Then again, it wasn't like she ever had a set schedule. Maybe this was just now something she could do- blow off work, professionally!

"You're already something to be feared," Pollen assured her with full confidence, her previous fear forgotten and replaced with admiration once more. After all, what has she to fear, if Aethril didn't know the self-perceived crime she was taking part in?

Tucking in the vine-whip on her arm, Pollen ambled her way to the bridge to join Aethril at the other side. "Do you want to train together again?"

She liked it when they did that before, even if that last time was a little unprompted. While she wasn't sure what to aim for in a session, she had brief ideas- working with the whip without magic, trying to build a defense, like Aethril's fancy armor- something to practice with, anyways.

@Aethril

"All the better to keep training, then," Aethril's head dipped with a grin. "Imagine how scary I'll be to rebels, hm?"

The Hand turned, and she was padding barefoot from the river and deeper into Cepheus. "I don't see why not," she offered. "I've been trying to change the shape of trees, lately, instead of just wrecking them." They often ended up destroyed anyway, but that wasn't necessarily the most important of details.

Regardless, she twisted for a fairly young oak tree; its bark clean and fresh, about a hand's length wide. She shifted, and as black oil began to envelop the sapling, the trunk bent and began to spiral slowly upwards. "It doesn't always work," Aethril warned. "Or come out the way I'd like. But that's what the practice is for."

This one, though-- this one curled gently in on itself and the branches and leaves ravelled, streamer-like. She stepped back to observe her work for a moment. "I assume you've just been working on your whips?"

@Pollen

Pollen snorted with a smile. How could Aethril be scarier? Dropping down to scamper behind Aethril, Pollen trotted after the Valkhand as she watched her test her magic, a step stuttering as the Oil enveloped it. Was that a limit of her magic- that she always had to... Oil-ify it?

Uncertain, Pollen looked to Aethril before stopping behind her, propping back up to two feet. "I've been getting pretty good at gardening," she idly talked as the branches curled. "But I've been mostly doing my whips, yeah." She glanced down to her arm, where one rested- even if she should have backups, what would happen if she didn't practice her whips, too? She could get some other kind of weapon, maybe.

But, she liked whips.

"Oh! Speaking of being intimidating," she began, pulling aside the bulk of her bandana. Beneath it laid the bead Attikias had enchanted for her, secured in place by a knotted vine. It raised up in example as she pulled her magic into it, unravelling and dropping the bead in her hand to offer to Aethril. "There's a weird guy in Cepheus? He said not to tell you that he wanted to live here but," she shrugged. The but was evident- oh well for him. "He enchanted this so I wouldn't tell you. It's been helping me grow plants faster, a little- I think? I put my magic on it, too."

He couldn't be a rebel, right? After all, he gave her a trinket to have, anyways.

Aethril glanced down at Pollen with something approximate to confusion flickering like candlelight across her face. "Weird guy?" could refer to any number of people, really. One that didn't want his presence to be known in Cepheus, while still living here, while bribing a child into keeping it quiet, was wildly suspicious, however.

She took the bead carefully, inspecting it. How... very primitive.

It narrowed it down.

What would Rodd Danger do? "Should we pay him a visit?" She smiled down at Pollen weakly, offering the bead back out. Once taken, she was turning back to the tree again.

A crack of thunder hit the very center of the tree, pushing by twisting leaves and striking through the middle of the trunk. It burned from the inside, violet flicking through black bark and smoke spewing out of twirled branches. Aethril observed her work for a moment with a stretch of her wrists.

"Which part does he live in?" Aethril asked.

@Pollen

"He looked a little like you," she explained, "but he wasn't very pretty." Granted, she didn't know the qualifications of pretty in elves- she more meant his brown clothes, that obviously didn't match his darker skin tone. "He said he's building a house for his family."

She was already focusing herself into her magic as she took the bead, idly manually tying it back up under her bandana as she cast out her senses. The trees had been cut- he'd changed the landscape a bit, but he wasn't entirely close enough to the Palace to see it from the grounds.

Slowly, she shut her eyes as Aethril asked. The casual destruction was a familiar sound to her, now, and she only jumped slightly, her magic stuttering- but, there. She'd pinpointed the dying roots of his chosen material.

"He should be this way," she pointed off vaguely ahead of them. "He was cutting down trees, uh- and he said he makes stuff, too."

Well, that part was obvious. "I don't know how long it'll take to get there." She did want to go, though- it'd be good to show off her weird find to Aethril, like a dog wanting to show off its favorite toy.

@Aethril