Rough 1-9

“Well, that was an experience.” Shèn chuckled wryly, the shake of her head working down her neck sinuously as they walked back to the van. Not every day you flushed someone’s body from twelve years of substance abuse, regrew all their teeth and half a head of hair, then got your ribs compressed by a very thankful ex-junkie in the span of twenty or so minutes. At least the yellow noodle had been canny enough to use some Acarnima cantrips to degunk and sterilize the lady’s clothes before waking her up to the changes.

“You can say that again,” Miho nodded, not quite able to keep a treacherous yawn from cracking her jaw, “...I also am reminded once more that I haven’t slept in over twenty four hours.”

“Yeah, let’s start packing things up here. At least the groceries were fine.” Shèn sighed, jiggling her share of them from the scaly coils they were loaded on. It had taken the dragoness asking her to send the Ice Carbuncle over to keep them cold, granted, but still. “What were you chatting about with the workers, anyways?”

“Keeping them calm by letting them vent about their job. Most customer service folk tend to be quick to commiserate on how much retail sucks ass.” Miho explained, adjusting the bags of groceries she was carrying into a slightly more comfortable position as they approached the exit to the mall complex, “Not much further to go till we get to the car in any case.” She turned her head towards the three trailing PRT employees who were definitely still off the clock, but were absolutely going to be assigned ‘Parahuman duties’ if her guess was right, “Thank you three again for humoring our request.”

“It wasn’t any issue, Miho, Shèn.” The asian man replied, shaking his head firmly, “None of us had any plans today, and we even got some excitement out of the deal.”

“Too much excitement, you mean.” Lucia grumbled, “Unlike you, both Joseph and I are troopers.”

“I take it that the owner decided to opt for the tax writeoff instead of pressing charges?” Joseph asked, something similar to relief and frustration in his voice.

Miho nodded, “Absolutely. He did initially want to press charges, but I managed to convince him that it wouldn’t help anyone, and that this offender would be unlikely to repeat the incident. It helped that once he calmed down he realized that pressing charges would essentially be an exercise in futility since the system is so backed up that the case wouldn’t be attended to for months.” 

“Attagirl.” Shèn snorted, bumping shoulders with her, “Now let’s drag your fuzzy butt back to bed, I don’t need to Libra to see the adrenaline crash chewing you up.”

______________________________________________________________________________

Waking up was generally a quiet affair for Miho. Especially when she was napping. Awareness hit her like a truck as her senses booted up. Her sense of touch, as always, was the first thing she noticed, the way her clothes pressed against her skin and the cool touch of her bedsheets bothered her. Usually, it wasn’t quite enough for her to wake up, though the moment her eyes cracked open and light greeted her, she was generally ‘wide awake’.

Today was no different, and with a groan, Miho looked towards the ceiling, her left hand coming up to shield her eyes from the light. She stared through opened fingers into the unfamiliar sight of a light gray ceiling almost judgmentally, as if it had personally offended her. Miho was, for a moment, tempted to say ‘Man, it wasn’t a dream?’ just to check that specific cliche off her bucket list. The thought died moments later when she realized just how much she’d lost again. Sighing and mustering the will to get out of bed despite her still tired body, Miho briefly went through a mental checklist. Limbs? Functional. Tail? Working perfectly fine. Ears? Still as sensitive as ever, to the point they were picking out the sound of traffic passing below her. Which meant it was probably daytime. Evening, given that the sun hadn’t been shining directly in her face. Especially since she could hear what sounded like the evening rush, going by the rather annoying yet easily ignorable sound of traffic below.

With all of that accomplished, the she-fox rolled out of bed in one smooth motion, landing softly on the hardwood floor of the apartment she’d been gifted. Something she… honestly hadn’t processed fully yet, given it was a lifelong dream handed to her in a gift basket simply due to the fact she was useful.

‘I’m definitely not going to develop an unhealthy complex about that, no siree!’ She snarked mentally to herself, making her way out into the kitchen. It was unlikely, going by the general state of her body; she wasn’t all that hungry and she was still extremely tired, that she’d slept an absurdly long amount of time (given Miho had, in the past, slept for over twenty four hours, it was good to check). Which meant that it was probably still today.

Honestly, Miho couldn’t wait for today to be over.

Wasn’t that something to chew on? It still had only been a day and change since she’d been deposited on Earth Bet. It was definitely somewhat of a trip to think of, quite honestly. In either case, she should probably head out to the kitchen to reheat some curry or something for dinner. It only took a few seconds to cross the distance from her bedroom to her kitchen, though in that period of time, she noted something else odd.

The sound of soft breathing and a rather familiar tail sticking up from the couch she had gotten today.

Well, she probably should have expected Shèn to collapse on her couch, honestly. It was, after all, completely in character for the danger-noodle that she was almost certain she was in the process of or outright trauma-bonded to. Rolling her eyes fondly, the fox approached the dragon and shook her shoulders, “Oi, Noodle, you want some curry?”

“Free food!” Just like that, the damn moocher was up and at ‘em, swinging her body by the tail to straighten up. Well, the fox had offered. She might as well go and deliver.

“Give me about three minutes to heat the curry.” Miho stated, moving into the kitchen to do exactly that. It didn’t take all that long for the fox to distribute the curry into a pair of bowls, throwing each into the microwave with a cover to prevent a mess that she’d have to clean up later. She’d also made a point to get hotpads designed specifically to cradle bowls, and had stuck them onto the bowls she’d placed into the microwave.

“So, how’re we holding up? Feel up to heading to the hospital after we eat to sort out some per diem payment?” Shèn asked from right behind her, idly plopping her chin on the much shorter woman’s shoulder. It was… strange, feeling the reptile’s absence of heat on her shoulder through the relatively thin cloth of her T-shirt. The fact her breathing was slow enough to be notably different from a human’s was something she quickly picked up on as well; irritating as it was that she could just idly notice those things now. All in all, beyond her bumpy neck as a result of the Dragon’s unique biology, it was more weird than truly uncomfortable, though the fact that a human-type body’s head was extremely heavy remained unchanged.

“I have no fucking clue what that means, Shèn.” Miho sighed, a slight grimace manifesting on her face at the general discomfort that came from having someone’s chin dig into your shoulders. A few moments later, she adjusted her standing position a bit, accepting the shoulder-head with a roll of her eyes once the pressure eased up tad, “Elucidate.”

“We show up at our leisure, do a shift, get paid for that shift immediately after we’re done. If it’s real fucking busy, like fourth of July, we get to clock in twice and get double paid for a single shift.” The Shèn explained as she floated off atop her tail like the magic eastern noodle she was, grabbing a mug and starting to make for the tea Miho had bought.

“Not sure they do that in the states.” Miho hummed, pulling the curry out of the microwave before making her way over to the rice cooker, setting one of them down as she popped the pressure cooker open, “How much rice, Shèn?”

“One-one with the curry, please.” At least the moocher had something vaguely resembling manners in there, even as she fixed herself a mug of her chai.

“Got it.” Miho nodded, humming as she dished up the specified rice and slid it over to Shen, “Go eat at the table please, when you’re done. I should probably avoid drinking caffeine since I do want to go to sleep at a reasonable time tonight.”

“I’ve just been using the Sleep spell.” Shèn shrugged as she complied, bowl securely cradled on her tail.

“I should have thought of that.” The she-fox instantly replied, grumbling as she dished up her own rice. Making her way to the table, she nodded, “In any case, eat well, muncher.”

“But you don’t have a carpet.” The dragon mock-whined without missing a single beat.

“Technically, I do now,” Miho rolled her eyes, smiling despite herself at the innuendo, “You just aren’t getting a taste of it for quite some time.”

“Agony.” Shèn drawled out in a perfect deadpan before tucking in for a bit, “Oh, by the by, found some cantrips in the grimoire for stuff like making body hair fall painlessly and saying ‘no, thanks’ to periods.”

“Huh.” Miho blinked, placing her food down, and digging into her food herself for a bit, “That’s… neat. Also tracks.”

“Mostly telling you ‘cause I don’t want a repeat of the sleep issue, but with mood swings.” Her fellow Arcanist said without a single shred of decorum.

“Understandable. They were bad enough without the blood as it was.” The fox woman snarked, huffing in amusement before silence descended upon the table as both of the Aracnists simply continued to eat their meal.

“You didn’t actually answer my question about moseying down to the hospital.” Shèn commented with a twirl of her spoon after a few minutes of eating without breathing, the damn aquatic lizard.

“Not really sure I want to, honestly.” Miho answered after a few more moments, idly drumming her fingers against her leg, “I’m pretty tired, and I don’t particularly feel like doing paperwork. I probably should, but that doesn’t change the fact I don’t particularly want to.”

“Fair ‘nuff. Wanna work on the sound dampener spell?” The dragon replied with an easy shrug, idly flashing a sapphire into a blue Flan to whom she chucked the polished off bowl with a wet smack. It burbled at her like a leaking lube bottle before slithering off to deliver its load to the sink.

“Huh, smart?” Miho stated idly in lieu of answering the question, brushing her hand over the Arcanist’s tome still holstered at her side to summon her Quartz Carbuncle. A few seconds later, her carbuncle was trotting towards the kitchen with Miho’s bowl in mouth, “As for your question, we absolutely could do that… Or we could go to the hospital. It’ll just be a walk. Up to you, really.”

“You just said you were tired and didn’t want to do paperwork. So remain seated and be a nerd with me for a few hours.” Shèn countered with a prissy wagging of her tail-tip, like a massive finger.

“That was the plan.” The vixen replied with a roll of her eyes, giving her returning carbuncle a pet before she picked it up and deposited it on her lap, “I was just leaving the option open if you wanted to force me to be responsible.”

“Perish the thought.” Shèn replied with a mock recoil like the very word was a rare contagious disease. She almost looked like she operated on cartoon physics for a moment, six feet of lanky woman rearing back and curling more like a spaghetti noodle than someone with bones. “Now, you said something about Light-aspected Ice? Light as in the Sin Eater’s. Stasis.”

“Yes. Stasis.” Miho nodded, moving to fish her phone out of her pocket, only to blanch as she realized she’d left it by her bedside. Given that she currently had no paper worth a damn to take notes in, she’d have to go get it, “Gimme a sec, Shèn. I need to go get my damn phone.” Without waiting for a response, Miho made her way back to her bedroom, grabbed her phone, and made her way back into the living area. “Right. So, stasis. I was thinking of using Ice and Light to chill and stagnate the air until no ‘sound’ could get through. Wind is obviously just straight up better at that, but I figured I mind as well try.”

“Could be adjusted into a good airtight bubble, too. Although the big issue is obviously tuning things so it dampens the vibrations of the air without making it stand still. Stale air is le bad.” Shèn hummed thoughtfully as she slapped her grimoire down on the table with a low thrum of power, taloned fingers flipping through the pages.

“Exactly. I was thinking of doing something like Esuna, and using a ‘Whitelist Blacklist’ system for vibrations, but I’m not entirely sure that’d work, and that specifically is going to take ages to do.” Miho nodded, opening her tome and placing it on the table where it hummed quietly before settling, “Esuna is massive, after all.”

“Keep it simple, stupid. Just make it affect all air vibrations and tune it until there’s a good balance between breathable air and dampened sound.” The dragon huffed as she turned her book around, pushing it towards the fox. “Here, these Wind formulae and constants should help.”

Taking a look at the diagrams, Miho hummed, jotting down some notes in her phone before she nodded in agreement with Shèn, “That’ll definitely work. I can fairly simply convert these over to equations that’ll work with Umbral Ice. Appreciated, Shèn.”

“Need to do something to keep you sweet so I can keep mooching off of you.” The tricolor dragon waved off, a faint dusting of red across the bridge of her nose.

“Well, you’re on the right track.” Miho stated, noting the blush but putting it to the side for now. It would be cheaper for both of them to live together, after all, though she still wasn’t completely sure on that. Mind, the PRT would have to be negotiated with if they did choose to do that, but she was pretty sure that 

Hm. Definitely something to think on later.

For now, Shèn had just conjured an Ahriman to bring pilfer some of her stationery and there was nerdery to be done.