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"Hello." She gave the whole group a slightly apologetic smile before asking Suitov, "Say, are sort of griffins common here? This tall, about, and the front half resembling a chicken?"
She was rather nervous; if they were common, all that fuss had been for nothing, and that would be embarrassing.
The other mage changed from polite to animatedly interested. "Not that I've ever seen. Have you found one? They do get all sorts of animals wandering through."
Well, he hadn't told Weft to leave him alone, which was satisfying. Weft didn't reiterate what the doctor girl had said about the dizziness disappearing soon, or show any obvious sympathy at all, but - well, he was still there, wasn't he?
Sylvie breathed a sigh of relief, and paused a moment, considering how to put things.
"Sebastian and Weft found it. It's caught." She frowned and fidgeted slightly. The half-elf surely would rather have some more time to recover, but... "If you want a closer look while it's alive, it'd be better as soon as possible. If it wakes up and tries to free itself, Weft might decide to kill it."
Sebastian remained quiet for a while still, appearing to not mind the monk's presence. Finally, he took a deep breath and stood up, staring at the foliage as if he was listening for something. Internally, he was finding out how hard it was to slip back into nonsense once a tiny revelation of his true nature got out.
He turned to face Weft and cocked his head to the side. Much to his dismay, he was still uncertain about what to say.
In the end, he settled for a half-hearted... "Well. Let's go back then."
Weft sighed. "I suppose so. I shouldn't put it off."
He cast a last look at the gryph, almost managing not to seem like a housecat who'd had its prey taken away. A few moments later, monk and swashbuckler vanished from view.
"Well then, there's no time to lose. Lads, would you excuse me?"
The clearing, when Suitov and Sylvie reached it, was ominously quiet and still. The creature, however, was still breathing evenly.
Someone had tied a pretty pink ribbon around its neck.
Sylvie looked at the ribbon confusedly for a moment, and then chuckled. She'd have to thank them next time she saw them.
"Well, there it is. I tried to find out earlier if it's a chimaera, but got no conclusive result." She was curious if he would ask about the vines, or generally about what happened.
Suitov paced around in silence for a few moments, observing. It was fairly obvious what had happened with the vines and there was enough debris from the branch's original falling (and an open scar on a tree directly above) to tell him roughly what had gone on there. The ribbon... well, he knew Weft's understated threats.
The poor chicken had obviously suffered quite enough. "Well done for getting it to sleep, if that was you," he said (it didn't seem like the monk's doing, and he didn't know much of Sebastian other than what Weft had told him).
"So what sort of test did you run?"
Sylvie was perplexed at that. "The usual."
Then it occurred that his school might be entirely different from hers. He had used magic in so casual ways she would not have thought possible before.
"Um, structure immersion?" It had been a while since she'd used most formal labels. "I mean, I just... had a look." She rubbed her hands slowly and stared past Suitov. "My problem is that the magic traces in chimaeras - the kind I know, anyway - is on a low level, where my perception is jammed right now. I'm still feeling green around the edges."
Suspecting she was starting to babble, and confused about how to explain these things when she had no idea how he understood magic, she looked at Suitov and shrugged.
"I've no experience there whatsoever," Suitov said cheerfully. "I'd love you to show me sometime, whenever you're feeling less... jammed."
Magoscience on Shade was only beginning to imagine that species manipulation on this sort of level would someday be possible. But the other places they'd encountered had such completely different technologies, academics on every side were chewing through steel to forget this silly war business and put their heads together... ah, it was an exciting time to be alive.
Iceheart knelt down and had a look at the griffin - carefully, so as not to wake it. "Magnificent little beast," he remarked, apparently unironically.
"Sure, I can try." Quite different school, apparently. Sylvie suddenly had a picture in her mind: Someone blindfolded, trying to hit a nail by swinging a hammer randomly around. That seemed less ludicrous than trying to work magic without sensing the patterns first.
She could think of several things to call the little beast, including "cute", "insteresting", maybe even "fascinating", but "magnificent" made her blink.
"Do you want to keep it?" It was a quite neutral question with a bit of hopefulness mixed in. She'd like to try having a closer look again later, but she was rather at a loss what to do with the poor animal.
"Well, it's wild, isn't it? And I shan't often be here." He sounded disappointed. "I will have someone put out food for it if it wants to stay around. Then again, if Weft and his little friend bludgeoned me with a branch I think I'd scarper."
"Well, that was embarrassing," Sebastian murmurred, feeling about as awkward as when he thought of his earlier escapes as a famed swashbuckler. It was getting hard to remember why he had been such a kleptomaniac before.
"Were you referring to any part in particular?" enquired Weft, somewhat teasing. The monk, by contrast, was steadily recovering some poise now there were fewer people and chickens around. (At this rate, he could develop an aversion to match Sebastian's.)
"Ha ha ha," Sebastian said in a tone mocking of the one more often used by uncertain peasants talking to their lords. He walked a few steps, happy that it was easy again. "How about all of it?"
"It wasn't all that bad, really." Weft glanced at him. "Though, next time, I say we rough it up, steal its lunch money and leave it at that."
He chuckled. "Lunch money, huh? Why not. It's been a while since I've done that." A pause. "Well. A bit longer than a while."
"Really? Same here, come to think of it." Aside from the odd cat burglary or undercover job, Weft's life mostly consisted of taking other people's. Then, more recently, stalking and protecting one particular person. This reminded him that he was going to owe someone an explanation very soon.
"Maybe we ought to start a business one day," the half-elf grinned. "Though with my luck some unforeseen, ridiculous reason will bankrupt the entire damned thing."
"Then, whoever benefitted from the insolvency, I'd go and stab them for you. Simple." His grin matched Sebastian's, or made a good attempt despite insufficient practice.
"Ahh, now that's what a decent business partner is like. Very fine. So, Weft, where are we off to now?"
"Wellll..." He paused. "I should probably go back home and pay the piper. I've been gone too long already."
"Home, huh?" Sebastian considered this for a while, his face blank. There was always something different going on inside his head when he had that look on his face. "Well," he finally said.
"Um, I mean - it's not that I don't enjoy your company! Don't think that. You're always fun and if my time were my own, well... um." He caught himself gabbling and stopped, blushing ever so slightly.
Sebastian raised an eyebrow. "Why, Weft," he said, as if amazed out of his mind, "I didn't know you cared!" Before the monk could react to that properly, he was already bombarding him with more words. "Well, no, I was just trying to figure out what to do myself, then. I've yet to figure out where to set up home, after all, eh?"
He'd... definitely just made a right royal fool of himself. Fraying idiot! He looked hurriedly at the passing foliage. "Right. Of course. And I do not... uh, never mind." At least Sebastian would no longer be the only one embarrassed... not that Weft cared.
The swashbuckler was silent for a few steps, obviously thinking about this. He figured it wasn't too big a chore to let another guy save some face. One way or another. "I'm just teasing. Tell me if it's unwelcome," the half-elf said in a calmer tone. And: "Maybe I'll go play tourist for a while."
"...No, not unwelcome," said Weft, finding to his surprise that it wasn't. It was his own fault for being too easily caught off guard, right? So this was like training. "Have anywhere in mind?"
"Well, then I'm glad. I don't have any ideas yet, but it's not going to be too far south. A tan and hair of this colour combined just makes a man look stupid," Sebastian replied and twirled a lock of hair around his finger. "I'm sure the people down south would disagree with me. Of course."
That probably depended on the south of which planet. "I'll make sure to tell you if I kill anyone anywhere pleasant."
"That's nice of you," Sebastian said earnestly.
"If they ever let me out on a mission again, that is. Er." He hadn't really meant to say that out loud either.
Sebastian didn't know what to say to something like that. He had been part of a guild of thieves, up until he had... figured out he was better than the rest of them. So much better. And more stylish. It seemed a slightly embarrassing line of remembrance now. "I should hope so at least."
"Oh, yes, they will. I'll get into trouble, but nothing too bad." He wasn't sure about that, but didn't want his friend feeling guilty for what had been entirely Weft's misdemeanour.
"Well, again, I should hope so," the half-elf said with a shrug and strode over an old tree stump. "I don't suppose your hometown likes tourists?"
"I don't think it gets very many. Not from offworld. It's a nice place. You'd have to promise me you wouldn't go out of your way to run afoul of my employers, though." He managed to keep his tone light, though his worry had an acute stab. Really you had to make an immense nuisance of yourself to attract someone's fatal attention. Then again, the semi-elf seemed to have difficulty doing anything by halves.
"I think I can promise that. I don't mind not doing anything dubious for a while." Although he wasn't sure his innate trickster would let him keep all his pranks to himself. Some people just deserved to be tricked, cheated and robbed. "Well, I mean... I won't have to bore myself to death, will I?"
"I'm sure not. It's not as though we don't have plenty of dubious residents of our own." He could have drawn Sebastian a very detailed map thereof. "Anyway... it's a pretty city, like I said. Excellent tailors. Huge range of insect silks imported from all over."
"Oh. Yes. I think the clothes fashions alone will keep me occupied for a while," Sebastian said with a self-deprecating smile. He would probably have taken that map with glee and wrought havoc in their midst quite happily. "This sounds good. You'll have to tell me what I can and can't do, of course."
"Oh. Grace. That might take longer than either of us has got. Just, um, be polite and if anything goes wrong, act like a well-meaning stupid foreigner."
"Oh, I think I can pull THAT off," Sebastian said with a sharp grin.
"I have no doubt. And... well, be careful." He glanced away again.
"Would I be anything but?" the swashbuckler asked chipperly and began to count the ways the visit could possibly go wrong.
Their voices and footsteps faded into the distance.
That surprised Sylvie again. She couldn't remember ever meeting someone who in Suitov's position would not stuff the animal into a cage. The only reason it was out of question for her was that she did not have the means to support it. But she didn't argue; she had quite enough of that for one morning.
"I've known some remarkably stupid chickens. Cats, too, for that matter." Sylvie sighed. "I thought it might be domesticated... well, if it was and stays tame, it might stick around." It was obvious she didn't expect that.
"I'd like to have another go before it wakes up, though. I could explain the basics of the process, if you want to?"
Domesticated cats sounded like a contradiction in terms. As for chickens, Suitov was acquainted with the smaller, tame sort. That wasn't necessarily analogous.
"If you please." She'd find he was a fast learner, if they could only get onto the same page to begin with. So many people meant so many different things by 'energy'.
Sylvie took a deep breath, realising she should have put more stress on "try". There was a pause as she figured out how to start.
"You need to sense what you want to manipulate. So the first step is to sense deep, if you want to do anything more sophisticated than pushing things around." That was a quote she remembered from lectures.
"It is sort of a light trance state. When you learn it, you start by concentrating on a single object, and try to think of nothing else, just take it in. At some point your perception flips. For me it is like... having thousands of feathered feelers, like some really odd insect. They touch through matter, and I can feel its structure."
She was staring at the griffin.
"At a, hm, cursory glance you can only tell the domain - flesh or plant, water or air, these kind of things. You can focus more in one domain and sense more details. Feathers, skin, muscles, organs, bones..."
Sylvie shrugged and snapped out of her thoughts.
"You can go more detailed, and need to do so to spot the trace magic in chimaeras, but my last attempt fell short because I did some too involved and hasty plant manipulation before, and I'm more familiar with plants, anyway. At a detailed level my sense snapped from the animal to plants instead - I could take a hike and probably pick out the species of grass and berry seeds I found in its stomach."
A slightly annoyed expression ran over her face. The contents of an animal's stomach were not really useless information, but not what she'd been looking for.
He listened brightly. "Well, we'll know what to feed it, then."
So far it was like and unlike what his healers had told him of their work.
"And if something has been, pardon me, manipulated, it leaves traces unlike what you would normally see." Statement, question, halfway in between.
Sylvie smiled at the comment and answered the half-question. "There are small, hm, grains of active magic that compensate incompatibilities between the original animals.
"I think I should better get to it, before the creature does wake up..."
"By all means. Go to." Suitov settled back. He was quite aware that he sometimes needed telling when to stop asking questions so that other people could get on with things.
Sylvie sat cross-legged, held her hands above the griffin and closed her eyes. Being watched by another mage made her a bit self-conscious, but explaining the process on the other hand helped her repeating it now.
Nearly immediately she noticed its heartbeat was faster than before; it would wake up soon. Wanting to get at least some usable information, she decided to pay more attention to its diet first.
There even was enough time left for an attempt at her actual plan, but the process was cut short by the griffin finally waking.
Suitov patted its neck. It really was like touching an oversized chicken, if you ignored the hindquarters. At least the animal didn't panic immediately. It made a noncommittal sound.
Oh, right - he should take the decoration off, in case it escaped somehow and/or managed to choke itself. Should've thought of that before it woke up, shouldn't you? He eased the bow out and put the ribbon to one side. "Good chuck," he said absently to the creature; his locals used the same voice when talking to their domesticated fowl.
"Any interesting traces?" he said, in his more usual, curious tone of voice this time, turning to Sylvie. "I should have thought to ask this before, too, but did you notice whether it's injured?" If so, they really would have to keep it - at least until it was selfsufficient again.