Another day of school at Geliara was complete and Roz’s head was again left swimming with the sheer amount of knowledge she was learning, and what she still hadn’t begun to look at. She’d never been so excited about classwork before. Algebra, who? Another day of class was over, and homework was starting with a hunt in the forest for potions ingredients both Sabrina and Roz were instructed to find for class the next day.
The first time she’d heard about Ceweagane or Somucress had been today, in the book she had for her potions class. The same one Sabrina was in, which meant Roz was all too aware that screwing anything up meant she might have to drink a foul potion. No thanks. How was that even allowed? With any luck she could avoid crossing that bridge by not screwing things up.
From what she understood, both of the plants were located in a more marshy area of the forest, and they had to go harvest it themselves, instead of purchasing it. There was probably a lesson in there somewhere besides not contributing to Capitalism.
“The book says there’s a plant that looks similar to Cewegane that can kill you.” she stated, looking down at the picture of the two different but similar looking plants, one with a warning label underneath it, then over to Sabrina with a ‘what even is this’ kind of look. “At least they warned us, I guess.”
Sabrina knew that potions could be overwhelming. There were a lot of ingredients and rules that Roz was having to learn from the ground up. It was similar to science back at their old high school except everything was just slightly different and definitely more dangerous. Sabrina had the basics down, but potion making had never been one of her strong suits. Hilda had given her a crash course once and she’d picked up a lot more in Vallo over the last year, but it was still a subject she tried to be cautious with.
No one wanted to drink a ruined potion.
Even if doing so had earned her a lot of respect back at the Academy.
“I think it's pretty common in a lot of nature to do that? It’s why certain insects will look like birds when they spread their wings to frighten off predators that might try to eat them. Or how vibrant colors actually mean poisonous?” Mother Nature was pretty much a jerk. Most deities seemed to be. Or at least that had been Sabrina’s experience so far with them.
Roz nodded, looking around the grounds of the forest. “That part I get. It’s the sending students into the forest to collect them I’m struggling with.” she replied. “I’m assuming they’re going to tell us if we brought the wrong ingredients to class though.” Which still left her feeling somewhat nervous. It was probably a combination of everything, and Roz was just trying to navigate it all. As antiquated as the rules of Baxter High were, Roz had discovered a whole other level of ideals and rules with the magic community that she was still learning to wrap her head around.
Maybe she’d just be able to know what was dangerous. She closed the book, and put it back into her bag before turning her attention to the ground. “We should find them around here somewhere.” Everything was so green though, and she found herself wondering if absolutely everything around them had a property that could be useful.
“If you know how to locate it in the wild then you can use it more readily in the heat of the moment for a spell. You don’t have to rely on having it in your possession already?” Because Sabrina knew that half the time they weren’t going to have access to the stores in Vallo city for the ingredients. Not when shit was really hitting the fan. But she probably also wouldn’t be using a potion then either.
She looked around the area that Roz thought might work best, wanting to give her friend the chance to locate the particular plant that they were after. A locator spell probably would have been faster but it really did help to get on your hands and knees, wading through the vegetation to find it.
“Fair point.” Though she had no idea if she’d ever be digging in the forest for something in an emergency. Maybe she would, and it was better not put that question out into the Vallo universe and tempt anything.
Holding in a sigh, she approached the edge of the marshland carefully and dropped down to start carefully combing through the plant life around her, keeping an eye out for both of the herbs that they needed.
She was about to give up and move on when she heard a loud distinct meow coming from her right. She immediately looked toward the direction the noise came from, and stood up slowly. “Did you just hear a cat?” she asked, looking back to Sabrina. “That didn’t sound like Salem.”
It definitely wasn’t Salem. Sabrina would have noticed his presence as soon as he was in the area because of their telepathic connection. She was pretty sure he was back at the mortuary, bugging Shadow right then anyway. She had heard the meow though and glanced over in the direction it had come from.
“Maybe someone’s cat got lost?” It wouldn’t surprise her. The forest moved and not all of the animals from the city were able to navigate as easily as the ones who lived in the forest. “If its hurt we can bring it to Atreus.”
It was incredibly convenient that there just happened to be someone who would be able to help an injured animal, and that seemed like a solid idea to Roz. She had to make sure that cat was okay. There was another high pitched meow, and she caught movement of brown fur next to a tree.
Carefully, Roz approached, not wanting to scare the poor thing. She was half expecting the cat to run, but when she came within reach, the kitten sat down and stared up at her with blue eyes.
There was something going on here, something told her that this cat - no, not just a cat, she knew that for sure. This was a lynx. A bobcat. She was hers. Did I just hear a name?
“Brina.” Roz said after a moment. “How did you know Salem was...yours?”
Well. Sabrina watched her friend interact with the bobcat and thought she could see the connection formed between the two. The mortuary was definitely going to have another mouth to feed.
“He was a black goblin at first who came into my room and I didn’t know why he was there.” She remembered her worry that something else awful was about to happen, but that moment had turned out to be a good one. “But then he told me that he heard me calling for him in the woods and shifted into the cat we all know and love.” Though he still liked to shift into his goblin form to slip through keyholes and things.
“We’re telepathically connected so whenever you hear a meow from him or a purr I hear what he’s actually saying.”
Rosalind didn’t have a clue what a black goblin looked like, or what that entailed. Did this mean that this girl was different from Salem? Was this related to Vallo? Very, very carefully she reached out to the kitten, though Roz was positive she wouldn’t be hurt. Goblin or not, this was clearly a baby. Rozalind had never seen a bobcat in person, but she knew they grew to be bigger than the kitten sized one in front of her.
Carefully, she picked the cat up. At the same time she noticed that there was a Somucress plant just behind her. She held the hitten in one arm, and then carefully harvested the plant in the other before turning back to Sabrina. “On a scale of not at all, too we might as well open an animal shelter, how annoyed will everyone at the mortuary be that I think she’s mine?”
Plants and a new familiar. It seemed like this outing was going to be even more productive than Sabrina had initially hoped. “I think the others will understand.” Maybe not Salem but he’d get over it with enough extra tuna. “Plus it’d be pretty hard to be annoyed with her cute little face.”
She stepped over to the two and held out her hand for the kitten to sniff, wanting to get acquainted with it. “Do you know her name yet?”
Sabrina was right, it was a really cute face. Though she was young. There would be a lot of growing. Pretty soon she would no longer be this tiny. Roz had never seen a familiar bigger than Zelda’s dog. “Phoebe.” she responded automatically. “It’s weird.” she said, looking down at her new bobcat familiar. “I can hear her. But it’s different from how I can hear the Weird Sisters.” It felt more personal somehow. More connected.
“I didn’t call her though.” she added, remembering how Sabrina had said she had called Salem. “Did Nick call, or anything?”
“I don’t think you have to do that here. Call them. I mean technically I was supposed to pick a familiar out of the registry book but I wanted to get one that I could be an equal with. So I went out into the woods and put out a call for one who wanted that arrangement.” The woods back in Greendale had plenty of goblin familiars in the deeper parts of the woods. It wouldn’t surprise her if Vallo’s forests had their own as well.
“But yeah, its a lot more intimate of a conversation.”
Roz had to admit, she liked the sound of Sabrina’s method much better than what she was supposed to have done. Picking a familiar out of a registry sounded impersonal. “I’d say you made the right call.” She replied, surprised that picking a familiar for a registry was even a thing. Plus, Salem was worth his weight in gold a hundred times over.
“Well.” she said, looking down at Phoebe who seemed fairly content hanging out on her arm. “...not quite what I was expecting to find out here.” Getting a familiar hadn’t even crossed her mind, not even when Nick’s had shown up. This would be a new experience. “I guess...we find the last thing we need and then head back?”
“Probably a good idea and then you can introduce Phoebe to all of the animals and people in the house.” They were definitely becoming their own mini-zoo. Which was fine with Sabrina. It was better than the mortuary being empty and lonely. She preferred it teeming with life like it was now.
Even if Salem was going to throw a fit when the bobcat came home with them.