-=Plush POV=-

*yawn*

‘Okay, that’s it. I’ve been laying here for several hours now but Shiona doesn’t seem anywhere near waking up, I can’t waste the entire day like this, especially not since the elves might be coming to pick us up today.’

I start moving around a bit to try and get out of the living cage of feathers that is my girlfriend Shiona.

‘Oh wait, we’re going by ‘married couple’ instead of just ‘couple’ now aren’t we? We should probably look up how to have a proper marriage in this world next time we get some down time.’

*shuffle shuffle*

“No….sususu…”

As I tried to move around and loosen Shiona’s grip on me she only started to hug me tighter, making it damn close to impossible to get out without waking her.

‘Okay… This is new…’

And thus I stayed in the bed for even longer without getting out until I thought of a way to do it.

‘... Lizz?’ I asked, hoping for at least one the people in our little troupe to be awake.

Responded an exhausted voice.

‘I’m…I’m kinda having trouble getting out of a tight spot, think you could help?’

‘Okay, deal.’

Following that Lizz and I switched places, she took over my body and made it shrink while I went inside the book and started thinking of what to make.

Asked Lizz.

‘Yeah?’

‘Did you forget how phasing works? When I go through people they feel it.’

‘Lizz?’

‘It’s going to take me a while to make the food so you can go back to sleep if you’d like.’

A short while after the sound of someone sleeping started our little chat ended and I was unable to hear her.

‘Now what to make? What have I not tried yet?’

I looked through the pantries in the kitchen, I’d moved all the things that I used oftenly out of the fridge storage place for convenience, while I was thinking of stuff I could make with the things I saw.

‘Flour? I guess I could make some more schnitzels, I’ve only made them at that school place so the others haven’t gotten to try it, but I don’t know if I feel like it… Sugar? We already had pancakes not too long ago…’

And thus it went until every pantry and cupboard had been thoroughly searched and everything inside been denied.

*sigh* ‘Guess I’ll look through the storage then.’

I walked over to the fridge and entered it.

‘Dragon? We’ve already been eating too much dragon so let’s take a break with that… Hang on, what was this again?’

As I was walking around in the cold storage I saw a number of large wooden barrels in the corner.

‘... I forgot about these!’

Inside the barrels were piles upon piles of squids and octopodes. [Fucking octopodes and their weird ass plural, they’re not called octpuses or octopi but octopodes, why!?]

‘Yeah! We haven’t had squid since Krull! But how to cook them? I suppose I could try deep frying them… Fried squid, that sounds good! And let’s take some chicken while we’re at it and make some nuggies as well!’

And so I took two small wooden buckets, one with squids and octopodes and the other with chicken, and left the cold storage.

‘Oops, almost forgot the eggs and oil, can’t bread the nuggies properly without eggs.’

And so I grabbed the last few things and started cooking.

* * * * *

*sizzle* *sizzle*

‘...’

*sizzle*

‘Almost…’

*CRACK*

‘Fuck!’

I hurriedly took out the charred remains of what used to be a squid, now only vaguely reminiscent of what it once was.

“God damn it!”

I threw the squid-turned-charcoal into the empty bucket that used to have the chickens in it.

“Fucking hell, the nuggies turned out fine so why’s the squid so fucking hard to cook!?”

Then, using motions which had been practiced more than I’d like to admit, I took an octopus, breaded it and put it in the boiling oil.

*SIZZLE* “-d a fuck ton of mana i-” *CRACK “-ver! Oh, and maybe also so-” *SIZZLE* ”-r by the way! Huh… Nee-” *CRACK*

“What? Someone there? Sorry, I’m trying to deep fry some octopus and the oil is very loud so I can’t hear you.”

Since it was a voice I didn’t recognise I kinda wanted to go and see who it was… But this here octopus was way more important.

“Who the f-” *CRACK*

The other person had started to talk again, however I wasn’t able to hear properly due to the oil and since I was busy taking out the hopefully perfectly fried octopus.

Yet despite my inner prayer what came out of the pot was yet another charred piece.

“Fuck! I can never get used how much faster everything cooks in here!”

I was about to throw it into the wooden bucket until I saw that the bucket was already spilling over with black inedibles.

*CRUNCH*

So I decided to try eating it, waste not want not yeah?

Also this gave me the chance to chew as loudly as I wanted, a surprisingly good way to relieve anger.

*munch munch*

“Well, there’s a bit of octopus taste left, so I can at least use it as a quick snack if I ever need to.”

Then I started to bread another octopus from the first bucket and put it down in the boiling oil.

“Hello? You there, purple thing.”

“Just a mo’, I need to pay attention to this.”

The stranger stopped talking and let me pay attention to my work and soon after I heard them start eating the chicken nuggies I’d made earlier.

*munch munch*

“Is this… Chicken?”

“Nugget.”

“What?”

“Nugget, it’s a chicken nugget.”

“Oh.”

I kept standing right next to the pot and looking at the octopus, until now each of the octopodes had been going fine for the most part, but then suddenly they would shift straight from the golden brown colour that you want to pitch black charcoal.

As I was staring intensely at the octopus I was reminded of Beaky from the school place.

‘God, I need to ask what the school’s actually called next time I’m there, I can’t just keep calling it ‘the school place’ now can I’?

“Hey,-” Said the stranger, making me snap back to reality. “-you’re clothes look like they’ve seen better days.”

“What?”

Slightly confused by what the strange said I looked back at my, well, back.

And then I saw my tail.

While I was at the school place I thought the tail was just there due to something bonkers having happened with whatever had summoned me, but apparently not.

The tail was still attached to my back, it had even torn a hole in my purple onesie as though it had grown just over night.

‘Cy? I kinda need to get out again, is that fine? Okay thanks.’

Before Cy was able to respond properly I changed place with her once more and found myself outside in the real world once more, just to make sure that the tail wasn’t just something that appeared in the book, like how I’m able to change my form back into a human while I’m in there.

‘Nope, still there…’

The black lizard like tail was sticking out of my broken onesie as though it was proud of its work.

*sigh*

I looked over at the bed and saw Shiona still fast asleep so I sat down next to the table and prepared to write a small note.

I sat there, a piece of paper on the table and a pen in my hand, when I noticed something off about my fingers.

‘Oh for fucks sake…’

Much the same way as my tail had broken through the back of my onesie so had my fingers broken through the onesie’s… fingers.

Apparently they’d also grown a bit during the night.

With another *sigh* finished the note.

I needed to go buy some supplies,

see you when you wake up.

-Plush

Then I left the inn and headed off to Ike’s place to buy a sewing kit.

‘I’m not good enough to be able to put a tail on the onesie but at least I can fix the edges of the tear so it doesn’t grow bigger.’

I once had one of my favourite shirts be ruined due to a small hole it had. At first I hadn’t thought the hole would be any problem however once it got caught in a doorknob and ripped the whole shirt apart I quickly changed my mind.

‘I’ll at the very least prevent that from happening again. Actually, wasn’t there something else I was going to do at Ike’s place?’

Notes

Ask Alexander about the teleportation magic.

‘Oh yeah…Good thing I wrote that down.’

* * * * *

*creak* Went the door to Ike’s as I opened it and entered.

*gasp*

“!”

As soon as I entered I heard a gasp come from somewhere around, however I couldn’t see from where.

“Hiiiii!!!” Came a squee-ing voice from behind me, however before I could react-

“Ack!”

*thud*

-I was hit from behind by a full body tackle from Ike.

“You came back!!!” She squeed as the force of her tackle made us slide across the floor.

“Why wouldn’t I? This is a good store.”

“Why thank you! Also, I can’t help but notice that Shiona isn’t here, and your clothes look pretty tattered too. Did you two have a fight?” She asked, almost smiling towards the end.

“Nah, Shiona just stayed up a bit late yesterday so she’s still asleep at the inn. As for my clothes I think I had a growth spurt overnight.”

“Oh.” Ike responded, looking the saddest I’d ever seen her so far. “Well then, what brings you?”

“I was wondering if I could buy a sewing kit to try and fix my clothes with, and do you think you could let go soon?”

While we had been talking we were still laying on the floor due to Ike’s tackle.

“Aw…”

“...”

“Fine…”

While looking down Ike let go of me and got back up before starting to fidget with her hands.

“It’s alright.” I say while dusting myself off. “But do you think we could hurry up and get to the sewing kit? I kinda want to fix this quickly so it doesn’t get worse.”

“Alright,-” *ahem* “-Ally!!!” Shouted Ike.

“Yes m’lady.” Answered Alexander as he appeared from around a corner, most definitely by using his teleportation magic.

“Ally, could you help Plush here find some some sewing tools?”

“Yes m’lady. This way Plush.”

Thus I followed Alexander through as series of rooms and corridors until we came to a room which looked like the home of a professional tailor where I was allowed to choose which sewing needles and threads I wanted before buying.

“Will that be all?” Asked Alexander.

“Actually-”

I take this opportunity to ask about the teleportation magic.

* * * * *

-=Elizabeth POV=-

“Okay, we’ve had our fair share of differences.”

“A fuckload of differences.” I correct Barry.

“Okay, we’ve had a fuckload of differences.”

“...”

“...”

“Was that going anywhere?”

“No, I was just stating facts. Ack! Stop throwing knives at me!”

*sigh*

“Okay, I was going somewhere with it, I just wasn’t sure how to get there.”

“Go on.”

“I want to go outside the boo-”

“No.”

“Oh come on! I’ll even stay close to you so you can keep an eye on me...”

*sigh* “Fine, but you’ll have to disguise yourself.”

“Like what?”

“I don’t know, a slime?”

“You mean those things we had as pets back in my time?”

“Yeah, well something happened and now they’re monsters with proteins or enzymes or whatever that digest flesh.”

“Oh, you mean like pineapples?”

“What? N- Actually you know what? Fuck it! Sure, like pineapples."