Chapter 86: Good Clean Fun
Bee was just getting back from collecting eggs when Tony finally seemed ready to get up and walk around. Setting aside her basket, she slipped her shoulder under his arm. She half helped and half lifted him up until he was standing unsteadily. After a few tentative steps, she lowered him into a chair as he panted to catch his breath.
"Sorry, seem to be a little out of shape at the moment, need to get some exercise." Tony said with a smile. Bee wasn't really listening as she probed his side with her fingers. "Ah! Five realms your fingers are cold. No, stop that tickles."
"Stop complaining." Bee chastised, swatting his hands away. "It looks like a rib healed slightly wrong."
Bending forward for a closer look, Bee poured her Repair skill into it, and she felt the break realigning itself. From right above her ear, she heard Tony's teeth grinding together.
"Sorry this might hurt a bit." Bee warned too late.
"No, it's fine. Just itches like a million ants crawling under my skin." Tony lied through his clenched teeth as his hands grasped the sides of the chair.
"Just a couple more seconds." Bee coaxed. "Almost there...."
A couple of seconds later, she withdrew her hand. "Okay, take a breath."
Watching his ribs expand, she thought everything looked alright. "How does that feel?"
"A little better. Almost like I can get a lungful again." Tony said after taking a second deep breath. This time when she helped him to his feet, Tony was able to walk all the way around the library with minimal support before needing to rest. While he rested, she cooked a couple of fresh eggs above her alchemy burner.
As they ate, Tony started to look tired, but nonetheless, he pushed through to finish the meal. After a few minutes of silence, Tony raised his head and looked Bee in the eye. "I think I want to bring my family here."
Bee cocked her head at him. "Why?"
It didn't make sense to her. This castle was almost destroyed just a little bit ago. Tony, though, apparently had plenty of reasons. "It's a lot nicer here than at home, for one. Assuming they can use the bedrooms, of course. Also, I think we are going to need more help."
"What about the crop your family is growing? Won't we need that to get through the winter?" Bee asked.
Still, it was only recently that I found a real way to appease the cat. That was why while Beatrice and Tony were arguing, I was trying to get the cat to leave me alone.
See, a little while back, a moth had flown through one of the holes in the walls. My reaction was instinctive. Even if I could have thought about the consequences of my actions, there would be no way to predict what was about to happen. With a quick check of my combat models, I predicted where the moth was going to be, and with a quick and narrow burst of my sanitation lamp, I shot it out of the sky.
The cat had been watching. Like a mote of dust being whisked from the floor, it launched itself at the little dot my lamp was shining on the far wall. I was forced to shut it off lest the cat cut itself in half by running through the beam. All my use of that mutation had really powered it up. Now if I didn't scale back its power, it would start to drill holes in the stone. Still, it was uber-effective at removing germs.
The second I shut off the light, the cat whipped around in a circle, eyes wide. In an effort to show the cat there was nothing to be afraid of, I turned it on at the lowest possible power and shined it on the ground in front of it. In a flash, the cat pounced at it. Before I had a chance to turn it off, the cat's paws covered where the little circle was. Now it just stared at the little blue light on its paws. It batted at it a few times. I could see its fur start to wither, so I moved it a few feet to the left.
The goal was to let the cat study it so it would evaluate and recognize the threat of my sanitation lamp. I half expected it, but it was still slightly disappointing that the cat wasn't able to figure it out. No, of course it wasn't that smart. Instead of watching the light cautiously like it did everything else, it charged at it and tried to bite it. When that failed, it started to claw at the spot.
Idly I moved it around. The cat followed. Why was this little furry animal afraid of everything, except for the first thing that I found that would actually hurt it?
Ever since then, it would come up to me and paw at me until I shined the light for it to chase for a while. Once the notion that it wanted to chase the light got into its head, there was no deterring it. Eventually, I would give in and let it chase my sanitation lamp for a while. It was just really inconvenient right now in the library when Beatrice and Tony were trying to have a serious conversation.
A slightly too-hard bap hit my upper shell. Giving up, I shined my light for the cat, and she sprinted over to the far wall in pursuit.
---
Bee watched as the orange cat ran over her foot and shoulder-checked the wall so hard that she worried she would have to set a bone. Still, the cat's antics as Void played with it lightened the mood considerably. It was hard to be tense when watching a godly being playing with a cat in such a silly manner.
Even Tony was able to stop worrying about his family for a few minutes and just relax.
Days passed like this. There were moments of tension, but the work to clean up the castle was mostly done. Tony’s health was out of the woods, and there was little to do but worry about things they couldn't control. She even found a deck of cards to pass the time with Tony. Void had seemed interested at first, but once she had explained the rules, the only game it really liked was solitaire.
She shouldn't have been surprised, honestly. Still, the speed at which her master was able to sort the cards into organized piles was frightening. Eventually, they had to stop playing whenever Void was nearby. If it got too close, their shuffles started to somehow put the cards back in perfect order.
That had become a game of itself. Shuffling a deck, placing it on the table near Void, and trying to guess how long before it was back in order. Bee felt slightly bad about playing with her master's power like this, but it didn't even seem to notice.
It was during such a game that the first interesting thing happened in weeks.
Tony was betting that the deck would take more than 5 minutes to sort itself. She said less. Whoever was wrong needed to make breakfast. That's when they heard screaming from the front of the castle.