"Right…" Kat didn't know if it was appropriate to ask anymore, or if she even wanted to know the details if Stan had them. "Is there anything else you wanted to talk about before I go off and eat?"
"Nothing important, we can chat more later, if that's ok?" offered Stan.
"Yeah, that's no issue with me, I'll see you later?" said Kat as she stood up and held out a hand. Stan nodded, shaking Kat's hand in turn… and Kat could feel something being added to her hand with the shake. *Just don't comment on it.*
Kat walked away and strode up the staircase until she checked her hand. There didn't seem to be anything there, but she was certain something slimy was on her fingers. Kat let her fire explode out from her hand and instantly heard sizzling. The 'skin' on her hand started to bubble and pop but Kat felt no pain. Flexing her hand, Kat noticed watched as the 'skin' on her palm cracked and fell off revealing an unblemished hand underneath.
*Hmm… I wonder what that was? It's not like it hurt me to remove it… and it wasn't hard to notice? Did Stan think I wouldn't or something? Heck, maybe this was his way of helping me… I just don't know and I'm certainly not going to risk it. Still… this is a black mark against him.*
Kat strode up the stairs, past the first floor, and onto the second, taking a right and heading for her room. The door was locked when Kat got there, so she had to knock, but Mint simply commanded the door to open. "I thought these were all locked based on magic?" asked Kat as she stepped in.
Mint nodded, "Yes, they are all magically locked, and they aren't tuned to me at all… but… the wall next to it has no such protection from me," said Mint as she pointed to the doorframe, which now had a conspicuous hole where so the locking mechanism could remain in place even as the door opened.
*Huh, I suppose that makes a master key of some kind redundant if Mint and whoever else Thyme gets to work here can just manipulate the wood a bit to open the door… but of a security hazard though.* "While a neat idea… what's stopping other people from doing that?" asked Kat.
"While we can key individuals, or keycards into the locks, Thyme has keyed me into the building itself. I can't move it as easily and fluidly as I can my body, but the whole building is, technically, VERY technically alive, and when Thyme hooked me up to the building it gave me a bit of control over it. It's… sort of like a familiar bond… wait is offensive? Thyme mentioned you both have something similar connecting you…" said Mint, with a touch of concern in her voice. She didn't want to be rude to her new friends.
Lily shook her head, "Not at all, that's basically what our bond is, and I knew that going in when I chose it. Plus, even if people want to be mean about it, I can just convince Kat to beat them up. It wouldn't even be hard,"
Kat tried to crack her knuckles for emphasis but her fingers were too flexible for that. Kat rolled her eyes at the failure, before going over to the sink in the room, freezing a bit of ice and then 'cracked' her knuckles but holding the ice in her palms. Mint and Lily just watched Kat go through the entire song and dance without comment, until Mint said, "Wow, I am very scared, totally. Absolutely terrified,"
Lily let out a giggle, and Kat decided her theatrics were worth it for that alone. "Yeah, I guess that's one downside to being a demon with a lot of flexibility and regeneration, makes it impossible to crack your knuckles. Then again… it's not really something you did as a human is it?"
Kat shook her head, "Nah, it wasn't," said Kat. "I didn't particularly like threatening people, and I certainly didn't want to scare off your bullies so that they'd ignore me as a free target. Too much effort to convince them I wasn't interested in breaking their legs afterwards," Kat sighed, shaking her head.
Mint frowned and asked, "Were you bullied a lot Kat?"
Lily snorted, even as she quickly covered her mouth to stop the water in it from going flying. Lily held up a hand, as she struggled to both laugh and swallow the water so she could laugh properly. [Wait I want to take this one!] So Kat just let Lily struggle for a bit until she managed to regain enough composure to swallow the water… and then promptly went back to laughing.
Mint was looking between them confused, not understanding the chain of events at all. Still, she was a dryad and patience was in her nature, so she just waited until Lily finally calmed down and explained. "Ah… to say Kat was bullied… hehehe… it would imply that the bullies in question ever really bothered Kat. If they took it too far, Kat would knock them around a bit, so it was more like pranks, because Kat wasn't annoyed.
"Um… so… I changed schools, and a group of three girls wanted to pick on me because I looked like an easy target and well… Kat took exception to that," Kat managed to crack a bit of the ice that was still in her hands, and Mint tittered appropriately, "which led to an odd situation. Kat let the girls mess with her, in exchange they wouldn't bother me or anyone else. In worked for the most part. Kat normally just ended up with wet shirts, or got tripped occasionally,"
Kat let out a chuckle of her own, "Heh, when they tried to trip me I normally noticed ahead of time and just marched forward as firmly as I could. They weren't particularly sporty girls so instead of tripping me horribly, they got a big bruise on their ankle, and I would pretend to stumble a bit. God it was so hard not to laugh, even when the rest of the class would sometimes.
"It was just so silly for them to think that I was bothered at all. Then again… maybe they were laughing at the girl trying to trip me? I didn't really consider that before now… but depending on the face she was making at the time… it might have been chuckle worthy," said Kat.
Lily tried to remember the last time it happened but was coming up mostly blank, "Sorry Kat, I'm not really sure. I was more concerned with you not getting hurt then checking to see how distraught any of the trio were about getting kicked in the shin," said Lily.
"Did you have any issues with that sort of thing Mint?" asked Lily.
"Not really," said Mint. "Some people would make fun of me for not having nature affinity… but a lot of older dryads don't really… do anything? Like they don't have jobs like the other races do because a lot of them don't want or need anything, so an adult was usually around to tell them off.
"Thyme said… what's the word… coddled? Dryad children are very coddled. Apparently we're lucky that it doesn't cause us too many issues as we grow, but I don't understand the nuances as to why it would be a problem, or why it's not a problem for us specifically,"
*Hmm… that's an interesting thing. I suppose that they're just wired differently compared to humans. Which just makes sense, but it is a little strange to think about. Then again… dryads are all trees, or plants at least. So they can just… exist. Training or earning money is very much an 'if you want to' thing because it's not like a dryad is likely to starve to death.*
"Do you need food at all?" asked Kat, both because of her recent thought and because Mint didn't have a plate of anything at the moment.
Mint made a 'so-so' gesture, "We need sunlight and water, especially for our main body, and we can develop realistic enough bodies like the one I'm wearing that NEED food. This one doesn't, but it COULD if Thyme wanted it to. Um… yeah it's just not really an issue? If we have tastebuds in the body we're using we can taste things, and absorbing stuff through our roots does still… it's not the same, I have tried a body with tastebuds once, and it's definitely not the same… but it's not not the same as well? If that makes sense?" explained Mint.
Kat and Lily shared a look before nodding, and Lily adding, "It doesn't make perfect sense but we can work out a close enough idea of what you mean just from that. You're basically saying that you can taste things with your roots but it's not a similar sensation despite part of your mind registering it as taste?"
Mint nodded, "Close enough,"
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