Work Text:
No, not a single moment she wanted it to turn out like that: outraged cake-hounds hit glass domes they were captured in, growled and scratched the floor, trying to crawl even though most of them had no hind paws. And Puff stood alone in this heart of darkness, out of breath, helpless.
She was prohibited to practice any magic beside Magic Arts Class since that scandal with administration, who did not care she had nothing to do with that shattered sky accident. It seemed there was nothing they cared about, truly. There was nothing to speak with them, since they were ready to fire Ms Latte! Latte! But she stayed, and she protected Puff, and Puff were not expelled… Yet. It was prohibited practicing magic outside the class, so soon she would be kicked out as a lagging behind student. So…
So she came to Latte hoping for nothing. Well, maybe a cup of coffee? Some comforting words would have been nice, too. But she did not expect any kind of help nor in action nor in ideas. Puff would cross her heart: she did not expect Latte to pause her and dive deep into thoughts for few long minutes. Latte only mumbled:
“Yeah, but… And if… yet… And what if… But I… Yes… Yes… Though! Uh!”
Latte put herself under great risk giving Puff those keys. Keys, locking up that forgotten Transmutation Classroom, which nobody needed and nobody even remembered to exist now. None of those prominent alchemists who wanted to decompose cake-hounds corrupted dough into primal ingredients succeeded. They failed and left this place conserved. None of them managed to recalculate the Life Formula and give those poor creatures consciousness and new life, where they would be able to have a cup of coffee with their friends – just like Puff, for example. Oh. No, no! What friends? Tutors, no matter Puff have never met somebody as kind, and caring, and attentive as that… Tutor.
And she let that one down.
Puff has no idea, how did it happen. Well, there was a bright flash of her spell. This was when it has started. A flash flared up, reflecting in all those glass domes, shattering into countless rays, piercing whole the class… Then it actually happened. Cake-hounds who were laying still in dead crunchiness fed strong and soft as if they were freshly baked sponges. And now they try – with all the sudden life and energy – to break the glass holding them down from academy and its inhabitants. Silence of an abandoned place turned into instant howl and growl.
She tried to cast a simple spell – the one that had to heal a wounded soul. It should have been a surprise for Herb, who spent so much time caring for Academy Florarium; who put so much effort into Academy FLorarium, that a flower started to wither. This flower was put into a little pretty clay pot by some loving hands and lived in it in Herb’s room, right next to his bed heading. Puff knew it since first glance: there was no problem with soil or fertilizers. The flower grieved, the flower missed Herb, who spent too much time in that Florarium, full of plants who were more interesting and elegant, than the flower. So Puff wanted to show it, how much herb cared about it – much more, than any other plant. It was special, and Herb had a lot of love to share. Puff wanted to open his heart’s feelings – a simple yet elegant magic to ensure the flower it was not abandoned. “Oh my,” – she glimpsed when the horror started – “that was not even the magic of reality transferring or something like that. I ruined such a simple spell in such a terrible way!... Oh, dumb piece of dough!”
A crack on one of the glass domes grew and grew, bursting new sprouts and knitting the pattern of raising fragility. Puff stood still. “Don’t you worsen anything, don’t you dare” – she whispered repeatedly. The cracks grew inevitably; glass started to crumble little by little. Puff felt the horror spoiling her dough, leaving her exhausted. She thought that the best she could done was not to move. She should have stayed calm not to make more troubles. Cake-hounds barked fiercer. Cake-hounds barked louder.
— Sancta Lactosa!
That voice! Puff would have winced if she has not been shaking already: ashamed, fearful, frustrated.
— It was i.. who.. I’ve done… - Puff realised that she was on edge. Her own voice trembled so hard she could not control it. At all.
It cracked loudly somewhere in distance, and the whole sphere of a dome near the window shattered; a first, chocolate-banana flavoured, cake has gained its’ freedom. It made a slight growl. It smelled the air of a world, which had so many scents and images the cake-hound have never experienced. Shards of glass shimmered on the floor. Most of the other domes were ready to burst into iridescent crumb as well. They were ready to let all those creatures go.
“Oh no… I have no choice… No… I have to.. I have..”
Hot palms wrapped Puff’s shivering shoulders, giving some relief, and Latte whispered her into ear:
— Please, shut your eyes and don’t move until I guide you. You can do it, can’t you?
Puff was barely sure she really waved her head upward-down.
— Good! I knew I can rely on you, little miss magician.
An umbrella suddenly opened over the heads of Puff and her rescuer: not a real one, but a magical dome in the shape of an umbrella, glowing with a soft light, slightly buzzing. It even had a grip: the very tip of it blurred in the palm of Latte, unwinding into pure, unformed energy.
«Duplexi lacti partemo lactemo!»
Small flashes — almost like the one that started it all here, but smaller – sparkled at the ceiling. Like pearls and beads. Like beads and grains of sand. The magic lingered, as if waiting for Latte to cancel the spell. However, she only pressed Puff tighter, hugging, and banged the heels of her boots against each other. Repeated:
«Duplexi lacti partemo lactemo!»
So tight streams of milk poured from the ceiling suddenly, flooding the entire hall. The wall of milk covered the cake monsters in a second, smashed the remaining domes intact and left not a spot of the hall dry. Cakes’ dough instantly swelled, softened from the overflowing moisture. Puff opened her eyes as they were screaming. She looked, in horror and delight at the cake hounds softening into mush and stop barking. They literally melted into nothing, leaving after only a wet mess on the floor and the broken domes of transmutation installations.
Puff did not even notice that her and Latte's shoes had long since come off the floor: they were held by a saucer of pure magic of the same delicate cream colour as the umbrella, which has been giving out colourful magical flashes as any drop of milk fell on it.
Latte kept silent, looking at all the mess going on in the lab. She clang on Puff's shoulders, as if the young could have stepped into a wall of milk pouring from the ceiling. And to tell the truth, Puff really wanted to. Irrationally, as if under hypnosis — she wanted to step into this white tenderness. But Latte held her tightly, not even giving her a twitch.
The downpour stopped after a couple of seconds, as if a switch had been flipped. The last drops fell in a straight line, as if the magic rain had been cut off with invisible scissors. Puff felt like everything should be knee-deep, that it rained for minutes, if not hours. But only uneven puddles remained on the floor. The remains of the cake hounds. Shards of glass, lot of them. And no milk rivers or flood — at least, nothing to be amazed or worried about.
Puff’s shoulders finally were not in a tight grip, yet it felt so cold and wrong, as if the Latte palms were baked in the Oven just to hold Puff in them.
— I think I have to stay here for a while," Latte drawled musingly, "and you'll help me a lot if run to the Cafeteria while I'm sorting this out. It would be wonderful if you grab two large lattes…
— With chocolate?
— You are the one to be relied on! Right! With chocolate.
Puff nodded and somehow left the hall backing away. She turned straight only when Latte’s silhouette disappeared in the doorway. Than she ran as fast as she could – to get that coffee. With chocolate, yeah.
— I know you want to ask about that spell. The milky one, — Latte came out of nowhere and sat herself at the Cafeteria table when Puff ran off for napkins. It was a mystery – how did she know it was the right table.
The mystery stayed unsolved, and now they had been sitting in silence for few minutes. Only the spoon in latte’s elegant hands clinked softly on the porcelain edge. A quiet, melodious sound. Almost like bells.
Puff really wanted to know what kind of magic it was — she hadn't even heard of it. Another mystery.
— It's a pity dragons are not afraid of milk at all, — Latte smiled, as if she hadn't teased Puff's interest just a moment before, — otherwise we would have solved some issues much faster. And easier.
— Why aren't dragons afraid of milk?
— My darling, you should pay more attention to the Introduction to the Anatomy of Magic Sweets. The glaze! They are covered in it so tightly that even hot tea is not a hindrance to them. They say that one of the oldest dragons even lives in those tea volcanoes, and it s does not care about heat or humidity! It flies from the Mouth of Black Tea to the Lava Lakes of Oolong every spring and flies back in autumn; they say that its flight leads to a change of seasons, and if the dragon warms up to fall asleep in one of these places, we will remain in eternal summer or endless winter…
— How does he know it's time to leave?
— When its glaze almost starts to melt in the depths of the Black Tea muzzle, it flies away to cool down at the shores of Oolong. Nevertheless, for many months his glaze grows in the cool healing waters so that it becomes difficult for him to breathe, and then he flies back… Into the mouth of the Black Tea volcano.
Puff exhaled ecstatically.
— But these are all fairy tales, aren’t they? We know the dragon might be there. But is there really one? If there is, is it alive? Does it fly back and forth? Who knows! – Latte smiled with a broad warm smile. — We are not capable of knowing everything we would like to know. For various reasons. Moreover, sometimes we better not try to get what we are not supposed to have.
— And I'm not supposed to know what kind of spell it was.… Today.
Latte smiled even wider, but there was sadness in her eyes.
— We don't know if there is a dragon, because the steam from the tea is so hot and moist that neither magic nor the most desperate brave cookie can get into the heart of that darkness.
— I hate when one talk to me in parables and riddles. Are you going to tease me or tell me something? – Puff didn't know how she dared blurt it out. And how had she almost drank one of the two lattes that she ordered for her mentor?!
Latte laughed, and her laugh was a dazzling bell, a chime.
— We’re so similar! So quiet with the ocean of passion under the surface. No, Puff. You won't know what kind of magic it was… Until you learn how to reanimate flowers without creating an army of the living dead! At least! At least…
She turned around and took out from a nowhere a flower, which was the reason of it all. Surely it couldn't have been standing behind the back of her chair all this time. Could it?...What's the difference. Puff’s thoughts went back to the fact how simple that spell should have been. Her cheeks turned red, and the scarlet spread in a wide blob across her face, ears, down to her neck.
— Yes, it's all because of this storm of passion, — Latte continued, as if not noticing the despair of her student, — it also interfered with me. It is impossible to curb this power until you accept and understand it. One of the few worthwhile lessons my mentor taught me…
Latte took Puff's hand in her own.
— I hope I can teach you more. I'll teach you the best I can.
— And then I… I will definitely become like you! – Puff blurted out.
Latte laughed, winked, not letting go of the student's hand:
— First lesson: next time, call me when you decide to work out a new spell. Don't be shy. After all, I'm here not to fill out paperwork endlessly. You know what? Call me even if you're practicing an old spell.
— But... the whole room…
— Don’t you worry! We'll find a new place. You have no idea, my dear, how many abandoned nooks and crannies there are in the Academy, which not a single living soul remembers about.
— But the Administration…
— They will never know about today 's… Extraordinarily productive practice. And if they will find out, we’d better call it a clean—up day. We were sorting out the old inventory.
Puff smiled and nodded, looking Latte straight in the eyes. Yes. That's what they'll do.
The Herb flower reached out with its whole being to the sun, which generously shared its rays with the world.
Yes. That's what they will do.