Chapter 89: Snow Cone
Having lost the bet, Dylan was finally able to freely clean the house. He cleared the table, cleaned Fir's claws and wings and vacuumed and mopped. He cleaned up windows, the walls and the ceilings and put everything neatly in their rightful position. Only when the house was sparkling clean did Dylan stop to rest.
"Fir." Dylan called out to the bird.
"W-what is it?" Fir asked, feeling somewhat panicked. Through their link, he could faintly feel the anger building in Dylan's heart.
"Do you know what you did wrong?" Dylan questioned.
"I, I flew around the house dirty and got paint all over the place." Fir confessed.
"And?"
"I made you lose the bet."
"Go on."
"…That's all."
"That's all? You think that's all you did wrong?"
"I…I, uh, I spoke in front of Charlotte." Fir thought hard to think of this.
"…"
"Sorry." Fir apologised with his head hung low.
Dylan sighed and pat Fir on his head with a gentle smile. "As long as you know."
"Lyn, you forgive me now?" Fir asked with hopeful eyes.
"Yeah, now you don't have to waste mana using telepathy all the time, isn't that great?" Dylan laughed.
"Yep." Fir laughed too. Well, his laughter was more like a series of pleasant chirps because birds don't laugh. Except parrots and birds that can talk because they can imitate it, oh and also kookaburras because their calls sound like laughter. [End of my limited bird knowledge ramble!]
In a great mood, Fir fluttered in the air and circled around Dylan before happily settling down on his shoulder.
"I promised to give you a fairy's drop earlier, but you did expose me to Sherry even when I told you to stop and caused a mess so what should be done about this?" Dylan asked, a smile plastered to his face.
"What? But you promised~!" Fir complained.
"You broke the deal first." Dylan reasoned. This was totally not revenge for causing him to lose the bet, totally not.
"I was looking forward to it, Lyn, you stingy!!" Fir cried pitifully.
"…Well, I did promise, so how about we share one each? You make some shaved ice I'll squeeze some juice over it." Dylan compromised after some thought. "It will also be a good opportunity for you to practice your magic."
"Okay!" Fir cheerfully agreed. He loved eating cold things the most and he wasn't expecting Dylan to give in so easily, so Fir was feeling good.
"Let's go to the kitchen."
The two headed to the kitchen and started to prepare for the snack. Fairy's drop was very sweet and could be diluted to make several bowls of shaved ice but Dylan and Fir were fine with just two. They could also handle the mana contained inside the fairy's drop and so they had no problem doing so.
"Okay, Fir. Start off by making some ice, and carefully shave it using wind magic. Do you think you can do it?" Dylan carefully guided him along.
"Mm!" Fir confidently nodded. He circulated the mana around his body and formed an image in his mind. Chanting the magic words, a block of ice slowly formed in the air. Just as Fir was about to complete the next step, Dylan suddenly interrupted him.
"Someone's coming." He informed Fir. The block of ice was no longer supported by magic and so fell into the large metal bowl below.
Charlotte walked in just in time to hear the ice clatter inside the bowl and fall with a thud. She peered in curiously and found the huge slab of ice just chilling. "What are you making?" She asked, not suspicious about the presence of this block of ice.
"We're making shaved ice." Dylan replied with a smile.
"Can you make me some too?"
"Uh, yeah, sure. Janine too?"
"Wait a minute, I'll ask her." Charlotte told Dylan. Then, right in front of his eyes, she turned around and proceeded to, "JANINE! DO YOU WANT SOME SHAVED ICE?!", shout with all her might.
A second later, "YEAHHHH.", Janine shouted back.
"She said yes." Charlotte turned back and informed Dylan.
"I was aware." Dylan sighed. "What flavour do you want?"
"What flavours are there?" She asked.
"Well, as many as there are fruits in this world."
"???"
"I'm using juice to make them."
"Oh, normal people use syrup so I was confused."
"…"
"What flavour's yours?"
"It's, uh, a fruit from home." Dylan replied cryptically. If Charlotte suddenly said she wanted to try it, he would have to go through the trouble of diluting it with water so she wouldn't die. Either that or remove the mana inside the drop, both were too troublesome to do.
"Oooh, what's it called?" It backfired on him. Due to the lack of information, Charlotte instead became really curious about the fruit.
"It's called a 'fairy's drop'." Dylan answered honestly.
"That's a weird name."
"It's because I'm translating it literally. It sounds better in my native language." Dylan somehow felt the need and desire to defend the fruit.
"What does it taste like?"
"It's really sweet and melts on your tongue!" Fir answered in Dylan's stead. "It's my favourite snack!"
"Really? I want to try it too. That's fine with you yeah, Dylan?"
"…Of course, it is." Dylan answered with a slightly strained smile.
Dylan: Welp, time to do some maths.
The last time he gave some of the fruit to non-magic users, he only wanted to motivate them and so gave one drop, diluted in six water bottles. The mana was diluted so much that it dispersed into the air, leaving no impact on the kids that drank it. The diluted drink only had the left over flavour caused by the mana left inside, making it safe and delicious to drink.
"I'm gonna go watch TV. Can you bring it to me when you're done?" Charlotte asked after seeing Dylan fall into deep thought.
"Oh, yeah sure. When it's ready, I'll bring it to the both of you." Dylan replied, snapping out of maths hell.
When Charlotte left, he started to do some serious maths. Out of the two solutions, he found option one to be less time consuming and also the least wasteful, and so he was now forced to do maths.
"One drop in 3600ml of water gets rid of the mana, but it will be annoying to think about how much to dilute it by so when adding it to the ice, the flavour doesn't disperse. I suppose I should just prepare the diluted drop separately and then freeze it and make it into shaved ice. In doing so, I would have left overs that I could store in my storage, ensuring freshness and that its readily available." Dylan mumbled to himself.
[I was planning to make it more math-y but it's my holidays too and ain't nobody got time for that.]
"Lyn, can we start now?" Fir slouched over and complained. With how long it took for him to make the decision, normal ice would've started melting by now. Fortunately, ice made from magic didn't melt that easily, especially when it was made by Fir, a spirit beast specialising in wind and ice magic.
"Uh, yeah, sure."
Fir levitated the block of ice back up and waited for Dylan to tell him what to do.
"Concentrate and form an image of little blades of wind cutting into the surface of the ice. Make sure the blades are sharp and fine so the ice is shaved into little pieces."
"Mm, got it!"
Slowly but surely, the ice started to get shaved and pieces of ice floated down into the bowl below looking like snow.
"I think I get why they call it snow cones now." Dylan smiled and commented.
At his comment, Fir glanced over and lost concentration. He accidently formed a blade too big and cut a huge chunk of ice that proceeded to fall with a thud into the bowl.
"Lyn~" Fir cried to Dylan for help.
"Don't worry. It's a simple mistake, easy to fix." Dylan told the bird and shaved the chunk of ice down into little bits for Fir. He did so fast and proficiently. After all, Dylan had always been good at delicate things like this, he just wasn't very good at complicated advanced magic due to not having learnt them properly.
"Wow, you did it so fast!" Fir exclaimed out of admiration.
"As long as you practise enough, you'll be able to do it even faster."
"Mm, I'll practise a lot!"
Dylan continued to supervise Fir's handiwork until he was finished. He then proceeded to take one fairy's drop out from his storage and cast a barrier around the kitchen and cut the fruit in two. The aroma of the fruit was too strong so he was afraid that the smell would lure some hyenas-cough, Charlotte and Janine to the kitchen and they might interrupt their cooking.
"Smells so good~" Fir commented, drool gathering in his mouth.
Dylan smirked and used magic to make a huge ball of water in the air and dropped one drop of the juice inside. He mixed the two liquids and confirmed that the mana dispersed itself before separating some and putting them in two separate porcelain bowls.
"Do you mind freezing and shaving them while I prepare out portion?" Dylan asked Fir.
"Sure!" Fir agreed and happily froze the liquid inside the bowls. He was most skilled at using ice magic and so did not stupidly freeze the bowl alongside the juice. Having frozen the juice, Fir went on to shave it down like he had been doing earlier.
Meanwhile, Dylan squished the fruit and juiced it down to mix with the shaved ice. He poured the juice along with its skin and pulp over the ice and stirred it around to ensure an even mixture. When he was done, he was left with ice that sparkled and smelled like rainbows and glitter.
Dylan turned around to observe Fir's progress and found that he was already done. He smiled and praised the bird before taking down the barrier. Instantly, a wave of delicious fragrance spread through the house. The two hyenas sniffed and sniffed, their bodies bringing them to the kitchen.
Dylan had already placed the four bowls of ice on the table and smiled when he saw that the girls had very conveniently walked over to eat. "It's ready."
"Smells delicious." Janine sat down in front of a bowl and complimented.
Dylan shot her a glare and smiled brightly. "This is my bowl. Yours is over there."
"What? Aren't they the same? So fussy." Janine grumbled. "Not moving."
"If I told you you'll die if you ate it, will you believe me?" Dylan informed her with that same dazzling smile.
"It's just ice, why you threatening me over it?" Janine complained but moved anyways.
"I wasn't threatening you. It's the truth. I had to go the extra mile just to make yours safe to eat."
"What is this anyways?" Janine believed that Dylan was salty over losing the bet and didn't believe his words.
"It's made from a drop of Fairy's drop. It comes from my world."
Now Janine believed him. Dylan's world was a magic one, she would be foolish to carelessly eat what he didn't allow her to.
Meanwhile, Charlotte was already gulping down the snow cone that Dylan let her eat. She paid no heed to their bickering and shovelled the ice into her mouth. Every time the ice melted, it sent her into diving bliss and she was unable to stop her hands!
"Argh, brain freeze." Charlotte exclaimed, holding onto her head.
"That's what you get for starting before us." Janine teased and scooped some ice into her mouth.
A short while later, "Brain freeze!"
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~Author Rambles About Nothing Segment~
Merry Christmas! Did you enjoy the stupidly long chapter about snow cones? I sometimes amaze myself over how my ability to write about crap like this. Like, the snow cone part was supposed to be ultra short but became like this. I had other stuff planned for it in my head, but no, the snow cones took over.
I got to say, it was easier to write about nonsense than to write a chapter about actual plot things, not that there is an actual plot though.
When I just started, I even wrote a plan because I was bored and it was literally just: Assimilate into Earth, dog food, Diva talks, maybe some fights(just maybe), Earth problems, dog food, confess, couple, marry, end<3.
What kind of plan is that? It's just some generic plot and even then, I think I will deviate from it somehow.
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~Mini theater coz its totally necessary!~
Author: Sniff, the readers are so violent~~~~~~~~
Dylan: I don't know, mate. They seem pretty tame to me.
Author: Every comment is just SLAP SLAP SLAP, like, do they live in a Chinese novel or something? Too much face slapping.
Dylan: Maybe, just maybe, you're just that annoying.
Author: Hohoho, how could you even suggest such a thing to this I! Oh, thee hath hurt my heart. I need to cure it.
Dylan: W-what are you doing? P-p-p-p-put that vile thing away!
Author: Abracadabra!
Dylan: Uwahhhhhhhh!!!
With a flash of a light, the manly Dylan was replaced by...Cross dressing Dylan! Oh, what a sight for sore eyes. His hair was tied into a pineapple(?), clipped with a cute little bow, his shirt replaced by a red cloth, the edges adorn by white fluff. Dylan's abs were unable to be concealed by the frugal amount of cloth, it was bare for the world to see! And his lower half...A very short skirt was worn. It was of the same design as the shirt(?) and barely covered his bits. And his muscular legs, they were such a sharp contrast to the lovely and soft clothing.
Author: Dylan dressed as a slutty santa, what a sight!
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