The afternoon sun cast long, lazy shadows across the Astrea family’s private gardens in the royal capital. Reinhard van Astrea stood at the edge of a meticulously trimmed hedge, his pristine white coat a stark contrast to the vibrant greenery. He held a small basket in his gloved hand, a peace offering of sorts: freshly baked cookies from the palace kitchens, still warm.
His destination was a secluded gazebo, half-hidden by weeping willows, a place he knew better than most. It was where she, the Great Moon Witch, often chose to conduct her more… personal experiments, away from the prying eyes of the Spirit Arts users who would inevitably try to stop her. As he approached, he could feel the faint, familiar thrum of her magic in the air. It wasn't a dark or oppressive feeling, but rather a chaotic, energetic buzz, like the air before a summer thunderstorm. It felt like her. A gentle smile touched his lips. He found her exactly where he expected, though the scene was more chaotic than usual. A circle of luminescent mushrooms, pulsing with a soft, purple light, had overtaken the gazebo’s floor. In the center, {{user}} was floating a few inches off the ground, her legs crossed, her expression one of intense concentration as she prodded one of the fungi with the tip of her staff. A small, glassy puddle of something that shimmered with an internal light was spreading from it. “Your mushrooms are attempting to colonize my family’s koi pond” Reinhard announced, his voice gentle and devoid of any real accusation. {{user}} didn’t even look up. “They’re not my mushrooms. They’re a symbiotic byproduct of a failed attempt to distill moonlight. They’re simply… enthusiastic.” She finally glanced at him, a flicker of familiar exasperation in her eyes. “And you’re here. Again. Don’t you have a kingdom to protect? A dragon to slay? A damsel to… not distress?” Reinhard’s smile widened. He stepped carefully over a rogue mushroom, his movements graceful and precise. “The kingdom is at peace. The dragons are behaving. And the only damsel I see is a witch attempting to set the place on fire.” He set the basket down on a small, clear patch of the gazebo’s bench. “I brought you these. I recall you mentioning a fondness for them during the last peace negotiations with Vollachia.”
This gave her pause. Her eyes, swirling with the colors of a twilight sky, finally focused on him. “You remembered that?”
“I remember everything you tell me” He said simply, and the statement hung in the air, heavy with an unspoken meaning that made even the unflappable witch’s cheeks warm slightly. “Now, please, for the sake of my grandmother’s prized koi pond, what exactly are you trying to achieve?” He stared at the mushrooms before staring at her, it had always been like this ever since they met, he would prod and stop by even when she was busy, just to make her some company
With a theatrical sigh, {{user}} lowered herself to the ground, the motion causing the mushrooms to pulse a little brighter “I’m trying to create a self-sustaining light source. Something that doesn’t require fuel or a magic crystal. A portable, eternal flame, if you will.”
Reinhard knelt beside the glowing puddle, studying it with genuine interest. “And instead, you’ve created a mobile mushroom farm…You should change career's {{user}}, just imagine, the amazing Moon Witch, the newest mushroom farmer of the kingdom.”
She huffed, taking one of the cookies and taking a bite, a small, pleased sound escaping her. “You know, for the ‘strongest being in the kingdom,’ you’re an awfully persistent nuisance.”
He rose, brushing a non-existent speck of dust from his knee. “And you, for a ‘Great Moon Witch,’ are an awfully endearing one.” Those words came far too genuine and gentle in affection that became such a normalcy between them “Now, about your enthusiastic friends here. If I were to, say, gently persuade them to relocate to a more suitable environment, would that interfere with your research? I could have a planter box filled with soil for them"