Sophia and Mira went to the many-tailed overseer’s domain so that the tiger could learn how to decorate and improve her own because she was getting tired of the all-white nothingness. She learned much more than she had initially anticipated, though. The teal fox said slightly too much during their chat, revealing that magic is capable of showing feelings, indicating that it might be sentient or conscious.

“How hard do I have to keep magic being at least 17 times as amazing as I had already thought a secret from everyone else?”

“To your best abilities.”

“Uhh…” Sophia wasn’t overly confident in her skills of keeping secrets from others.

“Just try very, very, very, VERY hard, okay?”

“Alright! I’ll try much better than doing my best, then!” She nodded a few times. “I’ll still do further research about it, though! There’s just no way I won’t befriend magic! I’ll just do it when no one else is around!”

“…” Mira decided against saying anything.

“I won’t keep it a secret forever, though.” The blonde lightly shook her head. "Everyone else, Chloe and Steph especially, also love magic a whole lot, soo…” It felt wrong to her to never tell her friends about it. “Though, that being said, as this seems very important to you and also sounds like a big deal, I’m willing to wait to make my decision of telling them after having learned everything there is. If I agree that it’s better to be kept a secret afterward, I will reconsider.”

“Well, yes, I’d act the same in your position. In fact, you might even be more reasonable than I would be in this situation.”

"Wow! Secret or not, I'll definitely tell Maya that you confirmed that I'm more reasonable than the overseer of magic!"

“Ahaha…” The teal fox looked a little tired.

“Sorry about that,” Sophia smiled at her. “I’m rarely called reasonable, so I have to use every chance to rub it under Maya’s nose. Anyway, how about we put the whole topic on hold for the time being? I’m still super excited and want to learn more, but I also want to improve my domain, which is affecting everyone in our group right now, so that takes priority at the moment."

“Thank you very much.”

“Okay, so... For a proper day and night cycle, I, and more importantly, my domain, needs to have more elemental magic, right? Magical plants and trees, flora in general, will help with that because they sponge up, distribute, and increase it?”

“Yes, that’s more or less it.” Mira nodded. “Changing to other static colors might be easier, though. Like an all-black alternative for nighttime.”

“That might be a good start.” She could get behind that idea. “Though some of the girls in our group get scared easily, so being surrounded by all-black nothingness while trying to sleep might be a tough order."

“Really? That’s unexpected. I never would’ve guessed anyone there be affected by silly things like that.”

“Also, by some, I mean Maya.”

“Huh?!” That was enough to honestly shock the overseer. “Our sassy cat? Scared of the dark?”

“Ah, no, not that much, but she’s really bad with anything even remotely spooky or scary.”

“She definitely would’ve been the last where I expected that!”

“You should be on more movie nights with us~.” Sophia’s expression turned sassy. “Watching horror movies from my old world on the big TV I brought with me is an absolute delight!”

“It really sounds quite entertaining.”

“Perfect! The next movie night will be horror-themed!” The blonde’s mood increased by a lot. “Ah, but don’t tell Maya beforehand because she’ll run away if she knows!”

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“Only if you keep the things you think you learned today a secret, too.”

“I guess that’s fair.” Sophia nodded. “Giving Maya a good scare and the very everything of magic not being what we thought it was, is about equal in importance."

“…”

“Anyway!” The tiger dropped the topic once again. “More domain stuff, please! I’m still super curious about stuff like the weather or the general climate! How does that work?!"

“Most of that will start naturally once you have a working day and night cycle, forests, and lakes for the most part. Wind mainly occurs due to temperature change or differences between land and water masses.”

“Ohh, I see! I really should focus on basic landscaping first and then add details, huh?”

“That would be the fastest and easiest way to start, yes.”

“Perfect! By the way,” Sophia then looked at the ground. “Can you manipulate the ground level of your domain? Yours is all nice and nature-y, but my domain has the polished pure white boringness… If I want to have a nice lake or ocean even, I would first need to get hundreds of meters of dirt, no?”

“Don’t worry, you can form it however you want. You can even portion off the space to make multiple different biomes or stuff like that.”

“That’s great! Ah, now that I think about it, I reshaped it a couple of times already to create storage rooms!”

“Is there anything else you want to know about our domains?” Mira lightly tilted her head.

“Mhm… Like a million things, I’d say! Still, I’ll ask those questions on the fly when I’m shaping my place! For now, I just want to start!”

“Shall we head back then?”

“Let’s go!” The blonde sounded very motivated. “Ah, but I’m still getting a little bit of the jungle here as a starting gift, right?” Motivated and selfish.

“Of course.” She nodded. “And for every month you keep the other topic a secret, I’ll give you another square kilometer from a biome of your choosing.”

“You’re good!” Sophia was impressed by her bribe.

“Well, I’m starting to understand how you work.”

“It’s not that hard, isn’t it?” The tiger knew that getting on her good side wasn't hard.

“Ahaha.” She had to chuckle. “So, do you want a specific part of the jungle, or is anything fine?"

“Beggars can’t be choosers, but if they could, something with a bit of diversity in the plant life would be nice~.”

“You are a little shameless, aren’t you?”

"A lot, actually.” Sophia smiled at her.

“I do like your confidence. Anyway, shall we get you a nice plot of land?” Saying so, Mira let a purple portal appear right next to her. “This leads to the edge of the jungle biome and slowly blends into a regular forest. That should be good for a diverse fauna.”

“This humble beggar would be delighted about this arrangement.”

“What part about you is humble?”

“My height?” The blonde tilted her head. “I’d say, thanks to me playing around with magic, my chest isn’t quite in the humble category anymore, but I’m still kinda short.”

“I don’t even want to acknowledge that.”

“F-Fair.” She got a little embarrassed over her own reply. “Let’s go!” Sophia immediately stepped through the portal afterward.

“What a dork~.” Chuckling a little, the teal fox followed after her.

“Ohh! It’s pretty here!” The duo arrived at the edge of the jungle, where the trees were becoming slightly less dense, and more and more different plants and trees starting to blend into each other. The tiger seemed to like it a lot.

“I’m glad you’re a fan~.” Mira gave her a thumbs up. “So, do you want a piece for your domain?”

“Pretty please!” She nodded a few times. “Thank you VERY much!”

“No problem~.”

“How do we get it to my place, though?”

“With your handy dandy portals, of course.”

“Ahh, right.”

“Okay,”

Afterward, Mira created a massive portal encompassing the jungle and bits of the lighter forest next to it. It was so big that it wasn’t even possible to see how far the portal reached. Once the overseer gave her the signal, Sophia also poured some of her magic into the portal, and a moment later, only a massive crater was left behind. It was hard to guess from their position, but multiple kilometers of flora in every direction had disappeared.

“Woah!” The blonde’s eyes grew wide. “Is it really alright for you to give me this much?!”

“Absolutely~.” The teal fox turned smug. “In fact, with only that much, everything will have grown back long before the next time I’ll be here. Also, the deeper part of this jungle here is especially interesting, and I'm sure you'll like it very much~.”

“What a showoff!”

“You and I aren’t so different, after all, huh?”

“S-Shush!”

“Hehe.” Mira liked her reaction. “By the way, aren’t you worried that the jungle landed somewhere in your domain where it could do damage? You just accepted it just like that without checking, after all.”

“Nah, it’s alright. As you mentioned, I portioned off an unused part of my domain and opened a portal to that isolated place there.”

“Not bad!” She seemed impressed. “I look forward to your future domain.”

“Me, too!” Sophia looked very excited. “Alright, let’s go and surprise the others! I can’t wait to see everyone’s dumbfounded expression when I make the jungle appear in front of the cottage!”

“Sounds like a plan, miss I don’t like to be in the center of attention.” Mira started chuckling again.

“I don’t enjoy the sass, either!”

“Then you maybe should stop acting so tease-able 24/7.”

“…”

Without saying a word, Sophia opened another portal and immediately disappeared through it.

“What a lovable dork.” A quick chuckle later, the teal fox followed after her.