As someone who was on the road as much as her group was, Mila waking up in her own bed was about as disorienting as could be for a situation that involved a lovely pillow, a fluffy bed, and a nice sense of being nowhere near the rain that drizzled against her window. That she got a whole wide bed to herself, big enough to fit a pair of humans, also meant she could sprawl and flop about as she roused, a much-needed way to greet the morning.
Her uselessness could not continue for too long, though, because while she had managed to stave off any revenge from her alcohol intake last night by pairing it with a prodigious amount of water, that now meant she really had to use the restroom. She dug out as fresh a pair of shorts as she owned currently and slung on her vest, if only for the mammals’ modesty’s sake, before her clawed toes caught the straps of her sandals, now ready to voyage out for one of the shared restrooms on the floor.
It was early enough, from the sliver of light trickling in, that banging the door about would be unseemly, as thick as the walls might be, so Mila did her best to slip out and pad down the hall. The hour also meant that the nearest bathroom was mercifully free at least, and she slipped in with a deep sigh.
Thank the gods, all of them, that not only did Darimash keep a clean ship for a business that easily could have gotten away without doing so, she had splurged on all the amenities. It was not quite to Scienceland standards, but it had running water and a bright, white light, all magically powered. It was expensive, even for all the design efficiencies that had been built in, such as all the bathrooms and the kitchen drawing from a single, larger enchantment to produce water, but it was well worth it, felt the small woman who had not had to pay for the system’s setup costs.
Enchantments were always expensive, was Mila’s thought as she washed off her hands. Bending reality to your whims without the intervention of something much bigger and potentially alien helping always was - Mila did half the budgeting and pay for the team, and saw the expenses Aluca went through that got compensated for before the money got split. But when you were encoding that kind of magic onto something that was supposed to last, all the needed ingredients spiked in price, hard. Part of that made sense to Mila, in that you did not want shoddy workmanship in a structure designed to dump water out on demand, but even beyond that, it felt… a little excessive. Rules were involved that she did not understand, maybe, but it bugged her all the same.
She skipped taking a shower, for the time being. Mila liked to gripe about the unfairness of not having access to magic personally, but her own abilities that strained belief were precious to her, and took routine maintenance. While it had been a hellish habit to form, one that had never panned out in Scienceland, albeit whose benefits would have been solely health-based, now it pushed her scales backwards something fierce when she did not get her exercises in in the morning when they were not out in between cities. Given that it was all wet and gross outside, the backyard to the tavern a swampy mess where an alligator would not be out of place, she’d have to stick to working indoors today. And since not everyone staying here had her morning routine, her room was out of the running.
Instead she made her way down the stairs, silently hopping from one to the next and not minding that they were made with tall folk in mind. The balancing act with each little jump, her tail moving to keep her centered and not tumbling don, was not part of the actual exercises, but it was a nice little warmup all the same.
Getting to the bottom, Mila was not surprised to see that she was not the first one down. The tavern itself was closed as Darimash did not do breakfast, but Naw-Naw was in the kitchen alread, getting a jump on the day’s food preparations as part of their contribution to the deal that let them live here. The gnoll was a follower of the Goddess of Feasts, after all, and Mila was pretty sure that cooking up all the food scored the clergyperson brownie points with the Goddess. Naw-Naw was making out like a bandit with the deal, Mila suspected..
Not that Mila or Darimash or any of the others minded at all. That the tavern keeper would get mornings off and spend most evenings with a much reduced workload while the adventurers were in town was surely a blessing all its own, no deity directly required. And for Mila’s own part, the tinkering that she would be assigned soon enough was, at worst, a step out of her way. Anything but getting forced into the kitchen herself, for everyone’s sakes.
That was all for later, at least. The kobold moved up to the bar, hopping up to stand on the rungs of a stool so she could peak past the countertop. “I’ll be exercising out here. That alright with you, Naw-Naw?” Mila knew the answer, but also knew it best to ask out of respect.
“Mmm, sure, sure,” her big counterpart responded, pronouncing it ‘shore’, as they waved a large spoon at Mila offhandedly. Mila barely processed it before she was hopping up and away from the bar, catching herself lightly on the worn wooden floor and kicking her slaps off with the next bounce. Then it was the first, unplanned for workout - moving the chairs and the unreasonably heavy table from where she decided to get to work. The three seats were easy enough, if awkward to tip back and waddle away with, but the actual table was never going to be something she would casually pick up and cart away, even if she suddenly joined Rora in her muscle-gaining mission.
Instead, Mila was stuck throwing her shoulder into one its legs, shunting it about by inches with each impact. At least she was able to use her tail, wrapped at the leg’s base, to ensure she did not miss, which would have been too embarrassing even if there was nobody around to see such occur. She was a well-respected warrior-adventurer of Rat-Hate, after all! A frenetic fury of knives, fangs, feet, and tail! To fumble throwing herself up against an inanimate object would reflect poorly!
It would probably reflect even worse on everyone and everything she had ever bowled over off their feet, sure, but Mila preferred to think that the insults she tended to spill out during such scraps did that well enough on their own.
Thankfully, there was not much time for contemplating how to order a custom sarcastic t-shirt in Fantasyland, with its lack of internet-run, copyright-infringing screen printing services. Minimal time to miss out on the internet in general. Certainly no time to spend considering the friends that were firmly planted in Scienceland, far away from her. Definitely no repression in that regards! With one last thump, the table was finally scooted away far enough that Mila had the room she needed, moving into the open space and feeling it out for a second. After ensuring she would not be braining herself on a bit of wayward furniture, Mila dipped forward slowly, quietly marveling at herself.
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One hand stretched stretched down, alighting palm first on the smooth ground without even a hint of real strain in the backs of her legs, as straight as they were. Her second hand planted next to the first and she began to shift her weight forward before she gave the smallest kick against the ground, legs rising with a grace that waged war between being perfectly normal for her and being strictly reserved for international-level gymnasts. She stopped them at their apex and then walked… forward? Backward? On her hands, this time with a smoothness that was probably better described as fit for a horror film. And as easy as it was to stand up on her hands, it was just as simple to tip the rest of the way, tail counterbalancing, to land her feet and push herself back up.
Some more conventional side stretches gave Mila a moment’s reprieve to process how she had not fallen on her head, nor was she in any agony, half of her demanding that both of those things should have come to pass. The fight with the yotels had been contextless for Scienceland, which had no monstrous, hand-having mystic coyotes, much to the realm’s unknowing gratitude. Hacking through the vegetation was something both halves knew how to do and had felt mostly the same, even if the scale for how big an ivy vine should be was different, but how it felt did not factor in the differences in weight and muscle that were in play. This… was something that slammed the differences home the most.
The height was one thing - half of her was still expecting to look at a given person and need to look down, but even if she had been a tall human in Scienceland, she had met taller. She had never been able to do a handstand, even the wibbly ones that had you resting your legs against a wall, much less being able to fluidly just roll on up to her feet. At least the side stretches and jumping jacks were something she had been able to do on that half of her before-life.
It was not quite dysphoric - none of the incongruities had been, once she had figured out the initial sticking point of having two sets of experiences. Even the loss of her long hair did not bother her like she expected it to, perhaps offset by the lack of need to shave everywhere else. But her new capabilities were extremely alien, and given how much more flexible and athletic she was here and now, parts of her would need to get put through the paces, at least introduced to that alien feeling so it did not get in her way when she could not afford the distraction. Her mental stumble with the yotels was demonstration enough for that, even if she had managed to keep her leg through the magic of magic bullshit.
That she had shrugged off that physical trauma, and worse before, was something she slotted in alongside her new dexterity - unlike her superhuman, or superkobold, speed, she had no plans on testing it out to get acquainted with it again.
She stuck to regular stuff first, lunges mostly, and the burning muscle pain never set in, even as she got past ten, twenty, fifty repetitions before she moved on to the next exercise. Part of her, the pieces still marveling at how she was able to keep this up and not even noticing how fast she was cruising through the sets, wanted to just keep going until her body screamed to stop, just to see how high up she could push her number of reps. She did not listen though, as that sounded vaguely harmful and, more importantly, would leave her too tired for the fun stuff she actually wanted to do.
There was another round of stretches, body and spine bending to and fro. Her flexibility would put a contortionist to shame, and a whisper at the back of her mind promised that she was going to make a lady feel particularly lucky some day, which brought a self-satisfied grin to her face. For now, though, she would have to be content with instead ruining the day of her imaginary opponents, a prospect that seemed just as enjoyable, albeit for very different reasons.
Mila shook her hands out as she began to bounce on her feet, toe claws ticking against the ground as she came down each time, sliding her way back. The flickering of the magical light, a purposeful affectation to mimic the much less safe torchlight that felt right for a tavern, set her silhouette to flickering about sporadically enough that Mila could not quite get the pristine image that came to mind when she thought ‘shadow boxing’. It was a small disappointment that only lasted for the first few handfuls of straightforward punches she threw, arms tucked in close and fists snapping out in a beat that only grew faster.
Her shadow did not fit the idea, and once she found her blazing rhythm, the boxing aspect fell apart too. Kicks soon entered the mix, a blend of low and middle height blows, each attack moving into the next with a fluid perfection that felt well-planned, even if it was just her flowing into what felt natural. Which is exactly what she did, letting the current move her into the meat of her practice.
A kick was sent from the side, right where a human’s knee would be, and she kept the momentum, bringing the foot down and planting it only to pop the other out behind her, crunching the other phantom knee even as her tail shot up and out, shrieking through the air where a throat would be. She kept moving though, dropping her slight weight down, pivoting, and uncoiling up into the air, her smile stretched wide over open teeth that sought blood that was not there.
And just like that, she was in the middle of the storm. She was the storm. Tigger after he had learned mixed-martial arts and then had been bitten by a radioactive supergator, potentially still waiting to hear a speech about power and responsibility. She did not have her blades, if only because Mila did not dare risk scratching any of the furniture, but she was in her element, whirring like a blender possessed, knowing full well that Scienceland had rules about never turning your back to an enemy in a fight but also knowing that with how fast she was going, it was instead best to bring her feet and tail to bear.
It was not her own conclusion either, although her time on the job and in the fight also said that it was true. Her whole fighting style was not hers alone, instead largely coming out of a massive tome she had found years ago, back before she had left where she grew up without looking back. It had been awkward to learn at first, as all the spinning took a while to get used to, but even now she was working to learn more of it, refine it, make it work for here wholly. It was a massive manual, after all, with illustrations as small as the author could make them, far as Mila reckoned, but one day she would master all of it.
She had not brought down The Domain of Dragons’ Death, locked up in one of the trunks that they kept stashed in Naw-Naw’s attic when out of town. For today, at least, she could take a break and not start refining the next brutal trick up her sleeve. Well, that and while she was excited to get back to working on bettering herself, first she had business of the day to take care of, her mind starting to work at that knowledge as her flurry of shadow boxing began to wind down.
She had errands to run, of course, straightforward items like picking up some supplies for the group and whatnot. But more importantly to her, both Fantasyland and Scienceland parts ablaze with excitement, she had money to spend. It was time to go shopping!