38. THE FROGS AND THE BEES

Today was the first day of magic lessons; mercifully, it seemed Melvin was a far gentler teacher than her dear cousin (thank the gods for that.) But gentle or not, it didn’t take long for Mibbet to come to the realisation that while it might look easy, magic was HARD. The worst bit was they started from hitting the books, Mibbet was very much more a physical type of person, (at least, she was when little Elvira wasn't at making her do laps, and jumping jacks, until she fell flat on her back).

So when confronted by a wall of menacing letters, she’d almost retreated right then and there. But she had to do this; this was for dealing with owls everywhere.

Eventually, the alphabetic assault ended, and out came a series of the world's most terrifying doodles. Circles within circles, stars within stars, row upon row of ruinous runes wrapped round rings. It was enough to make the mind boggle (if it didn’t explode first.) Soon, though, Melvin may have noticed that his newest student wasn’t quite getting it (the 20th paper wad to the back of the head was what clued him in) and wondered if maybe showing her what she could do would be more effective.

“Imagine your body suddenly warmed up. Can you do that?” Mibbet gave a flat stare; she had a feeling that suddenly becoming warm-blooded was cheating as far as this bit went.

“Now picture that warmth circulating in your body around the middle of your chest, picture it swirling around, making a little stone right under that little hollow in your ribcage.”

Mibbet tried, and tried, and tried again until eventually, she felt something. It was there, she gave a proud grin.

“Good congratulations on manifesting your magic core; humans have to manifest them manually, in monsters they’re naturally forming. It’s possible, but a very bad idea to build a human core up using those; don’t try it unless you’re keen on the idea of suddenly growing horns or extra body parts. You take on traits if you try it.

Instead, we use those cores to power things; they’re how the hot water runs in the castle.”

Mibbet suddenly found the boring lesson riveting. This was the secret to a nice hot bath? Frogs would kill for that technology, and here she was learning it for free. Like some Froggy Prometheus. (Though hopefully not exactly like that, she was quite attached to her liver, and from what Rosalind showed her of that particular legend, annoying gods would run somewhat counter to that attachment.)

Now, she couldn’t exactly adapt that technology once she got back. Frogs were, all told, not really known for their great civil engineering projects. But maybe she could figure something out before then. Out came the pencils and paper as she started to sketch.

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She started from the design for the existing ponds at the new temples, then, well... she could figure out the logistics later, but they involved pumping the water around, over hot rocks, flat ones with frog friendly hidey holes, draining through the bottom of the pond (with a little holed wall thing to stop frogs getting sucked into it), then back over the rocks again. It would stop the water getting gross, and sound nice. She didn’t even notice Melvin stop teaching and begin to observe her instead.

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Melvin was gobsmacked at what he saw, it seemed like this was the intention behind the pool areas at the shrine, hot water to cleanse the body and soul, and she even left gaps for theoretical cleaning filters and a pump. Plus, a grille and hiding places for her beloved frogs. Looking at that, he just couldn’t help himself any longer. He started to produce designs of his own. A pump that fit the blueprints, a mist enchantment for privacy.

This would provide bathing facilities for the peasants, which would raise hygiene and improve health. Plus, it could be considered holy water. Due to the drought, most of the farmers monitored their water carefully; they didn’t waste it on luxuries like bathing, (who would when their food supply needed watering), but the water at the shrines stood doing nothing. Was this what Wannashowa intended from the very start? A communal bathing area might take more water initially, but in the long term, it saves water. Especially given that it recirculated.

In the north, this wouldn’t do too much; after all, the problem with the water was logistical in nature for the most part. But in the south, it would give justification to ship some water without the lords grumbling too much. Too many of them had money loaned by the temples to want to cross them. Maybe after this, he should have a quick word with a few old friends, see if there was a way to ensure the right words reached the right ears to make it very awkward for the lords to refuse.

Melvin eyed the rudimentary lesson plan he had mapped out and had second thoughts; maybe he should step up the difficulty, since it seemed the Princess was either truly god touched or a genius.

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Meanwhile, the genius was aghast at the shocking news. “What do you mean? Some humans, a species that has reached the pinnacle of bathing technology, live in places without a simple POND? How? How do you get so many little human tadpoles running around if you can’t even spawn?”

“This may come as a shock to you, Mibbet, but humans don’t work that way. We don’t have spawning pools because that’s not how you get little humans.”

This news hit Mibbet like a bolt of lightning, a truly shocking revelation. So her admittedly not so well attuned self-preservation instincts let her down once again, as she made another silly mistake, in the form of the word “how?”

Thus, Mibbet was given an impromptu, and rather more laced with saucy images than was proper for a young Princess, lesson in the birds and the bees. (Which involved rather fewer birds and bees than Mibbet had expected, and rather more bits and pieces, and gross details about bits of human, than Mibbet ever wished to see.)

At that point, Mibbet’s response of “bugger that” didn’t help when it triggered yet another lesson from Rosalind that had poor little Mibbet‘s brain reeling in horror. (It would appear Rosalind’s knowledge in this field, carefully plundered from red-covered books in the library, contained a wealth of data would haunt poor Mibbet for the rest of her days.)