That same night, Ammeline took some time to herself. Or at least, it was SUPPOSED to be for herself. She walked out into the yard, again, sitting on the same bench she'd been sitting on when she'd become queen of the fairies. Everyone seemed to think the flowers growing out of her hair were a fashion choice. As far as she could tell, they were a part of her. This was... frustrating. And something she was going to have to deal with eventually. There had to be some way to get them under control.
But that might, while the others investigated the new girls haunted house, she was just looking to relax. Which shed found a lot easier to do out in nature, ever since she became queen of the fairies. Stupid fairie magic. But whatever it took to relax. Do she sat down, leaned back, closed her eyes, and let out a long, slow breath.
"Deeg!"
Ammeline didn't move.
"Deeg deeg!"
"Look," she said, her eyes remaining firmly closed, "whatever you are. I know I'm your queen, or whatever, but this is human time. Me time. I left very able officials and one moderately deranged octopus in charge. I'm more of a mystical figurehead. So go bring it up with the shadowy conspiracy behind the throne and leave me in peace."
"Deeg! Deeg! Deeg! Deeg! Deeg! Deeg! Deeg!"
She opened her eyes.
"I feel like I ought to make some kind of comment here, but at this point I can't even be surprised."
Crowding around her feet were about a hundred little bushes wearing pointy hats. They moved in a jittering, twittering clump, and they didn't seem to like when they weren't touching at least one other of the crowd. It happened sometimes, in their milling around, but the loose one always hurried and clumped up with the others.
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"So you guys are...gnomes?" She guessed.
"Deeg!" One of them chirped angrily.
"Right. And I'm not going to fall into a comedy bit where I try to repeat that noise you guys are making and accidentally offend you or whatever. So forget what you are, what do you want?"
"Deeg!" "Deeg!" "Deeg!" "Deeg!"
"Well that was predictable. Okay so... charades?"
"Deeg! Deeg! Deeg! Deeg! Deeg..."
"They're shrub sprites."
Ammeline jerked up at the unwelcome voice, reaching for her sword. She never let it get far away from her these days, just in case, you know, someone who'd tried to kill her once showed up.
"Oh relax I'm not here to fight. I'm still depowered, anyway. You'd poke me full of holes in seconds."
Sylvanandra walked out of the shadows of the trees. The little creatures, shrub sprites apparently, shifted to the other side of Ammeline and hid behind her, peeking nervously at the eleven sorceress.
"They still don't seem to like you," Ammeline said. "So far what I know about Shrub Sprites is that they have excellent taste."
"Hilarious. They're just reacting to how different my nature magic is from theirs. But at least I can talk to them."
The eleven sorceress raised an eyebrow, and there was a feeling of... something. The shrub sprites bristled, then started chirping a chorus of angry "Deeg!"-ing.
"You can speak their language and you used it to insult them?"
"I just said the first thing that came to mind. And it's not a language, it's deeper communication than that. Wanna know how I did it?"
"Obviously! But why would I want you to teach me?"
"Because despite the Myrdin girl using nature magic, she's using a different kind. Hers is all growth and control. She's not actually a PART of the Green Weave, like we are."
"Ahahahahahaha!" Ammeline scoffed dismissively. "You want me to...."
"And now you're trying to act all arrogant to cover for not knowing what the Green Weave is."
Ammeline shut her mouth and glared.
"I can make an educated guess."
"How educated?" Sylvanandra pressed. "If I were to say the word Sh'kha'rem...nope, sorry, that's what it is in elvish, that's cheating, what's the human for it... mycorrhizal network, there we go, you'd have any idea what I was talking about?"
Ammeline glared more.
"Deeg!"
"Stop helping," Ammeline hissed. "Alright. What do you want in exchange for teaching me?"
"We can discuss that...later," Sylvanandra said with a sly smile.
"That's it!" Ammeline grabbed her sword.
"I'm bored okay!" Sylvanandra held up her hands in surrender. "I'm not allowed to do any evil schemes and I've barely got any magic! Teaching you to talk like a plant is the most interesting thing to do around here! Geeze you try to kill somebody one, two...okay it was THREE times unless you count it all as one one incident but still aggro much?"
Ammeline paused, still gripping her sword.
"Alright fine. Where do we start?"