Chương 24: Lemon and Midnight's Mushroom Hunt

A golden retriever named Lemon sniffed at the ground curiously, then sneezed when a dead leaf tickled her nose.

"I don't think this is the right place," she said to her friend, a black cat named Midnight.

"Of course it is. This is where we always get them," Midnight told her.

"Maybe I should get a pig out here to sniff them out instead of you."

"Do you think so? My nose is pretty good. I'm not sure a pig would do much better." They were looking for a very specific ingredient for the potion Hogarth was working on, a mushroom he'd described as having a dark blue cap spotted with lighter, electric blue marks and with black frills underneath. Lemon had never made this potion before, so she wasn't familiar with the mushrooms. That was why Midnight had come along, to make sure she got the right ones.

"Just keep looking. There's bound to be some nearby." It would help if Lemon knew what they smelled like to begin with, but she was determined not to let that stop her. It would also help if there were less leaves on the ground, but it was Autumn, and apparently that was the best time to collect the mushrooms. That made it harder, both to see and to smell. There were plenty of musty and mildewy smells going around.

"What if we can't find them?" Lemon asked.

"Then I guess Hogarth will be disappointed in you-" Lemon gasped at the idea.

"-and Latressa won't get her potion of familiar awakening, and won't have any reason to come visit," Midnight finished. Well, in that case, Lemon had no choice but to keep looking. She didn't want Hogarth to be disappointed, and if Latressa didn't come visit, Bon wouldn't come with her. And since she hadn't seen Bon in what felt like forever, but which Midnight insisted had only been four months, Lemon was highly motivated to find that mushroom. Maybe it was that way…

She sniffed again, her nose overturning some loose leaves and pushing them out of the way, only to reveal plain grass and a whiff of wet rot from the underside of the leaves. Undeterred, Lemon kept sniffing, steadily making her way towards the next fungus-y smell. This one was under a hollowed-out log, just barely visible. Lemon peered into the crevice made from a little pocket of dug out dirt and spotted a sliver of blue.

"Midnight, I think I found it. Can you come look?" When the cat didn't answer, Lemon looked up and spotted her staring at a trio of birds in the branches overhead, her tail flicking back and forth and her ears perked up. The birds fluttered away, and her head turned to track their path.

"Midnight," Lemon said with a small bark.

"Hmm? What's that?" Midnight replied, snapping her eyes back down to ground level.

"I think I found one of the mushrooms. We'll have to dig it out from under this log." Midnight sauntered over, peered into the dark little crevice, and said,"Yes! That's it. I'll lift this log out of the way and you can dig them out." The log floated up into the air and shifted over before thumping back down on an unoccupied section of the forest floor. Working carefully, Lemon dug out around the small cluster of mushrooms and gently removed them, one by one.

It wasn't her favorite kind of digging, the whole going slowly and precisely, but she was an expert digger and she got it done. Later on, she'd dig a hole just for the sake of digging, and then she'd really cut loose. The ground humped up into a little mound near her, and then broke open. A small mole popped up, gave her a glare, and yelled,"Hey! What the heck are you doing digging into our ceiling like that!"

"I'm… sorry?" Lemon said, more a question than an apology. Uncertainly, she glanced over at Midnight, who looked just as surprised as Lemon felt. Two more holes quickly opened up next to the initial one, and a trio of moles all ganged up them, their cries coming in over top of each other.

"Rude to just barge in like that!"

"Ripping away our roof like it's anybody's business."

"Trying to steal food practically right off our table."

"No regard for other people, just do whatever you want."

"Can't believe the nerve of…" Lemon retreated from the moles to go stand by Midnight.

"What do we do?" she asked.

"I… I don't know. I've never seen this happen before," the cat answered.

"I think some of the local animals actually awakened all on their own, just from eating some of the Hashamis growing above where they dug out their burrows."

"They're not even listening to us!" one of the moles said to his friends.

"I think we ought to do something about that."

"Uh oh," Lemon said.

"Okay, everyone calm down here," Midnight ordered, stepping between Lemon and the moles.

"Look, this has been a big misunderstanding. We were just looking for some of the Hashami mushrooms that were growing here. We didn't know they belonged to anybody, and we certainly didn't mean to dig into your burrow."

"Who cares what you meant! You opened our home right up and took our food from us."

"We can… fix that?" Midnight gave Lemon a glance.

"Can you fix that?"

"I don't think so. I could dig a hole or fill one in, but I can't make a burrow sized for something so small."

"We'll dig our own burrow, thank you very much!" the shrillest of the trio said.

"As long as that snake doesn't eat us first," one of the other ones muttered darkly. Lemon and Midnight exchanged glances.

"Maybe we could guard them while they dig a new home?" Lemon asked.

"Depends on how long it takes," Midnight said.

"We've still got to find a new colony of Hashamis. We can't take these ones if they belong to the moles."

"How kind of you not to destroy our home and rob us blind," one of the moles said sarcastically.

"We're already blind."

"Shut it and start digging."

"What if we bought the mushrooms?" Midnight asked. The three moles stopped working and turned to peer in her general direction. They ended up looking more towards a small bush with dark-colored leaves than at Midnight, but she smoothly stepped over to sit in the center of their vision.

"What are you offering?" the lead mole asked.

"Better be something good."

"What do you want?" Midnight countered.

"I'm guessing you're not interested in money. Maybe a nice blanket for your new burrow?"

"Or a sausage," Lemon suggested.

"Just let me handle this," Midnight hissed at her.

"What's a sausage?" one of the moles asked. Lemon gasped and took a step back.

"You've never had sausage? It's my favorite thing!"

"Sausage sounds good," another mole said.

"Hold on," the boss mole told them.

"We don't even know what a sausage is yet. Show us a sausage and we'll consider if we want it."

"Oh. Um… I don't have any right now," Lemon admitted.

"Then why did you bring it up?" Midnight asked her, exasperated.

"I don't know. Because I thought they might want one?"

"But even if they did, we don't have one to give them. Might as well offer them the moon."

"What's the moon?" a mole asked.

"It doesn't matter, we can't give it to you anyway!" Before the argument could spiral any further out of control, the boss mole cleared his throat and said,"Enough of all this! I know what I want. You can have the mushrooms… if you get rid of the snake that keeps eating us moles." Lemon looked around, almost expecting a snake to pop up at any moment. She wasn't too thrilled with that idea, to be honest. It wasn't that she was afraid, of course. Snakes were just…

Lemon shivered and resolved to think about happier things, things like sausages and rolling around on the grass and helping Hogarth make potions.

"What kind of snake are we talking about here?" Midnight asked, apparently not immediately rejecting the idea. Lemon wasn't sure if she agreed with that. It would probably be better to just go find different mushrooms. Then again, they had accidentally destroyed the moles' home with their digging-- Midnight got part of the blame for that too, even if it was Lemon who'd done the actual digging itself-- so she supposed it was only fair they helped.

"It's a big one, about ten moles long, black, and right vicious. Could probably eat you whole," the mole boss told Midnight.

"Life would be much easier if you got rid of it for us. You do that, and we'll forgive you for ruining our home and give you all the mushrooms you want."

"And it lives nearby?" Midnight said. Yep, Midnight was definitely considering going on a snake hunt. There was no doubt about it. And if she went, she would expect Lemon to come to. She'd probably expect Lemon to help fight the snake, and Lemon would help, but she would not want to. The only reason she hadn't already said no was that she wanted to see Bon again. And also because she felt kind of guilty about digging up the mushrooms.

Midnight got her directions, the mole boss cheerfully wished her good luck, or at least he said,"Good luck not dying," which was kind of the same thing, and they were off. Lemon followed somewhat hesitantly behind Midnight, her nose on high alert for snake smells.

"Are you sure this is a good idea?" Lemon asked.

"Why wouldn't it be?"

"Because it's a snake!"

"So what?" Lemon paused and looked around, then leaned it close and whispered,"Snakes are scary." Midnight regarded her incredulously.

"Didn't you kill a vampire over the summer?"

"Well, I helped kill one."

"And… you think a snake is scarier than a vampire?"

"They're all scaly and they have those eyes and the tongue and… eeeuugghh. What if it bites me?"

"Unbelievable," Midnight muttered. Then the cat started walking again, ignoring Lemon's protests and leaving her with no choice but to scamper along or else be left behind. Lemon followed, reluctantly and with great hesitation. She kept her eyes peeled for snakes in the grass, but she didn't see anything.

"The snake probably isn't black," Midnight said.

"What? But the moles said…"

"They're the next best thing to blind. Everything looks dark to them when they can see it at all. I doubt it's as big as they think it is either." Lemon wasn't sure that made it better. At least before she thought she had a good idea what she was looking for, but if she couldn't trust the color or the size that the moles had described, then the snake could be anywhere. It could be crawling up behind her right now. Lemon spun in a quick circle, just to be safe. There was no snake behind her.

"What are you doing?" Midnight asked.

"Looking for the snake."

"The moles said it lives in the gully," Midnight told her. Lemon had missed that part. She also didn't know where the gully was, but Midnight seemed to, so she supposed it was best to just follow the cat. She'd be safe until they got there, probably. Unless the snake was on its way over to the moles for a meal. Then they might run into it early. Lemon spotted a long slender form in the grass and let out a warning bark. Midnight jumped and spun to look at her, then followed her gaze to the spot of grass.

"That's just a stick, dummy." Immediately, Lemon relaxed and sniffed in the stick's direction.

"Oh, right. I knew that."

"I cannot believe you're scared of snakes. Of all the possible things in the world to be afraid of, why snakes? It makes no sense."

"Stop making fun of me!"

"This is that cleaning spell Hogarth found to use on the rugs all over again."

"That spell was very loud!" Lemon protested.

"Well, okay. It was kind of loud. But why were you afraid of it?"

"Hogarth said it was fine, that everybody is scared of something."

"And you're apparently scared of cleaning spells and snakes."

"At least I'm not afraid of baths!" Midnight just stared at her for a second, and then, sputtering, said,"I'm not afraid of baths." Lemon sniffed and walked past the cat, her snout in the air.

"If you say so." * The gully was a lot bigger than Lemon was expecting. It was four dogs tall, at least. Wait, no, Midnight had been teaching her human measurements. It was seven feet tall? Or was it eight. She wasn't sure. One side was sheer and rocky, with a few trees perched at the top that had roots poking out through the walls. The other side had a slope, but it was steep enough that Lemon doubted she could climb it without magic to help her along.

Big, moss-covered rocks littered the gully, and a small creek wound through them. The moss grew up the rocks to the gully wall and onto the bark of the trees, painting everything the same fuzzy green color. There was a wide trail scraped through the moss leading into the gully from the one spot where the slope was gentle enough for animals to go up and down it. It terminated at the edge of the creek.

"This is the place?" Lemon asked.

"I don't see any snakes."

"Maybe it's not home right now," Midnight said, her eyes scanning the gully.

"Only one way to find out." She started down the trail and into the gully itself. Lemon opted to wait at the top, to which Midnight just scoffed and shook her head before continuing down to the creek. She peered around, looking between the stones and at the crevices in the gully wall, but there were enough spaces to hide that it would probably take them an hour or two to search them all, at least on her own.

"You could come down and help, you know," Midnight said.

"I should stay up here and keep an eye out." Midnight started muttering something, but it was quiet enough that Lemon couldn't make it out. She crawled up and down the gully while Lemon 'kept watch' for the snake. Thankfully, it was nowhere to be found. With any luck, Midnight would give up soon and they could leave to go find the mushrooms Hogarth wanted somewhere else. Midnight eventually came back up to the top of the gully and shook her head.

"No sign of any snakes."

"That's… terrible. Yes. Very bad luck. Oh well, let's get going."

"If by 'let's get going' you mean, 'I'm coming down to help you look,' then yes, I agree. Come on, you giant chicken." When Lemon froze, unmoving, Midnight picked her up with magic and deposited her into the gully. Despite doing her best to squirm out of the spell, she landed on one of the moss-covered rocks and immediately froze in place. Midnight climbed down and went to stand next to her.

"Listen to me, Lemon. Hogarth needs those mushrooms. This is how we get them. I promise you, no snake is going to hurt you. I will keep you safe, okay? Just help me look."

"Okay," Lemon said in a small voice. Her tail did not wag at all, but she followed Midnight around as they peered into various cracks.

"Isn't it kind of weird that the moles are smart?" Lemon asked.

"If they weren't, we wouldn't even be here."

"Not so much," Midnight said.

"They live right below a patch of mushrooms that's the main ingredient for the potion used to awaken an animal. They've probably been nibbling on them their whole lives."

"Huh, so why do we need to make a potion at all if animals can get smarter just from eating the mushrooms?"

"Mostly it's a factor of time, I believe," Midnight explained as she peered between two stones.

"The potion is a one-time use, and the subject awakens over the next day. To do it naturally, you'd have to spend months regularly eating the mushrooms."

"Oh, I see. The potion is a catalyst for the effects of the mushroom."

"Sure, that sounds right," Midnight agreed. Despite her master being focused heavily on alchemy, Midnight didn't spend much time assisting him in the lab. That was Lemon's job. She was Master Hogarth's Chief Research Assistant, and had helped him make hundreds of potions over the last few years. The familiar awakening potion was a new one to her, not having been needed at any time since she'd come to live with Hogarth. Her own origins were somewhat unique, and she'd never used such a potion herself.

"That was the only patch of mushrooms we found though. Do you think all the moles have been eating them?" Midnight paused to think about that for a second.

"Maybe. That might explain why it was so hard to find any."

"And eating the mushrooms makes you smarter, if you keep eating them for long enough, for a few months at least?"

"I just said that," Midnight told her. Lemon stood there, her tail wagging slowly as she thought about things.

"So, if the moles all got smart from eating the mushrooms for months, and the snake has been eating the moles, does that mean the snake got smart too?" Midnight froze in place, her eyes wide, and slowly turned her head to look at Lemon.

"Do you think so?"

"I don't know. It makes sense to me."

"Maybe we should get out of here after all." Lemon nodded her agreement.

"It's getting dark anyway." Midnight looked up at the sky, then around the gully.

"That's strange, it's too early for it to be getting dark." Something scraped softly against the rock nearby, and both Lemon and Midnight turned towards the sound. If there was anything there, they couldn't see it. A hissing came from behind them, causing them both to spin around again. The hissing grew into a laughing sound, but now it was coming from every direction.

"It is not often," a feminine voice said,"that my meal delivers itself to me. I confess that I'm not sure I can even eat the big one, but the small one will make a fine dinner." Involuntarily, Lemon took a step closer to Midnight. Something brushed against Lemon's paw, and she looked down to see a long, sinuous, scaled body with dark gray and black scales winding between her legs towards the cat. It was nowhere near the source of the sounds, and only sheer luck had let her notice it at all.

"Watch out!" Lemon barked as she scrambled to back away from the snake. It was longer than Hogarth was tall, and wider around than Lemon's snout, with the bulk of its length still curled between the rocks. Midnight didn't run from the snake, and as it reared up, she leaped forward, claws extended. They raked down the side of the snake's body, only for sparks to erupt from its scales. Undeterred, she used her own magic to fling the snake straight up into the air, where it vanished into the darkness.

The hissing laugh continued unabated the entire time.

"Lemon, get out of the gully. I'm right behind you." Lemon scrambled for the trail that led out of the gully, only to find that it was gone. Everything outside the gully had been swallowed by darkness so thick that she couldn't see a thing.

"Midnight…" The cat's eyes, wide and bright in the darkness, took in the scene instantly.

"Some sort of illusion magic. Lemon, you need to break this." Something moving too fast to track struck out at the cat, but Midnight flung herself straight up into the air and it passed by below her.

"Ah, you're much quicker than anything else I've hunted," the snake said.

"I'm not sure I appreciate that." The gully lit up as a second shower of sparks poured off the snake's scales. Midnight's claws had no more effect this time than they had during the first pass, at least not that Lemon could tell. She pawed at the ground nervously, not sure if she should move forward to help Midnight or not.

"Break the darkness, Lemon!" Midnight ordered.

"Okay, I'm on it." This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience. Lemon hunkered down in place and focused. Slowly at first, little motes of light started to glide across her fur and drift up into the air around Lemon. Seconds went by and the gully brightened up as an aura of golden light flared out from Lemon's fur. Suddenly, the light reached a tipping point, and the illusion of darkness that smothered the gully shattered.

Full daylight poured back in again, lighting it back up to normal, and Lemon was greeted to the horrifying sight of Midnight caught in the coils of the snake, struggling valiantly to break free while it did its best to crush her. Lemon didn't have a plan. She knew that a bark would do as much damage to Midnight as it did to the snake, and that the snake itself appeared to be well armored. All that told her was what she couldn't do, though, not what she could. But she had muscles, and she had teeth.

And as scary as that snake was, Lemon wasn't going to let it eat Midnight. Her jaws clamped down right behind the snake's head and she pulled, as hard as she could. The snake writhed, its coils still wrapped tight around Midnight, but Lemon dragged it back. The distraction was enough, and Midnight managed to thrash her way free of the crushing coils.

"Hold it steady, Lemon," the cat said darkly. Her claws flexed brightly in the sunlight. Before she could take a single step forward, the snake hissed out something and opened its mouth. A stream of black liquid shot at Midnight, something that sputtered and sizzled in the open air. Midnight's eyes flashed and her own magic caught the liquid while it was still coming at her.

"I don't think so. You're not going to get me again, not without your illusions to hide behind." The snake stopped its thrashing and regarded Midnight with its dead, black eyes. Its body was still caught in Lemon's jaws, but it didn't seem concerned. Its head tilted up towards the tree branches hanging over the gully, and Lemon saw a whole bunch of other snakes up there. They fell down as one, a rain of serpents that poured onto Lemon and Midnight.

Lemon scrambled to get out from underneath them before they landed on her, and in her panic, the snake managed to flex its muscles and break free. Immediately, it slithered away and disappeared into a hole in the ground near the base of the gully.

"No!" Midnight said.

"It's getting away!" The snakes falling down from the trees broke apart as they came within the radius of Lemon's golden aura. She blinked as they cracked into black splinters that then crumbled to dust.

"What happened?"

"More illusions. It seems this one is a magical snake, but its talents are the exact opposite of yours. Instead of light, it works from the shadows."

"What do we do now?" Lemon asked. Midnight gestured towards the hole the snake had escaped into.

"We dig it out. You brought your digging charm, right?"

"I did, but are you sure this is a good idea?"

"Do you want to just leave it here to attack someone else?" That was a good point. Lemon didn't think the snake was necessarily bad; it was just trying to survive after all. It ate other animals because that's what all snakes did. Midnight did it too occasionally, though mice rarely got into the tower. Even sausages were made from animals. That didn't mean Lemon was going to let that snake eat them, of course, but she didn't hold it against the snake for trying. On the other paw, snakes were still icky.

But they'd promised the mole trio, too, and Lemon was a dog of her word. Reluctantly, she moved her spectacles charm into her bag, took out her digging charm, a little shovel, and attached it to one of the five spots on her collar. The world dimmed a little, the colors less vibrant and all the various shades less distinct. Without her spectacles charm, she was limited to a dog's eyes instead of seeing human colors. Maybe that was better, though.

Dogs could see better in the dark, and it was going to be dark in that hole.

"I'm going to get started. You'll watch for the snake for me?"

"How would I even… sure, fine. I'll watch out." With the magic of her little shovel charm, Lemon got to work. Each scoop of her paws dragged out great chunks of pebble-filled dirt and flung it behind her, and each passing second widened the hole the snake had disappeared into. Within a minute, the hole was so big that Lemon was below ground level. And then the bottom fell away, Lemon let out a yip of surprise, and she fell at least two dogs' height to sprawl out on a wet stone ground.

An instant later, Midnight landed next to her.

"Are you alright?"

"My leg hurts," Lemon said. She got back up on all four paws and took an experimental step. There was a bit of a limp to her step, but not so much that it would slow her down. She looked around, her eyes scanning the darkness for the snake. There was nothing.

"Can you smell it down here?" Midnight asked. Lemon sniffed at the floor and shook her head.

"Everything smells like the snake, or like water."

"I guess we're going to be searching the hard way then." Lemon gave herself a good shake and shed the bit of water she'd picked up, then she started glowing softly. The darkness was pushed back and shadows twisted wildly across the walls as she stepped forward.

"I'm ready."

"How bold of you, to come into my home uninvited," the snake's voice called out.

"If you're really so determined to feed me, I suppose I can't say no." Midnight's eyes scoured the shadows, but she shook her head.

"This thing is toying with us. It's still very confident."

"And I take offense to being called an 'it.'" That was fair. The snake's voice was distinctly female after all. Lemon didn't want to be rude, even if it was to an enemy.

"Do you have a name?" There was a pause, then the voice said,"Vescara."

"That's a nice name," Lemon said.

"My name is Lemon. This is my friend, Midnight."

"Lemon, what are you doing?" Midnight asked.

"What? I'm being polite."

"It is trying to kill us," Midnight told her.

"We started it," Lemon said.

"There's no reason to be ruder than we already are."

"I thought you were afraid of snakes!"

"Well, I mean… yes, but this is different."

"How is this different?" Midnight demanded.

"If anything, it's worse!" Vescara slithered out of the darkness to the edge of the glow coming off Lemon's fur, where she halted.

"Why are you here? You're not dumb beasts. You came here specifically to hunt me down."

"The moles," Midnight said.

"What about them?"

"They've been eating Hashami mushrooms and awakened. It's not right to eat them." The snake seemed to consider that for a few seconds, then said,"But I get hungry, and they are tasty."

"You can't eat animals who have awakened," Lemon insisted.

"I'll eat who I please. I'd like to see you try to stop me." Midnight stepped between Lemon and the snake.

"It's just an illusion. She's too afraid to fight us head on. We just need to find her and this will be over with." Vescara laughed.

"You're underestimating how big it is down here. You'll never find me if I don't want to be found, even without the magic." The illusion broke apart, the snake vanishing into the darkness. It wasn't until it was gone that Lemon realized she couldn't smell anything coming from it. Her nose was much sharper than Midnight's, though.

"How did you know?"

"I tried to pick her up with telekinesis," Midnight told her. The hissing laughter echoed through the cave.

"Good luck," Vescara taunted. Midnight stared out into the darkness, her eyes bright with the reflected glow of Lemon's fur.

"She's gone now." Lemon huffed and sat down.

"What do we do?"

"I don't know. She's right. We're not going to find her like this. Maybe we should split up."

"That's a bad idea," Lemon said immediately.

"It is. Do you have a better idea?"

"Not splitting up. We'll look together."

"It's not about covering more ground. It's about drawing Vescara out. She might attack if there's just one of us." That was exactly what Lemon was afraid of. Vescara was capital-S Scary. The last thing Lemon wanted to do was fight the snake who used darkness and illusions inside a cave. Lemon's imagination treated her to images of Vescara dropping on her from the ceiling, coils looping around Lemon's neck and squeezing. Even if the snake couldn't eat Lemon whole, that didn't mean she couldn't crush her.

"I'm scared," Lemon said quietly.

"I don't want to be alone down here."

"Lemon, I'm going to tell you a secret…" * Lemon walked alone in the darkness, only the dull glow of her own fur lighting her way. She couldn't keep the light going at full strength, not if she wanted to maintain it for more than a minute or two. Midnight had assured her she'd be safe, but she didn't feel very safe.

"Um, hello, miss snake? Vescara?" Lemon called out. A shadow flickered, movement from the snake. Lemon gasped and turned towards it, but there was nothing there. Or maybe something that she just couldn't see. This was not a fun chore anymore. Lemon was not a fan of the dark, or of snakes, or of getting ambushed. The cave network under the gully stretched out farther than Lemon had expected. Now that she'd begun exploring it, she realized it was exactly how Vescara had been getting to the moles.

If they'd spent their time hunting for her aboveground, they never would have found the snake. Lemon ventured down the tunnels, back towards where they'd found the moles, and noted numerous holes in the walls that Vescara could travel through. Any of them could have held the snake's still form, waiting to ambush Lemon. With each step, she tensed up, expecting any second that the ambush would come. In a way, it was almost a relief when it finally did.

A snake jumped out of hiding, but its body broke apart when it came into the glowing light. Lemon stumbled away from it anyway, and when she brushed up against the wall, Vescara's real body lunged out at her. Lemon felt the smooth scales rub against her fur as the snake tried to circle her. And then she was ripped away to hang, writhing in place in the air. Midnight stepped out of the shadows and, with a smirk in her voice, said,"You are not the only one who can hide behind illusions."

"Release me," Vescara demanded.

"I think not. In fact, let's make sure you're secure." It was kind of fun to watch Midnight tie the snake into a literal knot, and a complicated one at that. Lemon would not have known which part to tug on in order to unravel that, but she was sure Midnight did. Idly, Lemon wondered if Vescara would be uncomfortable tied up like that.

"Excellent work, Lemon. You were admirably effective as bait," Midnight said.

"Thanks!"

"Do you think you can dig a way back up to the surface from here, or should we head back?" Lemon liked digging. Digging made her happy, and right now she wanted to feel happy about something. Her afternoon had been very stressful, after all.

"I'll dig us out," she told Midnight. Digging upwards was a new experience. Normally, Lemon dug holes or she filled them in. This was the first time she ever got to burrow out of a place. She quickly discovered some new challenges, such as not getting dirt in her face while she dug, and also not getting dirt on Midnight. That last one was admittedly not a new challenge, but considering there was nowhere for the dirt to go except back, there wasn't a lot she could do about it.

With the aid of her shovel charm, it only took a few minutes to make a long, sloping tunnel back up to the forest. Lemon emerged from the dirt in much the same manner as those moles they'd met earlier in the day, then kicked her legs and widened the hole so she could climb out. Then she gave herself a good shake and flung loose dust and dirt everywhere before rolling around in the grass for a bit. Midnight followed her up, with Vescara bobbing in the air behind her, all balled up still.

The snake's mouth was clamped tightly closed thanks to Midnight's magic, which stopped her from spitting out more black, inky venom, but didn't stop her from talking.

"Let me go this instant!" the snake demanded. Both Midnight and Lemon ignored her, since she'd been saying some variation of that ever since being caught. Various illusions had attacked the pair, but they broke apart under the soft glow of Lemon's fur and Midnight had never been fooled by them to begin with.

"What are we doing with her?" Lemon asked.

"First we'll take her to the moles to show that we captured her so we can collect the mushrooms Hogarth wants. Then we'll go home. There's got to be something in that tower that will hold Vescara."

"You're evil," the snake said.

"Barging into my home, capturing me, snakelet-napping me!" The two of them ignored Vescara's ranting while they walked.

"How is she talking anyway?" Lemon asked at some point.

"Part of her illusion magic let's her make sounds as well as shapes. She's casting auditory illusions in the sound of her own voice, which is sadly why holding her mouth closed isn't stopping her from complaining."

"Oooooh. It's kind of like how I can keep talking while I eat sausages. Is that how my voice charm works too?"

"It's similar, yes." They made their way back to the moles, who were all suitably impressed with the floating ball of snake Midnight had made, happily relinquished the few mushrooms they wanted for Hogarth's potion, and went back to work rebuilding their own den.

"Not a bad day's work," Midnight said after they started back home.

"Not bad at all." * Hogarth peered at the three of them curiously.

"Midnight, correct me if I'm wrong here, but I believe I asked you to fetch a few Hashami mushrooms for a familiar awakening potion."

"You did. I've got them in my bag for you."

"Do you? Because that looks very much like a seven-foot-long snake."

"It was… complicated. The snake is awakened and has decent control over illusionary magic." Hogarth tapped a finger against his chin, looked over at Lemon, who wagged her tail, then looked back and said, "And why did you bring it home with you?" Vescara had stopped talking about an hour ago and instead settled for giving Midnight and Lemon the evil eye. Now that they were back in Hogarth's tower, she was including him as well. Despite all of that, Lemon thought she looked curious about things.

The tower was very different than the forest after all, and considering the way that Vescara had awakened, Lemon didn't think she'd ever been anywhere else.

"It seemed a shame to kill her. She's a thinking, reasoning being. But we couldn't leave her out there, so I thought, 'We know someone in need of a familiar, a wizard with a fondness for darkness and illusion magic. Perhaps they might decide they like each other.' If not, I'm not sure what to do with her."

"Wait, you snakelet-napped me for a job interview?" Vescara asked, her voice incredulous.

"No, I removed you from an environment where you were eating other awakened animals. Becoming a familiar is an option for you to move forward, if both you and the wizard in question can come to an agreement, but if you don't want to, I will see about relocating you to a new home where there are no awakened beings. You can eat all the normal moles, rats, and squirrels you want." Vescara glowered at Midnight, who simply ignored her.

When she didn't get a reaction, she said,"Could you at least let me out of this knot?"

"Perhaps. Hogarth, would you mind if I borrowed your old aquarium to serve as a cage for Vescara?"

"It's a bit small for that, don't you think?"

"Better than restraining her with telekinesis. Also I am getting quite tired." It was decided then. Hogarth brought out his old aquarium, not that it had held fish at any time since Lemon had come to live with him. It was a big, empty tank with runes and sigils etched into the glass to strengthen it. Lemon was ordered to go dig up a bucket of dirt to line the bottom with, which she did quite eagerly.

When she came back in with it, Hogarth glanced at her, then looked out the door and said, "Did you dig up the walkway leading up to the tower?"

"I didn't want to ruin the grass," Lemon told him.

"You made a hole in the place we walk the most."

"I'll put it back when we're done!"

"Why not get some dirt from the garden?" he asked. Lemon looked down at her bucket full of dirt, then up at Hogarth. She glanced over through the window to the garden just outside the tower.

"Because I didn't think to."

"Please go put the path back together and get some of the loose soil from the edge of the garden instead," Hogarth told her.

"When you're done, head over to the lab. I still want to make the familiar awakening potion just in case Latressa doesn't want to form the bond with Vescara. Besides, the mushrooms are only good for a day or two on their own."

"Okay!" Lemon ran back out with the bucket, poured the dirt back into the hole she'd dug near the front door, and did her best to smooth it back out. It was still a bit lumpy, but people would walk on it and it would be packed down again soon enough. She ran back inside a few minutes later with her bucket now full of the darker soil from the garden and found Midnight waiting for her next to the tank.

Carefully, she poured the dirt in, creating a layer a few inches deep, and then Midnight gently tugged Vescara's body out of the knot she'd put it in. She fed the snake into the glass box and floated the lid onto it, followed by about fifty books to hold it down.

"There. You'll be safe in there for a few hours until the wizard you'll be meeting with shows up. Then you can discuss whether you're interested, and if not, we'll find a place to relocate you."

"I hope you don't expect me to thank you for the privilege," the snake hissed out.

"So long as you're not eating anything that can talk, I don't really care," Midnight told her. Lemon left them to their argument and went to the lab to help Hogarth. There were wards on the door, and Hogarth had them active. No one could go in or out without his permission, and that meant that other than Lemon and Midnight, nobody could get to Hogarth. She stopped to study the glowing letters on the doorframe for a moment, just to make sure she knew what exactly he was warding against.

Sometimes he had special wards set up to trap fumes, and in that case, she needed her mask on before she even went in. This wasn't one of those times though, and she passed through the doorway without more than a brief shiver going down her spine. Her master was seated on a stool, going over the recipe for the potion they were going to make and checking to make sure he had everything he needed. When Lemon entered, he glanced over at her and said, "Everything settled with our guest?"

"I think so. Midnight is still with her. They were arguing when I left."

"I'm sure. I really don't know what goes through that cat's brain sometimes. I just hope she doesn't think Vescara will be staying here if Latressa isn't interested." Lemon let out an emphatic woof of agreement. Vescara did not like them and Lemon didn't trust her. If the snake stayed here, she would probably try to get revenge on them or something. Actually, now that Lemon thought about it, she wasn't sure it was a good idea that Vescara became a familiar either.

That would mean she was living with Bon, and might do nasty, mean, snake things to him! When she voiced this concern to Hogarth, he just laughed and shook his head.

"The familiar bond doesn't allow for such things. No matter how upset Midnight might get with me, she can't hurt me. She can't even hurt you, simply because I have ordered her not to. If Vescara does become Latressa's familiar, Bon will be quite safe around her." Lemon was not reassured. Vescara was, after all, still a snake. Hogarth didn't seem to notice though, because he simply said, "I think we've got everything we need.

Will you set the flasks up in the Edembacher rotation for me and get the heating stones out of the box? Don't start heating the primary up yet. The recipe calls for a cold mix with settling time." * When they were all done and the potion, which glowed an electric blue, was sitting in a cooling rack, Lemon went to go check up on Midnight and their unwanted guest. She found Midnight napping on a chair next to the glass box, which was itself empty.

Books were lumped into a pile on the floor next to it, and Vescara was nowhere to be found.

"Midnight! Midnight! Wake up! The snake is gone!" Lemon said in a panic. The cat cracked an eye open, looked around, and snorted.

"No, she's not."

"No, look! Your glass box is empty! She escaped!" But Midnight just closed her eyes and shifted in place.

"Stay away from the aquarium. It's just an illusion she cast to trick you." Hissing laughing came from nowhere, and the snake appeared on the ground next to Lemon, who yelped and jumped away. She sniffed at the air cautiously to confirm that the snake had no scent, and relaxed, just a little bit.

"Why are you so mean?" Lemon asked.

"Because I'm bored and you're fun to tease," the snake told her, not a hint of shame in her voice.

"The cat just lays there and ignores me. How much longer are you going to keep me trapped here?"

"I don't know. Midnight?" Without so much as opening her eyes, Midnight said,"Another hour until the portal opens. Then three hours after that it opens a second time for them to leave."

"That's it? Just a few hours?" Lemon asked.

"Isn't it expensive to have a portal opened?"

"Very much so. But Hogarth spoils you rotten for some inexplicable reason." Lemon glanced over at the snake, or at the illusion of her at least. Vescara stared back at her, black eyes steady and emotionless.

"I don't understand. What do I have to do with it? Latressa is coming to pick up her potion."

"A pretext, and nothing more. Latressa is coming so that Bon can come so that you two can run around and play for a few hours. Latressa could get that potion at any time, and there are cheaper ways to send it to her than her arriving personally through an expensive portal to pick it up."

"Oh." Lemon had no idea she was the reason for the visit. That was really nice of Hogarth and Latressa to set up for her. She would need to do something nice in return to thank them. She wasn't sure what yet, but she'd figure something out.

"What does it mean to be a familiar?" Vescara asked.

"I don't know, I'm not a familiar," Lemon said.

"You are not? I thought… well, never mind then."

"It is both a privilege and a responsibility," Midnight said.

"You already have some of the benefits, intelligence beyond mere animals and magic to call your own. But your wizard will share her magic with you as well, and in return, you'll become her assistant. You'll participate in rituals, work hand-in-paw to create new spells, defend your wizard when her life is threatened, as she will for you. Being a familiar means having a partner for life." Lemon and Vescara both turned to look at Midnight, who'd finally opened her eyes and sat up in the chair.

She was as serious as Lemon had ever seen her.

"Sometimes it is a chore. Sometimes your wizard will make choices you don't agree with." Midnight glanced over at Lemon briefly before continuing.

"But it is worth it. Becoming Hogarth's familiar is the best thing that has ever happened to me. I have never regretted that decision, not even for a moment." Vescara's illusion disappeared, and the snake herself came back into sight, still trapped inside the aquarium.

"Interesting," she was all she said before she curled up on herself and hid her head inside the coils of her body. *"Lemon!" Bon shouted, racing away from the portal and towards the dog. Lemon barked with joy and danced around, met the boy half way and rolled with him as he wrapped his arms around her in a hugging tackle.

"You're here! Come on, I have so much to show you. We have to go to play, right now!" She barely noticed Latressa following Bon through the portal, where she offered a much more sedate greeting to Hogarth and Midnight, then looked curiously past them to the snake-filled aquarium.

"And what's this?" she asked just as Lemon and Bon raced out of the room. Lemon ran through the front door of the tower, Bon at her side, and the two disappeared into the woods. The grown-ups were left behind to do boring grown up things, like talk about snakes, or taxes, or whatever it was grown-ups talked about. It certainly wasn't anything a dog needed to worry about, not when there were hours of daylight left still.

"Wow, there sure are a lot of trees here," Bon said. He climbed up onto a stump and hopped off, grabbing a low hanging branch and swinging back and forth while Lemon zoomed past him.

"It's the woods. It's made up of trees."

"Yeah, but back home we didn't have any, really. I mean, there was there were a few single ones here and there, but nothing like this." Bon picked up a stick and swished it back and forth, which got Lemon's attention and caused her to freeze. Her head snapped left, then right, then left again, watching as he swung.

"Throw the stick," she said.

"What?"

"Throw it." A grin split his face, and he hauled back, then threw the stick as hard as he could. Lemon was off after it immediately, and practically had it between her jaws before it hit the grass. Dutifully, she trotted back with it.

"Again." The pair amused themselves for a little while playing fetch, and then when they were done, Lemon showed him where to find a small creek that had all sorts of interesting rocks in it. Bon hunted through for the best-looking ones while Lemon splashed in the water.

"Being an apprentice is different than I thought it would be," he said, picking up a nice, shiny blue one and examining it.

"Why's that?"

"I thought it would be learning magic, and doing spells, stuff like that. But instead I've been learning letters and numbers, which is so boring. I mean, I guess it's okay. I figured reading was a part of the job when I signed up, but it's still boring." Lemon had only done a passible job at best of learning her own letters. Hogarth and Midnight had both tried to teach her, and both given up in frustration before she could master more than the basics.

She was better with numbers, but that was only because Hogarth had refused to give up. If she was going to be his lab assistant, she needed to know what the numbers on the side of the glassware meant, and how to read the scale.

"But you get to do some magic, right?"

"Not as much as I'd like," Bon said.

"When it's not learning things, it's chores. She's worse than my mom for keeping everything clean. Dusting and sweeping and mopping and wiping things with a wet rag. It never ends! At least I don't have to haul water anymore."

"I do lots of chores too! But I have magic to help, so it's more fun that way. Maybe you could learn some cleaning magics." Bon brightened at the idea.

"Yeah, that would make it way more fun! Do you think you could show me?"

"Maybe? I'm not sure if dog magics work for people. And, am I allowed to? Shouldn't Latressa be the one who shows you how to do them?"

"Well, I was kind of hoping that if I learned them without her knowing, I could do my chores faster and not tell her. Then I'd have more time to play." Play time was very important, at least in Lemon's mind. If it was for a good cause like that, she supposed it wouldn't hurt to show Bon some of her own magics. Most of the spells were sealed up inside her charms, and she didn't actually know how to cast them, but Lemon knew a few on her own.

"Okay, so when you need to do the dishes, first, you want to make sure you get all the pots and pans licked as clean as you can, because this doesn't work as well with dirty dishes…" * They returned to the tower a few hours later, thoroughly played out and ready for a hot meal. Thankfully, cooking was not among Lemon's chores. They'd tried that. It hadn't worked out.

There had been smoke damage in the kitchen and Hogarth had to pay someone to enchant a new heating slab, which he still maintained should have been impossible to break. Now, a woman from the village hiked up to the tower twice a day to cook for them. It seemed like a lot of walking to Lemon, but according to her, that was literally all she had to do to make enough money to live a quiet, peaceful life. Plus she liked cooking, and walking was good for her, so she happily made the trip every day without complaint.

She'd come and gone while Lemon and Bon were out, but some leftovers had been set aside for them. Lemon wasn't sure exactly what it was, something from the garden that had been diced up and fried with some sort of meat. The vegetables were alright, she guessed, but the meat was the good part. Bon seemed to agree, and even Latressa made a joke about poaching Hogarth's cook to come work for her. While they ate, Lemon kept a close eye on Vescara, who was no longer trapped inside the aquarium.

Instead, she was coiled around one of Latressa's arms, with her head hanging in the air next to the wizard's face.

"Awesome. A big black snake as your familiar," Bon said.

"Yes, I admit I wasn't expecting to bond with a familiar today, but Midnight made an excellent point about Vescara's skill set being highly compatible with my own magic. I am skipping many, many months of training, perhaps even as much as a year or more."

"And I will get to try all sorts of new prey, in addition to learning new magic. Today has been a surprise for all of us, I think."

"I can't believe you negotiated a contract based on how quickly you can supply variety packs of rodents," Hogarth said, shaking his head.

"If I'd tried that with Midnight, she would have laughed in my face."

"That is because the hunt is the fun part," Midnight said.

"I cannot fathom why Vescara would want her meals delivered to her all the time. It would get so boring."

"Perhaps I'll change my mind after a few months of easy meals, but I am looking forward to not having to hunt to survive." Lemon, who didn't have a memory of ever having to worry about running out of food, didn't have much to add to that topic. Besides, that wasn't what she was worried about.

"She's not going to hurt Bon, right?"

"No," Latressa said with a laugh.

"That part of the contract is very clear. Vescara won't hurt any humans or awakened animals except to defend herself."

"Though perhaps," the snake said from her place wrapped around Lemon's neck, with her tongue flicking against the dog's ear,"a bit of mischief might not go amiss." Lemon yiped and scrambled off the cushion she'd been lying on, only for the illusion to disappear a moment later. Vescara's hissing laughter came from across the table, and Lemon noticed a room full of barely-suppressed grins.

"Horrible!" she wailed.

"What did I do to deserve such horrible, mean friends?" The grins turned to full on laughter, and despite her claims, Lemon's tail thumped hard against the floor. She cautiously took her place on her favorite cushion again and Bon reached down to scratch behind her ears for her.

"Do you still want the potion?" Hogarth asked Latressa.

"It seems you've no need for it now."

"They last for a few years, right? I'll take it with me. Perhaps Bon here will use it someday to bind his own familiar. That would be a good present for an apprentice graduating up to journeyman status, I think."

"Good idea. Lemon, will you go get the potion for me, please?"

"Okay!"

"Thank you."

"I don't suppose you have an idea for how to build a charm collar for Vescara, do you? I thought a few charms might help her out in the early stages, while she is still learning the standard set of familiar spells, but I confess I'm at a bit of a loss how to put it on her. It seems like anything would get in her way." Lemon missed the next part when she went to fetch the potion, and the topic had changed by the time she came back with it.

She presented the potion to Hogarth, who confirmed that the stopper was fully in place, a policy he'd instituted shortly after Lemon had started helping him in the lab once it was determined that she regularly forgot to seal them all the way, then handed it off to Latressa.

"Here you go. I would say it needs to be used in the next five years in order to maintain full effectiveness."

"That's plenty of time," Latressa said, glancing at Bon, who was staring wide-eyed at the potion.

"My own familiar," he said.

"What kind should I get?"

"That is still far off in the future. For now, you need to master the basics of literacy so we can start you on more advanced lessons," his master told him as she deposited the potion into her pocket.

"And now, I think it is getting late. Our portal home should be opening in just a few minutes." Everyone trooped into the entry hall and said their goodbyes. Soon after, a circle of blue-white light opened for Bon and Latressa to step through. Vescara went with them, which Lemon didn't mind in the least. She was a decent sort for a snake, but still Scary.

"That's that, then. Quite a productive day, I'd say. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to take a nap," Midnight said.

"I think not," Hogarth told her.

"You and Lemon need to clean up that aquarium and get all those books put away first." Midnight froze in the act of walking away and glanced at the room they'd left the temporary prison in. With a sigh, she said,"Of course. Come on then, Lemon. Let's get everything cleaned up."