#trolloled

>> You're a little nervous about seeing Deviex. It took you and Florah a while to get through the forest to the coordinates Damath sent you ages ago when he first suggested him. Hopefully he can figure out what the ear attacks are about and find a way to fix them.

>> Eventually, the three of you -- As is usually the case when Florah leaves her hive, she brought Feriya along -- reach Deviex's hive, which is built into the base of the mountain. Hopefully Florah remembered the excuse you came up with to explain why you brought her so he doesn't somehow take offense to you bringing a companion along.

>> After a moment of mental preparation, you knock on the door and wait for him to answer.

You didn’t want to do this, but beggars absolutely can’t be choosers, and if you had a choice you wouldn’t have an irate fae snapping at your heels to begin with.

Her jaws miss by inches as you make a noise that is definitely not a yelp, and manage to get off one more short-range teleportation spell to get you just close enough to your dumb, unlucky friend’s collaborator’s hive to limp toward it, out of breath, and knock on his door.

“Kormut!” You pant, wiping sweat off your face (ugh, your hair is ruined).

“Kormut, I really, really need you to let me in right now, starshine, because I am in a heap of trouble and I need your help. Yes - I need your help, you can laugh later, just open the door before I expire in the mouth of a - never mind, with you here if I speak that it might happen.”

JK Rowling (pronounced like 'rolling')

Rick Rowling

Rickrolling???

=> It seems like forever since you’ve had a night off work to stay at home, and that’s because it is. Mister Espino had given you the entire weekend because he needed his employees out of his hair so he can have the hive to himself for once had nothing for you to do, and none of your friends had needed you for anything either. 

=> Except one friend. Well, you don’t know if you’d call him a friend, but... 

=> Your co-worker Gerrel had very politely informed you that you still had yet to invite him over to your hive like you said you would, and after a whole lot of apologising for getting too caught up in your work (because unlike him you don’t take time out of your busy schedule at all), the two of you arranged to meet tonight.

=> You have been cleaning non-stop since the moment you got home from work yesterday. Every room (even if you know he’ll most likely only see three of them at most), every window (even though they’re all open to let the nice breeze into the hive), every floorboard (even though large spaces are covered with rugs, which of course you also cleaned), every glass and plate and piece of cutlery. All surfaces has been dusted, decorations polished, curtains and towels all freshly washed, flowers watered, couch cushions and pillows fluffed up... Anything you missed your lusus was certain to point out.

=> And then, of course, you had to prepare food. You cannot be one of Mister Espino’s most trusted employees and not also know how to be a good host. You think you’ve prepared for everything: You’ve got both simple finger foods and fancier (yet affordable and easy to make) hors d’oeuvres, sweet and savoury things, and for lunch you’ve prepared tacos with all the different fillings laid out on the dining table. You also have a small selection of alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks in the fridge, and if he’d like a cocktail you’ve also got all your bartending supplies out. That way he can pick whatever he wants with his lunch, and you should have covered all bases! This is definitely too much food for two people, and your lusus is already shaking his head at you being too wasteful, but he also told you to prepare all of this in the first place. It would be even worse to not be able to fully cater to your hiveguest by lacking something.

=> It should come as no surprise that you are absolutely exhausted from having to do so much work to prepare for Gerrel’s visit, but it’s fine. You’ve pushed through so much worse than a single all-nighter. 

=> With your team reduced from four to two, there’s been some aspects of your job that’ve become considerably more stressful. Tonight was one such night, thanks to a server malfunction locking you and Astera out of your own record management system. You’d opted to stay back to catch up on all the work you couldn’t get done thanks to having spent most of the night on the phone with IT, which has resulted in you still being at the office well into the day. You don’t see much point in going home, so just like you’ve done many times before, you set up your office so you can get a good couple hours sleep.

=> An unfortunate side-effect of your abilities that you’ve discovered recently is that you have a habit of accidentally falling into other people’s dreams when you fall asleep while feeling particularly stressed, and tonight is no exception...

=> ...

=> You ‘wake up’, miles away from your office, standing in front of a familiar clinic. Your outfit remains the same as what you typically wear, so you can figure that you’re probably already familiar with the dreamer. Ullane probably? You don’t think you could fall into Thrixe’s dreams, but there’s an aura here that feels... Wrong. Like however you ended up in this dream, you probably shouldn’t be here.

=> But also, it’s a dream. It can’t hurt you. Foreboding aura, schmoboding aura. You open up the front door and walk inside.

heLLLLo

=> In a very shocking turn of events, you’ve been invited over to Gerrel’s hive to help him work on his garden. You’re honestly not sure what changed his mind after perigees of you offering your assistance, but you’re happy! Things have... Definitely been more than a little awkward between you two recently, which you’ve been trying to not think about and instead wanting to double down on trying to patch up whatever it is that you’ve done wrong. Of course it’s you who is at fault here, who else would it be? Certainly not your co-worker, who keeps rebuffing every single thing you do, not telling you what you should be doing to make him feel better, stealing all your work tasks so you have to show up at Mister Espino’s hive three hours early just so you can get everything done before he shows up...

=> But that’s not something you should be dwelling on! You toss those bad feelings aside like you’re tossing paper into the recycling bin.

=> You’ve never been invited over to Gerrel’s hive before, and the hike was a bit more than you anticipated. Maybe wearing your work uniform wasn’t ideal for this kind of terrain (especially when you’re literally not working tonight), but if he can do it then you certainly can as well. It’s a nice area, though, a lot different to the forest you call home. He definitely doesn’t live in a treehive like you either.