Smuxo's Story

Urakena skipped across the cold seas, which were gloriously calm. Plunging to and from the waters the great sea dragon got it's kicks. Up above, Urakena noticed a beautiful white dragon.

Good day to you, stream of cloud!

Urakena thought-sang to the white dragon.

The sudden thought coming from below caused Terem a moment of concern. it wasn't often her mind was touched in such ways. Looking below, she saw the undulating form of one of her oceanic kin. With a bugled, wordless greeting in return, the dragoness tipped forward and tucked her wings, plummeting from the sky.

A hundred feet above the water, her wings flared wide, smashing the air below her into a compact enough mass to slow her from her dive as she pulled more level. As her altitude got lower, she eventually grabbed at the wave tops with her claws, if only briefly.

"Greetings to you, Serpent." While not inherently offensive, Terem's voice had a slightly aristocratic tone to it, and was ever so slightly cold.

The kobold didn't have wings. Or fins. Or stature. Or anything approaching majesty and certainly not splendor She had a boat. A tiny, leaky, creaky boat, that was currently doing everything possible not to work. The pressure was all off, the reservoir was leaking worse than that wall next her berth, and someone had nicked her oars. She was stuck.

One would imagine fixing a steamboat would be difficult, seeing as they were generally wonderful constructions of brass and mahogany, churning the water with great paddles and laughing the face of the strongest gales. Luckily for her, that was not the case with her boat. Unluckily, it was because it was little more than a rowboat fitted with a homemade steam engine made from stolen copper cookware. She was tiny and a kobold. It wasn't her fault. She slept in a covered lobster trap, for Scale's sake. Humans were just too big, that was all. And racist. And stingy.

When the glorious pair of dragons showed up, however, she just sighed. She was covered in soot, singed, and against all biological constraints, sweaty. Forget it. The engine would be there in a few hours.

Smuxo sat on an empty barrel, gnawed the cork off of a musty bottle, and watched the dragons. The real ones. She sighed again, tossing her homemade goggles onto a pile of scrap and crude tools. The engine gave off a little spurt of steam.

Airships were tricky things. Boilers needed constant maintenance to run, controls needed oiling, balloons constantly had to be patched and filled. Even if the ship held up, weather could drive it into the ground or force it to drift off-course. Animals could be a pain, especially if they got stuck in the stacks or roosted in something important. Those floating vessels were finicky, dangerous, and slow. Why anyone used them, nobody could say.

The tiny kobold working on her engine could tell you why. She probably wouldn't be able to stop. They were amazing contraptions, glorious behemoths of brass and wood sailing through the sky like dragons. Their breath was fire hotter than any drake, steam and smoke spewing from engraved piping in majestic plumes. They were the future, and soon everyone would be born aloft by their own amazing flying machines.

That was the dream, anyway. The reality was a little different. Smuxo was tiny and a kobold. Quality materials, workmanship, and general safety were not something that was readily available to her. That was why she was hanging off of the side of her beached airship, hammer in hand. Something had blown on the left side of the airship (She didn't know what port and starboard were) and grounded her vessel. Said vessel was little more than a wooden dinghy with a boiler made from stolen copper cookware and a balloon stitched together from cloth scraps and the odd pair of pants. It would have been hard work, even for a human, and the little kobold had to hang by her toes to get where she need to be. She was too short to reach it from the ground, you see.

Not far from the grounded airship was a man dressed in mostly cloth to help insulate the heat of the desert. Adorned on his head was a face obscuring mask with goggles to help protect him from the stinging wind. His name was Graham David and he was here to scavenge whatever precious materials the ruins and the dunes had to offer. While walking among the sandy hills with his shock rifle resting on the back of his neck he saw what looked like an abandoned airship, unknown to him that a kobold would be right where he wanted to be.

There was a bang, a fizzing sound, and a squawk. Something small and sooty flapped madly from the ship and into the sky, leaving the kobold swaying by her tail as she hung from a bit of railing. Birds. She hated birds. Sure, they were pretty to look at and they tasted alright if you slapped them against the boiler for a few hours, but damn if they didn't get into everything. This one had messed all over one of the emergency release valves and nearly blown her to hell and back. It wouldn't be an easy fix, but nothing ever was for Smuxo. Scraping bird droppings and tacking copper together was just part and parcel for an airship pilot. She would earn her goggles, real ones with brass and leather. Hers were made from a pair of bottle bottoms and a discarded belt. They fit and kept most of the smoke out, even if they did smell like old sugar and had a little crack or two here and there. Still! This was nothing to a pilot! Nothing!


It wasn't nothing. Whatever that bird had been eating has slagged half of the piping and smelled heinous. Smuxo had literally lived in a cave with twenty-four siblings and she had never, ever smelled anything quite like what she was currently scraping off of a sight-glass aperture. She was now hot, smelly, sooty, and against all biological probability, sweaty. She had been hanging by her tail for so long it was probably numb by n- Oh. There it went.

Pumph. A pair of white, scaly legs poked out of the sand where the kobold had fallen. There was some flailing, some kicking, and a hefty dose of waggling. Pulling herself out of the sand, she looked around at her tools, now scattered by the sand. Ah, well. Wasn't so bad. At least it wasn't r-.

Pssssssh. Dirty water slopped onto the kobold from an above pipe. Such was the pilots life.

They had laughed when someone tried to ride the first horse. They had balked at the wheel. They had scoffed at the idea of the horseless carriage. They had called her insane when she tried to build an automobile. Nobody was laughing at the kobold now, not when she had the...vehicle! She'd come up with name later. Now was the time for driving!

If she could get it working, that is. It wasn't easy stealing that many doorknobs to get the brass to build the boiler, and she might have forgotten a component or two. Not to mention that apparently there was some sort of city-wide ban of decent coal. Even as she toiled in the guts of her machine, she could feel the anticipation swelling in her tiny heart. Yes, it was made from a wagon, bicycle parts she had nicked, and some scrap metal. Yes, it had some difficulty turning at speed. Yes, there had been some problems with pressure and some light explosions, but that was all part of plan. Rome wasn't built in a day! It probably burned down a few times, too. She was sure that was part of the process.

It didn't help that she was starving. She had eaten the last of her rations, and she didn't want to go into that store anymore. They had gotten upset when she had tried to trade a bag of gunpowder for four times her weight in coal. Ridiculous, kicking her out for that. She was tiny. Smuxo licked her lips, looking around the alley. She had seen rats. Just as she was reaching for her wrench to club an unsuspecting rodent, she noticed the child in the alley with her. Maybe she should have parked it somewhere else? Pushed it somewhere else? Fine, assembled it somewhere else? The child had food, though, and she had trinkets. Shiny, shiny trinkets.

Hopping down from her wagon, the kobold waved over to the kid, smiling. "Hey there! Want to swap? I'm famished!"

Ixian was deeply enjoying his food savoring every bite. After all, he only had the money he had just stolen, and the food he just ate. He was thinking that to prevent himself from dying of some horrible, super disease or getting kidnapped while he slept, he should try to get a hotel room tonight.

He wanted to avoid any of the neighborhood ruffians, that was for sure. Even if Ixian had all of these abilities, getting beaten up still hurt, and it was not likely he should just freely use them against people. Well, Boo Boo was an exception though.

"Hey there! Want to swap? I'm famished!"

Suddenly, even though Ixian thought he snuck away unnoticed, there was now someone calling out to him. He reflexively bit his hand a bit and then jumped to his feet, facing towards the person that startled him. Of course, person was a bit of a strange word to use since she was about his size, maybe a bit bigger. It was pretty interesting, because he was pretty sure she was not human. He was only basing the idea that it was a she from her voice, but he had no idea if that was the truth.

"Wh....who are you!? Why are you following me?! Boo Boo! Help me out!"

Because he had just committed a crime, Ixian was a little on edge. He was holding the dagger he had summoned in his hand still, while the hand he bit into had a drop float in the air in the palm of his hand. He squeezed it, and poured a large amount of energy into it...and Boo Boo appeared in the form that was smaller then Ixian's head and rested on his shoulder.

No matter how you looked at it, there was no way Boo Boo appeared in his combat form right now. It was fairly obvious.

Well, this wasn't what she expected to happen. She knew humans didn't like kobolds all that much, but the knife thing might have been a little much. At least that ghost thingy wasn't too scary. The blood magic was bit of a red flag as well, but she had other things to worry about. The local constabulary, for one. She held up her hands in a quieting motion, stepping forward as slowly as she could.

"S-steady on! I'm not going to hurt you! Looking to swap for some food, yeah? I've got...uh...I've got..." The kobold fished around in her various pockets and pouches for a few seconds before producing a little leather pouch. She emptied into her hand, quickly taking stock. Six coppers, a fleck of silver, a dead moth, and a tooth. She ran some numbers in her head, stuffing the items back into the little bag and placing it on the ground in front of her. She tried to roll it over to the boy, but it was a bit light and only made it about a foot. Smuxo coughed, hiking her thumb over to her automobile. It gave of a pitiful spurt of steam.

"Just doing some patching up. Figured I'd been by my lonesome in here. Are...uh...are you with your parents?" Human parents were involved, right? Yeah, they actually watched their kids. Weird.

As Smuxo spoke about not hurting, and settling down, Ixian was still afraid of the newcomer. Others had tried to convince him of that in the past, and when he believed them, he was beaten, kidnapped, attacked, or such. Of course, what he failed to remember because of the fact he got startled is that he could summon over two dozen swords right then to protect himself. Maybe it was a sign showing his instincts were working, telling him she was not a threat, but Ixian was consciously on guard.

However, the one who interrupted this was Boo Boo, who flew between them, faced Ixian, and then waved his arms around and in various ways as he made unintelligible squeeking noises.

"Huh?! Hold on, are you..."

Ixian started to talk, but then Boo Boo flew into his face, pointed at Smuxo, and continued to make squeaky noises.

"Are you..."

Boo Boo continued to make squeaky noises as it waved its arms around. After awhile, Ixian just nodded and lowed his head...and then he entered full blown apology mode!

"I am really sorry about that lady! It's just...you really startled me, but I am really sorry!"

And then, as she asked about his parents, Ixian made a strange face. It was a strange face, simple yet complicated, a conflicted face as if he had no clue what to feel.

"I...I never knew my parents. Its just me...uh, you said you wanted food? Do you have anything valuable then to trade? Like gold or something?"

From the video games he played, Ixian mistakenly thought all Kobolds carried some form of gold on them.

While the ghost-thingy was arguing with its friend, Smuxo took the opportunity to get her bag back. She liked that ghost-thingy. It seemed to at least tolerate her, unlike most of the ghosts she had encountered, including Grandpappy Grayscale. All he had done was talk her ear off about tradition and morals and 'fool's errands'. She had apologized, but it was no use. She guessed some folks got right steamed when you used their headstones for ballast. And then crashed it into the ocean. Still, this one seemed much nicer. It wasn't calling her a runt, at least. When the boy started apologize, she tried to wave it off, shaking her head nervously.

"It's fine! I know I can be a bit fearsome. It's all part and parcel of being draconic, you know?" She had scared somebody? She never got to startle anybody. She didn't think she could startle anybody. The kobold guessed it was like finding a rat where you didn't expect, like a loaf of bread or a toilet bowl. That, or she was actually a fearsome creature with a proud draconian lineage. Snrk. She had to stifle a laugh at that one.

After she had pushed his buttons talking about his presumably dead parents, which made her feel just great, the kobold scratched her scaly chin with a greasy claw. It left a black streak on her white scales. Gold? If she had some gold, she'd have likely spent it by now, wouldn't she? Unless...

The little lizard peeked into her bag, picking out the tooth. She held it up to the one working light in the alley, tail curling around one of her legs in anticipation. Aha! A gold filling! She knew she had kept it for a reason! Okay, not that one, but some reason! Most likely her species predilection for kleptomania, but eh, she'd take it.

"I do now! This'll get...something nice around here, I bet. Like a shower or a bed or something." Come to think of it, she wouldn't mind all of that. She loved her mechanics aroma as much as any other, but people were starting to give her funny looks. Soon, they wouldn't even accept her money. Or smell her when she tried to sneak about. The rats were getting bitey, too, so sleeping in her automobile was becoming bothersome. She could leave it for a little bit. Nobody was going to steal it. Not after what happened to the last one. Boiler pressure is important.

"Hows about a team-up, eh? Get ourselves somethin' nice! This is the city, yeah? Gotta be loads of stuff for two enterprising souls such as us."

Ixian was extremely relieved when Smuxo mentioned that she was not hostile, or that she came in peace, and given what Boo Boo told him, it seemed like she was really nice and...

"AH! I forgot to introduce us!"

Ixian realized that because of his mistake, he had totally screwed things up in the order of how things are supposed to go.

"My name...its Ixian! Ixian Rixy! And this is my Spirit Guardian, Boo Boo. Nice to meet you!"

Boo Boo, the white ghost thing (Whose appearance you can see in Ixian's character sheet) was his Spirit Guardian, a power that occasionally manifested itself in people that are born in areas of high Spiritual Power, or are born from people who have high Spiritual Power.

Ixian meanwhile was almost certainly younger then Smuxo by a lot, but also seemed to have quite the bit of experience. Even though it was a mistake, and he forgot he could just summon his swords to deal with it, Ixian had reacted quite splendidly, and even held the dagger properly, in combat position rather then cooking position.

"A bath and a bed?!"

Ixian got very excitied when Smuxo mentioned these things. After all, it had been at least a week since he last took a bath, and that was not even in a real bath. He just washed himself off in a river on the way here and then dried himself using large leaves. He had gotten lost, and regretted not stealing a bus or a bus pass at least. ANd furthermore, he had not had a decent bed in ages either. And of course, he was curious about what else Smuxo had in mind.

"Where is it? Close by hopefully!"

Boo Boo was just nodding nearby, as he seemed to be in a good mood since Ixian was.

The kobold nodded politely, smiling with her small fangs. The kid seemed like a good sort. A little nervous, perhaps, but who wouldn't be, lost in the city like..well, they both were, really.

"Likewise, Ixian! I'm Smuxo. Don't have second name, as it were." Kobolds weren't huge on family. Generally, if you didn't immediately get eaten by a cat or something, they named you after about a week.

"Right, then! Let's see if we can't find ourselves a decent flophouse!" That was the right word, right? Yeah. Yeah, it was. She could speak Human good, dammit.

She turned on her heels, pointing out of the alley as dramatically as she could. She struck out, marching out of the alley and directly under the wheels of a passing cyclist. It took a few minutes for her to get on her feet, but she maintained her adventurous demeanor, even if she was a little wobbly. "Right! Just hold onto my tail! Onward!"

Weaving in and out of the hustle and bustle of the city streets, the diminutive lizard managed to make it a good few blocks before getting run down again. In the brief moment before she stood back up, she noticed a neon sign blinking above her. Aha! She knew she could do it!

The front of the hotel seemed nice (and cheap) enough to let them in. Smuxo smiled, and once her head stopped spinning from it's introduction with the front wheel of a ten-speed, she tried the door. She stopped. She stretched. She hopped in place. She tried to climb. She, in all her adventurous zeal, could not reach the door handle.

Smuxo turned, staring at nearby pedestrians and briefly cursing her stature. Still! This was no reason for a kobold to give up! She was an inventor! An adventurer! She would come up with a solution that was both elegant and impressive! They would know her ingenuity! She just...just had to..

"Can you give me a boost?"

Majestic.

Ixian was slightly worried when she mentioned flophouse, but he shrugged it off since he thought maybe she just didn't know the right word or something. Well, Ixian's own views were kind of skewed, because a wandering biker to mess with him told Ixian that if he entered a Flophouse, he would likely be kidnapped, thrown in a cage, sold off, and likely used by perverts for weird things. Since he figured that she just meant to say something else, that was it!

"...that's it, right?"

He mumbled that to himself anxiously.

In all truth, he didn't have a real second name either. Well, in reality Iwemap was it, but given that it stood for Intelligent Weapons Materialization Platform, which was odd that the scientists had named him after the ability he had only just developed, he had decided to make up a new one instead, which was Rixy. And Ixian, which was his first name, was actually just the name of the original test subject, which he was a clone of. All of his other "brothers" had decided that since it was him that freed everyone, he would keep the name of Ixian, and they would all take new names.

After a few mishaps, one of them where Ixian was nearly kidnapped by a ninja but managed to blow him away with a silenced pistol he created without anyone noticing because ninja skills, the two finally arrived at the hotel....only to reach a new obstacle. The door was too tall for either of them to get the handle of. Ixian was smaller then Smuxo, but then looked around and got an idea.

"Hold on, let's use this!"

As his body might not be a good way to boost Smuxo's, and without thinking of the idea of having Smuxo give him a lift instead, he ran over to a nearby Garbage Cleaning Robot nearby. Ixian put his hand on it, and took control of it. Making sure to count the necessary amount of time, he climbed on top of it and kept the control...without realizing this robot was linked to multiple others and any streetlight systems nearby since it crossed roads, and accidentally messed up all the traffic in the area...but there was no guarantee he would ever learn of this. Instead, he had the robot bring him over to the door, and he was able to open it for them.

"Ta da!"

As Ixian smiled, Boo Boo then came out, and pointed out there was a revolving door they could have easily accessed to get in.

The kobold watched the display of magic with a mix of amazement and nervousness. It was fascinating stuff, magic. She couldn't light a candle with her skill level, which by her reckoning made her an even worse kobold than normal. She was fine with that, though. Magic was dangerous. All steam did was occasionally melt your face off or send bits of metal flying at you. It didn't summon tentacle-things or eat your souls or anything. No sir, if you died it was with big old boom, like Scale intended!

The magic worked wonderfully, though. Smuxo wasn't sure how humans were supposed to drive, but they seemed to be making do with whatever that robot had done. Human cars were durable, anyway. They'd be fine. As for Boo Boo pointing out the door, she tried to put on her bravest and most adventurous face. Damn. She'd really wished she'd seen that door.

"O-of course we weren't going to use that door. Where's your sense of adventure!? Ixian solved the problem just swell-like, I'd say! Onward!"

The lobby was quite nice, at least compared to the places the kobold normally slept. There weren't any rats, she couldn't see any corpses, and someone had made sure that the bloodstains had been cleaned up. If there were bloodstains, that is. The lizard assumed any decent inn had to have bloodstains. This placed seemed a little too quiet for that sort of thing however. There was music playing, some drawings on the wall, and a little bowl of mints on the counter. She couldn't help but toss down a few with a flick of her tail as she scrabbled up the counter. Smuxo slapped the tooth down of the counter, catching the attention of the concierge.

"A room, if you please!" The woman leaned forward in her chair. She looked at the kobold, then the child. Was it worth it? They looked a little young to be buying anything other than a pack of gum. The kobold sounded a little older than... Eh. She needed the occupancy. Gold was gold. She knew a guy to get it out of the tooth, anyway. She slapped a key down on the table, along with a roll of bills. She hated making change for gold. At least these two didn't seem like dedicated adventurers. She just couldn't fit those damn gems into the register.

Smuxo hopped down, handing the key to her new friend. "Lead the way, Ixian! Let's see what our treasure got us! To Room 204!"

"Ye...yeah! Yay!"

Ixian managed to get himself pumped up after Boo Boo pointed out their blunder. Revolving Doors, the easiest way to get into or out of a hotel, were something Ixian was not used to. No, the doors he was used to locked from the outside, had no way for him to open on the inside, and were both padded and armored to prevent any chance of escape. In retrospect, while he was on the streets now, his life was better then in the lab, because even when people beat him up, they did not cut him open and replace his organs, or add new ones. So Ixian considered this hotel to be a luxury they had to enjoy fully.

On the way to the counter though, Ixian saw a security camera and immediately put his hood up. He was never sure what camera could be connected to the people who had kidnapped him. Even though they slaughtered everyone there, his older brothers warned him there might be others affiliated with them and to avoid detection if possible.

As Smuxo asked for a room, he noticed one couple sneer at the Kobold/Child pair they had, so...

"Boo Boo, Fetch. Silently".

Whispering his command, Boo Boo immediately acted. Because Ixian had tried to summon him for combat, Boo Boo had been given enough energy for advanced combat techniques. Which was likely overkill, he easily gave too much to Boo Boo out of fear. However, this let Boo Boo perform some awesome acts such as extending his arms that looked like they were made of cloth, into the target's pockets from behind without them noticing, and instead of pulling out the entire wallet, pulled out several hundred dollar bills from each, and a cash card which would be untraceable.

Boo Boo maintained stealth mode, and returned to Ixian's side as Smuxo finished getting the room. The two of them began to head towards the room at that point.

"Yay! Comfy beds! Baths! And who knows what else is around! We can have a lot of fun!"

Having forgotten (temporarily) about his anxiety, Ixian strived forward with glee.

Getting to the room wasn't difficult. The stairs weren't too hard to get up, and their room was pretty close to the landing. Smuxo wasn't used to buildings that were so modern. She had expected wood and hay, not soft carpeting and nice wallpaper. It was kind of refreshing, actually. She could even hear the humming of a bank of vending machines, the clattering of an ice-maker in use, all sorts of utilities that most of her siblings would literally kill for. She needed to get teeth like that more often.

Smuxo reached their door, hopping up and smacking the key into the lock. The door swung open, causing Smuxo to fall face-first into the room. The kobold stood, happy the lights had been on before she had opened the door. The switch looked a little high. As for the room, it looked...well...really nice, actually. It was of average size, but to the tiny lizard it was a palace. Clean, spacious, and tastefully decorated. Success!

Dropping her pack by the door, she turned to smile at Ixian. "I told ya! People love gold! Look at this place!"

She was about to vault into the bed to roll around a bit, but realized that they would likely have to replace it entirely if her filth got anywhere close to it. She sniffed herself. She didn't think she smelled too bad, but that plant seemed to get a little more brown the longer she stood next to it. She padded over to the bathroom, happy to see that there was actually a bath. She couldn't reach most shower knobs.

"Right, then! Figure I ought to go first, seeing as I'm drivin' off insects." There was a clattering sound as a hoard's worth of engineer's kit hit the tile. Most of it was homemade, but still. She was proud of it. She probably have to burn the clothes, though. They started stiffening before they even got off of her. She didn't think they were always black, either. Weren't they white before? Eh. She saw a hotel sweatshirt in the closet, that'd do for later.

It was not just Smuxo who had never stayed in such a luxurious room. This was Ixian's first time in a room this soft and comfortable, he took off his dirty shoes and socks which looked way too worn and dirty to even be usable, and was about to plunge his feet into the soft carpet while looking around when...

"Wait...I have the same issue".

I Ian got distracted by the nice room, and realized he had the same issue. His clothes had all been on him for at least weeks now, and even though he could summon an artillery cannon or middles, he could not summon soap and bath water. Even just standing there, after looking at contrast of what his clothing looked like now and what he remembered they used to be like, Ixian immediately began taking them off. He wasn't sure if even soap could save them.

He had not changed clothes once since he escaped. Actually this was still in the single digits of changing his own clothes. To prevent incidents, the Scientists observed and assisted with their bathing, eating, even changing clothes because they didn't want them to hang themselves.

By the time Ixian was done though and looked at Smuxo, he realized his mistake...and used his hands as a shield! Boo Boo wrapped a bathrobe around him, even if it came way too late, and then spoke to Ixian again, who had turned red.

"Uhh, sorry about that...it's just...I have only been free for a short time. You see, for as long as I was born, I was treated as a Slavs test subject by scientists so all this is new to me even though weeks had gone by".

And so, Ixian finally explained his circumstances to her. Of course, due to the barcode on his cheek it was actually a giveaway, but Ixian had never looked in a mirror clear enough so he was totally unaware.

"This is the tops! They have soap in little bottles! See? I'm a Foam Dragon!"

A white head peered up from the rim of tub, covered in bubbles. She had to run the bath with the drain open to get the worst of the grime off, but now it was deep enough she could swim in it. She hadn't had anything like this back home. They had more of a communal mud puddle. It was a lot better, she had to admit. She wouldn't get dysentery from it, and there weren't leeches everywhere. No bugs, either, which was a shame. She had already eaten all of the mints.

The kobold didn't really understand why the human had changed color. Could humans do that? They only seemed to do that sort of thing when they were either really angry or embarrassed. She didn't get why he'd be feeling either emotions, though. She had literally dozens of siblings. There really wasn't enough clothes to go around. Plus, well, she was a reptile. It wasn't like there was anything to cover. That was probably why she didn't look away, unfortunately for Ixian.

"I'm...really sorry to hear that, Ixian. Kobolds get enslaved a lot. We're good at mining, you know? Our name even comes from the word 'cobalt'. Still, it beats being eaten, right? Heh..." She floated in the water, slowly being eaten by a massive mound of bubbles as she stared at the ceiling. "It may not seem like it now, but you've got a good hand. Humans are lucky things. Nice and tall, you know? Gonna live a lot longer than me, I bet."

She flicked her tail in the water, spattering Ixian with a few drops. The kobold righted herself, resting her elbows on the rim of the tub. Her head was tilted in confusion. "What's up? There's room. You're killing that plant faster than me!" She cackled, extending a hand, tail lazily drifting in the water.