Essentia Animus

67-Inverted Enmity

When morning eventually arrived, the three girls began preparing for the day with breakfast and considerations for their confrontations with family. All of them were aware that such a meeting was going to be complicated, but things had just managed to get a bit more complex.

Sryine blinked several times, still absolutely exhausted and unable to focus at all. It was really bad, her mind felt like a total haze even while her body had energy for days. At that point, she was even being reliant on the flame to provide her with an artificial energy boost, a form of caffeination or energy drink that went almost to the extreme. Vwyx could almost wish she was that lucky, that maybe she should find a way to over supplement on the flame too for the same purpose, because she was also similarly exhausted.. just with her body as tired as her mind. She had technically managed to achieve more sleep than Sryine, by having successfully blinked unconscious in a couple of intervals overnight.. only to then awaken a short while later. The very first thing she had progressed to with the wake of the morning sun was to amend the backpack with the changes she had deemed necessary overnight.

However, neither of them were very happy with the state of the other, this having had an impact on some of their plans. Vwyx had wanted to confront Sryine with a request to provide them with a warm morning after a cold night, but discovering Sryine's condition.. it wasn't sensible to ask her to play with the flame in such an environment. Sryine meanwhile was going to ask Vwyx to craft up some kind of water instrument she could practice with, something that could safely collect, contain, and project water with little effort.. just as long as she could provide it with such a supply. Watching Vwyx sleepily struggle with the backpack was enough for Sryine to understand that this really wasn't a good time.

Riyxia was the only one of the three who was then completely refreshed by morning. Realizing the state of her friends, Riyxia took upon herself all of the responsibilities for preparing breakfast, with hope that a hearty meal would give them all a bit of an extra boost. She realized that almost unexpectedly, most of the food she had obtained had been stuff that was best served warm, but dinner considerations the night before made it clear why her interests might have been in that direction. A warm meal appealed well to their flame and its own appetite. To that end, she made sure to do her best to keep all of the food as warm as possible, while also protecting herself from another burn incident.

Her cooking environment started quickly making her feel dry in the process, like the fire elements in the area were being given so much more priority and consideration. Heat was good, it was an open flame which she had to avoid. As meal preparation progressed, the other two girls were drawn closer not only because of the selection of smells available, but due to the inviting dry warmth that was also being projected. By the time breakfast was prepared and served, the other two girls felt like they had already dined on a quality breakfast of some well done flame elements, the food itself just being almost an added bonus. Neither girl would have claimed the food wasn't tasty, but in their sleepy state they ended up quickly forgetting exactly what food had actually been served.. it had just been so full of warmth.

Sryine was thinking carefully around the process and how everything had worked out. A controlled amount of flame, to force the wood elements in the area to in turn control the water elements. It was a synergy of rivals to deal with a third factor. Of course, wood stuff had plenty of reasons to be afraid of her, a couple drops of her blood right now could obliterate a piece of wood's elements into pure nothingness. But if instead she used her might to care for such a wood, to spare it, that wood could in turn protect her from any watery threat. Even Riyxia's cooking showed the trick to making that work. Direct contact with the flame was destructive, but the warmth of the flame could do wonders if that was instead controlled. All of such still appealed to the flame element, but would require another element to act as transport, something that was used to the presence of the flame. Her previous favourite, the sky element, was actually perfect for this sort of thing. However, not in the form she had been using, lighting wouldn't cut it, what she needed was to carefully harness the wind.