middaeg | june catch all | all prompts open!

Who: Mikleo and you!
When: The month of June.
Where: Undermael College, the Coven grounds, and wherever your little heart desires.
What: Mikleo studies too hard, runs a taste test for this thing called ice cream from his world, and also fucks up his magic. (Event prompts might be added later after the log goes up.)
Warnings: None yet!

[I. off to college]

[This water seraph has been studious since the first day he got here, if you can count dousing a small fire and accidentally overflowing the rose baths 'practicing'. Because as much as he was a stickler for rules, there were some that he just didn't care for when weighed against things like exploration and knowledge. And yes, he'd been punished-- and felt like a little kid again when Sorey got in trouble because of him-- but that was fine, it didn't do anything to quell his own scholarly spirit.

Mikleo can be found in the college library typically after class or in the middle of the day, pursuing questions he's written in his notes and any required reading. When he isn't gobbling up spellbooks and arcane theory, he's reading history books and copying them into his own journal. Sometimes if the class was an especially strenuous one, one might come upon him sleeping quietly with his head in his arms atop a tome as the afternoon turns to evening.]

[II. tymael's apothecary / have some chill]

[Like a handful of other Witches and Monsters, Mikleo's been taking shifts at Tymael's Apothecary this month. He's angling for a permanent job, though he's not sure if his skills are up to snuff. They should be considering his previous experience with potion-making and being able to reverse-engineer the ingredients required for one, but his magic doesn't work quite the same and he can't use his power over water to control the temperature of what he's cooking.

Or can he?

It occurs to him one morning as he's mixing something in a pot immersed in ice to cool it. He... knows a spell for that? A small universal spell that he can use to clean things, to chill things or heat them up in a pinch, but in such small ways that it could be overlooked if they weren't as attentive to detail. But not Mikleo. He looks at his hands, and he looks at the pot, and he sees possibilities.

The next day, he sets up a chair and a food table outside the Coven. The sign is handpainted in elegant blue script: Taste Testers Needed. Sitting on the table are a bunch of paper bowls filled with ice cream of several different flavors: chocolate mint (complete with bits of mint leaf), vanilla (with flecks of black vanilla bean), a chunky-sweet strawberry, and chocolate so dark it's almost ebony.

It's all delicious, but the temperature and texture seems to vary from batch to batch, flavor to flavor. Some seems to taste like cheaper ice cream-- not enough heavy cream in that one. Some of it melted a little unevenly, so it tastes a little icy. But some of it is absolutely perfect, too.

The cook will jot any and all criticism in his journal. He won't call out to people, though; he's content to just people watch for now.]

[III. the school of hard knocks]

[But the nerd needs practice, and so he's out on the Coven grounds practicing when he's not studying or perfecting his craft. Mikleo prefers to go at night when few people can criticize him for going a little too hard, or panting, or just being physically weak. He's the Staff Chick, he doesn't need to do crossfit. Please.

With his staff in hand and a target dummy of some kind a few yards away, he practices throwing knives made of ice over and over as he tries to perfect his aim (still five inches off, and frustrating when he's an archer, he knows he can do better). And when he is thoroughly bored of that, he moves on to practicing the icy barrier he pulled off once during class. It had just been for a second, and the effort alone was exhausting at the time, but he has a stabler Bond now and he thinks he can do it.

One more time. He breathes in, waves his staff, and calls to the magic inside of him to form a shape. A defensive barrier made of water and ice, one that can hopefully deflect any physical blows were he to find himself at the wrong end of a Shade's hooves again. Unfortunately, what happens isn't a shield, exactly...

It's a full on car-sized bubble of water that bursts and floods the immediate area like a defunct swimming pool, knocking Mikleo right on his ass with a yelp and making a muddy mess of anyone else who might've been practicing nearby.]

[IV. wildcard option]
[Full moon shenanigans? Event shenanigans? Want sum plot???? As always, you can pplurk me at

fonfabre or discord @ fonfabre#0318!]

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[Hiccup, similarly, spends a fair bit of time on the Coven's grounds - when he isn't working on his and Keith's woods-shack in the slums, studying at the library, or meeting with blacksmiths and magitech crafters in the city. There are only so many hours in the day, though, and sometimes he has trouble sleeping, which means practice occasionally has to happen after nightfall.

He leaves Toothless to nap on the grass and picks a spot a ways off to keep from disturbing him too much. Hiccup has taken Mikleo's advice and attended a few abjuration lessons, though of course he's working on adding his own Hiccup spin to the translucent purple shields he's started to develop.

It's hard to miss when Mikleo manages to flood the area, though, with a massive bubble of water that turns the immediate grounds into a mudhole. The force of the flood, before it can sink into the ground, nearly knocks him over from surprise and soaks his pants up to the knees, and his metal foot starts to sink into the mud with a squelch. He's more concerned about the familiar face at the center of it, though.] Woah! Are you okay? That was a ton of water!

[He yanks free his foot, and waves a hand in a horizontal line.] C'mon, shield, shield- [Purple light shimmers to life in something like a platform over the muddy ground, and he steps up onto it to shake mud off the prosthetic. At least until it ripples out of existence, again, and drops him back into the muck. A sheepish laugh, and,] ...Alright, that's not working yet. You're having trouble too, I guess?

[Mikleo is not having a great day here. He doesn't even hear Hiccup calling to him at first because the water is still rushing in his ears, and of course, he's having trouble getting up out of the mud. He lifts his arms and tries to sit up only to get sucked back down into it. This is the worst time to be wearing white pants, truly.

Hiccup's friendly concern finds Mikleo literally punching at the ground to try to get the mud to release him.]

I'm fine-- I just-- stupid mud.

[He tries to pull his legs closer so he can get his feet beneath him somehow, but it requires the seraph pulling on both knees with all his strength and there's a lot of awkward sucking noises involved. He's very much over this.

Five Lords, this is embarrassing. And poor Hiccup doesn't appear to be faring any better. He sees this and redoubles his efforts to free himself of the mud, which unfortunately means putting his arms back into the muck but it seems to be getting easier the more he moves. He's sort of on his knees now.]

I was going for a water barrier like the kind I could conjure at home, but-- you saw what happened. Are you okay? Just give me a second, maybe I can--

[He can pop right out of his shoe, apparently. He looks down at his boot, currently stuck, and then at his besocked foot in the moonlight.]

Okay. I got us into this, I'm going to get us out of it.

Here, wait, let me- I can help- [Except it's hard to get good footing in the slippery mud when you only have one good foot to begin with. Eventually he just kind of starts laughing at how ridiculous this is, the both of them struggling to get out of the wet pit this spot of the grounds are becoming, getting mud all over themselves.]

I'm fine, it's okay. I've seen worse. [He manages to wrench his leg out of the mud enough to twist the "ankle" of his prosthetic foot, swapping the walking foot out for one with cleats, normally used on ice or snow. Maybe it will also give a bit more traction in mud.] Wait, hold on, maybe I can... [He waves a hand again, mumbling 'shield', and another platform of purple light shimmers into existence between them both. He extends it out in the center with a pathway toward drier ground.] I think I can hold it this time.

[He realizes he hasn't heard Hiccup laugh like that before. It is ridiculous, he realizes, but he can't laugh about it when he's already so fired up. Whatever one might consider a water spirit's natural temperament to be, the fuming boy in the witch hat is not it.]

What's worse than wearing white in all this?

[He tries one more time to free his boot from the mud, but it gives way beneath him and sends him slipping in Hiccup's general direction. That's... something good, probably, but it's not an improvement to Mikleo at all when he windmills, loses his balance, and falls right back down onto his butt again.]

Oh come on!

[He sits there, opting to just... hope Hiccup can figure out a rescue. Only then does he notice that the Viking has made a shield spell into something more like a platform. His eyes widen, gears turning invisibly in his head.]

A shield as a stepping stone... I don't think I've ever seen that before. I think you're getting the hang of this, Hiccup.

Aw, c'mon, mud'll wash out. [He says brightly, still laughing despite Mikleo's obvious irritation. Hiccup, evidently, is much more used to getting dirty, because other than having trouble getting out of it, the mud doesn't seem to bother him that much.] Way easier than dragon spit, but if you want me to have Toothless come over and pull you out-

[It takes a lot of concentration to hold the shield spell, to keep it solid. He keeps thinking of the sea-sprayed stone of Berk, carved sentinels rising out of the water for generations of vikings, the concussive force of plasma blasts. He manages a sheepish little smile.] Almost. Holding it is hard. You might want to get out of the mud now because the longer I keep it up, the more likely it is to drop you right back in.

june catch all | all prompts open!

school of hard knocks

that icon is perfect

The Cringe(tm) is kind of my favorite lmao

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