Chapter Seven - Pretty Pretty Flowers
Crossover: Azarinth Healer by Rheagar

***

“It’s... it’s really pretty,” Abigail said that evening. She stood in the middle of the main floor of the shop, hands folded together over her tummy and eyes wandering across the cafe.

Dreamer supposed that it was kind of pretty. She could do without all of the cat themed items, but cats tasted good, so maybe they were a way of telling people that the food here tasted good too.

Not that they’d made any yet.

“What’s missing?” Dreamer asked. She’d sent that Stray Cat girl back, according to the Summoning Rules. Dreamer decided to add her own secret addendum to the rules. She’d only summon people and stuff for a small amount of time. That way Abigail wouldn’t get too fond of them.

The Stray Cat girl had been, in her own words, a ‘raging lesbian’ and that was something that somehow gave her and Daphne and Abigail a lot to talk about, though Dreamer thought that the cat-girl was a bit more open and less blush-y about stuff than Abigail and Daphne.

“Missing?” Abigail asked right back.

“We have furniture,” Dreamer said with a gesture towards the chairs and tables. “We have kitchen things. We have the rooms upstairs to be comfy in. What else do we need before we can do shop stuff?”

Abigail reached up and pinched her chin between forefinger and thumb. “We need some ingredients, and I need to practice making cakes and pastries.” She smiled and looked down at Dreamer. “Do you want to help taste-test?”

Dreamer nodded. She did.

“So, we’ll need to stop by a few shops to grab the right ingredients. I think that can wait until tomorrow though. I’m not quite in the mood for baking and experimenting right now.”

“Okay,” Dreamer said. She was a little disappointed, but what was a day of waiting when she’d waited entire eons for some suns to ripen into tastier colours.

“I guess the only other thing is maybe some flowers for the planters out front?” Abigail asked. She glanced out of the windows at the front of the cafe, and Dreamer followed her gaze. There were, indeed, a couple of planters under the window where flowers were meant to be.

Dreamer had seen plenty of those on some nicer homes across the city. They were like a free snack dispenser. “That can’t be too hard,” Dreamer said.

“I don’t think it should be, no,” Abigail said. She shifted over to be next to Dreamer, then placed a hand on her head. “Thanks for all the help, Dreamer. I didn’t think you’d be so... enthusiastic about the cafe, but I’m glad that you are.”

“It’s okay. You looked happy about it, so I’m happy too,” Dreamer said.

Abigail laughed and bent down to squeeze Dreamer in a hug. “Thanks,” she said before standing up. “I’m going to go talk to Daphne for a bit. We still need to draw up a list of the things we need to buy. You know, at this rate the cafe will be ready to open in just a couple of days.”

Dreamer nodded. She looked forward to it.

Abigail gave her another pat--so many pats! Dreamer was being a very good girl today--then walked off to talk with Daphne. “Plants, huh,” Dreamer muttered.

She flounced--something the girls at the gardening club had taught her how to do, it was how a girl walked when she was happy--over to the backyard, then she placed her hands on her hips.

Flowers.

Dreamer didn’t know much about those. Maybe she could place some tentacles out there that looked like flowers?

She made a tentacle sprout out of the ground, then gave it some tumorous growths on the end.

Dreamer hummed. Maybe it needed more colour? She changed the colours of the growths, like those frogs that Abigail told her not to eat despite their being spicey.

The flower-tacle didn’t look right. She tried making it have nectar, but all that happened was a squirt of pus leaking out of the end of it.

“No good,” Dreamer said.

She shrugged. It was time to summon away her problems.

She was really starting to like the whole summoning trick. It reminded her a bit of when she discovered tentacles and their myriad uses. It was a very versatile trick. Not as handy as actual tentacles, but neat all the same.

Focusing, Dreamer tried to do a summoning without a circle. All she was looking for were some flowers, maybe a tree and some grass for the backyard. Nothing too complicated.

The world warped, and Dreamer rolled her eyes when physics steamed in protest as dirt and the top layer of yellowed backyard grass was shredded apart by Dreamer’s spell.

Grass appeared, long and green; then the ground warped again, and when Dreamer blinked, there was now a great big tree sitting in the middle of the yard.

“Well, this is interesting,” the tree said.

Not out loud, it was more of a psychic message sent out across a broad spectrum, though it wasn’t very loud. A sort of polite mental message.

“I didn’t know trees could talk,” Dreamer said.

“I daresay most of them can’t,” the tree and the grass around it said. “Would you mind telling me where I am?” it asked.

“In the backyard,” Dreamer said. “I wanted flowers because mine don’t look right.” she gestured to her tentaflowers.

“I see. That is certainly an interesting interpretation of what a flower should look like. Who might you be?”

“I’m Dreamer,” Dreamer said. “Who are you?”

“My... friends call me Meadow,” the tree said.

Dreamer nodded. “Are you a boy tree or a girl tree?”

“I’m more of a grassland, actually. I note that your body is more of a puppet than an actual proper body. Are you a boy tentacle being, or a girl tentacle being?”

Dreamer considered that. “I think I’m a girl now. Being a girl feels better.” Besides, Abigail liked girls more, and for some reason boys weren’t allowed to wear pretty dresses.

“A pleasure to meet you. You wouldn't happen to know how to return me to my other dimension?”

“Yeah, I can do that,” Dreamer said. “But can you help me with flowers first?”

***