Mira successfully broke a little of Sophia’s worldview by showing her just how powerful magic can be and how limited the tiger still was. Once she got over it and learned a lot, the blonde did her best to befriend the parakeet the overseer created with magic because she already liked it a lot.

“Can magic birds get fat?” Sophia was still watching the blue parakeet sitting on her hand, munching away one seed after another with rapid speed. Hearing that, the bird lifted its head and slowly shook it from side to side while looking at the blonde. Immediately after, it focused on the food again.

“It can, by the way.” Mira also shook her head as she glanced at the parakeet. Noticing that it got called out, the bird froze. It still swallowed the seed in its mouth, though. "Again, physically, it has become a regular bird."

“I love this little guy~!” The tiger gently patted the bird’s head because she was a big fan of how expressive it was. “Don’t worry, you won’t get fat if you overeat on a single day.” She smiled at the parakeet. “You can also just fly around a lot later for exercise.” The moment she said these words, the bird immediately returned to happily eating the seeds at an even faster pace.

“Don’t spoil it too much.” Mira didn’t approve of it.

“But Blu’s too adorable not to spoil!” Sophia started pouting.

“Blu?” Mira tilted her head. Curiously enough, the bird did the same motion while still swallowing a seed.

“The parakeet’s name!” She sounded a little excited. "I'm not good with names, so I went for something rather, uhh… obvious, but Blu's still a cute name, right?!" The tiger looked at the bird for confirmation. Seemingly thinking about it for a moment, it then flapped its wings, took flight, and circled around the blonde a few times before landing on her shoulder. There, it went ahead and rubbed its head against the side of Sophia’s cheek.

“I guess that’s a yes on the name.” Mira didn’t need to think too hard about interpreting the reaction.

“Ehehe~.” The blonde started smiling broadly. “Nice to meet you, Blu!” Seemingly at least as happy about it, the bird rubbed his head even stronger against Sophia’s cheek while also chirping a couple of times.

"Your ability to form bonds so quickly and deeply is most fascinating." The overseer stared at the tiger while occasionally glancing at Blu on her shoulder.

“I’m trying my best!” She sounded incredibly happy while saying so. “Alright, I guess that’s a good stopping point to head home, though. After all, I still need to check what magic did with my cherry blossom biome.” Sophia thought she learned enough for one day. “Afterward, I’ll proceed to constantly flood my domain with my authority from the outside for the next months to get ever-so-slightly closer to some bigger stuff…” She sounded tired already. “At least I have Blu now to play with and get to know magic even better!” Hearing that, the bird nodded a few times while chirping happily.

“What makes you think Blu can come with you?”

“Because we’re friends!” The blonde’s reasoning was simple.

“That doesn’t really matter.”

“Blu, do you want to come to my domain?” Sophia addressed the bird directly. “It’s not as fancy as here, but I allowed magic to do whatever it wants! There are only two rules: Not blowing up my domain, and big creations should be cute! Other than that, everyone can do whatever they want! Sounds great, doesn’t it? We can become even better friends, too!” Listening to her, Blu then lifted one wing in the air while still nodding and chirping in an even happier tone.

“…”

“You’re not going to deny Blu’s wish, are you?”

“You are the worst.” The teal fox eventually gave up when she couldn’t bear the sad-looking expression on Blu any longer and glared at the tiger one last time.

“I know!”

“Do not tell the others that I created it and also not how strong it really is. They'll notice that it can beat all of them easily, but let's not mention the times multiple thousand multiplier.”

“Okay!” Both nodded a couple of times. “Let’s go, Blu!” Watching the bird lift its wing again while still sitting on her shoulder, Sophia opened one of her portals and stepped through it.

“Haa…” Letting out a sigh, Mira then also followed after her.

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“Ohh!” They headed directly to the cherry blossom biome, and Sophia immediately got excited when she saw the countless cherry trees around them. It was impossible to tell just how many there were because the tiger would need to be on an elevated area to get an overview, but magic definitely held word and created countless cherry blossoms. Even more weeping cherries, too. Just like the blonde had asked for. Even though they couldn't see very far, it was already noticeable that the terrain wasn't just flat, either.

“This pink goodness never gets old.” Mira also seemed to like the area.

“I know, right?!” The blonde nodded a few times.

Noticing their arrival, countless pink and purple particles appeared from all over the forest and circled around the duo before forming into a cloud in front of them. Seeing them, Blu left Sophia's shoulder, and it flew through the cloud a couple of times as if greeting them before returning to the tiger.

“Aww~.” Sophia gently patted Blu’s head before focusing on the cloud. “It looks amazing!” She immediately started praising them. “The first impression is exactly how I imagined it to be! I really need to find a way to see it from above because it’s mostly just pink around here, too. I want to see if it changes color along the way!” A few moments after saying that, a portal suddenly appeared in front of her while some of the magic particles swirled around it.

“Oh?” Mira’s ears perked up. “It’s rare for magic to be that eager.”

“It is?” The blonde tilted her head. “I have yet to see them not eager.” As she said so, the particles sped up and got behind her while trying to push Sophia through the portal. “See?”

“Hmm, it rarely gets this excited with me.”

“Maybe magic just likes me more than you~.” The tiger’s voice got incredibly smug.

“There’s no way that’s true, right?” The overseer looked around, but every single particle froze for a second or two. Even Blu on Sophia’s shoulder just turned its head away. “Hey!” Mira raised her voice. “Everyone, explain that reaction just now!”

“Magic’s rebelling against their master, huh?” Sophia only got smugger.

“Hey!” The teal fox glared at her. “Also, I just created you, Blu, and that’s how you thank me?!”

“Ehehe~.” She liked the reaction. “Anyway, I’m sure they’re just excited that they can play around in my domain so much. After all, there are next to no rules except not blowing up the place entirely and my preference for cute things. I’m sure you, as the overseer, imposed more rules to your domain to keep things balanced, right?” Agreeing with her explanation, Blu nodded again while the particles also started moving up and down.

“I see.” Mira paused for a moment. “So, Sophia’s the cool aunt that lets you do whatever you want when you visit her, knowing that you have to behave at home, huh?” She looked right at the parakeet on Sophia’s shoulder, which only turned its head away in return.

“Oh!” Hearing that analogy, Sophia’s face lit up. “I like that! Alright, magic, from now on, I’m your cool aunt!” Welcoming her to the family, Blu did a little dance on the tiger’s shoulder while all the particles rapidly swirled around her.

“I wasn’t being seri-, well, whatever.” The overseer let out a sigh. “Sure, why not.” She gave up.

"Alright, let's go to wherever this leads!" Energetically raising her arm, the tiger then stepped through the portal magic had provided for her.

“Sure.” Mira followed after her.

“WOW!” Arriving on the other side, Sophia got even more excited. The portal led to a floating island roughly 500 meters above the forest. It was around 50 meters in diameter and had a massive weeping cherry in its very center, with the leaves and branches spanning over the entire island, providing a nice protection from the usual all-white around them. Under the tree, attached to two low-hanging branches, was also a hammock, together with a small river flowing from one end of the island to the other. The water then simply fell off the sides and rained down on the forest below like a small waterfall. “I guess I’m moving out of the cottage! This place is way better!”

“It really is a very beautiful place.” The teal fox also agreed.

“ALSO!” The tiger raised her voice even more. “Floating island! How?!”

“I love how short and precise you are.” Mira let out a small chuckle. “As usual, the answer is magic. Making something float is an easy feat for it.”

“I see!” Sophia decided that she wouldn’t question it and just nodded. “I should’ve known that earlier, though! I love it! Magic, suggestion for the future! Floating cherry island all over the place!” She addressed the pink and purple particles around her, who then immediately started moving up and down. “Also, thank you very much for making this place for me so that I can get a good look at everything!” The particles got even more active after hearing that.

“Yeah, it’s really no surprise that they like you so much.” Though she had some mixed feelings on a few earlier events, Mira couldn't help but smile at their exchange.

“Ehehe~.” Sophia let out a short giggle before continuing. “Okay, I already got a small glimpse, but let’s get a better look.” Saying so, she walked over to the edge of the island and looked down. “Also, we need to add some guard rails here.” She got a little uneasy about the 500-meter drop without any protection.

Ignoring the safety hazard for the time being, she then focused on the forest below them. Thanks to being on such an elevated point and her domain being flat, she could look on forever, but even then, the blonde wasn't able to see the edge of the vast forest as her eyesight gave out before the cherries did. She could clearly see that two-thirds of the trees were weeping cherries while the rest were of the regular kind, just as she wanted it to be. The terrain had been visibly altered, too. Instead of everything being flat, there were some actual mountains or at least hills, valleys, a few plains, and even rivers all over the place.

The tiger could even spot a few smaller lakes the rivers fed into and something that looked like a massive ravine in the far distance, splitting a part of the land. The most striking feature was the color shift of the whole forest, though. Just as she had asked for, the trees came in many shades of white, violet, pink, and purple, almost leading to a full red. The change happened in a nice gradient, too. Instead of dark purple trees being right next to light violet ones, the white cherries slowly turned into a light pink, normal pink, darker pink, light purple, and so on. The same happened with the violet and other hues.

“Oho.” Mira walked up next to her and also took in the sights. “That’s no good.” She shook her head after a little while.

“Why?!” She didn’t like her reaction.

“This cherry blossom biome might be more impressive than all the ones I have combined. It’s absolutely stunning without being obnoxious or too oversized and mutated.” The overseer paused for a moment. “I can’t let that slide.”

“We did it, magic!” Hearing that, Sophia’s eyes started sparkling. “We made the boss jealous!” Even the particles around her somehow seemed smug about it. “I really am the cool aunt here!”

“Why do I feel the urge to give you a little push right now?” The teal fox looked over the edge of the island, down towards the forest, before glancing at the tiger beside her.

“Try it!” Sophia took a stance against her. “You were the one who said you can't beat me in my own domain, so I'm looking forward to testing that out."

“That’s the reason we’re both still up here right now." Mira smiled back at her. “Not that either of us would get even a scratch by falling down from up here, anyway.”

“Also, this is no place for violence!” The blonde ended the topic.

“Good call.” The overseer nodded.

Afterward, once things calmed down, mostly Sophia having grown tired of her teasing and smugness, they simply enjoyed the beautiful area for a while longer.

 

 

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