Saige visiting family...

Saige laughs and starts plucking the feathers from Storm's hair.

"Don't worry, I have a solvent. And that just means we'll have to prank them back!"

She digs a vial out of her bag, opens it, and pours it on the mug. Once it's no longer stuck to Storm's hand, Saige leads her over to where Cassia sits. She resumes her position on the floor, dragging Storm down with her.

"Okay okay. Cassia, this is Storm! Storm, this is Cassia!"

Storm let's Saige lead her and pull her to the floor. She chuckles and waves at Cassia. "Hello again. It's nice to officially meet you."

Cassia waves back, ducking his face shyly. "You're the nice lady who brought me here. Hi."

Storm shrugs. "Had to reunite you with the family. I wasn't going to just leave you alone out in the middle of the woods." She points to the sweater he's knitting. "Whatcha got there?"

Cassia picks up and holds it up to show off the partially knit sweater that doesn't quite resemble a sweater yet. "It's a sweater for the chicken! I thought it must be cold without any skin."

Storm laughs and nods. "I see. I see. It could probably use a sweater since it's losing the last of it's feathers anyways."

Cassia nods and smiles. "Exactly! You seem really nice." He looks to Saige and leans in to whisper to her. "Are you going to burn down her house? I think you should."

"Cassia!" Saige immediately looks flustered and switches to speaking in elvish. "I mean, probably, but the house literally just got built, and Jade would be really mad if I burnt it down, so I'd have to build another house for Storm to burn down, and that'll take a long time, and then I wouldn't want to burn it down immediately after building it, so yes probably eventually but it would take a lot of planning."

Her hands flail wildly as she speaks to her brother, but she turns back to Storm, face flushed, and clears her throat.

"Anyways!" Saige shifts awkwardly. "Cassia, we'll totally have to take you into the swamps when we go to Seshtau. There's so many cool bugs there! And alligators!"

Storm chuckles as she watches Saige flail and speak to her brother. Cassia nods as he listens to his sister and then his eyes widen when she talks about the bugs and alligators.

"Oh!! I'd love to meet new bugs and alligators!" He picks up his in-progress sweater. "Do you think they get cold? Would they like sweaters?"

Storm shrugs with a smile. "They've got pretty thick skin but I'm sure they'd appreciate the gesture. And when you're ready... We can wrestle the alligators!"

Cassia looks confused. "Wrestle them? But why? Do they like it?"

Storm nods. "Oh they love it! Ask your sister! She wrestled a few alligators with me."

Cassia looks to Saige. "Did you really? What was it like?"

“Oh it’s so much fun! You start to wrestle them, sometimes they bite down on your arm or your leg and drag you underwater and do this spinning thing of death, like they just keep spinning and rolling until you stop moving!” Saige speaks excitedly. “But don’t worry! That’s why you wrestle them back! And you can do the death roll thing back to them too, it’s a lot more fun to do that on land though, not as much water gets up your nose.”

She smiles and looks to Cassia.

“I don’t know if you’d like it though, it might be too much for you. But I think they would definitely appreciate the sweaters. They said it gets really cold in the water, and they have to go find a place with the sun, but the sun isn’t always out because it’s the swamp, so it’s pretty chilly most of the time.”

She nods and settles down, but quickly starts waving her hands wildly again. 

“Oh! I should totally introduce you to Callista too! She has like, all of the spiders. I know how much you love spiders. I bet you two could talk forever about it.” She turns to Storm. “You know, I should really go check in with her. And the orcs. And…”

Her head snaps back to Cassia. 

“Cassia, do you think I should go check on our friends back home? I think Mr. Spiky Bone Man was getting close to going out of the woods. Was everyone okay before you had to leave? Surely whatever attacked everyone didn’t get them too, right?”

Cassia smiles. "Then I'll make all the alligators sweaters! And the spiders too!" When she asks about the other friends in the woods he looks down and pushes his glasses up his nose. "I didn't see them when we were being attacked. I don't know what happened to them." He looks up with wide eyes. But I bet they are all safe because they don't like strangers so they would have stayed hidden, right? Right?! I hope so..."