So far, it had been a long, chaotic day for Lapis.
It was only noon.
None the less, it was the truth. As a rather antisocial noodle, the hustle and bustle of the academy having been increased by the excitement of the holiday was rather exhausting. They'd flown the students out to Lylluna to experience it for themselves, providing some materials for them to work with. Lapis had also brought her own from home- how could she know they'd have what she needed?
Asra had been amused by her preparations, telling her that perhaps she was taking this far more seriously than it needed to be. Lapis had told her if she wanted to succeed at magic, she needed to take everything seriously. Asra told her that was a good way to burn herself out. Regardless, she'd gotten her girlfriend to agree to meet up with her. Asra was one of the few who's presence actively helped her instead of stressed her out. Asra would coo and say something along the lines of 'aww you really do care' if she knew that Lapis thought of her that way.
Lapis wasn't great about saying things like that when she thought of them.
Something that she needed to work on, really.
There were a great many things she wished she'd told her mother.
Now she'd never get the chance.
Lapis resisted the urge to tap her paw on the sand in restlessness. Did Asra get delayed? What if something bad had happened? What if- As if her fears had been sensed, she heard a somewhat distant call of her own name. Looking up from where she'd been staring at the sand, she spotted Asra racing toward her down the hill. Lapis began to pad over to meet up with her- running was, not really her thing. Or, any other athletic activity, really. Asra however, in her eagerness to get down the hill, promptly tripped over a rock she hadn't previously seen, and began to tumble down the hill, bowling into Lepis before eventually coming to a stop. Lapis sat up, coughing up a small amount of sand, and quickly grabbed her glasses to clear them.
Asra took a bit longer to recover, but once she did, she began to giggle. "That hill was very steep," she gasped between breaths of laughter. Lapis sighed airily in response. At least it was clear Asra was not hurt by such a fall, even if Lapis's eyes now hurt from the sand she'd had to blink out of them. "We should get started." Her voice was sudden as she spoke, a common habit of hers. "Alright," Asra said, shaking a heafty amount of sand out of her wax as she stood. "I'm assuming you have this all planned out to the centimeter," Asra shot her a coy look as she said this, unfortunately for Lapis, kind of hitting the nail on the head.
Lapis was nothing if not a creature of habit.
She planned things heavily before doing them. Asra was more of... a go with the flow type of noodle. It was particularly thanks to Asra that Lapis got out at all. She'd supported the idea of Lapis going to the academy from the very start, saying that she should make friends there. The friends thing was still debatable, but Lapis had been making progress with her coursework.
Regardless, she began to unpack the stuff she'd brought, as well as several other things she'd grabbed from what the academy provided. She unfurled a scroll, which held a very messy sketch as to what she was going for. Asra peaked over her shoulder, eyeing the sketch with curious eyes. "You're gonna put a spell on it?"
As she asked this, she pointed to the base of the lantern, where Lapis had decided that the extra floating spell would go. "Of course. The Academy brought me here, so I'll practice my spells." She stated that as if it were obvious. Asra eyed the sketch for a moment, that look in her eyes that Lapis recognized as her thinking. After a moment, she spoke, her voice airy with idea, "You could make the the light inside purple, like the arcane magic you use."
Lapis glanced at her out of the corner of her eye, a soft hum leaving her. "Would require an enchantment. That's good... actually."
At this, Asra clapped her font paws together excitedly from where she sat beside Lapis. "Great! I'm excited to see you do magic, I know you've been working very hard."
Lapis couldn't help but flush slightly at the comment, but it was true. Like stated beforehand, she took everything about this very seriously. Despite that, she felt slightly nervous about doing it in front of Asra- did nerves affect magic? What if her spell failed? She was pulled from her stupor by Asra beginning to rummage through the materials she'd brought rather carelessly. Well, they had to create the lantern first. So, Lapis had some time to disappiate her nerves.
Asra handed her the glue, which was now spotted with sand on the bottle. Lapis took it, as well as a round bowl she'd decided would be the base. Asra quickly grabbed the fabrics and began to cut out the pieces with Lapis looking over her shoulder as supervisor. "A flower is a nice design, and here I thought you'd pick something different." Lapis pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, letting out a soft hum before responding, "It's easier to tell where the light should go if it's the center of the flower." Asra handed her the first cut out of fabric, and Lapis took her time gluing it down and making sure it sat just right.
Before long, Asra had outpaced her with her cuttings, and now hung over Lapis's shoulder, watching her work at methodical pace. She placed her head on Lapis's shoulder. Lapis found that very distracting. She didn't exactly want to pull away though, and thus adjusted her grip on several things to make carrying the weight easier. "All this time of us together and you still get flustered by the simplest of things." Asra chortled softly in amusement. "I am not flustered, I don't know what you're talking about." Lapis tried to feign annoyance, but amusment quickly slipped through and her act shattered rather quickly.
"I'll be sure not to touch you when you're trying to enchant." Her voice was teasing.
Lapis wrinkled her face in defiance. "I can focus with you here!" Asra's giggles increased in volume.
Lapis let out a huff, but continued with her work. It took a while, but eventually she had all the petals glued down in the shape of a lotus flower. That just left the light.
What followed was the two of them trying to find it, because it seemed to have fallen out of the bag when Arsa had her tumble. The sand had covered it up and they were now sifting through it with their paws. Twenty minutes had passed, and Lapis was beginning to dispair about having to go into town and buy another one, which was not cheap. Asra tried to comfort her, "Well they say there's always one thing that goes wrong. That means once we're over this, your spells will work perfectly and it will be smooth sailing!" Lapis let out a sigh, "So comforting Asra." Her voice was dry, but it did help her that at least one of them was being optimistic. Asra was almost always without fail the optimist in their relationship.
Suddenly, after some more searching, Asra let out a gasp. "I felt it! It touched my paw! It's in here somewheree..." At this, Lapis began to dig around her paws as Asra tried to grasp the light. After some pulling, Asra managed to get it free of the sand. Lapis felt herself deflate slightly with relief. The sun was beginning to get low in the sky now, so Lapis grabbed her staff and prepared to cast the enchantments. She had decided that it would be best to do the color spell on the light before the floating spell. Having their lantern float away too early would be a hassle. Asra watched her with her head tilted slightly in curiosity. Lapis eyed the light with what she hoped was a stoic expression as she cleared her head of any outlying thoughts that may ruin the spell. She focused hard on the color she wanted, visualizing it in her head before gently tapping her staff to the light and commanding softly, "purple." Making a big fuss or saying the words loudly often threw her off.
Something that she'd corrected quickly.
She prefered this anyways, she felt stupid being loud or striking hard. The light flickered before her, and Lapis narrowed her eyes, watching it carefully as it slowly turned a hyacinth shade of purple. She let out a breath she wasn't aware she'd been holding in. Asra clapped her paws together in a lively manner. She hadn't seen magic much in her life, so Lapis's simple spells were more than enough to keep her entertained. "That actually looks surprisingly simple," she commented, a look of thought on her face.
"Well it's mainly about intent. That's the hard part, if you're distracted or your intent is a bit... off.. well, you can end up with something very different than what you want. I found that out in my first enchanting class when I tried to embue a sword with light, and it burst into flames." Embarrassment flooded Lapis's voice and body as she remembered the whole incident. Nobody was without their magical mishaps at the academy, but her professor had not been very pleased about the desk now having very noticable scorch marks on it.
Asra let out a light laugh, "Well, it was probably not the worst mishap they've seen." Asra was right about that, someone must not been great at alchemy the other week, because Lapis had heard a rather loud explosion and the whole school stank like fish for the next few days. Her setting something on fire could have been worse. At last she'd managed to put it out quickly.
She sighed and pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose once more. "I suppose you're right about that..." She eyed the latern, which was now glowing quite fiercely. "That just leaves the floating spell."
Now that the sun was going down, they approached the water, carrying the lantern to the edge of the shore, where the waves lapped at the sand peacefully in some sort of pattern only the ocean knew. Placing it down, Lapis busied herself with the floating enchantment, picturing it floating peacefully through the sky with ease. Light as a feather, swift as a bird. Once the picture and the words were fully in her minds eye, she tapped the base of the lantern with her staff, softly commanding it once more to "float." Then, entirely on it's own, it began to rise from the sand, and Asra had to grab it so they could plan how to release it properly.
A small boat for rent was quickly purchased, and they headed out into the waters as the sun continued to set, and the world became painted in hues of purple and blue. The moon hung over them, and soon, lanterns slowly began to filter over the waters and into the sky.
Asra shifted her grip on the lantern so the both of them could hold it, and began to count down. "3... 2... 1!" With this, she released her grip and so did Lapis, though Asra took extra effort to fling it up a bit to help it get more height, which Lapis had told her was not necessary as they'd purchased the boat, but seeing her smile was enough to quiet Lapis's concerns.
Asra watched it eagerly as it joined many of the other lanterns floating above the sea waters. "They're so beautiful..." She breathed, leaning on the edge of the boat to see better. Lapis watched her look around at each lantern, a small smile curling it's way onto her face as Asra pointed out different ones to her.
She really was lucky.
For a lot of things, but particularly Asra.
She moved to close the gap between them, this time placing her head on Asra's shoulder. Asra leaned back. They talked in hushed voices about which ones had the prettiest decorations on them and admired the moon.
It really was a most beautiful night, Lapis had to agree with Asra on that one.
