[PQ] Seams Like Magic

Finishing the roof was an accomplishment, but they still had a way to until the repairs and remodeling were finished. He silently thanked the hours of helping on many a farm and stock room that prepared him for these exact chores. It helped that Jigano was no slacker and Freina, as young as she was, wasn't going to just stand by and watch.

He made a face at the old furniture, noting how few were one-person jobs due to their size if not their weight. "To bad there's no easy way to just tear some of the worst stuff into pieces, right?" He downed the rest of his water and moved toward the couch. "Get the worst of it out of here first. Do you have someone comin' to take the old bits?"

---

Rance will take one end the couch, whoever chooses to help him. Chairs to follow!

Between the three of them the roof was eventually patched, the work going smoothly after the initial swarm of holes appeared. Jigano was happy to let Rance direct him, focusing mostly on following directions and finding a rhythm with hammer and nails that played to his natural bardic instincts. Even in the Leafchange chill he was warm by the time they finished and headed down, and he was grateful for the water Freina provided.

The furniture she led them to next had certainly seen better days, and he grimaced as he looked it over. She was probably right about its (lack of) sturdiness, though the likely denizens made him reluctant to touch it.

Ah well. Nothing ventured, no flea bites gained or... something.

"The rug and the coffee table won't be too bad, but the rest are going to be awkward," he opined with a wry smile. "We could try and break them down inside, but I'm afraid of how much mess that would cause that we'd still have to clean up after. Let's get it outside for now. Can always break it down later and use the wooden parts for Deepfrost kindling." It was the best suggestion he had at the moment, but the first step was still getting it all out. Moving to the other end of the sofa he counted to three, then helped Rance lift it and began to back out of the house.

---

Jigano helps with the sofa, and the chairs afterwards!

"It'd be nice," she agreed with Rance's wish that the furniture could just be taken apart first. "Kindling wouldn't be a bad idea," she agreed. "I told the guy I got the furniture from that if any of it was salvageable, I'd save it for him, but if it's not, it's not."

Unfortunately, as soon as Rance and Jigano picked up the sofa, it practically came alive. Mice, mice, everywhere! Mice popping out of old, musty cushions! Mice falling to the floor! MICE EVERYWHERE!

Freina used her air magic to knock a couple mice into the wall, stunning them unconscious, and began chasing after the others to try to do the same. They were small moving targets, after all. "It's okay if you have to kill them!" she called out regretfully as she ran after them. "I'd prefer not, but I won't... argh, stay still!" as she tried to blast another one.

---

Mice, mice, everywhere, and not a cat to... catch them. Okay, so I'm butchering the old poem, but you know what I mean.

Jigano wasn't particularly upset by the mice. His appetite decidedly piqued at the delicious little squeaks and Isuma was swift to join them, swooping down to snag a mouse in her small claws before retreating to a rafter to make a meal of the poor little creature.

That still left its aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, and extended family for the rest of them, alas.

"Out," Jigano said, loud and firm and quite succinct as he called upon his Beastmaster ability to compel the nearest twenty of the tasty little treats out the front door, down the step, over the cobbles and scattering them down the street. The neighborhood cats and birds would have a field day, he hoped, to fatten themselves up against the coming winter.

Rance would have sworn he'd seen everything when it came to strange home repairs, but Freina's new abode kept throwing up new surprises. He half expected the couch to break the moment they picked it up, but he was far less prepared for the swarm that escaped instead. "You sure you got a good deal on this place?" Growling a few choice curses, he all but dropped his end of the couch, transforming into a raven the instant his hands were free.

He would have marveled over Jigano's command of the mice had he not been so distracted. Instinct urged him to hunt the little beasts, but instead moved to threaten them, hoping to scare the rest in the same direction as the other mice, though he was just as likely to scare the things into the walls.

The mice scurried every-which-a-way it seemed. Isuma's sudden swoop made them scatter away from her, then some of them were compelled out into the street by Jigano, and then Raven-Rance scared them in more directions. Some of them went along with Jigano's compelled mice, some of them ran into those, and the others scurried in a different direction.

Freina went about knocking the ones she could into the walls. "It's been empty for a long time," she answered Rance. "And it looked in better shape than many of the others. Also didn't have a nasty surprise in the basement, which is always a plus."

She went and found a rag and used it to scoop up the stunned mice. "Does your friend need some more treats?" she asked Jigano.

Jigano continued to compel the mice in batches of twenty, out the door and away, away from the building that Freina had chosen for her home. It took concentration, but he spared the young woman a glance and a smile as he shook his head at her charity. "No, thank you. She prefers to hunt her own these days, and we've plenty in the barn on the farm to keep her well-fed." Not that he couldn't compel them away, too, if they really needed it, but the barn cats and Isuma needed something to keep them fed and entertained, and he tried not to flaunt his powers around Rory.

Once all the mice were on their merry little ways he reached for the sofa again and waited for Rance to take the other end so they could finish carrying it out and move on to the other furniture.

Rance had to admit, this was not how he'd planned on spending his day. Annoyance and frustration, common visitors these days, sparked through his once-good mood. He might have snapped a bit too hard and fast once or twice as a result, taking his agitation out on the mice. He'd take care of the dead mice once he was human again, having no intention of remaining a bird long enough to properly digest a whole mouse, but that in no way stopped him from killing a couple.

Thanks to Rance and Freina's shooing murdering, and Jigano's magic, the mice were at least cleared from the room (not that they, like the holes in the roof, weren't likely to return and haunt Freina later). Rance shifted back into human form, tossed his kills out the door with a sneer, and marched back to take his end of the couch. "Let's get this stuff out of here, before another swarm shows up." And like that, doing what they could to avoid damaging the door frame, the couch was hauled out the door. Soon to follow would be anything else they could move quickly, Rance not willing to linger more than he needed to.

Freina tossed the stunned mice outside. She swept quickly while Jigano and Rance cleared out the front room. The ancient rug almost disintegrated when they tried to roll it up, but there were no more mousey surprises. Or any other kinds. The couch seemed to have been the favored Mouse House.

"Take a break if you need to," she said, "and then we can get the new stuff in! After that, there's just one more thing."

---

I'm adjusting the rounds a bit to get this wrapped up. So Round 3 is now the hauling in of new, entirely mouseless furniture!

The old furniture went out more smoothly after that, much to Jigano's relief. He'd been waiting for termites in the tables or cockroaches in the rug, but at least they were spared further adventures in vermin hunting on this day. With the last of the old out, he took a moment to rinse his hands and drink some water before giving Rance and Freina a cheerful nod.

"I can move the smaller items, if you need a break," he offered. He was barely winded, his stamina and strength much improved on Caido from the shape he'd been in on his own world, though it had taken quite some time to build it up. He moved to the wagon to begin unloading the smaller pieces of furniture that were easy for one man to carry, hauling them inside and placing them where Freina indicated. When it came to the larger and more awkward pieces, he waited for Rance to join him before team-lifting the couch, large table, and bed into the new shop-and-home.

The old furniture gone, Rance was definitely feeling a bit of a shake in his limbs. He'd had long days before, this shouldn't have been any different. But between the roof patching and the moving out of all those collapsing bits of wood and metal, he knew he'd be feeling the results of this afternoon for days to come. So when Jigano -- still looking relatively fresh, where did he get that energy? -- offered to take a shift on his own, Rance didn't have it in him to argue. "Knock yourself out. Though, please, not literally. Me and the lady aren't goin' to be able to do this alone."

So, while Jigano did some solo heavy lifting and Freina -- presumably -- got the room ready for the new pieces, Rance took a break. Once they're down to the bigger pieces, Rance got back to pulling his weight -- and the weight of the new furniture.

Getting the new furniture inside took longer than anticipated, and not just because he was working solo for most of it. "If I do, I can always Heal any damage I do to myself," Jigano reassured Rance cheerfully, though admittedly if he burned out his magic he'd be a very sad camper indeed. He hadn't come close to that limit in a very long time, though, and he didn't think he'd hit it today as he toddled about with chairs and smaller tables.

He did ask for Rance's help with the new (comparably) couch and the bed frame, wrestling the latter upstairs to one of the newly patched rooms for now. The mattress came after, though he left the linens and making of the bed to Freina herself. A wardrobe for clothes was the last - and most dangerous - item, but they managed it with a bit of a struggle.

If they hadn't had to repair so many holes in the roof, they might have had more time. As it was, the sun was slipping down to kiss the horizon by the time they came down to get more water and dust themselves off, and Jigano flashed Freina an apologetic smile. "I think that's all I have time for today. I can come back tomorrow and get your garden fixed up, though." He wiggled his fingers in demonstration. "It won't take more than half an hour."

He grinned to Rance, offering a sweaty handshake as he wished the man well. "See you around the Hall soon, old bird?"

With that, the group departed for the night, weary but content at a job well-done.

{Finish}