The Magicians' Realm Chapter 86: Daffodils, a yu-gi-oh fanfic

Chapter 86, everybody! In which we try to entertain a regular update schedule for a while and the honking daffodils make a triumphant return….In other news, while I based the Administrators off of the administrators at my first college, I've also based them off of Congress as well. Says a lot, doesn't it?

Also some sad news—I've recently found out one of my favorite fanfic writers is no longer posting to the site and has taken their work down as well. A shame, really—they were the one that gave me the incentive to give fanfiction a second try. :(

And yes, ladies and gentlemen, the weather does naturally fluctuate over the years—the Thames used to freeze thick enough to hold festivals on it. And an arboretum is a fancy term for a greenhouse, usually one with scientific inclinations to it. And yes, daffodils are poisonous. To eat. So don't eat them. (this has been your PSA for the week)

Movie this week is Cover Girl with Rita Hayworth and Gene Kelly—I find it funny how even five years ago I'd say the ending was sweet, but now I see it and go "what a bum." Mom says it's because she's taught me right. ;)

Angiembabe, thanks for the review! Yes, it's good to be back—first time this year, too (but not the last). Maybe. ;) Yes…Max tells me to tell you you make him blush.

Fromtheashtrees, thanks for the review! Here's hoping. Or not hoping—it depends on the plan. This is true—but what can we expect from a bunch of teenagers with minimum life experience flying by the seat of their pants? Thank you, I did! It's just the flu that came after the holidays that was a drag. :P

FluffyIdiotIsI, thanks for the review! Unfortunately, due to my writing style, I'm going to have to pass on your first suggestion. Max does, really…I don't know….This is true—and that made me think more Art from Monsters University, actually. She says she'll think about it. Yes—Serpine has a red right hand in Skulduggery Pleasant: Scepter of the Ancients. Very painful when he points at you. No rest for Maxwell, no….

References:

Original characters, + setting © Kineil D. Wicks (myself, not the girl in the story)

The sun was nice and warm that morning, combating with the cool air coming off the mountains. It smelled like spring, which struck her as odd—middle of October shouldn't feel like spring and summer were right around the corner, and it made her wonder about the sense behind planting flowers in this weather.

The daffodils didn't seem to mind the weather though, with the way they all were honking happily as she replanted the two that had been in the pot.

"There," she declared, patting the dirt down and dusting her hands off. "Now you're all back and where you belong. Now…I don't know, maybe some watering."

The daffodils honked at her as she stood, followed her motions as she walked around, looking for a watering can or a hose. When her quest proved fruitless, she retreated to the kitchen and filled the pitcher before bringing it out.

"Apologies for this being too much at once and probably tasting like lemonade," she said, kneeling to pour so she didn't send a bunch of dirt gushing everywhere. "Yes, you're cute," she said as they honked at her.

"Oh here you are! The pitcher is missing—oh there it is," Yami said, coming up on her. "There's a watering can in the shed."

"There's a shed?" Teana asked, smirking a little as some of the nearer daffodils hissed at Yami and nipped at his heels. "I'm surprised it survived the incidents."

"It's covered with ivy, so it's hard to find—hence why it survived the incidents," Yami said, twitching his cape away from the daffodils.

"That explains a lot. And I notice they don't like you."

"They might still be a little mad at me for taking those two. But I see you put them back so—stop that! I weed you."

"You weed them? Do you use magic, or do you actually get on your hands and knees for that?"

"Magic gets those annoying taproots out better."

"Maybe they don't appreciate you being so distant."

"For the record, I have been trying very hard not to be distant."

"For the record, we're still talking about the daffodils."

"We are? Oh. I thought I was being proactive and getting ahead of the conversation."

"You were getting ahead of yourself, I'll give you that."

"I'll have to tell the mailman that talking about the relationship isn't working."

"You're getting relationship advice from the mailman?"

"He's been happily married for eighty years—he seems like a good one to consult."

"You're depressing."

"I guess this counts. Why am I depressing?"

"Because you insist on getting ahead of yourself."

"I like thinking positive."

"Uh-huh," she noised, handing him the pitcher and standing. "Speaking of—what's with this weather?"

"Oh dear me, now we're talking about the weather—why are we avoiding the topic?"

"We're not avoiding the topic, I seriously want to talk about the weather. Why does it feel like I missed all the end of year holidays and skipped right to spring?"

"Lovely weather, isn't it?"

"If you're into Chaos Weather, sure."

"It's nothing so dire as that," Yami said, trying to reclaim the edge of his cape that the daffodils had gotten hold of. "I have it on good authority that the weather naturally fluctuates over a long period of time. When I was little the river used to freeze a good two feet thick."

"This was what, a hundred years or so ago?"

"Maybe seventy—I'm not that old."

"There's still the age gap there. And whose authority?"

"What?"

"Who told you the weather fluctuates like this?"

"Oh—Doctor Finkelstein—I told you about him, we really need to pay him a visit."

"Uh-huh."

"You'd like him—he has that whole 'gentrified scientist' thing going. Like Wilson, only he manages to pull it off."

"That's nice."

"You don't sound enthused."

"Planting daffodils put me in a good place—don't ruin it with mad scientists."

"Technically the only time he's mad is when someone touches his delicate experiments," Yami said, handing her the pitcher and tugging a bit more firmly on his cape.

"Sounds like another incident."

"It's why Heph and Vul aren't allowed to go visit him anymore. But I still can, and I'm sure he'd love to meet you, so…."

"You have work."

"Don't do this to me—it's bad enough you did it once. I can't go and work another full day—it'd kill me. It'd kill Max—he'd have a heart attack at the sight."

"Okay, you're starting to make a convincing argument."

"Against?"

"For—I wouldn't mind a little less of Max." And less mention of Yami dying.

"I'm telling him you said that."

"And that would require me caring about what he thought."

"Then why throw your drink in his face? It was a perfectly fine drink—" Yami must have noticed her glare, because he started backtracking. "Not that he didn't deserve it, obviously—"

"Obviously. And I'm pretty sure it was his drink I threw at him."

"It was still a waste of good booze. Stop that!" he yelped, crouching down to try to free his cape edge from the daffodils.

"I'm curious," she asked, watching him. "If I were to ask for a field of these, what would you say?"

"I would say that I hope they like me better than this. They're back now, stop it!"

"Not no, you can't have them?"

"I might draw the line at something man-eating, but I'm pretty sure it's only my cape in jeopardy here," he replied, trying to gently worry a daffodil off—he succeeded in getting it to transfer its ire to his finger. "Ow."

"I'd expect more of a reaction."

"It would be more so if these guys actually had teeth. As it is, my finger's going to be yellow."

Teana made a pensive noise, watched him gently try to work his cape free from the daffodils.

"How about half a day?" she asked finally. "You work from now until—say one because you're still here—and then in the afternoon we can go and pay the good doctor a visit."

Yami considered this. "I say I like it, you have yourself a deal. Just as soon as I get free of this minor assault."

Teana was pretty sure she could help there.

"Spit that out," she said to the daffodils. "You don't know where that's been."

The daffodils dropped the cape edge and directed happy honking at her.

"Ah bless, you've saved my life," Yami said, standing back up. "Although I'm a little concerned that I have little pollen-making enemies now."

"As well you should—they'll give you hay fever."

"I'm hoping they don't hold a grudge."

"Be glad they can't follow you."

Long silence.

"They can't, can they?" Teana asked, a little concerned.

"I…don't know. I think I'll distance myself for the moment though."

"Smart idea."

"Glad you approve."

And with that, he dipped down for a quick kiss to her cheek before winging off towards the Administration Building. She watched him leave, looked down at the daffodils again.

Every last one of them was examining her with half-closed eyes, somewhere between accusing and you sly dog.

"What?" she asked, heading back in. "I can't kiss all of you—I'd get pollen everywhere."

*/*\*

"Is this such a smart idea?"

"Chances are, Delvaire's changed quite a bit since the last time Skellington was here," Yami said, standing at the edge of the woods at the base of the hill on which Windsor Manor stood. "If I needed to regroup, I'd do it someplace familiar."

"Can we go back to the part where he'd be in his element and we'd be sittin' ducks?" Jonouchi asked, arms crossed tightly. "Because I think that's an important part."

"We could," Yami said, looking the area over—absolutely no cover once they got out of the woods and past the fence. "But at least confirming he's here is important."

"Yeah, great. Hey, you never did say what we were gonna do once we actually found the guy."

That was because Yami had no idea, and he hated that, and he hated being reminded of that. Skellington had been in his seventies when he died—ridiculously young for a powerful Magician—had a thousand years to work on his finesse…even if Yami were the better caster, Skellington had canniness and efficiency behind him—

Aha.

"We are going to go right up to him and tackle him," Yami said. "And then we're going to take him apart. Literally."

"Uh, ew," Jonouchi said. "And you're awful confident about this."

"That's because there's magic-dampening spells on the house—remember? Skellington did it so he could trap the Administrators, but he wasn't expecting a frontal assault—and you didn't see him, he's a beanpole. Now come on, before he has time to take those spells off."

"How do you undo a magic-dampening spell?" Jonouchi hissed as they ran at a crouch to the back of the house.

"Very carefully," Yami hissed back, again not wanting to admit he didn't know. "Now come on, let's go."

They snuck up the side of the hill, keeping low to the ground in case Skellington was looking out a window or something and they found that the magic-dampening spells did in fact do nothing. They were able to reach the side of the arboretum without incident, though.

"Okay," Yami hissed. "Now we just find a way in."

"Not through this thing," Jonouchi hissed back, shaking his head as he gingerly put a hand to the glass. "There's some weird stuff growing in there, man."

"How weird is weird?"

"Like walking trees and plants with eyes weird."

Oi vey. Yami glanced around—

Caught a glimpse of a faint blue light zipping around the side of the arboretum.

"Did you see that?" he asked.

"No," Jonouchi said, sounding worried. "Why, was it bad?"

"No…not exactly…."

"What do you mean, not exactly?"

Not exactly meant that he had seen that light before, and it had led him to the clues that enabled him to connect his family with Skellington.

Not exactly also meant that it was because of these connections that Yami had brought Skellington back—so whether it was benign or neutral or manipulative remained to be seen.

So for now, Yami settled for waving Jonouchi forward and approaching the corner in a crouch, coming around the side of the arboretum and recognizing the huge glass porch of the back parlor, with a sea of yellow things bobbing between them and the doors and windows, growing out into the yard in fits and clumps and wrapping around the whole back of the house.

"Daffodils?" Jonouchi asked, sounding confused. "I figured this guy for snapdragons or deadly nightshade or something."

Yami shrugged, looking at the nearest flowers. Daffodils were poisonous, yes, but only the very young or occasionally animals tried to sample them. It definitely didn't match the image of the Boogie Mage.

And then eyes blinked open on one of the flowers.

Yami very nearly strangled himself trying to keep from crying out in startlement as he fell back. Jonouchi failed, and they both dove behind the arboretum as the other daffodils blinked to life and started honking loudly.

"The flowers have eyes," Jonouchi managed, as they leaned against the arboretum, heaving. "And they honk. What kind of flowers do that?"

Yami didn't have a good answer, so he was going to pass on that.

And then they heard, dimly over the honking, the sound of old hinges creaking.

"Oh, so you lot are still here," a deep smooth voice observed, prompting louder honking. "Yes, yes, I know, I'm working on it. Cool it for a while okay? I will weed you when I'm done, stop it."

The honking subsided slightly, and they heard the hinges squeak back shut.

"Well," Yami managed finally. "We know he's in the house."

"Yeah, great," Jonouchi said. "Now what?"

"Now we go in and grab him."

"Yeah. Right. Isn't he held together by magic or something like that? Shouldn't he be falling apart or something?"

"I think it's active magic that's affected—passive magic might not be affected, or it's taking a while for the spell to degrade his magic…he might not hang around if that's the case, and this is honestly our best chance to get him."

"Uh-huh. I should have gone with Honda and Kels."

"And then you'd be running out of the forest screaming about Screechers."

"Honestly, I'd rather face down a Screecher at this point."

"Honk."

They both looked over to see a daffodil leaning around the arboretum and looking at them.

"Uh, hi," Jonouchi said blankly—which was honestly probably the best response either of them could come up with at the moment.

The daffodil bobbed up and down, honking at them before ducking behind the arboretum and then peeking back around.

"They can't uproot themselves and follow us, can they?" Jonouchi asked.

"I have no idea," Yami said, edging towards the corner again. The daffodil bobbed excitedly and ducked back around with increasing frequency.

Yami peeked around the corner to see that Skellington wasn't there anymore.

"Okay," Yami said, looking back to Jonouchi. "Do you want to try the back door or the front?"

"I want to jump on Kels and Bakura's idea and run for all I'm worth," Jonouchi said, still plastered against the side of the arboretum.

"Let's try a different plan first," Yami said, looking around before finding a small rock near the foundation. Employ a bit of magic to get it airborne, and then throw it through a window up front.

"Needing to run or not, he's still going to check that out," Yami said, grabbing Jonouchi's arm. "Now come on!"

They ran for the porch, ducked down to stay out of view from the windows, managed to get in with a bit of magic aimed at the lock—Jonouchi caught Yami as he stumbled a bit on entry, the hasty entry making adjusting to dim magic a bit more severe than their previous entry—

And then they were in the house with the Boogie Mage.