The Witching Hour: Two's a Couple... (Arc/Lani; language)

Jay couldn't hear, but figured from the body language of the monster that it was either very curious and not very hostile or indeed clever enough to make meaningful gestures. He didn't figure that it possessed some sort of telepathy. He sat himself down on the boat and watched, though still not exactly relaxed; if the creature spooked, it'd be trouble, should it not be as friendly as he thought.

How? I'm a witch-made monster and you want to ask how? There was something almost bitter about the way it --- she --- stated her class. Of course, she also had a point. Whether it be through spoken language, hormones, or apparently, telepathy, the witch that had owned her before had to have had a way to communicate with her. In a way, however freaky, it only made sense.

"You aren't fighting us." The witch spoke back, plainly, blunt and yet apprehensive.

Yet. The beast spoke back before continuing on with her meal. When what was left in reach was gone, she nudged the boat, looking at the remaining bucket and then back to Jay. Will you feed me, he-witch?

"Ah." Jay said, only a little bit surprised when the creature spoke in his mind. It was a certainty that it was sentient, now. He relaxed then, pouring out the remaining entrails into the water and casually reaching for his flute from the quiver by his side. Now seemed like as good a time as any.

The creature ducked her head, moving to grab up the larger pieces before they could sink away, this time. Phoebe took this opportunity to wrap the net once again, not bothering to pretend she was sneaking anymore. The beast knew what they were doing, now, though it didn't mean that she could avoid it... not that Phoebe wanted to take any chances.

Jay just let Phoebe do her thing as he started to play the flute. He didn't take his eyes off of the creature, but wasn't really on guard. If he was attacked, he'd get out of the way fairly easily anyway.

Phoebe at least provided the creature the time to finish eating before she tightened the reigns on the netting, pinning the beast with all of her strength. Of course, the narwhal wasn't built for strength. Besides it's physical build, it's ability set was simply limited to enchanting, which she chose now to use. Knowing the full size of the creature, as well as its intelligence, it seemed like a good idea to increase the strength of the nets. Hardly had she begun to settle the enchantment in however when the creature began thrashing, proving its brute strength as it tossed the waters about, challenging Phoebe's hold on the net.

As the creature started thrashing, Jay let go of his flute with one hand and held onto the boat enough to keep himself from falling, though went back to the flute when he got a little used to the rocking. He really didn't have anything that he could do at this point, except for mumbling his mantra and placing a windy barrier between the waves created by the creature and Phoebe, to at least make the surface less turbulent.

Phoebe fought back against the waves as they crashed, thankful for the barrier that Jay provided. Still, the creature raged against them, fighting her, fighting the nets. Struggling, she knelt to try to bite through the binds, failing miserably in the endeavor. With a screeching, strange hybrid of cries, it reared back, a wave of energy spiraling in it's mouth as it locked its eyes on what held it, the air growing cold.

That, that magic right there... That was Jay's call to action. He couldn't block magical attacks with his barriers. Things that moved regardless of the effect of the wind were quite sure to pass through. If anything, all he could try to do was to counteract the freezing of this spell. After very quickly putting his flute away he shot up very quickly and called out his mantra again. He would be exposed, but even that was better than dead. He started channeling the spell which could control the weather and mixing that with his arithmetic magic. Very specifically, the air around the monster would become a mass of much hotter air. Temperature was a weather phenomenon and that meant that he could change it and take it to an extreme. He hoped that the kind of heat you would find in the Sahara Desert would be enough to counteract whatever icy death the creature was about to use. He also kept the monster isolated from said heat, but only the surface of it's skin. That was what the calculations were for.

As effective as his spell was at counteracting the heat, it was not effective in countering the ability, as a whole. Instead of a thick, solid beam of ice erupting from her mouth, a turret of water exploded, crashing against the netting. It created a harsher current at the spot of impact, forcing Phoebe aside. She, herself, became tangled in the net, causing an angry stir as she thrashed before shifting back to human and pulling her horn and limbs free. Resurfacing, she tossed her hair back, glaring at the creature and wondering in what way she could combat the creature without risking actual harm. With a bit of a sigh, she focused her attention on switching her spellset, changing from Ivoria to Meleoi. It was a change that took longer than she would have liked, as all of her transformations did, but this one changed more than just her horns, though she only needed the horns to be able to cast her spell. Focusing, she repeated her mantra like a mad woman, rolling it across her tongue in the fashion of a broken record. The longer she did so, the more her horns began to charge with magic, eventually taking on a faint glow as she increased the power of the spell she was working on: sleep.

Soon as the attack by the creature was done, Jay dispelled the hot air and started going about getting the boat closer to Phoebe since he saw she was no longer an aquatic animal but her human form.

The more the creature fought, the more difficult treading water was becoming for Phoebe, and she became thankful once more for Jay's help. His presence meant that there was someone there to move her boat and come to her aid, and that got her out of the water far sooner than she would have, otherwise. By the time she finally sent her spell the creature's way, it was powerful enough to knockout a bull elephant on contact. When it reached the beast, it caused a bit of kickback that threw it off-balance, like the initial injection of a tranquilizer. Within minutes, the beast had slowed so much that she finally fell asleep, slumping in the water with the netting firm around her legs and carapace, her head, thankfully, resting on a leg.

As soon as the monster was knocked out, Jay sat back down on the boat. He was quite tired after channeling two types of magic at once while keeping up a barrier. "It's not going to wake up any time soon, right?" He asked, hoping that he wouldn't have to repeat that whole ordeal. "I hope your pickup involves a helicopter, because it's going take a long while to drag her onto dry ground."

"I can continuously cast it, but it should keep her down for several hours." She leaned against the side the boat with her head tilted back, towards the water, strange blonde hair of this form feeling out of place against her even more out of place darker skin. She imagined her eyes looked equally as strange. Reaching a hand up, she idly rubbed at the ram horn of that side, trying to relax herself as she slid into some semblance of peace. "And if I switch to Bovine --- you can guess what that entails --- I might be able to get her at least mostly on my own." Looking up at him with soft, definitely strange brown eyes, as hers were normally an almost vacant grey, she offered a small, genuine smile, "Thank you."

"Hey, you smiled and there's not even alcohol involved." Jay joked with a smile of his own. "I'll call that a victory. And that." He said, first nodding to Phoebe and then pointing to the monster. "I definitely didn't think it's be a sentient telepath."

She chuckled, weak but true, "At least it wasn't socio," Phoebe responded with earnest, gesturing for him to take a seat beside her. "It'll be a while, yet, before they show up. Once she's at her new home, I'll have my hands full trying to explain to her what's going on."

Jay chuckled at the joke. "She seemed like the understanding type. Or at least the type to be easily won over with food." He said as he did like she suggested, then. "So I guess you'll have your hands full of fish guts, too."

She trembled, making a disgusted sound at the notion. "Sensibly, I can eat pretty much anything organic, with my animal forms... but there are just... limits." Phoebe said, repeating the sound shaking her head before seeming to try to wipe her hands off of nothing in the air. "I hope it's not all she eats..."

"Leaving the guts in the fish might work too." Jay said after another chuckle at Phoebe's actions. "You could also try other meats. Might also work."

She found herself laughing a bit, "Yeah, wrestle her down with Bovine magic just to feed her beef and veal. That sounds like a lovely evening." It was grotesque, and she knew it, but something about her little joke was nonetheless amusing to her, and thus she had let it fly.

"Well, I don't have those issues. Nobody eats eagle." Jay said, shrugging. "She might just eat some on her own if you try that, though that might not be so good for you in the worst case."

A light shrug followed, the gesture slight enough to fit in with her usual nature. "I don't have to be one to use it's magic, just have the horns." She tapped her fingers against the one she'd been rubbing, drawing attention to the goat horns on her head. Soon enough, she was focusing on the base of the horn, humming leisurely at the relaxing feeling.

"Well, I'm still not entirely sure how your magic works." Jay said, with another shrug. He started to take out the flute again, to pass a little time, but noticed the humming from his side. "That feel good?" He asked, genuinely curious.

"Hmmmm?" She asked initially, carrying the hum of her pleasured noise. Shaking her head and moving her hand away from it, she nodded. "It does. It's... strange. The muscles and skin around it seem to get irritable and tense more easily, and the horns themselves tend to itch. It's a nice relief to have them, well... not."

"I see. It sounds nice, but also not nice at the same time." Jay said, checking his flute while he spoke, to make sure that nothing damaged it. "Since you'd be itching when not doing that, that is."