her eyes go wide as saucers. she snatches her hand back and wiggles her fingers to make sure she's not begun to morph into some crazy abomination. when all is well, though, she beams up at him. 

"i've been reading about stuff like that! tera crystals, right?" she pointedly doesn't touch the crystal, but she does start digging around it. dirt grits under her fingernails and after a couple of handfuls of unearthing, it's clear this thing isn't going to just budge on its own. 

"your tinkaton looks like she wants to smash it," she comments with a laugh.

Greyson Connors

☉

"aw, you call her tink. that's so cute." the tinkaton looks between greyson and the crystal. saskia can't make heads or tails of its expression so she just giggles again. she stands up, dusts herself off, and then walks back over to kirin to root around in his small saddlebags. 

when she finds what she's looking for - rope - she squats back down by the crystal and starts trying to loop it around the weird curvy edges she'd managed to dig up. 

kirin takes the other end of the rope in her mouth and waits patient, looking with baleful doe eyes at greyson.

"i don't think," saskia says, "this is going to work. but we can try?"

Greyson Connors

☉

well, he's right about one thing. she is absolutely not going to listen. when it's good and snug, she pops back up and goes over to kirin to pat her side. with an excited, "okay, try it," kirin bites down hard on the rope and digs her hooves into the earth.

the rope goes taut, but the crystal doesn't budge. so saskia steps in front of the wyrdeer and starts pulling too. her face reddens with the exertion, but then she feels the teensiest amount of give. 

and then, all at once, a lot of give. the crystal pops out of the earth, arcs upward, and then comes down hard. right on top of a rock. it splinters into hundreds of shards, expelling a ripple of pink light around it.

"oops."

Greyson Connors

☉