Astrid gasps, pressing her hand to her chest with a flare of drama. “I ain’t that mischievous!” she argues with the utmost poshly offense and a little bit of sarcasm. They both know that’s a lie, but Beist might not. When Cypress bumps her with her hoof, Astrid playfully flicks a pea at her, and it soars gracefully through the air and lands safely between a few of the satyr’s curls. The half-dwarf stifles a giggle when her attention is pulled away by the careful breaking of a watermelon in half.

“Ooh!” Astrid says, gladly taking a piece once it’s offered. “This stuff’s real good when it’s grilled an’ lightly salted, but best in the summer when ya stick it in an ice box an’ eat it after a long day outside!” Without a care in the world, she takes a big bite and starts munching, letting the sweet juices make a mess of her face. “Ah, yeah, I used starberries as a basis fer Space Jam. Well, it were starberry preserves, but jam sounded more fun when I was namin’ it.”

She carelessly wipes her mouth. “How’d we meet? Oh, easy, I punched a guy in the face an’ told him a piece a’ the volcano fell outta the sky when he was givin’ Cypress a hard time an’ tryna sell her bogus potions.”

The satyr’s tail wiggles excitedly, ears perking at the mention of an earth golem. The only golem she knows personally is Buttfellow - he’s big and intimidating, but very nice when she was finally able to look past the whole ‘being like, eight feet tall’ thing. Having a golem friend to help garden sounds really nice; she wonders if they’re as tall as Buttfellow; or if, maybe, they’re small? That would be real cute. 

What’s an earth golem made of, anyways? Stone? Dirt? Grass? All of the above?

She blinks, pulling herself out of her spacey thoughts, and smiling big while Beist explains that Ned also helps garden. “Awww…” she chirrups, peeking at the bee house in the corner of the garden to see the tiny little blips zooming in and out. Who’s Cookie, though? Also, does Ned have his own giant bee house?

She has so many questions; but they’re kind of silly, so she silences herself by munching on a pod; granted, Astrid’s big dramatic gasp after her teasing comment makes her bubble into a laugh. “Pfft!” she snorts, grinning lopsidedly at her, “Oh, suuuuure -“ she starts, but then a pea soars gracefully through the air, and Cypress feels it vaguely land somewhere in her hair. “Wah - heeeey! Astrid! I’m never going to find that!” she squeaks, the surprise in her voice interrupted by crackles of laughter as she shakes some of her locks to try and free the pea from her hair.

She looks at her lap quizzically, but doesn’t find the pea. Darn. She just knows she’s going to find that later.

She’s quickly distracted from the pea-asco, however, when Beist offers to them some bits of melon; she perks up, reaching out to take a piece with a smile. “Really? I’ve never heard of grilling them.” She admits, watching fondly while Astrid takes an enthusiastic bite of the melon before she takes a bite of her own.

It’s sweet and just a little bit earthy; very much unlike most of the fruit that she gets in Darkveil; but sort of like a better version of the stuff she sometimes snapped up in Capitol Landing. Her eyes glitter, and she takes a second more enthusiastic bite while she listens to Astrid talk about starberries as the basis for one of her potions, and grandpa Beist elaborate that many mundane fruits and vegetables can be useful in alchemy. 

She hums her agreement, but definitely has more questions when she's not focused on some darn good fruit.

She swallows her mouthful of watermelon, using the back of her arm to wipe at her mouth when grandpa Beist asks how they met, “Oh-“ she hesitates, wondering how she should word their initial meeting to grandpa Beist, when Astrid ends up explaining anyways. She can’t help but laugh, covering her mouth with a hand; she truly will never forget the way that they met. “Uh-huh,” she agrees, smiling fondly at the girl across from her with a twinkle behind her eyes, “He was real mean and real rude; and I probably wasn't the first person he tried to sell phony potions to... So don’t worry, he definitely deserved it.” She adds, glancing at grandpa Beist, “But she knocked the memories right out of him! He didn’t even know what hit him; and then we started talkin’, and she offered to help me with my magic, so…” she trails off, glancing at her watermelon rind with a smidge of embarrassment. “You’ve got a real great granddaughter, grandpa Beist.”

Beist considered the grilled watermelon idea. Maybe he would try it sometimes, but he usually preferred to eat a lot of things raw. Not everything, of course. Some vegetables needed to be cooked to be edible and meats needed to be cooked, even though he liked them on the rarer side. Maybe it was just something about being a beastman. There could be a little more werebear instinct left in him than he though.

He chuckled softly as he watched the play fight between Astrid an Cypress. Even from his higher vantage point, that pea really just vanished into the Satyr's hair. He couldn't spot it at all.

He wasn't exactly expecting some fairytale romance or anything when he asked how they met, but he also wasn't expecting it to be so... violent. Punching a guy and lying weren't really how he would have hoped to meet someone, but to be fair, that didn't seem very unusual for adventurers. He himself had met a few people during rough situations. The first time he'd met Zarius, it was to regrow his arm after it was eaten by an ooze. And the first time he'd met Kamille, they were both immediately attacked by bandits.

"How... sweet." He replied with a smile before looking at Astrid with a raised eyebrow. "It wasn't Morrigan, was it...?"

He smiled and let out a chuckle, looking back at Cypress before closing his eyes and putting on a smug act. "Oh, no, I don't have a great granddaughter..." He replied with a faux, joking pretentiousness. A great mitt suddenly landed atop both Astrid and Cypress's heads and started to ruffle their hair. "I have two of them!" Beist chuckled before seeming confused for a moment as he felt something. His hands stopped as he pulled the lost pea pod from Cypress's hair. "Oh, I found it." He said as he offered it to Cypress.

While they talked and joked around, Beist had continued walking and soon they were right in front of the big bee drifting about, collecting pollen from some very large flowers toward the back of the garden. The fluff all over the cat-sized bee's body was covered in yellow powder.

"Ned, we have a couple visitors." Beist said as he knelt down to let Astrid and Cypress down from his arms.

Ned buzzed over to them both curiously

Astrid settles back into Beist’s arm hammock with a smirk as she snacks on the watermelon. They’ll probably find the pea at the most unexpected time, in all honesty.

“Ya can grill anythin’, really,” Astrid says, wiping some stray juice from the corner of her mouth. Usually, grilling things makes them taste pretty good, but sometimes the taste of char is the only thing to help make something edible. This is not the case with the watermelon. Unlike Cypress, Astrid doesn’t have a great way to describe the melon. It’s edible, and more importantly, it’s tasty. Definitely grown with love from Beist. As well as the beast man can cook with some magically-sprouted gourds, she’s not surprised that he’s good at growing things in a garden, especially if he’s tending it with as much care as he seems to give people. Anything made with love is always better.

Then she sputters a laugh after they tell Beist about the potion charlatan. “HAH! If it were Morrigan, I would’a done a lot more than give ‘em a little rattle a’ the brains,” she jokes, lightly knocking on her own her with her knuckles. Morrigan Moonweaver would have more likely gotten a complete wringing and been beaten like a dusty rug were they treating Cypress the way that guy in Darkveil was, even before she was Astrid’s girlfriend.

Astrid peeks over at Cypress, feeling warm fuzzies and a twinge of embarrassment at the praise. She boops her gently with the toe of her shoe before she finds Beist’s hand on her head ruffling her hair. “Awww, gramps…” she says, trying not to wither from the warmth in her face. Reminders of how much she’s loved always hit her deep, and she appreciates them. Astrid’s glad that Cypress gets to experience it alongside her.

Though that weepy warmth disappears when she bursts into giggles seeing the pea emerge from Cypress’ hair.

And holy moly that is a big… cat? Bee? What exactly is Ned? “Hiya, Ned,” Astrid says, giving the creature a little wave. Beist wasn’t kidding when he said he has a lot of pets.

Cypress smiles sheepishly when she feels the bump of Astrid’s boot, but it turns into a grin when Beist’s hand suddenly ruffles up her hair. Warmth blooms in her chest, embarrassment rises to her cheeks, and a glossiness fogs up her eyes despite the happiness she feels when Beist exclaims that he doesn’t have a great granddaughter, he has two of them. She lifts her hands to smooth out her hair and distract from a familiar sting in the bridge of her nose right at the corners of her eyes; it’s a little confusing feeling like she wants to cry right now when she’s not the least bit sad.

“R-really?” she finds herself murmuring with a wide-eyed blink.

She’s never been someone’s granddaughter; and she’s never had a grandpa. Even if grandpa Beist is joking, or just being nice because Astrid is here, it makes her feel all warm and fuzzy all the same. She feels so welcomed, even though she’s only just met a small part of Astrid’s family; it reminds her of the feeling she got when Cantio and Melodia gave her their approval, and welcomed them to their home all the same.

She glances back at Astrid with a warm smile, but the warm and fuzzies fade into embarrassment when Beist finds the rogue pea in her hair. She scrunches up her nose.

Nooooooooo.

“Ohhhh, yayy," she says with negative enthusiasm as she reluctantly takes back the pea. "At least it won't be lost forever in my hair." she ponders, casting a mischievous glance at Astrid- her forehead is a particularly tempting target- but any thought of playful re-revenge evaporates when Ned begins buzzing over to them. “Oh my gods!” Cypress peeps; she carefully climbs out of grandpa Beist’s arms when he kneels down, tail wiggling while she inspects the cat-sized bee with equal curiosity.

She tries to level her voice despite the fluttery excitement in her chest. “Hi, Ned, I’m Cypress! You’re so cute!” She turns to Astrid, a bright grin on her face. “He’s so fluffy!” she says in an almost conspiratorial whisper.

"He is, isn't he?" Beist chuckled with a nod. Ned was very fluffy, and at the moment, very covered in a dusting of pollen. Beist was glad neither of his guests seemed to have any allergies, or they'd be having quite the time right now in front of the big bee.

Ned hovered in front of them, giving a tiny wave of one of his front legs to Astrid. He buzzed what sounded like a greeting, which Beist confirmed after a moment. "He said hello." Beist whispered.

Ned flew up and landed on top of Cypress's head, sticking his face into the flowers in her hair. On top of her head, Cypress might have been able to feel the big bee's feet moving in a little pitter patter as if he was dancing as he tried to retrieve the nectar from the flowers. Astrid could see him bobbing and swaying slightly like he was listening to some unheard music. Beist just chuckled, used to the big bee's demeanor.

"Ned, that's not very polite." Beist tried to sound serious while speaking to the bee, but couldn't keep himself from smiling just a little. "You should ask for permission before landing on someone's head."

Ned let out a short buzz and then flew off of Cypress's head to land on top of Beist's with another buzz. Beist let out a sigh and rolled his eyes, but still had a smile on his face.

"Alright, that's true. But you should ask anyone else."

Beist looked at Astrid and Cypress with a resigned shrug, doing his best not to move his head too much. It looked like Ned would be joining them on the rest of the tour.

"Well, would you like to go inside and see the alchemy lab now? We can go in through the greenhouse" He asked, motioning toward the doors to the glass attachment to the rest of the house. The glass was slightly frosted, but through the windows, it was still easy to see the shapes of even more plants inside and a tree near the center.

Before either of them could answer, a yellow blur flew by across the path and through the door to the greenhouse.

"Ah! Banana- Ahhh...." Beist started, but looked defeated as there was a loud splash from inside the greenhouse. "He really likes the fountain."

For a brief second, Astrid catches the glimpse of the mischievous gleam in Cypress’s eyes when she receives the pea. She mentally prepares to get pelted with the tiny bullet, but they’re both quickly distracted by Ned. The half-dwarf breaks into a fit of giggles watching him prance and dance on Cypress’s head. Astrid reaches forward to offer a little scratch before he takes off for Beist’s head instead. When Astrid looks at Cypress again, she can see a layer of pollen covering her like a light dusting of snow and giggles again, leaning forward to boop her nose with a finger and clean some pollen at the same time.

“Seeing yer lab an’ greenhouse sounds great, gramps!” she says, looking up at Beist. “Cypress is real excited ta see it. Me too, ta be honest. It’s probably different than me own set up.” Admittedly, Astrid’s alchemy “lab” is just a table in her workshop dedicated to the few potions she regularly makes.

“Whoa, what is that little guy anyway?” she asks, motioning towards Banana.

“Awwwh,” Cypress giggles, turning to speak to Astrid when a soft weight lands on her head without warning. The satyr’s eyes widen in a surprised-but-delighted awe while Ned pitter-patters around her curls; she absolutely, positively, does not remember what she was going to say.

She remains reverently still while Ned dances contently on her head in his search for the flowers that have bloomed in her excitement of being here. Truly, she is honoured to be Ned’s perch; he is extremely, very cute. It takes all of her self-control not to laugh along with Astrid in fear of scaring the big, fluffy bee off - but she does grin brightly with a happy, waggling tail. She glances at Astrid with barely contained excitement, and an expression that simply reads, Loooook!

When Ned buzzes, she thinks she feels the vibration in his little feet; she’s a little disappointed to see Ned fly away; but she can laugh freely, now. “It’s okay!” she says once she’s got the giddiness out of her chest, “You’re welcome on my head anytime, Ned!”

She looks at Astrid, eyes sparkling with excitement and delight, when she suddenly reaches forwards to boop her nose. For a heartbeat, Cypress goes cross-eyed to follow the line of her finger, then blinks a few times to realign herself. When she realizes that some pollen sits on Astrid’s fingertips, she bubbles into a laugh and shakes her head.

A small cloud of pollen puffs from her curls and face.

“Did I get it?” she whispers to Astrid, as if the pollen won’t most likely just drift down and settle again on her. When Beist offers the greenhouse though, Cypress quickly perks up, “Oh, yes please! I’d love to see the greenhouse!” she agrees with a grin- and then a yellow blur zooms by.

"Wuh-!" she startles, but calms relatively quickly, "That's the little guy who greeted us when we got here, right?"

Ned took Cypress up on her invitation immediately, flying down from Beist's head to go back to digging his face into the flowers on Cyrpess, dusting even more pollen into her hair without a care. Beist shook his head and then brushed the top of his head off with a few mumbled words before he was suddenly pollen-free.

"I'd like to see more of your lab as well. It's a shame last time there wasn't much time to look around." Beist said to Astrid, looking a bit regretful. He didn't feel the need to mention out loud that he would also have a lot of trouble simply fitting inside her lab, but he could use a potion to fix that if he went back for a tour.

"Oh, that was just Banana. He's an eel hound. I'm not surprised he met you out front. He probably saw you landing from the lake. That's where he likes to spend most of his time, but he also likes to come into the greenhouse to lay down on the fountain sometimes. Harold gets a little snippy about it though." Beist explained cheerily as he walked toward the door of the large glass attachment to his house. A trail of wet cobblestones went into the door and Beist picked a towel off of a hook just inside the door. Evidently, this wasn't the first time he'd dealt with this. He dropped the towel on the ground and began wiping the tiles dry with it using a foot as he walked.

"It's no harm, but the tiles can be a little slippery when they're wet."

Inside the greenhouse, the garden beds and the pathways between them were much less organic than the slightly winding paths and rounded beds outside. The beds were made into neat squares lining the walls with straight, orange-tiled paths between them and more beds. The flowers in here were different from the ones outside, being mostly ones that wouldn't be able to grow in the natural climate of this area. The air in the greenhouse was slightly warmer and more humid. In the very center of the greenhouse were two distinct features, one apple tree whose leafy branches nearly brushed the glass above, and right next to it, a basin of water with a statue of a sea-serpent pouring water out of its mouth.

Banana was lounging on the edge of the fountain, lying on his side in the water, mouth open and tongue flopped out.

"Oh good. He's on the right side this time." Beist noted happily, nodding to the eel hound who was on the edge of the fountain opposite from the apple tree.

“Me own lab ain’t much of a ‘lab,’ per se,” Astrid says. “Mostly just a workbench in the corner a’ the basement. I ain’t makin’ a lot a’ potions, really. Mostly just use it ta make a bunch a’ Elsewhere Juice so I can make it out an’ back quick. Helps keep da from worryin’ so much when I ain’t gone as long.”

Astrid props her chin on her fist, curling one finger around the front of her chin and puts on a studious expression, looking over Cypress as if trying to observe any particular cracks and crevices where she missed clearing herself of pollen. In reality, Cypress is still pretty dusted in yellow. “Nah, there’s a bit left, but it ain’t no matter. Yellow ain’t a bad color fer ya.” She playfully winks and leans forward to dust Cypress’s shoulder off before observing the pollen on her glove, turning her hands off to the side, and dusting them both off. This effort is mostly wasted as Ned settles back onto the nest that he has declared Cypress’s head to be and covers her with more pollen. Astrid stifles a laugh.

Speaking of yellow, Banana sure is very yellow and very blurry with the speed at which he moves, flinging water everywhere. Astrid looks around the greenhouse and admires how big it is. It’s big enough to fit a whole tree! Her greenhouse at home (read: mostly Cantio’s greenhouse) is modestly sized with plenty of things to tend to, but nothing so large as a tree.

“Whoaaa…” she gasps, looking around. Of course, Beist needs a large greenhouse; he’s a very tall man; but Astrid struggles to piece together mentally how taxing it must have been to build it. It’s a lot of glass. “This is real fancy, gramps!”

"You think?" Cypress asks while glancing at Astrid, her voice pitching playfully while she frames her lightly gold-dusted face between her hands. "Good thing you're not allergic to flowers, huh?"

No sooner had she assured Ned that he wasn't a bother, and almost immediately after Astrid brushed off most of the fine pollen left behind, the plump and fuzzy bee flies back down to sit on her head. Even if Ned only wants to paw at the flowers blooming in her hair, she still feels warm and fuzzy because he's just so cute!

She doesn't mind the pollen one bit!

When Banana blurs by, Cypress is stunned; and although she recovers relatively quickly; she just can't believe how fast that little guy is! She giggles, looking at Beist with a bemused smile. "Banana?" she repeats, turning to look at the fountain, "You have such cute names for them!"

When they begin heading towards the fountain, Cypress naturally reaches out to take one of Astrid's hands before following after grandpa Beist: and goodness, his greenhouse is so pretty! Flowers follow the steps she takes - blooming temporarily between the tiles - before fading into glittering specks of mana, and ultimately dissipating into the air again. To Ned's probably delight, the flowers in her hair seem more permanent - occasionally, an additional vine twists from beneath a curl and blossoms into a new flower.

"It's so fancy!" Cypress agrees enthusiastically, her smile only growing when she sees Banana flopped on his side. She's, admittedly, way too invested in the creatures, the plants, and the everything else to even think about the building Beist must have had to do to make this place suitable for himself and the creatures he takes care of. She gazes at the serpent spouting water; and when Beist mentions that Banana is on the right side, she tilts her head. "Is he not allowed on the other side?" she asks, pointing at the side closest to the apple tree. "Does he eat too many apples?"

"Oh, Elsewhere Juice is quite handy. I keep a bottle of it on me myself, but it's a bit troublesome to use it when I'm travelling in my wagon. I'd hate to just leave it behind, and having to go back and get it feels like it defeats the point of the elsewhere juice... At least I can bring my companions with me by storing them away, so it's still good for emergencies. I'm glad to hear you have some on you. Makes me worry a little less too."

Beist tousled Astrid's hair lightly. He really was happy to know she carried a way to escape an emergency and go back home easily. Knowing what kinds of danger she gets into, fighting monsters and literal gods, it was at least a small relief. He could understand her dad's worries.

"Oh, thank you. I don't know if I'd really call all this fancy, but I'm very pleased with how it turned out. I'm glad you like it too. Oh! What about having lunch in here? There's a table and chairs over there. Oh, but we should finish the tour first. Wait, did you already have lunch plans? I wouldn't want to keep you if you needed to go anywhere." Beist started to ramble on, overthinking whether he'd been rude to assume they even wanted to stay for lunch. And they hadn't even finished the tour. He was really getting ahead of himself, but he was just happy to have them here. He was thankfully distracted from his overthinking by Cypress asking a question.

"Oh, no, Banana doesn't eat the apples, and he's not exactly not allowed... That side of the fountain is just a bit too close to the tree and Haralson gets pretty snippy if anyone gets too close to it. He's a bit territorial."

Beist looked at the apple tree like he was trying to find something and then pointed to one of the apples. It looked like a normal apple, except that it was balancing on top of a branch instead of hanging from it. On a much closer look, the skin of the apple also had seems running along it as the whole shape was formed out of crab legs, claws, and shell folding into the shape of a bright red apple.

"Well, I'm not very good with names... I end up naming most of them after foods, but I try to give them names that feel right. I guess a lot of them are cute, aren't they?" Beist replied to Cypress, sounding slightly embarrassed. "That's Haralson. He's named after the breed of apple, and I thought it sounded like a good name for a crab."

Admittedly, half the reason Astrid got the recipe for Elsewhere Juice was specifically to help Cantio worry less, so she’s glad to hear that it helps Beist worry less too. The other half of the reason is because it’s convenient for travel, and she generally spends less time away from home because of it.

Any thoughts escape her when Beist ruffles her hair, leaving Astrid in a frizzy fit of giggles. While Beist talks about the greenhouse, she works to flatten her hair back out. It probably needs a brush taken to it, but she doesn’t care. Once she’s fixed it well enough, she takes Cypress’s offered hand with a bright smile. Of course, she’ll take any opportunity to hold hands that she can!

“We ain’t got lunch plans, so if ya’ll have us, we’re happy ta stay,” Astrid chirps quickly to help prevent Beist from rambling too much.

Luckily, he changes the topic quickly to respond to Cypress’s question about the apples. That’s when the little crab known as Haralson makes an appearance. She gasps when she notices it, placing one hand on her cheek in a fit of glee brought on by cuteness. “Gramps, yer great at namin’ stuff. Ya know I named me golem Buttfellow, right? Ain’t a good name, but it’s a funny one.”

"It's the fanciest garden I've ever seen!" Cypress admits, tail wiggling as she glances from fountain to flora, a sparkle in her blue eyes. When Beist points out the table, she follows his gesture, ears perking slightly; she squeezes Astrid's hand in anticipation, casting an excited glance at her as if to silently ask if they can stay for lunch when the offer is made.

When Astrid agrees that they can stay, the satyr bounces on the heels of her hooves, delighted, before she asks her well-meaning but probably silly question of Banana not being able to eat apples.

She tilts her head; and although she stops bouncing, she gently swings Astrid's hand with hers. "Haralson?" she repeats quizzically; she glances at Astrid with a confused smile, before looking after Beist as he squints towards the apple tree, searching for something that she can't really comprehend at the moment. They just look like apples, right? But, then, he points out one of the apples, and Cypress focuses in on it.

When she looks close enough...

"Wait - is that a crab?" she whispers in half of a question and half of a statement, "Wow... it looks like an apple!" Grandpa Beist really has quite the array of critters living with him, huh? He must never get lonely with so many cute, excitable little guys around! "I really like your names!" Cypress says, grinning up at Beist, "I think they're cute... and nice! And like, fitting for them!" she giggles, nudging Astrid with her elbow, "Hey, Buttfellow's a good name! You warm up to it after a while; I can't even imagine him being named anything else... oh! And Spicy Pawsage, too! He's such a good boy."