After the servants escorted him, her Caitlyn nor her family came to see him. It was te, and the staff took him straight to his room, showing him how to use the shower and ying out clothes to sleep in. Immensely grateful, Orion bowed his head in respect, earning faint smiles from the servants before bei alone for the night. He decided not to shower, saving it for wheurned.
Orion turned off the lights and approached the window, waiting for his eyes to adjust. The guest room had no grand view. The front of Kiramman's manor was gated and expansive, while the side where he ced had stone walls several meters away.
Still, he couldn't wait; he he money. Crag the window, he took a quice to ehe coast was clear. Then, with a quick breath, he jumped out and sprioward the wall. Using his momentum, he scaled the first two meters of the wall, grasping wildly at the top until his fingers caught hold.
"Whew", he breathed, before hauling himself up. It was only after that it occurred to him that he should've checked the other side. Fortunately, the street was empty so he shrugged dismissively and swung himself, nding with a quiet thud. His feet his the pavement, and he began carefully weaving his way through the streets to his destination.
------------------------------------------
Orion crouched along the windows of the botanical garden, his hands running along the gss frame as he studied his options. The garden really was breathtaking at night, glowing with a radiant blue from the floating pollen. Inside, flowers swayed and danced as if alive, their noal traits shimmering in the darkness. Occasionally, a burst ht blue pollen illumihe air, adding its otherworldly qualities.
Orion gnced up at an open gss panel several meters above, allowing some of the pollen to escape.
"It's too dangerous, even with magic," Orion calcuted. "If I try levitating or using wind magic for the first time here and mess up, I'll have a bad fall." He dismissed the front door where flickering lights inside suggested the presence of security.
He frowned, finding a spot where a rge pnt partially obscured the view from beyond the gss. "There's the spirit fox... but I don't think I get around that." After another careful sweep of the area, he crouched doced a hand on the gss, fog ily on opening the magic el.
The cept was simple: make a hole in the gss rge enough for him to fit through. How much mana it would require, how much it would drain him, and whether it would even work were the main problems. Orion believed the cept ossible, sidering the destructive power of the Hextech crystals in Are, but imagining the flow of magic was difficult.
For his first attempt, he tried gently p the mana into the gss to his desired circumferehe glow was faint, matg the light from the garden, but the results were underwhelming at best. Small shards chipped free in a perfect circle along the edges, but nothing more.
Panting, he withdrew as exhaustio in from the strain of magic circution. "A sharper burst might work, just like how the Are's Hextech crystals exploded, but..." Orion pted. Rising partially from his crouched stance, he sing the garden again. The doors leading inside remained open, but he saw no signs of humanoid life.
"Nothing," Orion cluded, croug back down. "I don't like the door situation, but this is my best ce."
Fog once more, Oriourned his hand to the gss and began colleg raw magic. This time, he had to rely on instinct wheermining the right amount to release. The energy was chaotic, trying to escape his body and flow back to the mana rivers threading through this world. As if trying to give him a signal, a sudden burst ht blue pollen illumihe air and he released the magi a sharp, precise burst toward the gss.
k
A sharp but quiet sound echoed as the gss circle separated ly from the frame, falling forward into the bush below. The cut recise, almost as if a ser had carved through it. Faint cracks radiated out, however, spreading across the surface of the gss exterior to indicate his imperfect trol of magic.
Orion wheezed as he colpsed forward, his head nearly striking the ridge. His arms trembled, trying to support his exhausted body. "I 't do it anymore," he muttered to himself. "Not if I want to make it baside the manor." He stayed there for a few minutes, struggling tain his lost strength while listening for any signs of arm.
The world around him was eerily silent. No faint tapping of footsteps inside, no approag sounds from outside. "I must be damned lucky." Orion thought, relief washing over him. He let his head hang for a moment longer, refleg on his as before shaking it off and crawling through the hole.
------------------------------------------
Ethereal silence filled the garden, which pulsed with a life of its own. Eat swayed to its own unseen rhythm, the blue-hued pollen surrounding and dist Orion's view of the world. It was beautiful- he really couldn't deny it- as he paused behind the bush, mesmerized again by the sight. A rich variety of intoxig smells emitted from the pnts whily deepened his distra.
Orion shook his head sharply and tensed, his gaze darting toward the doors. "Are they sleeping on the job?" he muttered under his breath. Earlier, he'd sworn he saw flickering lights when approag the menagerie.
Uled and nervous, he crept his way along the exterior pnts, hoping to get a view down the hallway. The lights were gone now, and only the pale glow of moonlight illumihe distarance.
"Something's wrong." Orion warned himself, adrenaline and apprehension sparking to life. His instincts screamed, but too te- faint, wolf-like eyes glinted in the shadows, staring him down with predatory i.
Orion bolted for the hole he created. A flicker of motion caught his eye but before he could react, a powerful force sent him flying into the gss wall. He colpsed to the floor in a heap, his vision swimming.
"Be grateful, human." A low voice emitted, feminine, and taining a predatory snarl. "The sacred spirit fox takes kindly to you- that is the only reason you live."
Through the pain and shock, Orion's blurred vision sharpened slightly. Standing before him was a cloaked figure, illuminated by the glow of the garden, and ails swaying gracefully behind her. Glowing golden eyes pierced through the blue shimmer, green fox eyes near her hip.
Coo.
"Ah..." Orion's hazy thoughts drifted, "I know that coo..."
Coo.
The sound echoed o time through the garden, lingering in the air as the figures gracefully disappeared from view. Orion y on the floor, struggling to recover, his mind rag to make sense of the events that just transpired. His vision slowly returned, and with a groan, he slowly lifts his head up once more. The Red Blossom Flowers taunted him from the ter of the garden, its vibrant crimsoals swayily.
"Fug Flowers," he cursed, f himself to his feet.
