Larrikan dresses after his bath, weaving extra, particularly bright ribbons into his clothes, and hair, and tail. He walks to the flyer’s tree with a jaunty step.
Coldwillow is there, along with Professor Djarlee. Coldwillow is sitting on the nose of the wrecked flyer, while Djarlee looks inside it, perplexed. Both of them smile as they see the brightly dressed fox.
Djarlee comments, “My, someone’s a peacock today.”
Larrikan just grins at him.
Coldwillow says, “Come with me, and we shall test you.”
Larrikan follows her out in to the open in front of the big tree. Coldwillow cups her hands to her mouth and calls up to the platform, “Ahoy! Are you ready?”
The tree’s dryad peers down and calls, “Yes, go ahead!”
Coldwillow waves in acknowledgement, and tells Larrikan his assignment, “Take off from here. Fly up to the platform, and give this token to the dryad. Do not land! Come do Djarlee and give him the dryad’s token. Do not land! Then come back to me and give me Djarlee’s token. You must not land at any point you have a token! Do you understand?”
Larrikan nods, “Yes, ma’am.” He repeats it back to her.
“Begin,” Coldwillow says.
Larrikan smiles, and uses the realization he had in the bath – actually, after the bath when he dried his fur. Earth and Air magic will interfere with each other. But Earth and Water don’t, nor will Air and Water. By putting a little Water magic between the Earth and Air, both should work normally. He closes his eyes and uses a little water from the Earth to make Air responsive. He gets the air to flow from up high, where the winds are steady, to make himself his platform of updraft.
The updraft splays out all his ribbons and surrounds him with a nimbus of fluttering colors.
Once aloft, he levels out, less than a meter above ground, and then opens his eyes and looks at Coldwillow, grinning. He holds out his hand and says, “May I have your token?”
Coldwillow gives it to him without a word, but there is a twinkle of amusement in her eye.
Larrikan drifts up to the platform, and coasts over it to the dryad.
The dryad takes Coldwillow’s token and leans in and gives Larrikan a brief kiss. He manages not to become distracted, and stays aloft. The dryad laughs, and gives Larrikan an acorn as her token.
He thanks her, and flies down to Professor Djarlee. He expected the ground to interfere with air, and was ready for that. What he did not expect was the way the lump of tech in the flyer would cause his magic to behave. The tech acted like a solid rock in a stream and sent waves of turbulence in the effect of magic out from it.
Larrikan bobbles a couple of times, but does some quick three dimensional geometry to figure out how to brace against the disturbance and stabilizes. Even his ribbons are steady again.
Djarlee exchanges tokens with Larrikan seriously.