"Ugg..." Riley groaned, frowning; this wasn't the job she was meant to do. She was an up-and-coming mage, not a cook! Her long, blond hair swished slowly behind her as she paced back and forth in front of the offensive object her parents had put in her charge. The thing was ugly; to Riley, it looked like the fat stem of one of the mushrooms she used in her favorite potions. In reality, it was a butter churn, and it was plain, boring, and made of wood. Milk sloshed gently in it, and a wooden pole rose from the liquid, begging Riley to make butter.
The tall girl sighed, accepting her fate; her hazel, almond-shaped eyes darted around the room, looking for something to make this work a little more bearable. At once the orbs landed on a shelf of potions she had made many months ago, and had since forgotten. In seconds she was at the shelf, reading label after label, looking for something good. "Wartmush, hinkleberry wine, mushroom soup....ah, ha!" Riley snapped up a bottle, grinning from ear to ear.
"This'll do just fine...." She easily popped a small cork from the top of the bottle with her thumb, sending it flying across the room. Although it knocked something from a shelf and sent it to the ground with the tinkle of broken glass, Riley didn't move to clean it up; the pouring of potions required the utmost concentration, especially since she had never used Milk as a medium. Her long, slender fingers trembled as she slowly emptied the contents of the bottle into the churn.
The resulting mushroom cloud sent Riley to the floor, hastily scooting away from her creation. Whatever the cloud was made of it was strong, and just kept coming; soon, the entire room was filled with it, and Riley was halfway up the stairs to the basement, watching it. Finally, everything seemed to be settled down; Riley hastily went to the top of the stairs to see if her parents had noticed, and when it was apparent that they hadn't, she slowly made her way back into the basement.
The room still had the residue of whatever the cloud was, and vaguley smelled of a barn. Riley wrinkled her eyebrows at the odd odor; where she lived, farms were something that happened to other people, and the animals in them were cute, but also very distant. At the moment, cooling systems were not working around the town, so the only thing resembling dairy that the people could get was butter; Riley's parents were holding a party today, and they just had to have butter, so they set their daughter to the task. After a few more moments of confusion from the smell, the tall girl shrugged, approaching the churn.
At first, she could barely see it; the cloud was still clinging to it, but was slowly breaking up. Riley squinted, not quite believing what she was seeing; the churn itself looked completely normal, but every surface that used to be a dull, bland wood was now covered in intricate, colorful designs. In addition, the milk was making an odd, gurgling noise. Riley was used to her magical experiments not coming out how she wanted them to, so she knew to take it slow. Before doing anything with the churn, she reached out, gently grasping the wooden pole that did the actual churning, and withdrew it from the churn. None of the milk stayed on the pole for long; it slid off quickly, almost like it wasn't comfortable being anywhere but in the churn.
"Hmm..." Riley frowned in thought, tapping the wooden pole against her shoe. "Ahh, well...It's not going to be butter, now..." She nodded, smiling softly; her parents would be angry, but they were used to disturbances like this, so they would get over it soon. Before they could come downstairs and ask questions, Riley dragged the churn up the stairs, heading toward her bedroom. As soon as she got there and the door was closed, the tall girl flopped down on her bed, panting softly from the excertion.
She eventually decided to hide the churn behind a tapestry that hung from her wall; that way, she could check on it, and it could get air, but no one could see it if they came into her room. The milk would gurgle every once in a while, showing Riley that there was something in there, although she couldn't tell what it was.
A couple weeks went by, and aside from Riley's parents being rather angry about the lack of butter, life rolled on normally. One day Riley was reading in her room when there was a large gurgle from the milk in the churn; the noise sounded more like a struggling gurgle, than a casual one. The tall girl slipped along her bed until she was right next to the tapestry, which she quickly threw aside to reveal the churn. The milk was all gone, which wasn't too much of a suprise for Riley; over the time the churn had been in her room, the amount of milk in the churn had slowly gone down, but it didn't seem like it was evaporating. It seemed like it was being absorbed, by whatever was down there making the gurgling noises.
A sudden crack and scratching noises shook Riley out of her thoughts; something was trying to get out of the churn. Not sure if this being was friend or foe, the tall girl grabbed a small dagger from her bedside table before tipping the churn gently over. Immediatly, a chubby form rolled out, hitting the opposite wall with a thump. At first Riley thought it was just a cow; it had hooves, horns, and a little floppy tail which swished gently as the creature rose into a sitting position. Slowly, a pair of wings fluttered into life on the animal's back, making it apparent that this little guy wasn't just a cow.
"Hmm...Well, you look pretty harmless, little...er..." Riley cocked an eyebrow, idly wondering what gender the little thing was. She approached it slowly, extending a hand for it to smell, in case it was the kind of animal that needed that. After a few tense moments, the creature rolled over onto its back, mooing happily. Riley reached over, scratching the little thing's belly; even though it was some sort of magical beast, it was a cute little thing, and Riley just wanted to pet it and love it, not experiment on it or study it find out exactly what it was.
After a few days of living with the creature, she discovered it to be quite playful, almost like a dog. She would throw mushrooms she didn't want to use in her magic on the floor, and it would chase them and play with them, something Riley found extremely amusing. Thier relationship became quite nice, and they almost seemed to understand each other without speech. In short, everything was going well, and both of them were quite happy.
One day, the little creature, dubbed Marken by Riley, was crawling on top of his owner's face in the only way he had found to wake her. The girl frowned, her mouth opening wide in a yawn. "Heyyy....five more minutes....Wait...Oh, it's just you, Marken..." She sat up in bed, smiling softly down at the little cow-like creature. "Hmm..." Her smile turned to a frown as she noticed the little being whimpering, and its general air of unhappiness.
"What's wrong, little guy?" Riley reached over, stroking Marken between his floppy ears. The little creature perked up a little, but still looked quite depressed; every once in a while, he would gaze over at the shards of broken wood that used to be his churn.
After a few minutes of contemplation, Riley's eyes widened in realization, and she gasped slightly. "Ohh, you're lonely, aren't you Marken?" Her arms wrapped gently around the creature, bringing him in for a hug. "You want more guys like you, hmm...? I think we can arrange that..." She grinned, rubbing her hands together.
Later that afternoon, everything was ready; several churns were set up in the basement, full almost to the brim with milk Riley had 'borrowed' from one of her parent's party bowls. Riley herself was settled in a chair, calmly mixing several vials of different-colored liquids, reaching down to pay Marken every once in a while. As she finished a potion, she would dump it into a churn, until she had emptied one of the liquids in each pool of milk.
Like before, large clouds billowed up from the churns, causing Riley and Marken to retreat up the basement stairs. The girl grinned, petting her little creature. "This will be great..you'll have lots of friends..." Marken moo-ed softly, flapping his little wings. After a few minutes, the clouds had mostly cleared, and, like before, the churns were all sorts of different colors and designs. Riley went to each one, inspecting it for any problems, before standing and calling Marken, who hadn't moved from the stairs. The little cow-like creature trotted over to her, sniffing the churns. Apparently he recognized the scent, because after only a few moments of sniffing, Marken perked up, mooing happily.
Riley smiled, patting her companion. "You like them, huh, Marken? Well..." She looked around at the churns, grinning sheepishly. "I didn't know if they would all work, so I made a lot more than we needed....I guess we'll have to find some good owners for these little guys, ne?" She nodded, absent-mindedly placing a hand on one of the churns. "You'll help me, though, won't you, Marken?" The little creature lept up into his owner's arms, nodding and mooing. Riley laughed, hugging him tightly. "With your help, we'll find great people to take care of these churns, and whatever happens to come out of them!"
Credit for this story goes to Torikonero
