Outing

"Dylan, I'm going to post this in my Insta. You should post it on yours too." Charlotte told Dylan. She handed her phone over to him after logging out. "I think Sherry will appreciate it more if it was a selfie." She grinned.

Dylan accepted the phone with resignation. He quickly logged into his Instagram and quickly took a selfie of himself. He only took one, but blessed with good looks, the photo naturally looked good as well. Without getting distracted, Dylan posted the selfie just as it was, no captions, no nothing. "Here, you go."

Dylan logged out and gave the phone back to Charlotte. "I'm going to post them now!"

Dylan smiled and nodded. Delighted, Charlotte logged back in and just posted the ones she liked the most, captioned 'Dylan, the knight, wearing my new design.', and tagged with various things. Once she was done, Charlotte set her phone aside and spoke to Dylan.

"Let's go shopping! Such beautiful clothing cannot remain hidden from the world forever!" Charlotte proposed with sparkly eyes. Dylan didn't even reply yet when she just up and left for the bathroom.

"She's so impatient!" Fir exclaimed.

"Uh, I guess we should prepare to leave?" Dylan stuck out his finger for the now sparrow sized Fir so he could perch himself on it. "Try changing the colour of your feathers into something more common."

"But I'm so beautiful, why would you want to hide this beauty?" Fir complained.

Dylan just chuckled and replied. "That's the problem. Come on, try transforming into a canary."

"Canary? Is that that bird in the box from last time? The yellow ones?" Fir chirped and asked. Fir was talking about the TV. He had watched a documentary with Dylan about canaries last time and he remembered mocking them for not being as beautiful as him, so the memory stuck with Fir.

Dylan nodded. "Yep. People like to keep them as pets, so it wouldn't be so surprising for you to be around me."

"But, they're not beautiful. They're just yellow and fat, not like me, glittery and shiny and slim and fluffy. I'm just so perfect." Fir complained, almost tearing up. "I'm not transforming! No, no, no! I like being beautiful! I like being me, don't make me transform, Lyn. It's too hard!"

Ah, his true thoughts just slipped out. In truth, Fir didn't really mind being yellow for a bit if it meant being with Dylan, but he specialised in wind and ice magic, so although he could adjust his size, appearance was just beyond him. Fir could only maintain it for five minutes at most.

"Oh, right. I didn't realise. Sorry about that Fir." Dylan apologised at once. "I'm sure a bird like you doesn't exist in this world, so if the wrong eye sees you, I'm afraid there will be problems."

"Does that mean I'll never be able to go out with you?" Fir's voice was shaky and sorrowful. He liked playing with Dylan, it would've been terrible if he couldn't do it in the future just because he was too beautiful.

Dylan's heart wavered and from the influence of their contract, he could somewhat detect the disappointment in Fir's heart. "I can try doing dye magic on you. But just so you know, I'm terrible at it."

"You should have tried earlier!" Fir complained.

A mere minute later, Fir would regret these very words. His luxurious feathers were stained with yellow blotches and ugly inconsistent shades of yellow. It was very disgusting.

"Change it back now~!" Fir cried.

"I will, I will, so stop crying!" Dylan cancelled the spell in a panic. "Sherry must know how to do this. I'll ask her now."

"Sherry? I hope I'm not interrupting anything." Dylan telepathically sent the message to Sherry.

From the other side of Australia, Sherry flinched and jumped with a startle. The boat the Chens were on slightly rocked from her actions, causing An and Ping to glare at her.

"(What's wrong, Shi Ming?)" An asked, displeased but worried.

"(Uh, nothing, Ma. Just saw a bug almost fly into my mouth.)" Sherry quickly made up an excuse.

"(The fish swam away because of you!)" Ping scolded. He held the fishing rod tightly with anger and directed his attention back to the water. Sherry let out a forced laugh. She recently found out that her father really really loves fishing, and with a passion at that. They had gone all the way to Queensland, and yet, instead of enjoying the beaches and whatnot, he had dragged the family out on a boat to fish. Urgh, this is why she didn't like going on trips with her parents. Sherry was forced to remember the hard way.

Sherry sat back down and sipped on her soft drink whilst feeling wronged. "What's up, Dylan? Why'd you suddenly call me?"

"Um, Charlotte wants me to go out dressed in the clothes she made and-"

"Ah, those clothes! They looked so good, like water in a desert." It was a strange comparison, but for Sherry who had been subjected to boring water for a couple of hours, any bit of eye candy was much appreciated, especially when the candy was as sweet as this one.

"Uh, yeah. Fir is naturally going to go with me too, but he is too conspicuous. Do you know anyway to hide him?"

"Right. A bird like him would attract the wrong crowd." After a brief thought, Sherry thought of something. "Can't you just dye his feathers?"

"The thing is, I'm terrible with that kind of magic. Anything to do with art is out of my control."

Sherry recalled a time where Dylan was pressured into drawing a portrait of her by a wandering artist. They were in incognito at the time, so the artist saw them as an ordinary couple and wanted to test how tight their bonds were. It was weird but fun, so the two of them joined in without any hesitation.

The result was, you guessed it, a terrible drawing of Sherry, whereby even a five year old could draw better. It was basically just a circle with ovals for eyes and a line for a mouth, etc. And, Sherry's was well, moderate. Although not great, it also wasn't bad. She got all his basic features down so anyone could tell that the drawing was of Dylan.

Sherry broke out into giggles at the memory. Her parents were concentrating on fishing and were annoyed by her interruptions, and just glared at her whilst high-key judging.

An: My daughter has turned strange after fishing. Please help. Waiting online for answers!

Ping: My daughter keeps scaring the fish away. Please help. Waiting online for answers!

"Why don't you send him to me. I'll do the magic." Sherry suggested with a laugh.

"Really? I really appreciate your help, Sherry. I'll repay this favour one day." Dylan exclaimed, overjoyed. "Come on, you too, Fir."

"Thanks, Sherry~!"

"You're welcome." Sherry stood up from her spot and walked away from her parents, hiding from their sight. Luckily for Sherry, this was very easy to do because her parents were loaded and rented out a very big boat. It was awesome and very spacious. "Teleport over, but do it very secretively, okay?"

"Aye aye sir!"

"Alright, come on over."

From their side, Dylan and Fir were working together to channel their magic into a magic circle and constructed a teleportation array. This was very hard to do, but it has been hammered into Dylan's head since his academy days, so Dylan was very experienced. As for Fir, he was also genius bird. Not a bird brain at all.

After a few minutes of preparing the circle, Dylan linked it to Sherry's location, utilising their telepathic connection as a pathway and activated the very small circle. The next thing anyone knew, Fir disappeared from Dylan's side, and appeared beside Sherry.

"Long time no see, Sherry!" Fir greeted with a whistle.

"Long time no see." Sherry returned the greeting with a smile. "What colour do you wish to have?"

"I want to be a parrot! Because parrots can talk, so if I am a parrot, I will be able to talk!" Fir tried to make a gutso pose but failed adorably and just flapped his wings in the air awkwardly.

"But I thought you couldn't talk?" Sherry recalled that he didn't speak to her when they first met and only after exchanging telepathy crests did they actually communicate.

"That's because I couldn't then. But I can now. Trust me, I've been practising so I can scare, cough, surprise Janine and Lotte~."

"Oh, I can't wait to see."

While Fir was talking, Sherry was working on his feathers. She concentrated magic on her fingers and imagined them as a colour and then just traced over Fir's feathers with it. It was very easy. She didn't understand why Dylan found it so difficult.

"I'm finished!" Sherry showed Fir his reflection in the mirror. He turned and looked at himself from a few angles before nodding with satisfaction.

"Mm, I like this! I'm very colourful, thank you Sherry!"

"No prob. Have a fun trip!" Sherry waved Fir bye as he disappeared with a poof.