"Animal is self explaining." The butterfly gestured at the recovering Lily. "They care for animals, feeling a kinship with them and making the animals' plights akin to their own. Then there is the order of the leaf, for plants. Stone reveres the land itself." She tapped her hooves with each order named as she went through them. "Flame watches for fires, both natural and not, to see they are in the right place. Storm cares for the air. Wave for the water. Then there's Wild, a bit of an outside order, not being charged with protecting anything. None of us are that." The others shook their heads quickly.

"Filled with the power of the wilds, they don't revere animals, they are one, and can slip from one bestial form to another, and often enjoy doing so. To live in this city is, itself, anathema to them, so you will not find many here." The butterfly nodded softly with a soft hum. "And those are the orders we have and know of. There may be others, far removed or rarified beyond my recall, but those are the basics."

With the list complete, her eyes went to Rose pointedly. "Do you feel your heart quicken with any of the ones I've mentioned?"

Rose put a hoof up quickly. "Leaf! I love helping plants. I am a florist after all." She stuck out her tongue in defiance. "Comes naturally."

Daisy put her hooves at her hips. "Unfair. We're all florists, Rose. You can't go calling dibs on the flower order like that."

Rose reached over to boop Daisy on the nose. "Please! You are so obviously Flame. Why are you even pretending that isn't true?"

Daisy wilted as she flopped down to her haunches. "Um... Well, I do like... I guess..."

"Done deal." Rose clapped her hooves together. "Leaf, Fire, and Animal." She angled her head towards Daisy. "Did you know she names every fire she makes?"

The butterfly smiled at that. "Truly? How cute, if I may say."

Daisy squeaked with dismay. "Stop making fun of me... Each fire has a little life. If I don't remember them, who will?"

The butterfly inclined her head. "Spoken as a true flame druid if ever I heard one. Your friend seems to speak the truth. Today is a blessed day. We have solved the problem and found paths two of you may yet walk."

Rose squinted at that. "What? Three, right?" She pointed at each of her sisters and then at herself. "Animal, Fire, Leaf. Three."

"Just because you have declared it doesn't make it true." The butterfly leaned in with that sagacious smile. "You are all three florists. What makes your floristry more impactful than theirs?"

Rose shuffled in place. Her cutie mark was a rose! But then her flower partners also had flowers adorning them. She was a florist, but so were they... "C'mon! At least one of us has to be leaf or there is no justice in this crazy world!" She threw up both hooves to the heavens, which cared not for her plight.

"We should get back to the city." The head of the ritual seemed happy to lead them back towards one of the lifts. "Thank you for helping us. Are you feeling better?"

"Yeah." Lily was walking on her own. "Animal, huh? Well, I was the one that didn't want to hurt them in the first place."

Daisy laughed at that. "By avoiding milk? I don't imagine there's a lot of animals lining up to give thanks for that."

Lily shot Daisy a sour look. "I'm glad the beavers are alright..."

Rose threw a leg over Lily, drawing her closer. "That was very brave. A bit too brave for one of us. You sure you're alright?"

Lily shrank a bit, but was held against Rose. "It was too late to change my mind. There was that beaver, so lost and confused. I had to help. If I didn't, who would?"

Rose thumped against the captive mare. "I was complimenting you. You did good! Did you... Guess you didn't."

"Didn't what?" Lily turned an ear on Rose. "What'd I miss?"

"You were passed out." Rose inclined her head back at where that happened as she stepped up onto the lift with Lily. "They healed your cut, which doesn't sting now, right?"

"Oh right." Apparently a thing she had entirely forgotten about. She lifted her leg into view, confirming that it was whole and without any bites in it. "They can do that?!"

Daisy hopped onto the lift beside Lily, across from Rose. "I saw 'em do it. Wonder if they'll show us how to do that. That'd be nice."

So it was that they returned to their home and to magic lessons. First circle spells were quite a bit different from cantrips. "You see," explained the buzzing bee of a teacher, Purple Auspex. "Now that you have mastered the cantrips, your mind is prepared. Like a tilled field, it is a simple task to sow seeds and allow nature to take care of the rest. Natural magic, primal magic, wants to flow through you. So powerfully, in fact, you must decide which you will allow to even come close to the surface."

He buzzed left and right before all four mares. "Now, you know the basic idea. You've had to prepare your cantrips. You know more cantrips than you can have prepared at once, correct? How many can you prepare?" He looked to Tree Whisper first.

"Three." She held up but one hoof. Alas, ponies didn't have fingers to make such a gesture. "I've tried for four, but it feels... cluttered, up here." Tree tapped at her own head. "It's not comfortable."

"No. Don't force it, but keep trying, every morning as you prepare for the day," counseled Purple. "Five is where you want to be, and where most druids are for sake of cantrips. Locking the energy patterns in your thoughts is no simple thing, so don't feel bad while you practice expanding that." He looked next to Daisy. "Young fire druid, how many different cantrips can you prepare?"

"Four," Daisy declared proudly, standing erect. "I didn't know five was the target. I'll go for five."

Purple chuckled softly. "With the speed of your kind, I see. Unsurprising. I am told that your affinity for fire goes beyond the surface. The head druid is considering your formal induction, but nothing is decided yet." He turned in the air to Lily. "Unlike you. Your performance and the glowing recommendation of the druid that... summoned you, a curious event in itself, was impossible to deny. You are authorized to join the order of the animal, if you wish to. It is your choice if you accept this invitation, but that's another day's topic. How many cantrips can you hold?"

"Five," timidly admitted Lily. "I wanted to have them all ready to go, but five's the most I could manage."

"Oh, that would be lovely, to have all the cantrips at one's hoof." Purple nodded at the idea. "But our reach outmatches our grasp, as is the nature of things. In your world as well as ours, it would seem."

All three flower mares giggled at that. Some things were universal, even in other universes.

"But five, very good." His eyes went on.

"Five," declared Rose. "And ready for more."

All three nodded in agreement with that idea.

Purple looked back to Tree. "This is a lesson you can learn even while you expand on your cantrip preparations. You will have to expand on these as well. This is..." He ran his hooves together. "This is a journey, and one all druids are on, in the end. I may seem like a druid that has already done it all, but even I am reaching to expand that reservoir, to hold more patterns in my mind, waiting to be unleashed." He landed and sat on his haunches. "It's time to learn about magic that you may not use whenever the whim strikes."

Rose inclined her head. "Big fancy rituals?"

"Far more personal." He raised a brow suddenly. "Though, with you three--" He waved a hoof at the three flower mares. "--it may not be as personal as it is for most. Putting that aside, it's time to learn the first harmony of the primal. With this, you will begin to dream of it, and from it, you can draw and hold close the patterns you want to have ready for the coming day. You know how to prepare them, so I don't have to go over that."

It was time to learn first circle magic, and all four of them were eager to do so.

Purple dipped his head. "You've all learned well, but rest. That is also a part of learning." He buzzed out the door, leaving them to privacy.

Rose closed the door, then turned in place rapidly to face Tree. "You!"

"Me?" She curled a hoof at herself. "What about me?"

"What order are you?" Rose leaned forward. "Got a favorite already? I'm aiming for Leaf."

"Animal." Lily waved lightly.

"Flame." Daisy held up a new fire in her cupped hooves. "You saw that coming, didn't you?"

"I did," admitted Tree with a brief little laugh. "Your affinity for fire was not well hidden, if that was your goal."

"You're avoiding the question." Rose prodded at Tree's chest with a smirk. "Which are you going for? Tell us!"

"I do not have to." Tree crossed her arms in quite the pout. "But since you continue to pester, I was... drawn to water. Go ahead, laugh."

But none of the flower mares laughed, instead looking confused. Daisy looked Tree over from the start. "Huh, don't get it. What's so odd about that?"

"Outsiders!" Tree cried out as if that explained everything. "I am a unicorn. A unicorn druid is odd enough. But a Wave Druid? What am I, a sea horse? No. I am a unicorn, but I feel at home considering the flow and ebb of water." She worried her hooves together. "It's not..."

"Natural?" finished Rose, one brow up. "So, neither are we by that gauge." She shrugged in a grand gesture. "Who are we to throw that rock?"

"I'd rather throw fire." Daisy unleashed her ball of flame at Tree, but it fizzled to nothing long before it reached her. "But we're friends. So you're a unicorn that likes water? Unicorns do magic, it's their thing. This is still magic." All three nodded in sync with that. A unicorn that did magic? Super normal. "Going to the beach doesn't make you not a unicorn that likes magic."

Lily poked at Daisy. "Or an earth pony that likes magic, around here." She sank to her haunches. "I can't wait to dream."

"Yeah..." Rose's sight went long, daydreaming of what it could be like. "That's pretty wild, that all your spells are just... there."

"They are not just 'there'." Tree frowned, chastising in tone and stance. "It took great work by druids of the past to unearth these magics and unleash their songs to the world. Thank them for their work." She snorted softly at that. "Perhaps, some day, you will happen upon some new primal step, and it will be up to you how you use it. Do you hold it close, or try to share it with the world? They made their decision, but how will you make yours, if that ever happens?"

Rose rubbed at her cheek with a thoughtful harum. "That's the kind of thing 'adventuring druids' find, right? Count me out. I'm really happy not adventuring." That got a call of agreement from the other two, all three perfectly pleased with not going out into forgotten places in the hope of glory. "What about you?"

"Me?" Tree pointed at herself, an expression of shock on her face. "I will go to the waters and tend them. I will protect them so future generations can enjoy them. Adventuring doesn't do that."

This story amuses me in its extreme... low stakes. Adventure? No thanks, claim our isekai mares. That's how typos happen, you know.

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