Cadence rubs his hands together, trying to work off his rustiness. Pulling out two twigs from his messy purple hair, and beating them together he fills the cave with a fast paced, happy rhythm. Letting out a loud whistle, he watches as lots of little flying creatures sweep into the cave, dancing about in the air, following the beat. More and more creatures come into the cave until the entrance can barely be seen. With a mischievous little grin, Cadence lets go of the sticks and points them off toward Aideen. The sticks fly through the air and dance in a circle around the pretty mage. The insects, consisting of flies, ladybugs, praying mantises, bees, grasshoppers, along with the less pleasant ones like mosquitoes, and termites, and many others make a beeline to Aideen, ready to smother, bite, sting, and fly in less than ideal places as the music surrounds her. Cadence cackles gleefully, resting his back against the cave wall and watching with amusement.
Aideen cants her head off to one side as she observes the beating stick, unsure of what to expect from her magely classmate. Never having been the brightest crayon in the box, she simply stares in awe, as though this were the first time she had ever seen any sort of magic in her life. The awe is rather short lived, however, as the sounds of a myriad of tiny wings reaches her hair and is replaced by fear. A high-pitched shriek escapes her, followed by a loud rumble. "Bees! No!" she yelps, over the commotion. Bits of dirt and rock begin to crumble from the stone ceiling of the cave, trailed by larger chunks. The larger chunks remain levitating, at the will of Aideen, and begin to circle about, weaving in and out of the cloud of bugs that threaten to bite and sing her unblemished skin. The flying boulders beat some of the bugs to a pulp, covering them within their icky insect goo. Though, some manage to escape the aerial assault and continue towards their target, stinging and biting at her skin. Crying, she begins to bat furiously at winged creatures, beating them away from her while stepping back towards the water and purposefully falling in. Safe from harm, Aidy remains beneath the surface, holding her breath for as long as possible and allowing her stone guards to grind the rest of Cadence's bug into gunk, only once she deems it safe does she resurface. Huffing and gasping for breath, the soaked mage narrows her gaze on Cadence and the moment she does so, her air-born rocks surround him and circle about him. No word is uttered and no warning is given to notify her friendly foe of what is to come next. Her rocks explode, not only threatening to cover him in debris and bug guts, but temporarily blind him.
Cadence hmms to himself, impressed with Aideen's abilities as the rocks swirl around in the air in perfect control, seeking out bugs to crush. With a gasp, he is caught completely off guard as the rocks explode in front of him. Not having time to do anything so extravagant as slowing now Kuri's spinning to change gravity, he yelps and dives down to the ground only to be completely covered in barely a blink of an eye. For a few moments no movement or change can be seen underneath the pile of rock bits and dust and bugs. Then steam slowly makes its way through the pieces of rock and billows up into the cave, taking only moments to turn the cave into something of a sauna. The pile of debris begins to sink and turn black as it slips down into a chasm that was not in the surface of the cave before. As the debris vanishes, a large fountain of lava sprays upwards like a large fountain. Sitting quite happily on top of the fountain is Cadence on a little raft made out of funny twigs much like the ones he pulled out of his hair earlier. The little green man seems to be taking lessons from his wifey on using his rhythms in a volcanic sort of way. Sitting quite contentedly a few feet from the ceiling of the cave, he just watches as the lava splatters down onto the cave floor, quickly creating a rising lake. For some reason the lake rises, but does not spread beyond the entrance area of the cave, where the spectators can watch quite safely. Aideen however, won't be any safer in the water than out of it when the fiery liquid reaches her.
Aideen squeaks over the lava display. Yet, despite the threat at hand, the mage of minerals remains in the pool of water, allowing the water to close the distance between the two. Soon enough, it completely over takes and envelopes Aideen, making it seem as though she has finally met her end. Naturally, this is not so for the moment the lava covers Aideen, it solidifies, creating a mini-cavern about her. Unseen to Cadence and the others, the back side drops down and crumbles into the water, creating a path of air for the MIFer but it still seems as though her time has drawn to a close. Oddly enough, the rest of the lava seems to remain searingly hot, swirling about the floor of the cave. The level of the lava seems to rise in height, steadily so, drawing back from the cave's entrance in the process and before long, a wall of the molten liquid is created and sent bearing down upon Cadence, putting him in peril of the same fate Aideen once faced.
Cadence acks as a wave of lava comes at him so high up in the air. His little raft won’t help him at all this time. With a sigh he stops playing his little rhythm and the lava is pulled back down into the chasm. Even the hardened area around Aideen finds its way back into the depths of Kuri. The chasm closes behind it and Cadence is left sitting on the solid rock, still on top of his small hand crafted raft. With a sudden mischievous thought, Cadence pulls one more stick out of his messy purple hair, and taps the raft with it like a wand. The raft jumps to life, acting like a magic carpet. Zooming around the room, it is a wonder indeed, that Cadence does not get too dizzy to complete his attack. Pulling drums of all different sizes, types, and shapes out of thin air, Cadence sends them pummeling down toward Aideen. Working as quickly as he can summon and throw them, Cadence threatens to impale, smother, bruise, brake, bury, or otherwise damage the mage beneath him. Conga drums, snare drums, cylindrical drums, bowl drums, barrel drums, and all the kinds of drums you could never even imagine are sent streaking through the air and either splashing into the water, or crashing into the cave floor. When he runs out of drum ideas, symbols, bells, quackers, shakers, kazoos, and other noise makers are added into the shower.
Aideen instantly takes to crying and wailing as a never ending stream of musical instruments rips through the air towards her perfect self. How could Cadence possibly be so mean to her? Though her movements are hindered by the water, she dodges and darts left, right, back, and forth, shrieking as things hit her or even if they come close to hitting her. While Aideen continues her lesson in water ballet, the lip of the mouth just above the water begins to grow, swelling upwards, dooming over the small lake leading out of the cave to spare Aideen from the various instruments. But with a majority of her attention pulled towards avoiding being struck and impaled, it does not act fast enough and she is left with a few cuts and what is sure to be a few bruises. Though unheard, a sigh of relief is given once she is safe from any other flying objects. Moments pass and silence fills the cave, but nothing seems to happen. What could Aideen possibly be cooking up? No one can say as she is once again tucked from sight, but long and quite jagged icicles are forming upon the roof of the cave and break cleanly away without as quietly as they grew and being pulled down towards the earth and Cadence. Clearly, she is fuming over the beating she just took and wants to exact revenge, despite the costs.Cadence looks at all the pretty pieces of ice falling and shattering around him. He finds them quite beautiful and intriguing. It takes him way too long to realize he is in danger. As a fairly small icicle slices right through the rim of his hat and barely misses his nose, he starts back into reality. Looking around he quickly dives into the river now flowing out of the cave. His unhappy shrieks as an icicle collides into the back of his leg are muffled by the water around him. Swimming to one side, he steps out onto the stone at the entrance of the cave and watches as the last of the icicles fall and the water dies down back into the quiet lake it normally is.