His blue eyes flashed as he mustered his Mana, trying to wrap it around the door handle.
Most Magical Beasts didn't have telekinetic powers, and Dracoks were one of those that didn't. Mage Reach was an ability almost exclusively for Facet wielders, with rare exceptions.
That didn't stop the young rooster from trying, however, as his head was filled with memories of Fate lifting things with nothing but his mind and his Facet. A temporary blur between his life and that of his partner's, but an idea he thought was worth a try.
When nothing happened, he raked his talons against the floor in frustration. He refused to wake Fate for something as trivial as this. His pride would not allow him to admit defeat and failure so soon after undertaking this task.
He paced back and forth in front of the door, talons not making a sound against the wooden floor as he wracked his brain for a solution.
'Do I blast the door off of its hinges?' he wondered. 'No, that would be destruction of private property, which apparently humans find bad. The window? That isn't real, can't go out that way.
'Ah, I know!'
Flapping his wings, he flew up to the handle and latched onto it with his feet, trying to turn it. It was harder to do than he expected, his hover exactly in place meant he couldn't properly turn the round handle.
Giving up on that idea, he dropped to the ground and looked the door up and down. His eyes flashed with an idea when he noticed the thin slit at the bottom, which let out the light of the hallway outside.
Letting out a quiet crow of triumph, he turned himself into water and flowed under the door, the note and the pouch containing his Lights following with minimal effort as the latter's spatial properties and its relative emptiness made it mostly flat.
All Tier I Dracoks had three things that separated them from their lowly Tier 0 chicken relatives. The first was physical; a Dracok could fly and had tough dragon scales in place of feathers. The second was the ability to breathe their Element, which they called Breath, and the last was Form, which is when they turned into their Element.
Like Breath, it was a rudimentary skill with little nuance to it. Their body mass was fixed either way, so losing some water could mean losing a wing and vice-versa. A Dracok could not willingly separate their Element from itself, like splitting into two separate balls of fire, just like a human couldn't will their arm to separate from their body.
The result was a somewhat gimmicky skill that didn't see much use in the Dracok community, at least until it grew more powerful in later Tiers.
As for why Kravoss didn't use it against Fate during their bonding process… Fate refused to dodge or run from the Dracok's blows, so why should Kravoss cower away at a mere human?
That and it wouldn't have done anything anyway. His water form was weaker than his scales, and even if he changed to a liquid that wouldn't shake the telekinetic grasp Fate had on him.
He solidified on the other side with his head held high, ruffling his feathers as the last of the water turned back into scales and flesh. Afterward, he made his way to the city, coming out of the dorm halls and into the brightly-lit Academy grounds.
He was stopped at the gate by an inquiring employee of the school and asked where he was going. Fishing the note out with his beak, he flapped up and dropped it onto the bored-looking guard's counter.
Paper in this world was waterproof for the sake of convenience, and the note was thus undamaged by its travel on the River de Kravoss.
The man unfurled it and read it swiftly before folding it back up and handing it to the Dracok below. "Don't cause trouble. Anything you do reflects onto your master."
The Dracok dipped his head in a nod and stowed the note away before continuing on his way.
Thanks to Fate's memories, he knew where to go: Harry's Hermit Essentials. But since the places around here only closed at ten, and it was only eight o'clock, he'd have more than enough time to have some fun afterward.
He received surprisingly few stares from passersby as he walked through the city. He was tall enough that only the inattentive would bump into him, and smart enough to avoid those kinds of people.
No one made a fuss or spared him more than a single glance. This must be what being human felt like, he thought. While it wasn't as great as someone praising the beauty of his scales, he had to admit there was an appealing aspect to going unnoticed.
He was disappointed to find that nothing he saw – the buildings, the people, the food – was as grand or exciting as he hoped. It turned out that understanding Fate's life as if it was his own was enough to kill any excitement he might feel toward something 'new' to him.
He entered Harry's Hermit Essentials much the same way he went through every door. The owner looked like he was about to yell something about Kravoss leaving a wet mess behind, only to begrudgingly shut his mouth when he found nothing left where Kravoss had been.
"What do you want, little Familiar?" the gruff man asked, Mana at work on a wooden carving he held in one hand.
Kravoss motioned to the beds on the shelves with his head and the bearded man squinted as he remembered the prices he set.
"Silk is a hundred Lights, cotton is ten, foam is seven. We also got some Dracok snacks right there for cheap."
Kravoss examined the beds, clucking to Harry questioningly.
"Yes, you can try them out, but if you tear them, you buy them. Not that that's likely; those things can take a beating from Masters."
Dragging a silk bed off of the shelf with his beak, Kravoss stepped onto it and carefully sat down. He shifted his weight from side to side before shaking his head and standing.
The silk felt too strange on his scales.
The cotton one was similar, managing to get caught on one of his talons by accident and rendering him a squawking mess as he tried to break free.
He shelved the bed shamefully as Harry's laughter echoed throughout the store.