Instead, he focused on maintaining the fire, on the simple physics of combustion that required no divine insight to understand.
"So!" Nik's voice shattered the silence with forced cheer. "I think we acquitted ourselves rather well against the fairy horde, don't you?" He had recovered some of his usual exuberance, though Apollo noted he still occasionally stared at his hands with fascinated wonder. Whatever effect the mushroom cap had induced hadn't fully dissipated.
When no one immediately responded, Nik pressed on, undeterred. "I mean, there we were, surrounded by dozens, no, hundreds!, of the little blighters." He leapt to his feet, pantomiming the scene with extravagant gestures. "They dive-bombed us from above—" he made a high-pitched whistling sound, swooping his hand down toward Thorin's head, "—and erupted from below!" He accompanied this with an explosive popping noise that made Renna jump despite herself.
