(That's a figure of speech referring to cowardice.)

It gets brighter. The chairs and tables in the dining hall are rearranged. The wargaming group cancels a session for 'mighty mouse' despite there being no signs of any mice. Someone wearing a fairly unimpressive vine garland says that Blai can also have one if he wants, since they're cleaning out the greenhouse.

Blai would like to know what a mighty mouse is (does "mighty" mean "dire", for example). He does not need a garland.

"'Mighty mouse' is our spring cleaning – we call the usual shared cleaning tasks 'house mouse' and then this is, I guess, more metaphorical mouse. The summer crew is larger and busier so it's good to have things in good order before they arrive."

"Oh, I see. I still don't have Prestidigitation working in that application, is there something I should do anyway?"

"If you're up for hanging around while I clean that helps some. If you'd like to join in we can have you, uh, move furniture and mop floors, that's probably straightforward and not too hard to learn. We'll manage without you if you'd rather not, though. Soon we'll be re-smoothing the skiway and that's going to involve volunteers placing a bunch of flags along over 2 miles of ice, if you'd like to join in on that or give people Endure Elements for it that would be much appreciated."

"I can place flags and do Endures. I don't see how it would be helpful to loiter while you clean, so much as - merely not diverting you entirely from it."

"The default plan is, I think, to divert me entirely."

"Well, I can improve on that, then, and move furniture too."

"Sounds like a plan."

Plenty of furniture involves metal even when one could imagine perfectly good furniture of the type being made out of wood except for a few screws. A lot of it folds.

Kevin's cleaning tasks seem to also involve organizing collections of miscellaneous items and using a loud device that removes dust from the floor by unclear means.

Folding furniture is interesting! The loud device is abstractly interesting but mostly loud.