we live until we are too bored or lonely

[dark_light]

She flies home. He has to return the boat that he... borrowed... (Isabella is not clear if this was authorized of him, but as long as he's going to return it she doesn't care that much) and then he's going to return to Rockland from there.

Isabella continues her work on motion magic. Metis has been paying less attention to her even when she's around; Isabella's learned enough that the marginal value of working with a teacher is diminishing and the apprenticeship will probably be brought to a formal end soon enough. Then she'll have to find somewhere else to go, probably her dad's house or the clan enclave. The former will be easier to secretly practice her new branch of magic in. The latter will be easier to have sex with Kas in without unwanted interference. Maybe she should just find her own place, somehow. She's not sure how to find opportunities for it. Metis stumbled across her house by sheer accident. But she's got a few months to think it over. (And an alethiometer, for that matter. It can probably find a house that she can just move into, with Kas reading it.)

Comments

[truthwright]

Kas and Petaal ring the doorbell, Petaal actually in witch-silks for once, Kas with his arm around her waist nuzzling her shoulder.

[dark_light]

Isabella gets the door. "Hallo," she grins. "Boat back where it goes?"

[truthwright]

"Boat back where it goes!" confirms Kas, and he steps forward to give her a hug and a kiss. "You'll never guess who I ran into on the way back!"

[dark_light]

"Well, then I guess there's no point in trying," she says, raising an eyebrow.

[truthwright]

"I went to Milliways and saw my alt again and let's go inside so I can show you what he did," he laughs.

[dark_light]

"Same alt?" Isabella says, stepping out of the doorway. "Show me what he did...?"

[truthwright]

He pulls up his shirt and pushes down his jeans far enough to show her his right hipbone.

There's a scar there, barely healed, the exact mirror of the bayleaf tattoo on his other hip.

[dark_light]

"Does this one do magic too, or is it just for symmetry?"

[truthwright]

"Symmetry," he says. "It was fun."

"He really likes you," Petaal adds. "I mean, from what we've said about you. He thinks you're pretty great."

[dark_light]

"So, so far, of the alts of me he's met that we know about, Shell Bell shot him, no-nickname-yet who's also dating one of you put him on an asteroid, and I sound pretty great. I'm not sure how to feel about that," remarks Isabella.

[truthwright]

"Oh, he thinks all of you are pretty great," Kas assures her. "Mm, more or less."

[dark_light]

"More or less?"

[truthwright]

"The one who put him on the asteroid, he's a little hot-and-cold about."

[dark_light]

"Understandable. But I know me and I've met Shell Bell now too, so I think no-nickname probably had a good reason," shrugs Isabella.

[truthwright]

"Well, yeah. And he likes her, he just... she makes him sad," says Kas.

[dark_light]

"...With the asteroid-putting or in some other way?"

[truthwright]

"...It's complicated," he says. "I don't know the whole story."

"You could talk to him about it," Petaal adds. "I bet he'd tell you."

[dark_light]

"Maybe. I haven't found any doors, so far you've been the one to find it both times. I'll come along next time if we're in the same town at the time."

[truthwright]

"'Kay," he says. "We can try to explain it if you want, but like I said, I don't know everything."

[dark_light]

"I am curious. Both as a personality trait and about this," she says, closing the door behind him and flopping onto a chair. Metis is in the backyard, drawing a truly enormous sugar circle.

[truthwright]

He sits on the floor and leans against her knee; Petaal does the same thing on the other side.

"I think it's a few things," he says. "One of them's about the other me she's fucking, and I don't know much about that. But the asteroid—I really like people," he explains. "All of me do. I don't need to be close to them personally—I like it, I don't need it—but I love cities, I hate being out on my own in the middle of nowhere for too long. He's the same way. It would've killed him to be out there with nobody else around, if it weren't for Milliways. And he gets why she did it, and he's not mad, but it breaks his heart a little that she'd do that to him."

[dark_light]

"Do you know why she picked an asteroid and didn't just... squirrel him away somewhere on his Earth?"

[truthwright]

Kas shakes his head.

"He didn't say," says Petaal.

[dark_light]

"Huh. Maybe she will, when she finds the Belltower. Man, I am really excited to see what happens with the Belltower, I wonder how many of us there are."

[truthwright]

"I hope there's lots!" says Kas.

"You're my favourite," says Petaal, cuddling her knee.

[dark_light]

"Thanks," she says, petting Petaal's head. (This has turned into a casual gesture; it's not that it feels different, it's that the feeling is natural and not so momentous now.) "I hope there's lots too! I particularly wanna meet the asteroid one. I don't think I know how to put anyone on an asteroid, so she's got magic and seriously different, powerful magic at that."

[truthwright]

Petaal nudges her nead into Isabella's hand and hums contentedly.

"I bet that'll be fun," says Kas. "As long as she doesn't decide to put me on an asteroid, anyway. I think I'm more like the me I met than the other one." He hugs Isabella's knee.

[dark_light]

"I'll tell her you do not belong on an asteroid. I imagine she'll listen to me," Isabella says, scritching his head. "Unless you've been going around doing bad things and not telling me."

[truthwright]

"Well, what's a bad thing? Does stealing boats count?" he asks playfully.

[dark_light]

She shrugs. "You gave it back? Nobody was hurt in the stealing process?"

[truthwright]

"Yep!"

[dark_light]

"I don't have a problem with it and even if she's really uptight by comparison I bet I can get her to see it my way. And even an uptight version would find an agreement that there would not be further boat-stealing likely to be satisfactory."

[truthwright]

"Ruin all my fun," he jokes.

[dark_light]

"Not as much as being on an asteroid," she says, kissing his scalp and then Petaal's to match.

[truthwright]

They both shiver. Not entirely in a good way. Before the head-kisses, so that's not why.

[dark_light]

"I will be very upset with any of me who put you on an asteroid. If one of them says she's going to and I'm not there, tell her you've got a me and she should talk it over with me first. We ought to be able to come up with some less unpleasant arrangement. It's not as though you go on uncontrollable murder sprees or anything."

[truthwright]

"We don't like," says Kas,

"having to do things," says Petaal,

"or do them in a particular way,"

"just because somebody with power over us,"

"will fuck with us somehow if we don't."

[dark_light]

"I know," soothes Isabella. "I have no reason to believe that any of me will care why you are not going on uncontrollable murder sprees as long as you don't. It can be because you don't feel like it - as long as you reliably don't feel like it - or because it would upset me - as long as you reliably don't want to upset me - or whatever."

[truthwright]

"We don't feel like it," says Petaal.

"And we don't wanna upset you," says Kas. "We don't ever, we love you."

"But it still just—" says Petaal, and shivers.

"There's good afraid and bad afraid," Kas murmurs, "and that's the bad one."

[dark_light]

She kisses their heads each in turn again. "If you want, you can send me in ahead of you next time you find a door to check for that alt's presence, if she spooks you."

[truthwright]

"You're sweet," says Kas.

Petaal nuzzles her leg. "Love you."

[dark_light]

"Love you too," she murmurs.

[truthwright]

Snuggle time?

Definitely snuggle time.

[dark_light]

Why yes. It is that time again.