runecasting is an art

[dark_light]

It's about forty-five minutes before Isabella has a first draft of the spell.

She starts sugaring it onto her floor. (She kept one tiny cornucopia; better to own a single magic device than to have to keep a whole stock of herbs. She can learn to work around its reluctance to produce poisons, or just carry the common toxics with her.) Path goes up to the attic to ask if Kas and Petaal want to watch her cast.

Comments

[truthwright]

"I skipped the witch part," he says with a shrug. "I asked it if you'd kill somebody for—you know, I can't even think how to say it properly in English. The sword was deadly revenge, the apple was love and independence, the garden was possessiveness."

[dark_light]

"Do you have numbers for those?" asks Isabella. "And which of them points at me? How do you know it wasn't telling you about some random other person?"

[truthwright]

"Do I need numbers? I didn't need numbers. Maybe you need numbers," he says. "And it was really obviously talking about you, it mentioned your birth blessing specifically, so I guess it was smart enough to get that part by itself."

[dark_light]

"I think I need numbers. I'll try without." She poses the question, turning so Kas can see. "I don't remember possessivess anywhere."

[truthwright]

"Well, it's in there," he says. "I dunno if it's in your dictionary."

[dark_light]

"That's going to be awkward if I do need numbers." She fixes the third hand on the dial and focuses.

[truthwright]

Kas watches.

It takes a little longer to slow down for her, but it does. And then it starts answering.

"Nothing to worry about," he translates. "Killing for love is not—who you are as a person. Well, that's nice. Can we make out now?"

[dark_light]

She sets her new alethiometer down ever-so-gently in the sugar, and then spins to face Kas and crosses her wrists behind his neck to pull him down and forward and kiss him.

[truthwright]

He kisses back with great enthusiasm, wrapping her up in a tight hug; Petaal shifts anaconda and twines herself around them both.

[dark_light]

In context being in contact with Petaal is not just okay, something she can get used to, a price for fluffiness or something she had to be asked to do. It's exquisite, like the kisses are not just to the mouth but to the soul, at least in one direction. (She can't think about the other yet. Physical virginity is exactly worthless and she'll abandon it without caring; Segaard Oskei's blanket blessing to witches in general will not see her fall under her portfolio element of motherhood without her own consent; but Path's untouched feathers - less inconsequential. She'll maybe think about it later.)

With a snake around her pressing her in close to Kas she can reach exactly one knot on her silks. But she can undo it with one hand, just fine. (He's already starclad; there's nothing needs doing there.)

[truthwright]

Petaal doesn't stay snake-shaped for very long, as much as she loves having them both wrapped up like this. She can do that almost as well if she has arms.

Maybe the Joker spoiled them a little this way, but Petaal's new favourite thing about doing this with someone they're very close to is that she gets to play too.

She shifts witch-shape, hugs Isabella, and at the first opportunity steals a kiss.

[dark_light]

Nnnf.

That's also a thing. That's it's whole own other thing.

(Isabella hasn't hacked herself non-straight like Bell. She hasn't had to. Petaal's a daemon, and a straight girl's partner's daemons? Usually female.)

Kisses.

[truthwright]

It's a whole-own-other-thing for Kas, too, helped along a tiny bit by the fact that Isabella and Petaal are both gorgeous.

Mostly, though, it's the fact that his daemon is making out with someone he loves. That is what's making him feel immeasurably, dizzily, soul-searingly wonderful. The visuals are just a delicious little bonus.

[dark_light]

Path chooses this moment to hoot a low, sad, neglected hoot. He can only touch two of the three other bodies in the room and if they're going to be all tangled up he gets no snuggles at all. (And bird bones are fragile, anyway.)

[truthwright]

"Oh, sweetie," says Petaal, breaking away from her attempt to gently devour Isabella's face and pressing one last quick kiss to the corner of her mouth before she shifts linsang and bounds over to Path to administer urgent cuddles.

Kas laughs, a little shakily.

[dark_light]

Isabella half-falls back into him while Path snuggles up to Petaal. Daemons snuggling still gives feedback, if less intensely. Their souls are, after all, touching.

Kisses. Kisses and the undoing of knots.