witches treasure children

[dark_light]

Here is Milliways. It's Milliways with an empty Belltower, but it's still a neat place to hang out between making bits of incremental progress in motion spells and coaxing advice out of the alethiometer and wedging herself into clan politics.

Comments

[dark_light]

"Aww," sighs Amariah.

"Hi, Ivy," says Path.

[pythbox]

"Hi!" she says, turning into a snake and coiling around Sue's shoulders like Petaal around Kas's. "I exist!"

She sounds very happy about that.

[dark_light]

"Welcome to existing," laughs Amariah. "...Is my 'curled up asleep somewhere' description accurate? It was mostly guessing, but now I can just ask."

[pythbox]

"Don't know," she says. "I don't remember being separate from him until I was, but I don't remember not being separate from him. I remember his whole life but not exactly like it was mine."

[dark_light]

"Huh. I'll call that 'close enough not to make up a new description'," Amariah says. "Well. This is my house." She gestures. It's pretty minimally decorated, and the view out the windows is of trackless forest. "Welcome! And the world's called Alethia."

[pythbox]

Sue and Ivy go immediately to a window and staaaaaaaaaaaare out of it.

[dark_light]

"...You like the woods?" Amariah asks.

[pythbox]

"I've been in space since I was like five," says Sue. "I barely remember what woods are."

[dark_light]

"Well, if you'd like, you can go out in them, it's only autumn and you probably won't freeze, especially if Ivy turns into a witch. If you want, me or Petaal can take you flying. You probably don't have time for Ivy to learn how before you wake up."

[pythbox]

"Take us flying, take us flying!" they chorus.

[dark_light]

Amariah laughs, opens the front door, sets her cloudpine to hovering, and reminds them, "You'll want to make sure Ivy doesn't touch me," as she beckons for them to sit on it behind her.

[pythbox]

Sue perches on the cloudpine; Ivy turns into a mouse and hides in the collar of his IF uniform.

[dark_light]

Flight!

"If you want me to do anything fancy, let me know and I'll put a protective spell on you so you won't be too beat up if you fall. I can patch anything short of a broken neck," Amariah says. "With my native magic or with Stella's."

[pythbox]

"Ooh, do fancy things," Sue says brightly.

[dark_light]

Amariah pauses in midair, conjures up some bayleaves, says, "I need to tuck these into Sue's collar, Ivy," and, when the daemon is out of the way, she puts them where they go and murmurs the poem. "Stella's kind of magic," she says, picking up speed again, "is ostensibly more powerful, but there's no sense of feedback for a made wish like I get on witch spells, so I use the latter when they'll do. Hold on tight!"

And then she loops.

[pythbox]

"Wheeeeeeeeee," giggles Sue.

[dark_light]

Amariah keeps up the roller-coaster flight for a considerable amount of time, and ultimately she lands at the house again.

[pythbox]

"I wanna hug you can I hug you," says Ivy.

[dark_light]

"If you really want to," Amariah says, "then yes."

[pythbox]

Ivy jumps down from Sue's shoulder, lands on the ground as a white tiger, and bumps her head against Amariah's legs.

[dark_light]

"Okay?" Amariah asks, looking between Ivy and Sue.

[pythbox]

"Yeah," says Sue.

"Pet me," Ivy demands.

[dark_light]

Amariah pets her, laughing.

"Oh, something you should know - you and Ivy can't get too far away from each other," she tells Sue. "It's possible to get so you can by forcing it, but it hurts - not in a good way - and you're not going to want to. Kas and Petaal had to once and now they can be as far apart as they like, and Pathalan and I did it because witches all do, but most humans never try."

[pythbox]

Ivy purrs a loud rumbling purr.

"Okay," says Sue. "But is it bad for us?"

[dark_light]

"It won't injure you," says Amariah. "But it'd feel like you'd done something cruel and evil and untrue-to-yourself, on top of just plain hurting-in-a-bad-way. A lot of people who separate have kind of tense relationships with their daemons for a while after, sometimes indefinitely - me and Path didn't have that, and neither did Kas and Petaal so you'd probably be fine, but it's something to keep in mind."