we have a complex relationship with our sisters and our cousins

[dark_light]

Amariah is starting a circle in her yard - minting and enchanting can pull heavier duty than witchcraft, and faster, too, but they won't scale unless she wants to hand out copies of her trump cards; novel spells will, since there are many witches across the globe.

And then Jane asks if she wants to be visited, by Juliet's Sherlock - Minus - and Amariah's reply is "Sure, I could take a break." Because she's been at this for a while now and was just about to wish a crick out of her back for the second time this afternoon.

She puts down her pitcher of oil and waits for him to appear.

Comments

[eversomuchfun]

"Hmm," says Sherlock.

Subtrahend bites his ear.

[dark_light]

"What'd you do that for?" Path asks her.

[eversomuchfun]

"Felt like it," she says sunnily.

[dark_light]

"Path only bites me if I tell him to steer me away from something I don't want to do," Amariah says, as Path flies to her shoulder again and tucks himself under some of her hair.

[eversomuchfun]

"Evidently your relationship and ours are very different," says Sherlock.

[dark_light]

"Evidently," snorts Amariah. "People work out all kinds of setups. Most of them don't involve unprompted biting."

[eversomuchfun]

"I don't think we've had time to work out anything much," says Sherlock.

[dark_light]

"I wonder if you'd get much mileage out of reading local fiction and so on. First-person stuff especially, the others don't usually focus a lot of narration on the daemons. Or you could just make something up."

[eversomuchfun]

"I don't see why we should care how other people do it," says Subtrahend.

"Evidently not," says Sherlock.

[dark_light]

Amariah laughs. "You don't even want to read Alethia's Sherlock Holmes books? Because we have those."

[eversomuchfun]

"Tempting," they say in unison.

[dark_light]

Amariah laughs. "He has a mongoose," she adds. "Stephirashal. In the original books. The dozens of subsequent adaptations play with it, of course, though the name's usually the same and it's usually male."

[eversomuchfun]

"What of the rest? Is Watson's a small annoying dog? I bet Watson's is a small annoying dog."

[dark_light]

"Large terrifying dog. Antiomei," says Amariah. "Doyle was imperfectly consistent about what exactly she was - it was always some sort of wolfish dog, malamute or husky or something, once he outright stated she was a wolfdog. They did own a dog, a regular one," she adds. "Who was considerably smaller and called Gladstone."

[eversomuchfun]

"Yes, that sounds about right."

[dark_light]

One of the advantages to a perfect memory is that she can summon up facts she's only come into casual contact with. "Irene Adler has a Eurasian magpie and Moriarty an unspecified variety of tarantula."

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock laughs.

[dark_light]

"Well, I imagine you can conjure the books if you want them. They're told from Watson's perspective so I don't know how much insight they contain about the interaction between your namesake and his mongoose."

[eversomuchfun]

"I think we will," says Sherlock.

[dark_light]

Amariah smiles and turns to leave them be.

Path goes and sits on the bedpost again.

[eversomuchfun]

Subtrahend gives Path an inquiring look.

[dark_light]

"I'm curious about you," Path tells her.

[eversomuchfun]

"What do you want me to do about it?" she inquires.

[dark_light]

"You don't have to do anything in particular. Do you want me to go away?"

[eversomuchfun]

"Whatever," says Subtrahend.