View Flat HTML
View Metadata
Search Post
Etty doesn't get used to it - not exactly. Not in any sense that would leave her comfortable. She learns the routines, learns to reliably keep her dinner down, learns how limp she can go and how helpful she has to be to get it over with as fast as possible while remaining dissociated as she can manage from the experience.
She waits in the room, after, for a while, and - Nona doesn't come.
They might only get one chance. And Nona wants out too, and Etty shouldn't fault her for waiting, but she writes those thoughts on her scroll in terrible handwriting and cries and wishes that things would go faster.
She doesn't want to be one of the swans.
She's tried talking to them some more - tried imitating them, and when she does that they'll act like she's one of the flock and stop being afraid of her, but she can't get any glimmer of human memory out of them whatever prompts she tries.
She does not want to be one of the swans.
And the next girl won't even have the hope of Nona, the comfort of maybe soon.
She holds Nona, when Nona meets her in the orchard, and she thinks maybe soon, and one night she says:
"Do you - have any idea when you'll be able to say it?"
+ Show First Post
mute_pen
mute_pen
Etty leads her to the library and shows her the relevant magical instructions.
growcrooked
Nona copies down the complicated parts of the kitchen spell and finds herself a knife, a bowl, and a blade of grass.
She summons a deer. She kills the deer. She paints its blood on all the things she needs to paint its blood on, then pours the last few drops over her head, as directed.
She sits at the head of the dining room table and summons a feast.
She summons a deer. She kills the deer. She paints its blood on all the things she needs to paint its blood on, then pours the last few drops over her head, as directed.
She sits at the head of the dining room table and summons a feast.
mute_pen
Midnight snack!
Etty declines to read at the table. The books are not good meal reading.
Etty declines to read at the table. The books are not good meal reading.
mute_pen
After eating, Etty goes back to cataloguing the usefulness of this and that portion of the library. There's a lot to cover.
mute_pen
Both of those things! Nona went to sleep first and will probably wake up first.
mute_pen
Etty wakes up.
It's daytime! She's not a swan! She grins and snuggles up to Nona.
It's daytime! She's not a swan! She grins and snuggles up to Nona.
mute_pen
"After breakfast I think I'll pick a direction and see what's there. West first, I think."
mute_pen
After a suitable number of snuggles have been had, it's time to go summon up some breakfast, though.
Nom.
Nom.
mute_pen
Etty hugs Nona goodbye, says she'll be back before sunset, and goes outside and changes and flies west.
Landscape happens.