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Adarin - realizes he's one of the most shut in members of the household. It makes sense, really. He's their shield, if bandits or other nasty people show up it is up to him to keep them safe, like it is up to Jony to make the garden and Kesaven expands the house and keeps it in repair. Besides, where would he even go? All of his favorite people are right here. He'd be lonely if he went on the trips to the market.
So when there is a yelp from downstairs that sounds like it's from Tima, he's in the house and not outside chopping firewood, or at the market. He is upstairs, and he hears it, and he sprints downstairs and prepares to shield and -
And then he is eaten by a giant snake with a mirror for a face.
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in_tatters
kindestgarden
"They're color-coded - the notebooks. The blue ones are personal notes, the rest of it is things like grocery lists and ideas for magic to do."
in_tatters
He smiles a little, and goes back to fixing her floor, because he's still trying to be a sorcerer, eventually.
Then, he goes back to the castle, and starts on reading. While doing magic, because momentum is annoying like that.
Then, he goes back to the castle, and starts on reading. While doing magic, because momentum is annoying like that.
The personal notes are in tidy chronological order, labeled in local dates (the first few also say things like "Kithabel, Age 6, Keep Out This Means YOU" on the covers).
in_tatters
Wow, age six? Age six. That's absurdly early. Well. Okay. Probably not super relevant, and he can skip a few books, but let's see what she was like at age six.
Her spelling is pretty good for a six-year-old, but not perfect.
Writing things down is for not forgetting them later. Sometimes I don't remember why I did a thing. So I'm going to write down everything and then I will be able to look at it later.
Mommy made me let the cookies cool before I could have one and I don't know why she did that but as long as it was already cold I tried magic and I concentrated really hard and the cookie got hot again and this was because I wanted the chocolate to be melty and also because I have to practice magic to be a sorceress. That is almost the only thing I did today except read a book which was about frogs which I read because it was the next book in my stack of things from the library and I had to read it before going again for more books even though I don't remember why I wanted a frogs book so this is why I have to write it down.
Writing things down is for not forgetting them later. Sometimes I don't remember why I did a thing. So I'm going to write down everything and then I will be able to look at it later.
Mommy made me let the cookies cool before I could have one and I don't know why she did that but as long as it was already cold I tried magic and I concentrated really hard and the cookie got hot again and this was because I wanted the chocolate to be melty and also because I have to practice magic to be a sorceress. That is almost the only thing I did today except read a book which was about frogs which I read because it was the next book in my stack of things from the library and I had to read it before going again for more books even though I don't remember why I wanted a frogs book so this is why I have to write it down.
in_tatters
Huh. Interesting. In a - weird way. He'll skip a few sets of books, though, it's especially creepy to read a six year old's diary, he thinks.
When Kithabel is twelve, she has already left school so that she can prowl around looking for magic to do. She can walk, now, and if she concentrates really hard first, she can even run for a minute, sometimes two, before she falls. (And she can fix her scrapes.) She has managed to wrangle a volunteer position under a healer-specialist, but with partial hours compared to if she were going to be a healer-specialist herself; she doesn't want to fall into a rut. She still reads a lot of books. She visits her father, who lives in another city; she is looking forward to being able to fly there but for the time being she has to take an autonomous carriage (there's a sorcerer who makes those sometimes) to and fro. She has been experimenting with her sleep schedule since she managed to get her hands on an enchanted alarm clock: it will reliably wake her up however deeply she's sleeping so she's trying to do it in smaller chunks. She doesn't like losing progress overnight.
in_tatters
Is there anything about why she wants magic so badly? It's pretty obvious that she wants magic badly, but he feels like he's missing something, here.
For someone who documents her thoughts so thoroughly she seems to consider that part to usually be beyond obvious, but yes, here and there:
She wants to be immortal. And make other people immortal. If she is perfect for a very long time she can resurrect the dead, fly to a moon and turn it into a paradise, get enough attention from enough sorcerers and cooperative smaller wills to make it so as a general rule people stop dying in the first place, and she is very lucky because all she has to do in order to accomplish this is do useful creative work for several hundred years (and float while she reads, and make sure she doesn't run out of things on her list of stuff to do in idle moments, and never sleep for eight hours in a row).
She wants to be immortal. And make other people immortal. If she is perfect for a very long time she can resurrect the dead, fly to a moon and turn it into a paradise, get enough attention from enough sorcerers and cooperative smaller wills to make it so as a general rule people stop dying in the first place, and she is very lucky because all she has to do in order to accomplish this is do useful creative work for several hundred years (and float while she reads, and make sure she doesn't run out of things on her list of stuff to do in idle moments, and never sleep for eight hours in a row).
in_tatters
Okay. 'Make everyone immortal and have no one ever die' is a cause he can get behind. He hopes he can wake her up so she can get to doing it. He hopes he can help.
(A part of him wonders why he didn't do things on the world-helping for so long. Didn't he have plans, once? He remembers he didn't just want to be a shield, when did that stop...?)
He takes a break, he goes and does magic, he comes back, and he reads some more. Okay, he knows her overall goals. Anything relevant to falling in love with her?
(A part of him wonders why he didn't do things on the world-helping for so long. Didn't he have plans, once? He remembers he didn't just want to be a shield, when did that stop...?)
He takes a break, he goes and does magic, he comes back, and he reads some more. Okay, he knows her overall goals. Anything relevant to falling in love with her?
She doesn't write about her love life; it seems she never had one. She observes the aesthetics of boys, systematically concludes when she's fourteen that it is in fact just boys, maps in an idle-cataloguing fashion the subset of boys (Adarin is comfortably within it). Mostly she seems too introverted to bother for anyone less than overwhelmingly worth the tradeoff to her momentum that going on dates would take. It's not that she doesn't like people, it's that they interfere with a lot of the things she would most like to be doing to relax (writing, stretching her sorcery, curling up with a good book). The source material Adarin is reading definitely isn't optimized for courting suitors.
in_tatters
Well that's not the most helpful thing ever, but he can't really fault her for it. It's not like he's dated anyone, either.
Ugh. He feels like such a creep. What's in her less personal books? Maybe there's something he can fall in love with in her shopping lists.
Ugh. He feels like such a creep. What's in her less personal books? Maybe there's something he can fall in love with in her shopping lists.
Kithabel kept grocery lists for her household from fairly young. She likes chocolate and noodles and lemon sauce. She is supposed to visit that neighbor about his broken fence to see if she can fix it. Her apprenticeship with the specialist healer has different hours this week because he's acquired a real apprentice with a less flexible schedule. Her appointment with the history tutor her father hired because he's worried about gaps in her school-less education has been rescheduled. On this randomly chosen day at age fifteen she needs to buy eggs (check), clean the rug (check), substitute for her mother's teaching assistant at the kindergarten when they go on their apple-picking field trip (check), provide special effects for a puppet show downtown (check), and weed her mother's friends' lawn (check).
in_tatters
Well that's very cute, but not at all helpful.
Ugh. How does one fall in love with a sleeping person? It's not like he's ever been in love before. He's got a vague respect for her, maybe a bit of admiration - she seems like she has her priorities in order, and like she's got a good head on her shoulders. She's, uh, pretty? He guesses? She has good taste in castles? He genuinely wants to meet her and see what she's like?
Maybe later he'll talk to people about what she was like. That might help.
Until then, though: reading. Reading and making pretty colors while he reads to keep his still rather pathetic momentum from becoming nonexistence. He'll skip the shopping lists, let's go back to the creepy private books.
Ugh. How does one fall in love with a sleeping person? It's not like he's ever been in love before. He's got a vague respect for her, maybe a bit of admiration - she seems like she has her priorities in order, and like she's got a good head on her shoulders. She's, uh, pretty? He guesses? She has good taste in castles? He genuinely wants to meet her and see what she's like?
Maybe later he'll talk to people about what she was like. That might help.
Until then, though: reading. Reading and making pretty colors while he reads to keep his still rather pathetic momentum from becoming nonexistence. He'll skip the shopping lists, let's go back to the creepy private books.
SHE CAN FLY SHE CAN FLY SHE CAN FLY!
She's very excited about being able to fly, and has not stopped doing it since she succeeded (she tries as a matter of course every late afternoon). If she can still fly in the morning every day for the next week (she'll probably lose it for a bit the very next morning, with five hours of sleep between her and it, but should be able to pick it up again right away if she does one or two big things - braid the branches of a tree together? summon a flock of birds and make them sit on her docile-like? make a very small snow flurry in the middle of the summer it currently is?) and once she's safely beyond the exact threshold - then she'll be able to fly forever as long as nothing happens!
And she'll be able to register as a sorceress with the government and give them one of her wooden beads and be on-call for big things that need doing.
She's very excited about being able to fly, and has not stopped doing it since she succeeded (she tries as a matter of course every late afternoon). If she can still fly in the morning every day for the next week (she'll probably lose it for a bit the very next morning, with five hours of sleep between her and it, but should be able to pick it up again right away if she does one or two big things - braid the branches of a tree together? summon a flock of birds and make them sit on her docile-like? make a very small snow flurry in the middle of the summer it currently is?) and once she's safely beyond the exact threshold - then she'll be able to fly forever as long as nothing happens!
And she'll be able to register as a sorceress with the government and give them one of her wooden beads and be on-call for big things that need doing.
in_tatters
That's kind of heartbreaking, considering the circumstances. He hopes - well. Maybe if he can't wake her up, someone else will?
... Yeah, he doesn't really believe that'll happen in any sort of reasonable time, either. Great.
Okay, what did she do to get cursed?
... Yeah, he doesn't really believe that'll happen in any sort of reasonable time, either. Great.
Okay, what did she do to get cursed?
Records of that are a little spotty. Apparently there was some sorceress who lived in a flying castle (not uncommon) and visited a nearby satrapy therein, but her momentum-maintaining strategy was less "do well-liked public works projects" and more "by opposing lots of lesser wills, comparatively small effects can count as doing a lot of magic, and then I don't have to be as creative". Kithabel was called in when everyone in the area started getting sick, was concerned when it was harder than it should have been to heal them, and noticed the flying castle. She asked the nomad for help, got turned away (highly suspicious), figured out the rest, and, rather than provide a strong opposed will for the sorceress's unneighborliness to push against, called in a more powerful sorcerer from farther away to directly stomp on the nasty one first. The nasty sorceress moved on before he arrived, but was chased; there was a brief battle when she convinced a town that she was being persecuted and they should help her, and she won, though the sorcerer escaped; and while Kithabel was still helping the healing specialists mop up her damage in the first town -
in_tatters
- she got cursed. Poor woman. She deserves so much better.
Well. Is there anything else he can learn about her character from this?
Well. Is there anything else he can learn about her character from this?
Kithabel was friends with another sorceress who she met while they were cleaning up flood damage together. Kithabel noted about a month after her first flight that she no longer had residual resentment about not being able to sleep late, because she no longer has to feel tired and real life is about as good as dreams on all axes with sorcerer-caliber magic. Kithabel was toying with designing an objective measurement system for momentum but found it difficult. Kithabel loved watching the planetary rings at night and was thinking of taking a trip to someplace on the other hemisphere for a new view of them, as long as she could be sure she wouldn't be trespassing on any sorcerer territories who would object to her doing momentum maintenance in their space.
in_tatters
Well, overall she sounds like a very nice woman with very good priorities and a nasty streak of bad luck. He's - not actually sure if that qualifies her for love status. What sort of person could he fall in love with?
... There's a conundrum. He doesn't know. He's never been in love before. He, well, had his sister, and the entirety of his house. He was happy, but not - not in love. Love is strange and scary and how does he even know when he starts?
He puts Kithabel's books away, grabs a few items to do magic to and goes to think.
It's weird, what his life's become. The world, but also - he'd have expected by now to be curled up in a corner and sobbing with grief at his lost friends. A part of him still hurts, a little. He misses his sister, he misses everyone. But he's - there's nothing he can do, is there? Not anytime soon. Not ever, possibly. That still stings, a little, but not as much as it once did. And he feels okay. A little lonely, admittedly, but okay.
Better than okay, actually.
He's - got something to do. Plans, goals, desires - he's going to become a sorcerer, and he's going to go help people. He didn't realize how much he needed it. He could distract himself by helping his friends and knowing that he was protecting them, but they didn't really need all that much protection. But he didn't leave anyway, because what if they needed him? And they'd miss him, anyway. Now, they already missed him, and - well, there are people that need him more, now. All of the clients he protects, the future people he's planning to help with sorcery, Kithabel, maybe, if he could ever manage it. It's - comforting. Nice. Right, even, he - somewhat guiltily - wishes he'd left Chelasi's home ages ago. Maybe not to do this in particular, but something like this.
He's lost his friends, his home, his family...
But maybe he's gained himself.
When he thinks of it like that, it's really quite a bit more straightforward and plain, isn't it? He's free to be himself. Free to struggle with early morning wake ups because he needs to keep his momentum, free to protect people that want to do possibly dangerous things, free to go pick out ingredients for the meals he's experimentally going to cook partially with magic. Free to poke about this amazing castle. If he plays his cards right, he's free to be immortal, too, if he doesn't get cursed. Free to go and try to save someone he doesn't even know, just because it seems like the right thing to do.
But he can't really say that anymore, now can he?
He suspects there's not much else he can learn about her by reading her journals. He's got a pretty good scope of her personality. He certainly likes her, that's easy. She's got her head on straight, she's pragmatic and kind and has a great sense of humor and has good taste in castles and he sincerely hopes she wakes up, and goes back to being a sorceress, and gets everything she ever wanted. She seems like the type of person he could get along fantastically with. He wants to share ideas with her about gaining momentum, wants to compliment the things she's done, wants to tell her that he thinks she's pretty great, just from what he's read.
But he doesn't know if that means 'love' or not. He has no idea. He doesn't even know what kind of person he could fall in love with.
(Somewhere, for reasons not relating to lifting the curse, he hopes that the answer could be 'Kithabel.')
So he dawdles. He works on sorcery. He collects a savings, for if he ever moves out of this castle (not likely until Kithabel wakes up). He stops reading Kithabel's personal books, because he suspects there's not anything he could gain from them anymore. He figures out how to be himself, and he thinks, and he hopes that he can one day wake her up. He hopes that he can one day thank her for - well, she hasn't exactly let him stay in her castle, but for making the castle and suffering him staying in it. He hopes that one day she can be happy.
He comes back from a job (protecting a trapeze artist so she could perform without a net and wow the crowds) and - visits her room. And there she is. He never knows what to say, when he's here. He always wants to whisper, if he talks at all, or at least speak softly.
"I don't know what I'll say to you," he murmurs, "when you wake up. I hope you'll forgive me for - this. All of this. Because you seem very nice, and it's - I've come so far. I'm - I feel horrible for saying this but if I had the choice I don't think I'd go back. I don't think I'd leave the castle, don't think I'd give up the second type of magic, don't think I'd turn around and go back to living in a house with a bunch of people and not doing anything of importance. I don't want that. I - can't." He looks away, and changes the color of curtains because momentum. Then he turns them back, because it's not his castle. "I think, maybe, I want to be like you. You're amazing, you know, and I can't - when I was thirteen, I didn't have the clarity you did. Nor the scope. And then I just - gave up on the world because I was comfortable. And I think, now, that I want to be better. Like - well. You."
He fidgets, and he takes her hand, because what else is he to do? "Wake up," he begs. "Please, I want to meet you."
... There's a conundrum. He doesn't know. He's never been in love before. He, well, had his sister, and the entirety of his house. He was happy, but not - not in love. Love is strange and scary and how does he even know when he starts?
He puts Kithabel's books away, grabs a few items to do magic to and goes to think.
It's weird, what his life's become. The world, but also - he'd have expected by now to be curled up in a corner and sobbing with grief at his lost friends. A part of him still hurts, a little. He misses his sister, he misses everyone. But he's - there's nothing he can do, is there? Not anytime soon. Not ever, possibly. That still stings, a little, but not as much as it once did. And he feels okay. A little lonely, admittedly, but okay.
Better than okay, actually.
He's - got something to do. Plans, goals, desires - he's going to become a sorcerer, and he's going to go help people. He didn't realize how much he needed it. He could distract himself by helping his friends and knowing that he was protecting them, but they didn't really need all that much protection. But he didn't leave anyway, because what if they needed him? And they'd miss him, anyway. Now, they already missed him, and - well, there are people that need him more, now. All of the clients he protects, the future people he's planning to help with sorcery, Kithabel, maybe, if he could ever manage it. It's - comforting. Nice. Right, even, he - somewhat guiltily - wishes he'd left Chelasi's home ages ago. Maybe not to do this in particular, but something like this.
He's lost his friends, his home, his family...
But maybe he's gained himself.
When he thinks of it like that, it's really quite a bit more straightforward and plain, isn't it? He's free to be himself. Free to struggle with early morning wake ups because he needs to keep his momentum, free to protect people that want to do possibly dangerous things, free to go pick out ingredients for the meals he's experimentally going to cook partially with magic. Free to poke about this amazing castle. If he plays his cards right, he's free to be immortal, too, if he doesn't get cursed. Free to go and try to save someone he doesn't even know, just because it seems like the right thing to do.
But he can't really say that anymore, now can he?
He suspects there's not much else he can learn about her by reading her journals. He's got a pretty good scope of her personality. He certainly likes her, that's easy. She's got her head on straight, she's pragmatic and kind and has a great sense of humor and has good taste in castles and he sincerely hopes she wakes up, and goes back to being a sorceress, and gets everything she ever wanted. She seems like the type of person he could get along fantastically with. He wants to share ideas with her about gaining momentum, wants to compliment the things she's done, wants to tell her that he thinks she's pretty great, just from what he's read.
But he doesn't know if that means 'love' or not. He has no idea. He doesn't even know what kind of person he could fall in love with.
(Somewhere, for reasons not relating to lifting the curse, he hopes that the answer could be 'Kithabel.')
So he dawdles. He works on sorcery. He collects a savings, for if he ever moves out of this castle (not likely until Kithabel wakes up). He stops reading Kithabel's personal books, because he suspects there's not anything he could gain from them anymore. He figures out how to be himself, and he thinks, and he hopes that he can one day wake her up. He hopes that he can one day thank her for - well, she hasn't exactly let him stay in her castle, but for making the castle and suffering him staying in it. He hopes that one day she can be happy.
He comes back from a job (protecting a trapeze artist so she could perform without a net and wow the crowds) and - visits her room. And there she is. He never knows what to say, when he's here. He always wants to whisper, if he talks at all, or at least speak softly.
"I don't know what I'll say to you," he murmurs, "when you wake up. I hope you'll forgive me for - this. All of this. Because you seem very nice, and it's - I've come so far. I'm - I feel horrible for saying this but if I had the choice I don't think I'd go back. I don't think I'd leave the castle, don't think I'd give up the second type of magic, don't think I'd turn around and go back to living in a house with a bunch of people and not doing anything of importance. I don't want that. I - can't." He looks away, and changes the color of curtains because momentum. Then he turns them back, because it's not his castle. "I think, maybe, I want to be like you. You're amazing, you know, and I can't - when I was thirteen, I didn't have the clarity you did. Nor the scope. And then I just - gave up on the world because I was comfortable. And I think, now, that I want to be better. Like - well. You."
He fidgets, and he takes her hand, because what else is he to do? "Wake up," he begs. "Please, I want to meet you."
in_tatters
"Please," he pleads. "You're, you're - I - I don't know how to fall in love, I'm sorry, I've been trying. You deserve to have someone fall in love with you, and wake you up. You deserve to be - awake, alive, loved, happy. You're - I don't even know how to say, from everything I've seen of you, you're brilliant and fantastic and if there is - anyone I could -"
He looks away. He sniffs.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm - I tried, I really, really did."
He leans over, kisses her on the forehead, and goes to leave.
He looks away. He sniffs.
"I'm sorry," he whispers. "I'm - I tried, I really, really did."
He leans over, kisses her on the forehead, and goes to leave.