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In the morning, Isabella does her best to extricate herself without prematurely waking Adarin. They don't need to leave on anything like a tight schedule.
She's not nearly graceful enough to reliably manage this, of course.
dark_light
dark_light
"If you want to interact with the clan, yes. If you'd rather wander off into the wilds of Wyoming, find a bit of national park no one is using, and make a new plant maze, there's no reason the queen needs to learn you exist at this juncture."
headunbowed
"Hmmmm," she says, thinking. "On one hand, hot powerful magic witches. On the other hand, annoying."
headunbowed
"Yup. Eh, I'll talk to witch queen. If it doesn't seem like my kind of thing I'll just ditch and run off to the wilderness. Make another maze."
dark_light
"Mom, can you handle - quiet introductions? New exciting magic, adopt-a-witch, by the way not technically a witch, other world, hush-hush?"
prodigal_miser
"Please try not to give me too many headaches."
Vern goes and nuzzles unnamed daemon. Nuzzle, nuzzle.
Vern goes and nuzzles unnamed daemon. Nuzzle, nuzzle.
headunbowed
"Eh, maybe."
The hawk doesn't know how to feel about this! But... Nuzzle, nuzzle? She guesses?
The hawk doesn't know how to feel about this! But... Nuzzle, nuzzle? She guesses?
kindestgarden
Ranata shrugs and invites Zeviana onto her cloudpine. "Mind you find a way to sit so I'm not liable to touch your daemon by accident. I doubt she can keep up with the branch," she says.
prodigal_miser
Softly, Adarin says to Isabella, "Another witch surrounded by witches is far less obvious than a strange set of obviously magical plants out in the wilderness."
headunbowed
"Yup! Thanks," says Zeviana, hopping aboard the cloudpine. Her daemon follows along after, finding a nice spot to cling to that's out of the way.
kindestgarden
"If Pathalan had been female we were thinking Lecasryn," remarks Ranata, taking off again. "A lot of daemon names are unisex, but we thought that one sounded more feminine."
headunbowed
"Hmmm. That's pretty. Hey, not-a-unicorn. Want to be named that?"
"I like it," replies the hawk.
"We've got a winner. Thanks!"
"I like it," replies the hawk.
"We've got a winner. Thanks!"
prodigal_miser
"Ah. Well. I know my sister, so - what's the queen like? Ana's pretty happy to leave well enough alone if she respects all parties involved. I doubt she'd look on a queen of witches with contempt."
dark_light
"The queen is sensible enough that I have never spent longer than ten minutes contemplating her overthrow. But she's formal - in a very witchy way - and kind of... cold?"
"Impersonal," suggests Path.
"Yeah. Her daemon won't talk to people, either, only other daemons, which I completely neglected to mention as being a thing before they left... Anyway, what I see her doing is getting an outline of Zeviana's abilities, producing a list of things she'd like for the clan - significant enough to be an edge, not so big that Québec or whoever else has a lousy queen this century falls on our heads trying to poach our new stuff, big enough to demonstrate commitment and good faith on Zeviana's part and pave the way for bigger asks later but not big enough to really eat into her time right away. I'm not sure how much stock to put in my read of her, though."
"Impersonal," suggests Path.
"Yeah. Her daemon won't talk to people, either, only other daemons, which I completely neglected to mention as being a thing before they left... Anyway, what I see her doing is getting an outline of Zeviana's abilities, producing a list of things she'd like for the clan - significant enough to be an edge, not so big that Québec or whoever else has a lousy queen this century falls on our heads trying to poach our new stuff, big enough to demonstrate commitment and good faith on Zeviana's part and pave the way for bigger asks later but not big enough to really eat into her time right away. I'm not sure how much stock to put in my read of her, though."
headunbowed
Zeviana smiles. "So any witchy traditions that I should be aware of? Or do I just get to run around in the witchy getup and have people not mess with me, no extra complication?"
prodigal_miser
"Hmm. I don't think she'll mind doing magic for them or favors and such - as long as it's not an entirely one sided situation. The problem is if the queen tries to tell my sister how to go about the things she'd like done, or gets particularly controlling. I didn't try and tell her not to go, for example."
He snickers, a little. "Even though she didn't have the translation spell."
He snickers, a little. "Even though she didn't have the translation spell."
dark_light
"Oh, yikes, she doesn't, does she. Well, maybe Ranata translating for her will help smooth things over as regards cultural missteps. Can you explain the spell to her over the phone when she realizes?"
kindestgarden
"It's a little hard to describe a culture from the inside! The things I'm most aware of as 'witch things' are biological, or obviously related to biology - the lack of nudity taboo is because we're unharmed by cold and we can feel starlight and moonlight, for instance. Our daemons are always flying birds... we all learn to use bows and daggers, more or less well, and cast our kind of magic..."