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Time passes. Canada is cooperative about portals and now there's one each in Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver, on a second floor of the hub with customs agents Isabella is tolerating for the time being as long as they're well-behaved. Japan and Australia and the UK all follow suit at roughly the same time, so then there are portals in their big cities, too, a couple new ones per week. Other nations are slated to trickle in as they handle their red tape to deal with sudden new national borders that don't have the built-in delay of airplanes. Some of the parking garages are being replaced with custom-built installations. Isabella pays off her loan, renegotiates for the continued use of her shiny credit card, and has reason to be grateful for her retained law firm, which is kept busy by frivolous lawsuits by airline companies. She's not appreciably cutting into their traffic yet - sure, the price point is dropping, but they're still competitive. They can just smell their own demise coming from a mile away.
Five witches besides Isabella ward the colony site. Robots guard the site of the portal, obligingly letting colonists through during scheduled trips and reporting to Isabella by mirror if anybody else shows up. Other robots help the colonists with setting up their farms and houses in the warded area. It'll hold a city, no problem, although another transfer of silks and bags to pay for warding a second site is going to be called for before they get literally everyone across, since in addition to city they need farmland, and since they can't build vertically as effectively as fully industrialized Earthlings or the deceased aliens.
One day:
"It's been exactly a year now since you crashed my picnic. Let's go to a fancy restaurant and celebrate."
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dark_light
dark_light
"Yep. Okay, I'm gonna show the visitors how the lights and room service work and leave 'em a mirror."
Isabella finds the lightswitches for all the room's light sources, demonstrates their use for the mage women, and explains how to order off the menu if they don't want to wander off and try restaurants. She hands each one a key card and gives Seraphina a mirror from one of the spare sets, the other end of which is in her portal bag.
Isabella finds the lightswitches for all the room's light sources, demonstrates their use for the mage women, and explains how to order off the menu if they don't want to wander off and try restaurants. She hands each one a key card and gives Seraphina a mirror from one of the spare sets, the other end of which is in her portal bag.
silkhiding
"Thank you," says Seraphina. "Um. How will we pay for restaurants? Will they just - know to charge you, like the hotel did, or...?"
prodigal_miser
Adarin, meanwhile - retrieves his bird, apologetically extracting her from Path if it's required, and then starts quietly talking to her. About things.
dark_light
"...I'm still used to not having actual money, my mistake. No, they won't know - the restaurant attached to the hotel might be able to charge the room, but check on that before you order anything. If you become fed up with room service I can get you some cash to pay for other, non-restaurant hotels."
(Path nibbles on his fingers as he extracts Vern but does not otherwise protest.)
(Path nibbles on his fingers as he extracts Vern but does not otherwise protest.)
silkhiding
"Okay. That will be fine, we'll just stick with room service, I think. Or - at least I will, I'm not picky. Thank you for this."
dark_light
"Thank you for your possible future services," says Isabella, collecting her abandoned owl onto her shoulder. "You should name your daemons."
silkhiding
Seraphina nods. "... Is there a sort of - theme to naming them, or do we just - pick whatever?"
ofthefallen
"Vartilosax," says Xiara, in a bored tone.
"Sure," agrees her newly named daemon, unconcerned.
She is really not big on ceremony.
"Sure," agrees her newly named daemon, unconcerned.
She is really not big on ceremony.
dark_light
"They're usually longish and shortenable," says Isabella. "Mine's Pathalan, Adarin's is Vernaia, my parents have Castarilan and Kesathi, Vartilosax is fine. I can pick something if you want something conventional, but there aren't as many conventions about daemon names as there are for people."
silkhiding
"I'll think of something. Longish and shortenable I can do."
She wonders if it would be tacky to name it after her husband. She considers it, then decides against it. If only because having a daemon wear the name of her husband would quietly break her heart, just a little more.
She wonders if it would be tacky to name it after her husband. She considers it, then decides against it. If only because having a daemon wear the name of her husband would quietly break her heart, just a little more.
dark_light
"All right. Any other questions about the arcane mysteries of the Sheraton?"
ofthefallen
"What is the purpose of the box?" asks Xiara, pointing at the television.
dark_light
"It's a television. It displays what can be approximated as recorded theater and news."
dark_light
"Nothing in this room except for a few things on my and Adarin's persons, and anything you brought with you, is magic."
ofthefallen
Xiara fixes Isabella with a look that says 'I am not the type of person to lie to.'
"I do not believe you."
"I do not believe you."
dark_light
"Well, don't try to take it apart, you don't know anything about it and if you break it the hotel will charge me. Do either of you want to know how to operate it?"
dark_light
Isabella locates the remote and shows Seraphina the on button and the channel index and how to change between the channels. Sports, news, weather, medicore soap opera.
silkhiding
"Oooo," she says, playing with the remote and looking at the screen. "... And this isn't magic? That's - strange, but I'll believe you."
ofthefallen
Isabella will probably not care, but Xiara over there will continue to not believe that this is not magic.
dark_light
"It's not magic, and neither is the phone for room service, or the cars. Other questions?"