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Summer vacation elapses, and sees their storefront doing one heck of a business in the Avalon with the help of their griffin employee. There is a suggestion box for new spells they should invent, some of which have to be long-term projects but others of which are converted into new product fairly promptly.
School starts up again. Darren and Bella are both skipping straight into twelfth grade. (Bella looked into just starting college early, but while she does technically have the sort of resume that can lead to that kind of thing, she can't exactly write an essay about how she saved the life of another person and this caused her to have Moral Character, let alone about how she started a small business - so skipping one grade it is.)
They apply to colleges. They both get into University of Washington and get sufficient scholarships to accommodate both going there.
Summer ensues again.
One afternoon, Bella is over at Darren's, and has fallen asleep - in purring fullform - across his lap on the couch.
shesepankh
morethanimaginary
"I - don't have enough to go off of. I got the voice, it was soft and quiet but it echoed across the entire room, almost like a whisper but sweeter. Rather unforgettable, so that's - something. I know dead-person was terrified of him, that he scrambled to do everything to make the boss happy. But other than that... Not much."
shesepankh
"Do you know if any of these people were critters?"
She's squeezed very tight to Darren, trembling a very little.
She's squeezed very tight to Darren, trembling a very little.
castmyown
Darren kisses Bella's forehead, and then wraps his arms and wings around her. Some measure of comfort.
morethanimaginary
"If they are, they were in human form. We'd have to check for medallions. Which we should do, we'd make a killing if there were any."
shesepankh
"Sure. Loot the corpses," sighs Bella. Snuggle. She will obviously not be participating any time soon.
morethanimaginary
"Looting, wheee," says Savannah, and then she fumbles her way to a flashlight and gets to looting.
One of the guards who was supposed to bring "the boss" out to where paramedics could collect him has a satyr medallion, and the torturer she didn't extensively talk to has a nokk medallion. Everyone else is either a (dead) human or very thoroughly shapeshifted by other means.
shesepankh
Meanwhile, Bella murmurs to Darren: "If she eats the others - the memories might add up to something better."
shesepankh
"Would you feel better about that if I went into extensive detail on why I'm not significantly upset?"
castmyown
"I'm not upset that they're dead," clarifies Darren. "I'm just - I think we might be losing something if we sent my sister to eat their hearts for convenience."
shesepankh
"It might not be convenience. If they know things about the person they were working for, and Savannah can piece them together, we could find him before he finds another monster to eat me right out of your lap."
castmyown
Snuggle. All of the snuggles. Darren's obviously not well, wither, but it shows differently. He's more quiet, with a sort of far-off look in his eyes.
He's going to need to invent more spells to make sure this never happens again.
He's going to need to invent more spells to make sure this never happens again.
morethanimaginary
Savannah, meanwhile - is mostly fine. She herself doesn't seem shaken up, but every now and then during her looting she just so happens to stop by and check to see if both Darren and Bella are there and safe. That is the most important thing. She loots, too, but - she preps again for another attack, picking up several fallen guns to keep. She'll practice with them, later, she doesn't like how she reacted to the recoil of the first gun. Savannah will fix that, she'll be a champion marksman in no time.
Once she's done looting and loaded up with weaponry, she informs them, "Okay, done. Unless you changed your mind on eating the hearts? It would be useful to have, in case I need to be sneaky."
Once she's done looting and loaded up with weaponry, she informs them, "Okay, done. Unless you changed your mind on eating the hearts? It would be useful to have, in case I need to be sneaky."
shesepankh
"Not for sneakiness purposes, but if you think you could find out more about whose orders they were working on, that could be very important. If the guy whose heart you already ate was the only one who knew anything - don't bother."
morethanimaginary
"He probably is, the guards seemed kind of out of the loop, the torturers, too. But I can always check."