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Vivian is thrilled Isabella is all right. And now that some time has passed, she's extraordinarily proud of herself, as well. She did it. She brought sphinx magic back, it worked!
She moves 'spell can create non-extinct species' up her priority list. Someday, when it's safe, there can be more sphinxes.
She tells the owner of the Avalon magic shop that she's testing some experimental new healing spells and to let her know if anyone is interested. She pretends to be violently protective of "her spell" and insists on secrecy in spell casting, and only accepts those whom medicine could not otherwise help. 'Cancer curing spell' is less suspicious than 'spell nearly exactly duplicating sphinx magic' anyway. And she lets Isabella heal them, carefully, one at a time.
Vivian and Gianna continue to see each other. Gianna continues to be sweet and funny and fiercely, protectively loyal and just generally adorable, and Vivian is crazy about her. Work starts 'coincidentally' sending Gianna to San Francisco more often. When Isabella notices how much time Vivian and Gianna spend together, Vivian uses her questions as an opportunity to explain a few things. Isabella's reaction turns out to be, "Oh. Okay. I like her all right," before returning to her latest magical project, which makes Vivian giggle. How very like her daughter.
Life proceeds reasonably comfortably for the new few years. Isabella makes acceptable progress in school and astonishing progress in magic, or rather, she does whenever she can be lured away from 'casting healing spells' with Vivian. Vivian herself blows up a few beetles but eventually manages to create non-extinct species. Vivian claims a newfound interest in traveling to her friends, and periodically bundles Isabella onto a plane to go 'be a tourist' somewhere. Panda bears and Florida panthers start mysteriously, coincidentally increasing in numbers.
Gianna is still wonderful but she refuses to come out to Ilario, which Vivian... is upset about, but deals with. Reluctantly. It's not her place to say how and when Gianna comes out, if she does at all, but she hates feeling like a secret. The long distance becomes more of a sticking point. Vivian can't move to Italy or Gianna's friends would Find Out; Gianna won't move away from her brother. When Isabella is eleven, Vivian and Gianna reluctantly admit it's time to break up. It's about as amicable as they can manage under the circumstances, but Vivian still spends a couple of weeks sadly eating chocolate. Isabella is quietly soothing and spends a lot of time hugging her, which Vivian appreciates. Sphinxette snuggles are the best snuggles.
She throws herself into her work. She successfully creates a baby pegasus for a pegasus couple struggling with infertility, and suddenly finds herself with a second source of income. Critter couples hoping to adopt have very few options if they want a child of their own species- or they did, until Vivian. She charges more than the adoption centers, to encourage parents to take home existing children, but there's occasionally someone willing to pay. She contributes the bulk of her earnings to Isabella's college fund and uses the rest to reduce the amount of time she spends making charms. More time for Isabella, more time for magic research, more time trying to locate dragons. (She has been wildly unsuccessful at this task so far and she finds herself regularly heaping swearwords on runecasting's inefficiency at information gathering. This does not help.)
She dates a few more women, but nothing nearly as long as her relationship with Gianna. When Isabella is fourteen, she explains to her mother in her serious Isabella fashion that she thinks she likes women. But also men. Vivian tells her that being bisexual is totally okay, she will always love Isabella very much, and yes, it's time for the sex talk now.
More time passes. Vivian and Isabella continue to travel, mostly to China. They speak the language, they can visit Vivian's relatives in Wuxi, and people love Isabella. They ask her for pictures, they want to pet her hair, they tell her how beautiful and pale she is, they exclaim excitedly over her wonderful Chinese. Isabella's not wild about travel in general, but she likes China, and Vivian just laughs and takes advantage of it. The Chengdu research base is confounded but delighted.
Isabella is seventeen when Vivian overhears some interesting gossip in the Avalon. Someone turned up a wyvern in Toronto of all places, isn't that odd? A brand new one too, just found her medallion by accident. Who knew there were wyverns in Canada anyway?
Vivian didn't, that's for sure. Her friend Helen is roped into babysitting Isabella, and Vivian catches the next flight to Toronto.
Time to meet this wyvern.
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revivian
revivian
"Sphinxes would have the same problem as dragons," Vivian points out. "One war was enough."
revivian
"Well, wyverns aren't particularly feline looking. Are there other newly discovered critters in the area I should be talking to...?"
maybeso
"Your story doesn't hold together," says May, shaking her head. "If I knew where to find hiding sphinxes why would I tell you? You're an environmentalist? That's a hell of a way to talk about species of people who were genocided."
maybeso
"I'm sure the falafel and peanut butter of the world will delight in the return of its keystone predators."
maybeso
"I don't think you're telling me everything, if you are telling me everything I'm deeply unimpressed, and as far as I know I'm just convergently reptilian. Thank you for telling me that it's unusual for me to survive interrupted incantations before I tried to teach anybody magic. Good afternoon."
revivian
Vivian can't leave without answers. Her daughter. "Do you have ideas?" she asks. "I'll take whatever help I can get, honestly. I just want to try to fix things."
maybeso
"Okay, first, if you think somebody might be a member of a species you're interested in... let's say 'helping'... or might be friends with them or whatever? Don't describe it in the same terms you'd use to talk about reintroducing spotted owls to a region or saving the honeybees. That's gross. Do you understand?"
revivian
Vivian hadn't really thought about it like that before. Isabella mostly focuses on the healing everybody aspect of critterdom. "You're right. I'm sorry."
maybeso
"Two. Preventing wars is all very well and good. A million people do miscellaneous activism about it every day, mostly ineffective, and you are not presenting any reason to believe you're competent at wrangling historically antagonistic species. Do you know what their grievances were? Do you know how these species would reintegrate into the general critter population even in a best-case scenario, let alone how to bring that about?"
revivian
"I'll spare you my history as an activist." And her family history, which is probably more relevant. "But a good first step is finding them and talking about it, I think."
maybeso
"That is like step three or four, at the earliest. First you need to tighten your information security, because you're probably not going to find sphinxes and dragons living together under a rock, and if you find them living under separate rocks, you might not want them to be able to find each other right away. Second you refine your diplomatic approach so you don't find someone in a delicate political situation and then give offense when you compare them to charismatic megafauna and thereby damage your anti-war message. Third you come up with anything that makes you seem less like, well, a nosy neighbor. Maybe you care if sphinxes and dragons exist and get along; why should sphinxes and dragons care if you exist and want to know how they're doing? Do you come bearing gifts? Are you yourself one or the other authorized to sign a permanent peace treaty? Thirty seconds of perspective taking, if you find yourself The Last Unicorn, this is very exciting for you but not very exciting for The Last Unicorn." Pause. "Don't go attempting to conjure unicorns just in case they once really existed to see what happens, please, not without actually thinking about it."
revivian
"I promise I have no designs on unicorns." She pauses. This girl sounds rather like Isabella with a Canadian accent, it keeps throwing her. But Isabella is usually much more polite.
Of course, condescending lecture aside, the girl does have good suggestions, and she's Vivian's best shot at making sure Isabella is safe. For that, she can handle a lot.
"So, say I do have a personal stake in all this." At this rate this May girl probably thinks Vivian is a sphinx, but she'll live. "I want to make sure dragons and sphinxes can live together peacefully. It's important enough to me that I get on a plane the first time I hear of someone who might be able to help me... And I'm bad at first impressions."
Of course, condescending lecture aside, the girl does have good suggestions, and she's Vivian's best shot at making sure Isabella is safe. For that, she can handle a lot.
"So, say I do have a personal stake in all this." At this rate this May girl probably thinks Vivian is a sphinx, but she'll live. "I want to make sure dragons and sphinxes can live together peacefully. It's important enough to me that I get on a plane the first time I hear of someone who might be able to help me... And I'm bad at first impressions."
maybeso
"I said you weren't likely to find sphinxes and dragons living together under a rock...?"
revivian
There was not an r in that word, the rocks are spacious not volatile. Vivian is now less confused, and also an idiot. "I think I misheard, I'm sorry. My brain just caught up to the word capacious. I heard capricious, which... did not make sense, terribly."
Yes, that will get her foot out of her mouth. Focus on the issue here, not the fact that she keeps hearing Isabella saying things. Isabella isn't here, they just sound alike. "Do you know of any- smaller... rocks...? I could find? Poor presentation aside, finding out if any grudges have persisted is very important to me."
Yes, that will get her foot out of her mouth. Focus on the issue here, not the fact that she keeps hearing Isabella saying things. Isabella isn't here, they just sound alike. "Do you know of any- smaller... rocks...? I could find? Poor presentation aside, finding out if any grudges have persisted is very important to me."
maybeso
"Back to discussing your tactics, do you have any way to credibly indicate that you are a well-intentioned... environmentalist... and not, say, an assassin?"
revivian
"References, mostly. The critter community is fairly small, and the runecaster community smaller. Nothing's perfect, but your magic store owner at least would likely recognize me."
revivian
"Well, I mostly led with confused incoherent spluttering," Vivian says ruefully. "And knowing runecasting is usually an identification by itself. You're the first self-taught caster I've met, actually."