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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
Is revealing yourself something you're at all interested in? We're happy to include you if you're interested.
I hadn't been having any luck at making a spell to locate dragons, but- now we've met you- a spell to count them might be a more viable approach?
That approach she'd tabled a while ago. Knowing where to find the dragon(s), and how hostile they were, had been more important than knowing how many dragons (of uncertain location and friendliness) existed. But she's picked it back up, since meeting May. She's made a bit of progress, even. If she can prove it's just May and her immediate family, Isabella's life becomes much safer.
I hadn't been having any luck at making a spell to locate dragons, but- now we've met you- a spell to count them might be a more viable approach?
That approach she'd tabled a while ago. Knowing where to find the dragon(s), and how hostile they were, had been more important than knowing how many dragons (of uncertain location and friendliness) existed. But she's picked it back up, since meeting May. She's made a bit of progress, even. If she can prove it's just May and her immediate family, Isabella's life becomes much safer.
maybeso
Revealing myself is definitely preferable to her coming out as sphinxy all on her own and getting who knows how many people concerned that they're going to have to take sides in another massive conflict. I support the dragon-counting plan if you can pull it off; I don't immediately know how you'd manage it but I haven't been doing magic as long as you.
revivian
The resulting response is fairly technical. Runecasting is, generally speaking, pretty bad at gathering information; most of Vivian's work has been trying to convince the spell that it's not really gathering information, she promises.
(She liiiiies.)
It takes her another two months, but she eventually coerces a tiny pile of plastic dragon figurines to light up in the colors of existing dragons. Runecasting seems to be managing the sympathetic be-like-existing-dragon aspect well enough, so she'll just... count the color changes.
There are two. One's a familiar shade of blue.
She promptly informs Isabella and May.
(She liiiiies.)
It takes her another two months, but she eventually coerces a tiny pile of plastic dragon figurines to light up in the colors of existing dragons. Runecasting seems to be managing the sympathetic be-like-existing-dragon aspect well enough, so she'll just... count the color changes.
There are two. One's a familiar shade of blue.
She promptly informs Isabella and May.
maybeso
My parents already know, May writes back. My mom wants to try a medallion if I find another dragon one, my dad doesn't, but I haven't run across one yet so it's moot. Some of my friends know about me but not, obviously, about Isabella. I think I want to meet her and talk PR.
shesepankh
Isabella is relieved that there aren't tons of dragons of unknown levels of hostility lurking in Australia or something. And is willing to meet May.
revivian
Vivian doesn't have anything resembling a traditional job that would require her to take time off, and Isabella is home schooled. They can fly to Canada whenever they please.
She goes ahead and books flights for the next convenient dates. (She's going to get to tell the world!)
Grand Forks turns out to be in the middle of roughly nowhere. They fly into Spokane and then drive. It's not nearly as bad as getting around China, but it's still rather a production.
It will be worth it.
She goes ahead and books flights for the next convenient dates. (She's going to get to tell the world!)
Grand Forks turns out to be in the middle of roughly nowhere. They fly into Spokane and then drive. It's not nearly as bad as getting around China, but it's still rather a production.
It will be worth it.
maybeso
May is in her dad's front yard with a book and notebook when they arrive. She waves. Her dad is peering from the window. There's a cop car in the driveway.
revivian
Vivian laughs. Spotting the face peering out the window, she looks at May inquiringly. "Did your father want to join us...?"
maybeso
"He's just a little worried about the whole thing. He'll calm down. You can meet him if you want."
revivian
"It's up to him. Critters are a lot to take in, I don't blame him. I was pretty overwhelmed myself! But I can be ostentatiously human at him if you think it would help."
maybeso
"That's not his problem. He took me being a critter pretty well. He's less thrilled that I'm trying to prevent a massive critter civil war more or less by myself."
revivian
"Is he that worried about other critters picking sides? It's not like there are dragons and sphinxes going spare."
maybeso
"He doesn't know how far to trust your count, or whether there might be factions other than sphinxes and dragons proper who'd try to rally around us, or whatever," shrugs May.
revivian
"Well, since you're doing this together, I'm not even sure who they'd rally behind."
maybeso
"I haven't asked him for really detailed scenarios that concern him. He is generally cautious, I don't even think it's particularly silly, but you can meet him if you want and skip it if you don't."
revivian
"Well, I'll at least thank him for having us, but I can wait till he's more comfortable. I don't need to barge in."
She looks at her daughter. "So, sphinxette? What are you thinking?"
She looks at her daughter. "So, sphinxette? What are you thinking?"
shesepankh
"Depends on what May wants to do. Anything from 'walk into a series of Avalons in fullform' to 'get the addresses of Avalon community leaders and send them all letters' to 'go by word of mouth'."
maybeso
"That's... basically what my list looks like. I was favoring the middle option, although it does mean pretty tedious envelope-stuffing. I could maybe hire some tiny pegasi to help if we aren't in a hurry."
revivian
"How internationally are you thinking?" Vivian asks. "The Avalons don't always communicate well across continents. I have contacts in North America and Asia, but not as much elsewhere."