i might as well be the man on the moon

[truthwright]

Their Isabella having just gone to welcome a new Bell into the peal, Kas and Petaal snuggle up together and take a nap. They'll want to be well rested for the party.

When they wake up, she still isn't back.

[Jane?]

No response.

Kas teleports down to the Janepoint, Petaal wrapped snake-shaped around his shoulders.

The display reads: error 7788: lycanthropy

"...So that's new," he says.

"No shit," says Petaal. "Now what?"

He shrugs. She coils tighter.

"Hang around and wait, I guess."

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"Well, you look fantastic," asserts Ranata.

[truthwright]

"You bet I do," he laughs. "How's Charlie, besides revenant?"

[alicornucopia]

"He's all right. Considering getting his job back again. He'd retired for the last few decades, he has to catch up on how things are nowadays, but he doesn't like puttering around the house now he's got the energy again."

[truthwright]

"Good luck to him, I guess. What are you in town for, anything in particular?"

[alicornucopia]

"Me and Lutammi are following Micaela and the Pages on tour," explains Ranata.

[truthwright]

"Cool. They any good?"

[alicornucopia]

"Of course, or we wouldn't be following them," laughs Ranata. "We traded for season passes, but if I remember right Petaal can turn witch and you can fly - tonight's show is outdoors, you can just hover over it, no one will give you trouble."

[truthwright]

"That sounds like fun," says Kas. "Count us in."

[alicornucopia]

"Excellent, have you got a pen...?" Ranata writes down the showtime and location for him when a pen is provided.

[truthwright]

"Thanks!" he says, tucking the paper away somewhere. "We'll be there for sure."

[alicornucopia]

Ranata smiles. "Now, I'm supposed to meet someone for lunch while I'm in the area, got to fly - see you at the concert!" And she and her hummingbird are up in the air a moment later.

[truthwright]

He buys the first postcard he sees and writes, Talked to your mom today. She's still adorable. I miss you so much.

He and Petaal show up at the concert, Petaal witch-shaped and wrapped in appropriate silks, both of them riding a cloudpine branch.

[alicornucopia]

The concert is loud and frenetic and lyrically impossible.

Ranata and her friend are in the front row, whooping at intervals.

[truthwright]

It's awesome. They love it.

[alicornucopia]

Ranata and her friend loiter around afterwards; they don't go backstage, but they hang out where the band members are signing merch.

[truthwright]

Just for the hell of it, Kas acquires a T-shirt. But he doesn't get it signed.

He catches Ranata's eye and waves to her as he leaves.

[alicornucopia]

Ranata waves back.

[truthwright]

Yeah. And that's the end of that.

The next postcard he writes, a week later, says: I can't do this anymore.

He burns it, cuddles his sweetie for a while, and leaves that city the next morning.

It's true: he can't do this anymore. He can't live his life around the empty space where Isabella used to be. There's other people he misses, too, but he's not so completely and utterly fucked to hell over the rest of them.

But thinking about the Jokers, about the Joker, makes him realize what he really needs.

He thinks about it for a while. There's no rush. He switches sex and lives that way full-time, to get used to it first, because he's going to be stuck in it a lot longer than the Joker and he doesn't want to get fed up in the middle.

And then, a year and a half after he saw Ranata, Kas wishes himself pregnant.

He doesn't get fed up in the middle.

The baby is born in late summer. He names her Helen.

[pythbox]

Helen is a very loud baby, but well-behaved other than that. Well, it might just be that her parent has a broad definition of good behaviour.



When she is four months old, being carried along the side of a country road late at night, the moonlight falls on her and she reaches her little hands up and coos intensely. Her daemon - Petaal named her Kalavar - takes the form of a duckling and flaps her small fuzzy wings as though trying to fly.

[truthwright]

Kas stops walking.

"What is it, sweetie?" murmurs Petaal.

"Maybe nothing," he says.

But now that he's thought of it...

When he wished himself a child, he never specified a father. Or would that be mother? Whichever way around, he left it to chance. He definitely didn't specify that the kid should be a witch.

He spends a square to conjure an illusion of Helen's other parent.

Helen's other parent has a very familiar face.

"Well, fuck," mutters Kas.

[pythbox]

Helen makes noises and waves her hands in the moonlight some more.

[truthwright]

Kas sighs. He cuddles his baby.

He brainphones Ranata Ekamma.

[Hey, you busy?]

[alicornucopia]

[Not at the moment. What's up?]

[truthwright]

[...I think I accidentally gave you a granddaughter,] he says. [It's - kind of complicated.]

[alicornucopia]

[...It sounds that way.]