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]

Magic lessons start a bit later, and Helen has these with Shura, too - and also with Inkeri and Kaydi. They begin with simple verse spells, in non-English to discourage making up variations. This doesn't stop Shura from identifying a goddess's name in one spell, replacing it with another, and causing a small explosion and getting a time-out.

[carillons]

"What'd you do that for?" says Helen.

[alicornucopia]

"I didn't know it'd explode!" says Shura, when she bounces out of time-out and bends over her book of introductory spells again. "I just wanted to try something."

[carillons]

"Your something exploded," says Helen. "What was it supposed to do if it didn't explode?"

[alicornucopia]

"I dunno," says Shura. "We don't have to know to get stuff to happen, right? That's why we don't verse out of lessons?"

[carillons]

"Well, which one was it? Do it properly and let's see."

[alicornucopia]

"It was this one -" Shura reads off the syllables from the book, and Nicoa starts glowing; he cycles through several forms and the glow persists and he laughs. "It's to see in the dark!"

[carillons]

"Coooool," says Helen. She reads the spell, and Kalavar turns into a firefly and flutters bright bright circles around her head.

[alicornucopia]

"I wonder what all these words mean. Do you think I should learn these old witch languages nobody our age speaks?"

[carillons]

"Yeah!" says Helen. "I'll learn them too and then we can both speak them!"

[alicornucopia]

"And nobody will understand us!" giggles Shura. "Except really old people. My great-great-grandma knows them!"

[carillons]

"Will she teach us, do you think?"

[alicornucopia]

"Maybe!"

The magic teacher says, "Perhaps, but right now we are studying spells. Keep reading your books."

[carillons]

"Okay," says Helen. She looks in her book for another spell.

[alicornucopia]

There are several in this little book. Simple first-aid, the snow-circle, a spell to thicken liquids so they'll make clear runes without soaking into the ground or splashing, a few they can't use yet that pertain to cloud-pine maintenance. It also has a section about the uses of herbs, although none of the spells in this book actually use them - that's more advanced.

[carillons]

She reads that section anyway, fascinated.

[alicornucopia]

The teacher's style is to assume that they know all the things they have read, and quiz them, impromptu single questions that require synthesizing the knowledge - creatively or logically; either can world. "Kaydi. What would adding marjoram to the spell for small cuts do?"

"Uh - make it work faster?" guesses Kaydi.

"Inkeri. The spell on page sixteen invokes Segaard Oskei. What might happen if you substituted Farakhel Nimah?"

"...It would make the liquid hot?" Inkeri supposes.

"Helen. What would happen if you omitted a line from the middle of the snow-circle?"

[carillons]

"I'm pretty sure it wouldn't make a snow-circle," she says, "but I don't know what it would do instead." With a glance at Shura, "Hopefully not explode."

[alicornucopia]

The teacher smiles. "Shura. You exchanged goddesses in the daemonglow spell and got an explosion, which you are very lucky did not involve your daemon. What might happen if you used a different one - any of your choice?"

"Um, it said Amariah Lytess... probably because she does daemons... and I put Farakhel Nimah and it exploded - because she does fire?... um... maybe if I put Yambe Akka it would make something cold?"

The teacher inclines her head. "That spell is actually a very versatile one, which you will be able to vary to assorted effects as an adult; it calls on numbered domains from the named goddess, which in the case you see in your book results in combining your daemon and the full moon, but if the numbers, the goddess, or both are changed can do any number of things. Including make something cold."

[carillons]

"What if you put in Kas Petaal?" wonders Helen.

[alicornucopia]

"If you don't change the numbers, it will snuff out light around a target male mortal," says the teacher. "Not particularly useful."

[carillons]

Helen giggles.

[alicornucopia]

"Because this spell is so useful, though," says the teacher, "it is worth learning the numbers in this language even if you learn nothing else. Turn to the back; there is a chart."

Little witches turn pages.

[carillons]

Ooh, a chart. Helen peruses the chart.

[alicornucopia]

It has goddesses in it, and domains in neat columns, and numbers in the spell's language.