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]

The teacher crouches down to Helen's eye level. "If you make jokes about using magic unsafely when I am trying to be serious, I will assume you are going to use magic unsafely, and you will be sent away and not learn any for at least another year. Is that what you want, Helen?"

[carillons]

"I wasn't even doing that!" she exclaims unhappily.

[alicornucopia]

"People do not have spinach for heads," says the teacher.

"Yeah," says Kaydi. "If they did they'd die."

"He does though, I saw," Shura pipes up.

"Don't you start," says the teacher.

[carillons]

"I saw it too," says Helen, "it was all green and curly and floppy! So people's heads can be spinach and they don't die!"

[alicornucopia]

"Magic lessons are not the time to make up ludicrous stories," snaps the teacher. "We are working with dangerous forces. Shura could have easily hurt someone playing carelessly with the most basic of spells. Later we learn to control immense forces and to curse and to kill! If your judgment does not even extend to controlling your imagination while I am explicitly telling you to, perhaps you are not mature enough to be studying spells!" She reaches for Helen's book and closes it with a snap; the raven on her shoulder croaks. She looks speculatively at Shura's book, too, and Shura starts sniffling.

[carillons]

"That's not fair!" she yells. "Mommydaddyspinaaaaach!"

The wailed word fills the air like a shockwave. It's not especially loud in comparison to what any other five-year-old's lungs could generate, but it carries like nobody's business.

[truthwright]

Kas arrives almost immediately, flown by a witch-shaped Petaal on their cloudpine.

[alicornucopia]

The teacher is still looking quizzically at Helen.

Shura looks hopefully in Kas's direction.

[truthwright]

"Helen, sweetheart," says Kas, coming up to the semicircle of rocks and hugging his daughter, "what's wrong?"

[carillons]

Helen hugs him fiercely, pressing her face into his chest. "The teacher thinks I'm making it up!" she says, somewhat muffled now.

[alicornucopia]

"About the spinach!" Shura clarifies.

"As I was just explaining to Helen," the teacher tells Kas, "we are working with potentially hazardous forces; if she cannot take that seriously, she can study magic later, when she is more mature. It's too dangerous to teach magic to a girl who persists in silly games when receiving serious warnings."

[truthwright]

Kas sighs.

"No, that's my fault," he says. "They were calling me a spinach head and I made it look like it was true for a second. The kids saw what they said they saw."

[alicornucopia]

"...You made it look like it was true," says the witch skeptically.

[truthwright]

"Yep."

[alicornucopia]

"And how did you do that? Moreover, why?"

[truthwright]

"A trick," he says, "and... because it was funny?"

[alicornucopia]

"If your daughter goes around imagining that people's essential organs can be transformed into salad ingredients with no lasting damage she could easily kill someone before she turns seven. Does this prospect appeal to you? Is it funny?" asks the teacher.

[truthwright]

"Okay," he concedes, "no, that doesn't sound like fun." He pets Helen's hair. "Don't turn people into spinach, honey, okay?"

[carillons]

Helen sniffles.

[alicornucopia]

"The safe use of magic requires an understanding of what reality is, and what effects are needed, and what further effects they will have. I strongly advise against little tricks like that until Helen is old enough to see them for what they are."

But she gives Helen her book back.

[carillons]

Kalavar climbs up onto the book as a scarlet dragon with orange-red claws and curls up on top of it. Helen keeps hugging Kas.

[truthwright]

Kas sighs and hugs his daughter. Petaal flits to Kalavar's side as a tiny hummingbird, then curls up with her as a chinchilla.

[alicornucopia]

Nicoa is coiled around Shura's neck as a long white ferret.

The teacher sighs. "I think we should call it a day, girls; we'll go on tomorrow. Run along."

Inkeri runs along. Kaydi lingers, looking suspiciously at Helen. Shura dawdles.

[truthwright]

Kas sits and snuggles his daughter.

[carillons]

Eventually, Helen turns around in his lap to see who is still there. She's a little red-eyed, but not actively crying.