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]

"...Oh," says Atassa, far less testy. "I see. Might I borrow the use of pen and paper to leave a letter for her?"

[truthwright]

"Sure," says Kas. He grabs a notebook and pen out of a drawer that didn't contain a notebook and pen until just before he opened it. "You can have some muffins, too, if you want, I just baked 'em."

[alicornucopia]

"Thank you, I accept." She starts writing.

[truthwright]

Kas goes to fetch the plate of muffins from the kitchen. When he comes back with it, the fox in his apron is a different colour - white instead of orange.

[alicornucopia]

Atassa looks at Petaal, but doesn't comment; either she's heard about Amariah's boyfriend's weird daemon or it just doesn't interest her. She takes a muffin and eats it while tapping the notebook thoughtfully with the pen.

[truthwright]

He takes a muffin for himself and hands one to Petaal. They stand around nomming contentedly.

[alicornucopia]

Atassa eventually finishes her muffin and her letter, the latter of which she folds up and presents to Kas. "For her eyes only, please."

[truthwright]

"Sure," he says agreeably.

[alicornucopia]

And out Atassa goes, and up up and away on her cloudpine.

[truthwright]

Kas finds somewhere slightly reasonable to put the letter.

He eats his muffin.

He changes his clothes.

He puts Isabella's alethiometer downstairs at the Janepoint and makes the room impassable and its contents inviolable to anyone but himself and his girlfriend.

He packs his own alethiometer in a little backpack, and closes and locks the door, and pins a note to it: Isabella Amariah is gone on important business and may be some time.

And then he teleports to a random city on the same continent.

[alicornucopia]

After Jane has been down and Amariah gone for two weeks, Ranata, her mother, tentatively brainphones Kas. [Hello?]

[truthwright]

[Hi.]

[alicornucopia]

[Isabella is not answering me - do you know what's going on?]

[truthwright]

[Not really. I just know she went somewhere that time works differently and something went wrong. She's going to come back, but it might take - a long time.]

[alicornucopia]

[Oh. Oh dear. Does this have to do with what people are saying about - about the dead?]

[truthwright]

[What are people saying about the dead?]

[alicornucopia]

[People are saying that the dead are contacting them in their sleep. I haven't been contacted, but Mother says Father has spoken to her and plans to invite me, later. And people are saying it has something to do with Isabella.]

[truthwright]

[Yeah, that was all her. She fixed the afterlife.]

[alicornucopia]

[Is - that why she's gone? That must have been - I can't even imagine the spell that would take - and some of them - require sacrificing - things -] says Ranata plaintively.

[truthwright]

He hesitates.

[...She had help,] he says. [She's going to come back. I just - don't know when.]

[alicornucopia]

[Oh,] breathes Ranata. [Oh, that's good, if she's going to come back. Do you know approximately how long...?] She says this with the mild curiosity afforded an immortal.

[truthwright]

[There's no way to know.]

[alicornucopia]

[Oh. Well. Thank you very much for letting me know, Kas.]

[truthwright]

[No problem,] he says wryly, and goes back to his wandering.

It's not all that different, really, from having her waiting for him at home. There's only the one thing between them.

But she isn't waiting for him at home, and it is different, and he hates it more than a little.

He drifts around the States, then up into Canada. He visits his friend Augustine in Quebec City. While he's there, staying in a mediocre hotel, he buys a postcard.

He writes on it: I miss you. And when he checks out of his hotel, he drops it in the trash.

[alicornucopia]

At least in this subworld in the Alethia sheaf, the effects of the revamped afterlife slowly becomes more well-known and well-acknowledged. People who have communicated with dead individuals go on television and talk about it. Several dead people are haphazardly dictating books. Amariah made it so inconvenient and - relatively speaking - pointless enough to return to life that not many have done it, but the first few are met with fanfare and media deals.