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

[truthwright]

Kalavar turns into a gosling and flaps her little wings industriously, going absolutely nowhere. Petaal kisses the top of her head.

[alicornucopia]

After an afternoon where Charlie gets to shower attention on the baby, it is time for a trip to the witch enclave. ("The more she's seen there, the less of an oddity she seems, and there are a couple of small children almost her age and one witch due in four months who's expecting a girl, she can have witch friends and should start now.")

These people do in fact all exist, and the two babies who have been born are playing together on a beach part of the enclave, pushing sand around; they aren't really interacting, just sitting near each other. The elder of them can walk, and she sometimes toddles naked into the frigid water and splashes before her mother determines she's gone too far and fetches her out again.

[truthwright]

So Kas brings Helen to the beach to play next to the other babies.

[alicornucopia]

The babies all three play next to each other and their daemons change shapes and knock one another over into the sand, mothers and Ranata supervising from farther up the beach. It's absolutely freezing near the water. The witches don't care.

[truthwright]

Kas doesn't care either, and Petaal is being witch-shaped so she really doesn't.

Kalavar squalls every time someone's daemon knocks her over, but Helen giggles.

[alicornucopia]

The eldest baby's daemon becomes a snake, cleverly acquiring immunity from knocking-over, and the middle baby finds this a frightful disappointment; her daemon whines, kitten-shaped.

[truthwright]

Kalavar becomes a dragon, almost as big as Helen, and bops her nose against the snake's middle as though trying to use her face as a shovel.

[alicornucopia]

The snake rolls over, then rights himself, making a noise that sounds like "wheep!" He turns into a katydid and lands on his witch.

The middle daemon stops being a kitten and starts being a marmoset, and then a lungfish; he goes a few feet towards the water and is buoyed up slightly by the next wave.

[truthwright]

Kalavar flaps her wings triumphantly.

Kas and Petaal giggle.

[alicornucopia]

Katydid becomes sandpiper. He hops towards Kalavar, pecks inquisitively at her foot.

[truthwright]

Kalavar peers at him, and then nudges him with her nose.

[alicornucopia]

"Wheep!" Now he's a clam, digging under the sand.

[truthwright]

Kalavar nudges him again.

[alicornucopia]

He undigs. He's a sea turtle, itty-bitty.

Middle daemon is a seagull chick now.

[truthwright]

Kalavar flaps her wings.

[alicornucopia]

Eventually eldest witchbaby's mother scoops her baby into her sling, and the crane daemon puts the turtle in after her, gently-carefully, and off they fly.

[truthwright]

Helen and Kalavar keep playing in the sand. Kas and Petaal keep awwing at them.

[alicornucopia]

Ranata's enthralled too. She takes occasional pictures, and video snippets.

[truthwright]

After a little while longer, Kas starts writing a postcard to Isabella.

[alicornucopia]

Pregnant Witch drops by - with her husband, who's bundled up in several coats - to acquaint herself with Ranata and with the other witch baby's mother.

[truthwright]

But not with Kas?

[alicornucopia]

The husband appears to be trying to figure out who Kas is. "I know you're not Renata's husband or Luda's," he says.

[truthwright]

"I'm Kas," he says, and points at Helen. "She's mine."

[alicornucopia]

"I thought she was Ranata's? Maybe I misheard something."

[truthwright]

"She's not Ranata's kid."