you can throw me if you want

[truthwright]

It turns out that there was really not much point to making a schedule. Kas and Helen visit the witch clan whenever Helen feels like it, and stay as long as she wants, and go when she wants to be somewhere else, and it all adds up to plenty more time spent with the clan than away.

After the aquarium jaunt with Ranata, it's a little more than a month before they visit the clan again.

Comments

[alicornucopia]

"Y'know," says Charlie, "if you can't break the curse - then - well, I died, once, got out easy because I was - special to Isabella."

Ranata makes a hmm sound.

[carillons]

"Is it okay being dead?" sniffles Helen. "Is it better than being frozen?"

[alicornucopia]

"Oh, it's not bad there at all," says Charlie. "I didn't stay long but - it's not bad, better than being frozen. And Kas was special to Isabella, too."

[carillons]

"Then..."

The thought of killing Kas is terribly frightening. But the thought of Kas just staying frozen forever is also terribly frightening.

Helen falls silent.

[alicornucopia]

Charlie pets Helen's hair.

[carillons]

Helen hugs him and sighs.

"Everything is scary and I don't know what to do," she says.

[alicornucopia]

"It'll be okay, honey," Charlie says.

[carillons]

"Are you sure?" she says plaintively.

[alicornucopia]

"Nobody's ever perfectly sure," Charlie says. "That's one of the hardest things there is. But that doesn't mean it won't be okay."

[carillons]

She hugs him some more. Kalavar nuzzles Kesathi's paw.

[alicornucopia]

Kesathi is a huggy creature. She demonstrates this now.

"It's probably worth checking with a couple other cursebreakers, but if they say the same thing, I don't know what else we can do," says Ranata.

[carillons]

Helen nods and hugs Charlie tighter.

[alicornucopia]

Ranata delegates hugging to Charlie and starts calling other clans.

[carillons]

Charlie is a good hug delegate.

[alicornucopia]

He is.

The first foreign cursebreaker declines to second-guess Rinda at all. The second listens to the symptoms and the circumstances, asks whether Kas happens to smell of mace, and eventually concludes that he cannot be helped. The third's phone is answered by her son-in-law, who says that she's going to be spending the next six months on a retreat in the Alps and will not be speaking to anyone until the end of same.

Ranata puts her phone away.

"Not much sense in waiting," she murmurs.

[carillons]

Helen sniffles and hugs Charlie.

"What are you going to do?"

[alicornucopia]

Ranata kisses her forehead. "I'm not sure what will get through the ice. It's probably better if you don't watch."

[carillons]

She shakes her head.

"I want to," she says.

[alicornucopia]

"No, sweetie. Stay here with Charlie, okay?"

Charlie holds Helen securely.

[carillons]

"Please?" she says. "I want to see. Even if it's going to be scary and awful. Not seeing would be worse, because then it would be scary and awful and I wouldn't know—" She clings to Charlie and presses her face against his shoulder.

[alicornucopia]

"I don't want you having that image in your head, Helen," says Ranata.

"She's right," Charlie opines.

[carillons]

Helen shakes her head vigorously.

[alicornucopia]

"Stay put," says Ranata, and she leaves.

[carillons]

Helen starts crying and trying to get away from Charlie.

[alicornucopia]

Charlie holds onto her. Kesathi wraps her forepaws around Kalavar and nuzzles her.