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

[carillons]

"What if you like everything, then are you just badly educated no matter how much stuff you know?"

[alicornucopia]

"Maybe not. I'm not sure. Sometimes when I say something is boring he says it's not. He's wrong though."

[carillons]

"Sometimes stuff that's boring for one person is fun for somebody else," says Helen. "Maybe lots of things are fun for your uncle and that's why he doesn't care that they're boring for you."

[alicornucopia]

"Maybe," says Shura. "Whatever, I don't have to do it a lot. I can just learn magic and stuff most of the time."

[carillons]

"Magic is fun!"

[alicornucopia]

"Yeah!" agrees Shura brightly.

[carillons]

"And so is cake. I wonder if there are spells about cake?"

[alicornucopia]

"There are spells to warm stuff up!"

[carillons]

"Maybe you can bake cake with some of them! I wanna find out," she says. "Who should I ask?"

[alicornucopia]

"I dunno. Maybe my mom knows."

[carillons]

"Let's ask your mom!"

[alicornucopia]

Off they go in search of Shura's mom!

[carillons]

"Hi, Shura's mom! Are there spells you can use to cook stuff when you don't have an oven?" says Helen. "Like cake?"

[alicornucopia]

"If you don't have an oven, you can cook with magic," says Shura's mom. "It would never be worth the trouble if you did have one, though. Lot of runes."

[carillons]

"I want to learn how!" she says. "I like cooking and I don't have ovens all the time!"

[alicornucopia]

"You're not up to runes yet," says Shura's mom. "Too fiddly for little witches. You'll start them when you're nine or ten depending."

[carillons]

"Awwww," says Helen. "Not even if I try really really hard and learn really really well?"

[alicornucopia]

"You'd have to be a little prodigy," says Shura's mom.

[carillons]

"Well, how do I do that?"

[alicornucopia]

"You'd need to learn all the verse and herbs you're supposed to learn before getting to runes," says Shura's mom. "And convince whoever would be teaching you runes that you are responsible and not reckless."

[carillons]

Helen giggles.

"Okay!" she says.

[alicornucopia]

"You're off away from witches a lot," says Shura. "Unless you are hiding a mom somewhere off away." (She gestures again to off away.)

[carillons]

"I am not hiding any extra parents anywhere!" she says. "I only have the one. But that's why I wanna learn an oven spell, see, because when I'm with the clan I can cook at Charlie's house but when I'm off away sometimes there isn't anywhere to cook at all!"

[alicornucopia]

"I think you are the only person who only has one parent," says Shura thoughtfully.

Even orphans "have" parents, now.

[carillons]

"Maybe I am!" says Helen.