in which the narration is suggestive, yet vague

[subtly_artistic]

Neckrubs become a more regular part of Bella's life. And she does not tell him to stop until she is good and done. There is hugging. There is snuggling. There is kissing. There are some impressively sappy looks from his end, some fascinated mindreading from hers. The semester wraps up, Bella goes home for a week, and she comes back (now signed up for Utility Psionics 2, Intro to Mental Healing, Arcane Defense, Intro Cognition, and her survival credit, a lecture entitled "Wilderness Triage" (subtitled: Quick And Dirty Mechanisms For Identifying The Lesser Of Several Evils).

She missed Celo! She seeks him out at once. Hugs.

Comments

[dark_light]

"I'm Amariah's daemon Pathalan," says Path. "Cam's is Grace and she can turn into a notebook and is in his backpack. Don't ever, ever touch us."

[lifes_sake]

"And when we want to, we can tuck them away inside ourselves, if we're worried about somebody touching them, or if it's just more convenient, or whatever," Cam says, "but neither of us do it naturally, and having something go wrong with one's daemon is disastrous."

[subtly_artistic]

Aether thinks about this. "Are there daemons who can do it naturally?"

[dark_light]

"Aegis's Joker Sue can. He got his daemon on purpose - he wasn't born with one like me and mine - but while he did it, he was dreaming. Jokers sometimes dream their way into Milliways, when they're locked up. So Ivy can tuck and untuck without having any wishes made about it."

[autokinetic]

"I miss 'em already," mumbles Aegis.

[subtly_artistic]

"...I don't think anything bad will happen to them if you tuck them," says Aether, "but I wouldn't bet your lives on it. They seem to be okay now, right? Don't - don't make experiments you don't have to make."

[lifes_sake]

"Okay. And I'll have Grace stick to being a notebook for the time being too, no birding."

[dark_light]

Amariah cradles Path to her breast and shivers.

[autokinetic]

"There's also enchanting?" says Aegis. "This wouldn't be much help if there weren't Jokers here, but there are. That's a kind of magic from Rêverie, the kind that got us our auras - usually you'd just pentagon knowing how to do it, and hex being able to, but we can explain - you take power from the sky, or from the earth, or from your will or your emotions, and you pass it through a spell and then through your mindscape or a channel's -" She indicates the Jokers present. "And that hurts, but, Jokers, and then you can accomplish whatever the spell was for. It's - I think it's less sciencey than wishcoins? Enchantments have personalities. Wishes work more like programs."

[dark_light]

"When I handled my world's afterlife, I went to a couple places where I couldn't make wishes, but I could do enchantments," says Amariah.

[subtly_artistic]

"I think that - again, standard caveats about annoying large things, cheating, reaching for power beyond mortal ken, hubris - that sounds much better than trying to wish for things."

[dark_light]

"Okay. That's an imperfect substitute and requires a cooperative channel to be handy - Rose is the original Bell enchantress and she can enchant through her husband at range, but she's the only one with that trick down, she had to be really familiar with his mindscape and do enchantment-style mindreading for a long time first."

[autokinetic]

"Good, I was worried I was going to be stuck with nothing, you're a wizard and you're a witch but I'm just a space admiral," grumbles Aegis.

[dark_light]

"Speaking of being a witch, I'm not a human," says Amariah, flaring aura briefly - just long enough to wonder if that's a good idea and change her mind. "On my world besides humans there's witches, like me, and we can do some magic. It's ritual-based. Poetry, some materials - thank goddesses all I have my cornucopia on me, although I guess the cornucopia's a separate question - occasional animal sacrifice, drawing runes on things. Motion, for a few spells."

[subtly_artistic]

"Usual caveats but I'd expect your racial traits to be intact. There are all different kinds of people with all different associated powers and characteristics." Aether gestures at Celo. "Tell me about the cornucopia."

[dark_light]

Amariah fishes it out from where it's hung by its twist of silk under her outfit. "It's this thing - Matilda made a bunch of them, mostly for Shell Bell, but I took one home because it's useful for generating spell components. If I name something edible - it won't do poisons, but I usually can work around that - then it'll appear it for me. If it matters, Matilda was the first person in her world to have magic."

[subtly_artistic]

"...If I heard of a local magic item that did that I would expect the conjured stuff to be temporary. Yours might fall in line with that rule. I don't know if that'll affect your spells. You shouldn't try to live on food it makes. It probably won't blow up in your face, especially if you've had it for a while."

[autokinetic]

"What is the local magic like? As long as we're exploring what's available."

[subtly_artistic]

Is it time for another thaumo lecture? Looks like!

[autokinetic]

Aegis holds up a hand in the middle, when Aether's summarizing subtle arts. "Wait, I thought of something more urgent. A lot of Bells have some form or another of native mental opacity. We're some of those, all in different ways. What should we expect?"

[subtly_artistic]

"Uh, I have that," says Aether. "I'm a naturally defensive subtle artist. I'm not all-powerful. A stronger artist can break my shielding. It doesn't affect anything else besides subtle arts, either, I can be just as easily affected by a mind-affecting arcane or divine spell or by racial traits or whatever as anyone else. You're probably all better protected than some random person, but you shouldn't expect to defy dragon will or countermand divine orders or whatever it is you people usually do with your time."

[dark_light]

"Alethia had a god," snorts Amariah. "He shriveled up to next to nothing and I wouldn't call him that anymore. And he had a right-hand angel, and he presented more of a problem, but that didn't stop me from gutting him."

[subtly_artistic]

"Okay, look, Celo's one thing, but don't say that kind of shit in front of anybody else who practices divine magic or is really religious or - you know what, just don't say it in front of anybody who's not in this room," says Aether.

[dark_light]

Amariah holds up her hands nonthreateningly.

[lifes_sake]

"Long as we're still safe in this room, my world has some ineffective sorta-okay-ish gods and one evil one," volunteers Cam. "I haven't taken on the evil one yet, but it's on the list, should I also be careful talking about that?"