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

[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?"

[subtly_artistic]

"Yes. Be careful talking about that. Aegis?"

[autokinetic]

"Nothing Peacewise. Unless you count Jane." Aegis takes her earpiece out of her ear and looks at it sadly.

[subtly_artistic]

"Okay, well, I can only imagine what it must be like to grow up with no gods - but here they exist, and they are very powerful, and we don't even spend too long speculating about taking their jobs or giving them pieces of our minds or gutting their servants."

[pythbox]

"...You know," says Celo, "I hate to say it, but: maybe we should talk to Callahan." He pauses, then amends this suggestion. "Maybe I should talk to Callahan and you guys should never ever go anywhere near her."

"Who's Callahan?" asks Jellybean.

"She's my favourite martial combat teacher, and - " he gestures helplessly to Aether, "what's safe to say to these guys that won't have them running off to intimidate her or something? I don't wanna get your nice extraplanar selves killed."

[subtly_artistic]

"Uh," Aether squirms. "...I cannot disclose the details, for which I am extremely sorry, but I have reason to suspect that Callahan falls into the category of something big, and I doubt any of us would get along with her on a personal level, so avoiding her is probably a good strategy?"

[lifes_sake]

"That makes it sound like she's been threatening you," Cam says.

[subtly_artistic]

"She has been threatening me and I take it very seriously, okay?"

[pythbox]

"Take it seriously when Callahan threatens you," Celo puts in, as general advice for anyone who is listening. "Callahan can fuck you up. I don't know whatever - Aether - knows that makes her think that, but I know it's fucking true."

[dark_light]

"What kinda powers does she have, and if she has such powers why is she a schoolteacher?"

[pythbox]

"Why would I know that?" says Celo. "Seriously, why? Bella, they're not listening, make them listen."

[subtly_artistic]

"I don't know if she can kill you or not, and I'm the local expert, right, that should at least give you serious pause if you're used to gallivanting around with invulnerable immortality, right, surviving assassination attempts and taking over worlds and so on - do you have no self-preservation instinct at all? - do not fuck with Callahan, please, please."

[lifes_sake]

"We're not going to go randomly attack her, but if Celo can't get her to tell him what he thinks she knows - I mean, she won't necessarily recognize me as being your alt, right? Maybe it'd be safe for me to talk to her? Specially since I have a layer of wizard wards under all my wished stuff and you thought wizarding would go on working about like normal..."

[subtly_artistic]

"Unless you annoy something big, like Callahan."

[pythbox]

"I don't know for sure that Callahan can get around whatever you've got on you, or that she'd even try. I mean, I'm a nymph, she'd have to go a ways out of her way to put me down and keep me there, and I don't just assume that she's gonna take a carriage into the city and burn me down if I ever piss her off. But if I pissed her off bad enough, she might. And let me tell you, if you'd taken any of her classes you'd know this already - you call her a 'schoolteacher' like that's a cute fluffy thing to do, but what she teaches us is how to kill people. You know, and how to stop them from killing you, but according to Callahan the best way to do that is to get there first. Are you starting to get the picture?"

[dark_light]

"What makes you so sure that we don't qualify as something big?"

[subtly_artistic]

"It sounds like, where you're from, you do. But it also sounds like where you're from is a wacky science fantasy where you can conduct experiments and attack gods and have no restraint on your hubris, and I don't want to bet your lives on that being true here!"

[pythbox]

"What she said," Celo agrees.

[subtly_artistic]

"At least let Celo try talking to her first. And - and I'm going to be late for Arcane Defense. It's the first class of the semester, if you guys want to - can you be invisible?"

[autokinetic]

"Of course!" Pause. "Usually. Wished power. We use it all the time, though - safe to try?"