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Isabella slowly ramps up her working speed, and now it includes researching motion-spells (and an embarrassing amount of falling over, but she's working on that, she managed dagger lessons and she can manage this) and writing letters - conventional mail-oriented letters, she is not sending Path on courier errands again anytime soon - to witches who know about nasty magic. (For all her insistence, Metis isn't a specialist, she just believes in a well-rounded education.)
Isabella's grandmother sends her the clan library's Book of Tattoo Spells. A witch from Brazil sends her a curse that matches the parameters she wrote asking about.
"Hey, Kas," says Isabella, climbing up to the attic after fetching the mail and brandishing the latter. "Guess what Niada Ivakesi sent me."
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Isabella decides that surprises are probably indicated for the little game they are going to play. (Path, uncertain, confirms with Petaal. Surprises: definitely indicated.)
When she's caught up on questions she had in mind to ask the alethiometer - but only just barely, before he'd wonder when to expect the next page of them - she catches him wandering around outside the house, and with an elbow to the chest and a quick, practiced draw of her dagger, she's got him pinned to the wall with a blade against his throat.
She makes eye contact, and grins the predatory feral grin she sees occasionally on her great-grandmother or some of the other clan sisters.
"Mine," she purrs.
When she's caught up on questions she had in mind to ask the alethiometer - but only just barely, before he'd wonder when to expect the next page of them - she catches him wandering around outside the house, and with an elbow to the chest and a quick, practiced draw of her dagger, she's got him pinned to the wall with a blade against his throat.
She makes eye contact, and grins the predatory feral grin she sees occasionally on her great-grandmother or some of the other clan sisters.
"Mine," she purrs.
truthwright
His eyelashes flutter; he grins. Petaal, as a lynx, rubs her face against his leg and purrs.
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"Oh good," murmurs Isabella, keeping up the smile but tilting the knife so only the flat touches his throat and dragging it slowly away from his throat. "Sometimes there's disagreement on that point, but you know it's not wise to anger a witch. We're going to have fun."
(This script is taken almost verbatim from great-grandmother's inappropriately graphic description of her acquisition of her third husband. Not Isabella's great-grandfather, the one after him.)
(This script is taken almost verbatim from great-grandmother's inappropriately graphic description of her acquisition of her third husband. Not Isabella's great-grandfather, the one after him.)
truthwright
"You bet we will," says Kas, sounding a little out of breath and extremely pleased about it.
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Isabella leans in, tucks her face into the join of his neck and his shoulder.
"Good," she whispers. "Let's go inside, and have - some - fun." And she seizes the front of his shirt and pulls him after her without looking to see if he's pressed his feet into service yet or not.
"Good," she whispers. "Let's go inside, and have - some - fun." And she seizes the front of his shirt and pulls him after her without looking to see if he's pressed his feet into service yet or not.
truthwright
She only has to drag him for a few steps; he catches up soon enough. Petaal becomes a glass-winged butterfly and follows.
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Fun is had by all.
Isabella acts quite normally after enough fun is had to be tiring. Crazy witches do, after all, tend to settle into fairly ordinary relationships with their captured sweethearts. At some point he'll slip off and then she'll be acting again, hunting him down, making threats, etcetera. For the time being she can get some work done.
Isabella acts quite normally after enough fun is had to be tiring. Crazy witches do, after all, tend to settle into fairly ordinary relationships with their captured sweethearts. At some point he'll slip off and then she'll be acting again, hunting him down, making threats, etcetera. For the time being she can get some work done.
truthwright
Petaal stays butterfly-shaped the whole time.
They're gone again the next morning. He leaves a Quebec postcard tucked under the alethiometer where he left it in the attic: Catch me if you can! ♥
They're gone again the next morning. He leaves a Quebec postcard tucked under the alethiometer where he left it in the attic: Catch me if you can! ♥
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Heh.
(She turns his headaches off. It's supposed to be a game, not a potentially deadly obstacle course.)
For this purpose, the alethiometer would be less helpful than one of her own divinations. She sugars her room in runes, sits in the middle of the triangle she's marked, and murmurs repetitive verses until visions pour down on her.
(She picked a spell that doesn't need his name. She's not sure "Kas" would work for one of those.)
He's in a boat on the ocean, not flying, that's interesting. She can control the visions just well enough to tell them how close in she wants to see; when she's zoomed out enough to recognize coastline she zooms in again. She brings her cornucopia so she can stop on the way and make another check, if he changes direction.
When she picks up her cloud-pine to go, she hesitates.
Full realism would call for leaving Path home.
She wouldn't kill someone she loved in front of Path, and in a realistic scenario, this might come to that.
But she thinks Kas will forgive this lapse of verisimilitude.
Off she flies, Path clinging to the silks on her shoulder and her bow clenched in her hand parallel and unstrung beside the branch of cloud-pine.
(She turns his headaches off. It's supposed to be a game, not a potentially deadly obstacle course.)
For this purpose, the alethiometer would be less helpful than one of her own divinations. She sugars her room in runes, sits in the middle of the triangle she's marked, and murmurs repetitive verses until visions pour down on her.
(She picked a spell that doesn't need his name. She's not sure "Kas" would work for one of those.)
He's in a boat on the ocean, not flying, that's interesting. She can control the visions just well enough to tell them how close in she wants to see; when she's zoomed out enough to recognize coastline she zooms in again. She brings her cornucopia so she can stop on the way and make another check, if he changes direction.
When she picks up her cloud-pine to go, she hesitates.
Full realism would call for leaving Path home.
She wouldn't kill someone she loved in front of Path, and in a realistic scenario, this might come to that.
But she thinks Kas will forgive this lapse of verisimilitude.
Off she flies, Path clinging to the silks on her shoulder and her bow clenched in her hand parallel and unstrung beside the branch of cloud-pine.
truthwright
When she looks for him, he's in a boat on the ocean cuddling Petaal.
When she finds him, he is on the same boat in roughly the same place and Petaal is nowhere in sight. It's just Kas, sitting in the sun and nibbling on a chocolate bar.
When she finds him, he is on the same boat in roughly the same place and Petaal is nowhere in sight. It's just Kas, sitting in the sun and nibbling on a chocolate bar.
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She lands and stalks forward. "Where's Petaal?" she asks, for all the world like they're having a friendly conversation and not pretending that she might kill him. Casually, she plucks her bow away from her branch and unwinds the string from around her wrist. There's a quiver of arrows on her back. But maybe she's just hunting rabbits. In the middle of the sea.
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"That's good, because you see, I've caught you," she says, gesturing at the boat and the sea around them, "and we're going to go home, and there will be no more of this little stunt. I'm not unreasonable, you know," she drawls.
String goes on this end of the bow. Pull tight, string goes on that end of the bow.
String goes on this end of the bow. Pull tight, string goes on that end of the bow.
truthwright
"You're not," Kas agrees. He tucks his hands behind his head and leans back, unconcerned—flagrantly unconcerned. Taunting her with the absence of fear.
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"So since that's understood we're heading - straight - back," she pronounces sharply, emphasizing her consonants.
Bow is strung. She lets it dangle from her left hand loosely. She reaches up as though to scratch her shoulder - near her arrows.
"Aren't we, dear?"
(Even for crazy witches, killing an occasionally wayward lover is not the first resort. She's got a cousin whose first husband ran away six times before she killed him in a fit of miserable fury. A bad time for all involved.)
Bow is strung. She lets it dangle from her left hand loosely. She reaches up as though to scratch her shoulder - near her arrows.
"Aren't we, dear?"
(Even for crazy witches, killing an occasionally wayward lover is not the first resort. She's got a cousin whose first husband ran away six times before she killed him in a fit of miserable fury. A bad time for all involved.)
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Isabella plucks an arrow from the quiver and looks at him with affected dismay.
"I thought we were having fun," she murmurs. (Because crazy witches are sad, too, not only furious, because he hasn't been so openly defiant as for shouting to become appropriate.) "Why would you leave? Why would you do that to me when I love you so much?"
"I thought we were having fun," she murmurs. (Because crazy witches are sad, too, not only furious, because he hasn't been so openly defiant as for shouting to become appropriate.) "Why would you leave? Why would you do that to me when I love you so much?"
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"But you're mine," she hisses, clenching her bow. "Mine."
(Everything about this feels unnatural now. The alethiometer was right, she can't imagine ever actually doing this. Pleading with him, maybe, plotting to shoot him if he won't come back with her emphatically not.)
(Everything about this feels unnatural now. The alethiometer was right, she can't imagine ever actually doing this. Pleading with him, maybe, plotting to shoot him if he won't come back with her emphatically not.)
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"Oh, you'll be nobody's," she snarls, whipping the bow around to nock and aim an arrow. She only half-draws; if she slips and the arrow looses accidentally it might hit him, but not hard enough to kill through the bayleaf protection if she's quick with the healing. "Last chance."
truthwright
"Sweetheart," he sighs rapturously, untucking his hands from behind his head and stretching out his arms. "You say the nicest fucking things."
He opens his eyes, smiles, and beckons.
"C'mere, gimme a kiss. One for the road."
He opens his eyes, smiles, and beckons.
"C'mere, gimme a kiss. One for the road."
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Isabella's not sure whether to drop out of character yet or not. She compromises, relaxing the draw but holding onto both bow and arrow while she leans forward for a hard, bruising, wanting kiss.
