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Here is a house.
It is pretty and trim and green-and-cream and really ought not to be able to hold itself up like that, and yet here it is, somehow defying the laws of architecture. It is surrounded by a neatly bordered garden of ornamental and useful plants of all sorts: here vegetables, there herbs, there spell components, there rows of flowers.
There is a sign out front. It says only: Magic. Not, Beware, Magic or Magic Emporium or anything like that. Just: Magic.
Sitting on top of this sign is a cream cat with smoke-dark points of color on each paw, his ears, and his face and tail.
All in all, you could be forgiven for thinking that a witch lives here.
thaumobabble
thaumobabble
The snake takes exception to this!
But not for very long.
"Th-thanks," says Bella. "They're usually not that far up the bank."
But not for very long.
"Th-thanks," says Bella. "They're usually not that far up the bank."
thaumobabble
"Rothwick-rothwick-rothwick," Bella mutters, holding her hands together until her legs stop bleeding, and then she does her cleaning spell again, and then she says, "Well, I'm down a shoe, I'm not sorting through snake guts for that thing, I'd sooner walk barefoot."
thaumobabble
"Barefoot it is," says Bella, peeling off the other moccasin. "They only work as a pair. I'll make more when I get home, I suppose. Eugh. Bad watersnake. Okay, what do I have to get past the rest of them, what do I have... Sherlock, are you okay? Did it get a chance to squeeze you at all?"
thaumobabble
"Okay. I don't usually come out this far and the last time I was with Kexan and didn't worry about the snakes, but I have a little powdered mercury-leaf, which I think will make us look like non-food with an associated elf-spell, I'm just not sure about dosage since there's three of us and mercury-leaf is expensive..."
calendarofcrime
Sherlock has cleaned her sword, but not sheathed it.
"I will deal with any further snakes," she says.
"I will deal with any further snakes," she says.
thaumobabble
They make it across the bridge without any other snakes trying to turn them into lunch. Bella trips with noticeable frequency, although she does land on soft Enchanted Forest moss and kip up uninjured every time.
thaumobabble
"It does. Of all the reasons you could be glad to be a non-broomstick, that one seemed decisive in causing you to mention this gladness aloud."
allthebrightest
"Broomsticks also probably can't flirt with you," she said. "Or if they did, it would be really uncomfortable for everyone involved. So that's another big win."
thaumobabble
"I'm trying and failing to imagine a broomstick flirting with me, and I have a pretty good imagination," giggles Bella.
allthebrightest
"They'd have so much opportunity, though! I mean, think about it! What do you do with a broomstick?"