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Etty doesn't get used to it - not exactly. Not in any sense that would leave her comfortable. She learns the routines, learns to reliably keep her dinner down, learns how limp she can go and how helpful she has to be to get it over with as fast as possible while remaining dissociated as she can manage from the experience.
She waits in the room, after, for a while, and - Nona doesn't come.
They might only get one chance. And Nona wants out too, and Etty shouldn't fault her for waiting, but she writes those thoughts on her scroll in terrible handwriting and cries and wishes that things would go faster.
She doesn't want to be one of the swans.
She's tried talking to them some more - tried imitating them, and when she does that they'll act like she's one of the flock and stop being afraid of her, but she can't get any glimmer of human memory out of them whatever prompts she tries.
She does not want to be one of the swans.
And the next girl won't even have the hope of Nona, the comfort of maybe soon.
She holds Nona, when Nona meets her in the orchard, and she thinks maybe soon, and one night she says:
"Do you - have any idea when you'll be able to say it?"
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Etty keeps flying until just past noon or until she sees some form of habitation, and then she turns around and goes east.
Habitation - a farm - comes before noon.
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Etty lands a ways away from the farmhouse, and she changes, and she approaches slowly.
No one is home. Or no one wants to talk to her.
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Etty turns around, finds a private place to change again, and flies back to the lake.
Sorcery is gross.
Nearly every spell that accomplishes something interesting involves a component that is either sacrificial in some way or just plain disgusting. There is a loose category of cleaning spells that only need water and occasionally soap for the setup - a common thread is that once set up, many spells can be repeated by an effort of will or a token gesture - but that is really about it.
Nearly every spell that accomplishes something interesting involves a component that is either sacrificial in some way or just plain disgusting. There is a loose category of cleaning spells that only need water and occasionally soap for the setup - a common thread is that once set up, many spells can be repeated by an effort of will or a token gesture - but that is really about it.
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Etty decides she is going to be Library Person and Nona, who plainly has a higher or possibly nonexistent disgust threshold, can be the Actual Spellcasting Person barring emergencies. Etty does find some soap and water and re-casts the spell that kept the castle clean by herself, though.
The castle obligingly becomes cleaner; all she needs to do to maintain it is wander through the rooms every so often and want them to clean themselves. Apparently the Baron couldn't be bothered to do even that to the rooms that were cobwebbed before, because there's no problem cleaning them now.
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Etty watches her for a long moment. She can't go have dinner by herself, the kitchen only responds to Nona; she decides to lie down with Nona till she wakes up.
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Etty thinks, slowly, driftily.
She kisses the back of Nona's head and snuggles closer.
She kisses the back of Nona's head and snuggles closer.
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"Hi," says Etty. "I found a farm, but no one was home, or they didn't want to answer the door."
