cheated

[mute_pen]

The castle is livable indefinitely. Etty flies over the space around it, but she's not as fast as the Baron was in his owl form, and she can't fly for very long if she's hungry and can pack nothing if she travels as a swan; she doesn't range farther than she can travel in a half-day, and she doesn't find Astgabels or anyone who knows where it is. (Not many people are willing to talk to a girl in a feather dress from out of nowhere, but a few are.) She flies home to Nona after each failed journey. They feast on what appears on the dining table. They snuggle. They pick through the library. Etty writes her thoughts. They sleep, curled up together in Nona's bed.

One morning they wake up together and are lying there in comfortable silence when Etty scoots up and kisses Nona.

Comments

[subtly_artistic]

Bella sets herself up as a relay. "I'll bounce everything we're saying to Celo," she informs her alt and Nona.

[growcrooked]

"How's that work?" she says curiously. "I don't think your magic is the same as ours at all. There's less - drinking blood and peeing on things, from what I've heard."

[subtly_artistic]

"...Ew? The subtle arts aren't like that. Some of the darker arcana might be, I guess, but I'm only a dabbler in arcane magic. I know nothing about divine magic to speak of - well, except common knowledge for my world, which I guess might be more than you have - but I don't think that involves any of that. My subtle arts are just a matter of me being able to focus my mind in certain ways that tend to produce effects in the world. Usually in minds, mine or others' - it's pretty trivial for me to talk to people mind-to-mind from a reasonable distance - but I have a little bit of telekinetic potential that I'm working on training, too."

[mute_pen]

"That sounds much different from what we have."

[growcrooked]

"Yeah, we have to drink blood and pee on things and similar," says Nona. "And by we I mean I." She gives Etty's hand an affectionate squeeze. "And we don't have all different kinds of magic like that, and I don't think we have anything that'll let you have a conversation with someone's mind - do we, Etty?"

[mute_pen]

Etty shakes her head. "Not that I've found. It's all about - material objects, mostly, and a few curses that affect the mind like the one I was under."

[subtly_artistic]

"Do you want me to see if I can find your name in there somewhere?" offers Bella.

[mute_pen]

"I'm pretty used to 'Etty', now, but I'd like to know who I used to be," says Etty.

[subtly_artistic]

"Okay. I'll avoid looking at anything else in enough detail to learn the contents."

[growcrooked]

Nona hugs Etty. It just seems like the thing to do.

[mute_pen]

Etty leans on Nona and waits for Bella to work her magic.

[subtly_artistic]

"I can't find any memories of your actual name," Bella reports eventually, "but I can find the residue of what was blocked off when the curse was still active. It forbade you to use any name besides Odette - which you got partly around with the nickname - and forbade you to know the existence of the name Isabel, but you should be able to re-learn it now."

[mute_pen]

"It's like yours," observes Etty. "I think I'll just go on being called Etty. Otherwise it would be confusing, and besides, 'Isabel' doesn't feel like mine anymore."

[growcrooked]

"It's pretty," says Nona.

[subtly_artistic]

"I wonder why they're so similar but not exactly the same."

[mute_pen]

"Isabella like your name sounds like a foreign sort of name to me. Isabel is Diotalandish," suggests Etty.

[growcrooked]

Nona corroborates this with a nod.

[mute_pen]

"It is interesting how we are so alike, but come from such different worlds," says Etty. "I wonder if everyone has a match."

[subtly_artistic]

"I don't know. It also seems like a strange coincidence that you have Nona who's like Celo and Celo knows me."

[growcrooked]

"Celo said it seems to him like you and him are connected in some sort of Fate-ish kind of way," Nona offers.

[subtly_artistic]

"One of his teachers said something that made it sound like she thinks so. Celo," she adds, aloud and also relaying telepathically, almost as though he were there, "have you got any other reason to think so?"

[pythbox]

If Callahan thinks something's up, then something is probably up, he says. Even if she's wrong about exactly what or what it means.

[subtly_artistic]

Bella relays this, and then, "But we don't know anything beyond that."

[mute_pen]

"Do you have guesses?"

[subtly_artistic]

"Celo thinks she expects us to kill a god," offers Bella.