blood sweat tear

[imeanforever]

He's moving her to a different court to see if it'll improve her attitude. She's allowed to fly. It's been a long, long time since she was allowed to -

She is only allowed to fly to her destination, not anywhere else. She notices that she is not where she should be, that she cannot progress to where she was told to go, and she careens out of control when her wings won't flap anymore, and she crashes.

---

with Miles (kappa)

with Minus (kappa)

Comments

[imeanforever]

"Well, the fairy population grows, but I think much more slowly. And occasionally we do move to get farther away from each other."

[eversomuchfun]

"Anyway, here is the school."

And here is Sherlock casually breaking into it.

[imeanforever]

Promise is a little confused by the rigmarole associated with entering the building but doesn't comment on it.

[eversomuchfun]

So neither does Sherlock. And they proceed through the darkened halls to the library.

[imeanforever]

It has so many books! Promise flutters about, inspecting the books.

[eversomuchfun]

Sherlock turns on some lights so as to make the books easier to see.

The books are organized according to bizarre and largely impenetrable local principles, but at least some of the divisions are recognizably by topic. The stuff on the easily visible shelves mostly doesn't obviously pertain to magic, but Sherlock goes behind the counter and starts pulling out piles of books manufactured in a less alien style; perhaps he knew where to find the good stuff.

[imeanforever]

Promise goes and looks at what he's pulled. "The organization system is weird," she comments.

[eversomuchfun]

"Oh?"

[imeanforever]

"Some of it seems to be by topic, and it's grouped by author but the authors seem to be in random order."

[eversomuchfun]

[imeanforever]

"What?"

[eversomuchfun]

"The word you're looking for may be 'alphabetic'."

[imeanforever]

"I'm never going to be able to figure that out."

[eversomuchfun]

"Why not?"

[imeanforever]

"Well, I suppose you could tell me what order the symbols go in, and then I could memorize that, and then I could squint at all the titles, but... I'm not sure it wouldn't be faster just to read all the spines."

[eversomuchfun]

Shrug. "As you like."

[imeanforever]

"I'm not actually speaking your language, in case that wasn't clear, I'm just plain speaking."

[eversomuchfun]

"It was obvious that something more complex must be going on than you just happening to natively speak English; it wasn't obvious which of the many possibilities was operative."

[imeanforever]

"Oh. Well, now you know." And what books has he pulled out?

[eversomuchfun]

Here is a book about vampires. Here is a stack of books each about another common variety of demon. Here is a book about recognizing and thwarting dark rituals. Here is a book about potionmaking. And there are more where those came from.

[imeanforever]

Potionmaking sounds interesting! She picks it up to have a look.

[eversomuchfun]

It's kind of obscure. A lot of assumptions about the reader's knowledge level. Also about the reader's easy access to sources of animal parts. Sherlock reads along upside-down and seems amused.

[imeanforever]

Once Promise has a general idea of what the recipes look like she skims for the results of each without bothering about how many porcupines she would have to deprive of their quills or how much marrow she would have to scrape out of a live sheep.

[pythbox]

Potion recipes make claims to such effects as: curse removal, securing the love of the drinker for the brewer (for a duration of one month), multiplying any nonmagical liquid to fill its container (size of container unspecified but from context they seem to be thinking flagons or barrels rather than lakes or ponds), and a dozen varieties of curse including warts, plague, petrification, loss of assorted facial features, and 'to Burn with an Unquenchable Flame'.

[imeanforever]

"Most of these are not very practical," she observes.