properly

[dark_light]

Isabella skips down the list of cities by population to put a portal setup in Seattle. Mostly for her and her mother's and potentially Zeviana's convenience. It's the biggest city within reasonable commute distance of the clan lands.

It is here that he and Isabella are hanging out, unprotected by any wards, when someone back in New Kystle thinks to check.

"Darling!" exclaims Yerena Liandril. "I've found Adarin! That liar Antelier said he was nowhere to be found but I just double-checked, and he's with that extraplanar hussy in her plane. Holding her hand. Those odd birds they have are practically on top of each other. How is your mana supply, darling?"

Comments

[aestrix]

Her husband Gervail pokes his head from his study. "Excellent, I was saving for expanding the house. If you found Adarin, though, I think the dining room can just be cramped for a little while longer. I'll go get the kids, I know for a fact Elasali hasn't spelled anything in a week - she can pitch in, for sure."

He goes to go get the kids.

[alicornucopia]

Yerena goes and fetches a spellbook and hunts down the page describing the planar transfer.

[aestrix]

The kids are retrieved, grilled on their mana situation (good all around), and then set on tasks to help with once Yerena's found the correct page. Once they do a tally of all mana present, they are happily surprised to find that in total they have enough for both Gervail and Yerena to go. A nurse is fetched, told to keep everyone behaving while they're gone, and then it's back to spell preparation.

It takes a bit of coordination and Gervail has to raise his voice to get one of their kids to pay attention, but they manage. Within half an hour, the couple arrives in the parking garage, looking around for Adarin and Isabella.

Of course, they weren't aware of the effects of traveling to this plane. Once they arrive, a small penguin appears near Gervail.

[alicornucopia]

Yerena gets a cat, dove-gray with white socks and more white at the throat.

"What," says the cat.

[aestrix]

"What," agrees the penguin.

Gervail looks at his new daemon with confusion, sidetracked from his mission of finding Adarin.

[prodigal_miser]

"Fuck," says Adarin in English, when he spots and recognizes them.

[dark_light]

"...Do you know these people?" inquires Isabella, also in the same language. "Time to string my bow or prepare to verse them on fire or anything?"

[prodigal_miser]

"Possibly one of those, yes. They're from New Kystle."

[dark_light]

"That much, I suspected."

She does reach for where her bow is tied to her cloud pine and starts untying it.

[aestrix]

Gervail glances up at the voices, and addresses them.

"Hello, Adarin - and Isabella, I think? Sorry we couldn't arrange this in advance so we weren't so startling -" (He glances at his penguin) "- or startled, but we only just learned where you were."

[prodigal_miser]

"A pity," says Adarin, looking incredibly uncomfortable.

A pity that they found him at all, not that it took them so long to find him.

[dark_light]

"I'm prrretty sure if we duck through the portal and they chase us my security aren't equipped to handle mages," mutters Isabella. "But if you want to try scramming you could maybe magic their daemons to the floor and let them be confused that they can't just walk away from them for a while, we could go through and get on warded property and bust the portal? I haven't announced this one, we can just redo it later." She has her bow off her pine and strung now, and one hand on an arrow.

[prodigal_miser]

"It's certainly an option. I'm not sure how much I like running, however. I want none of them to ever come after me, not - hide in a warded location for the next century until they're all dead or have given up," he says quietly. "But if this goes badly we can do that."

[aestrix]

"Ahem," says Gervail, annoyed. "There's no call for that." He motions to Isabella's bow. "We mean no harm, we don't know what that girl did to spook you, but we'd like to try convincing you to come back."

[dark_light]

"Yes," says Yerena, "we're not uncivilized, not like that badly-bred creature who did - whatever it was."

Her cat licks his forepaw, still confused about existing but not enough to distract him from the desire to be tidy.

Isabella doesn't put down her bow. She looks with unimpressed, chin-raised arrogance at the intruders.

[prodigal_miser]

Adarin has a reply to that, but he refrains from using it. It would not help, satisfying though it would be to say it. Instead he takes a deep breath, forces on a poker face, and says, "I am not accusing you of being uncivil, but all the same, I would prefer not to go back. Thank you for the concern, but my talents seem better suited here."

It is in his very best frigidly polite tone. He's had a while to practice it, it's pretty good.

[alicornucopia]

"Adarin, be reasonable. What happened to your - your civic responsibility?" asks Yerena.

[prodigal_miser]

"It is safely intact, just focused in a different direction. Away from New Kystle."

[aestrix]

"And towards - what? This - this woman?" accuses Gervail, giving Isabella a contemptuous look.

[alicornucopia]

"This unknown quantity," chimes in Yerena. "You've seemed very resistant to - to wooing of all kinds in the past and the fact that - this is what succeeds is very odd, Adarin, suspicious."

[dark_light]

"Can I possibly improve anything by speaking in self-defense in Saratese?" wonders Isabella under her breath.

[prodigal_miser]

"Doubtful," he replies softly to Isabella in English, giving Yerena a cold look. "But feel free to defend yourself, I continue to dislike these people."

"Suspicious? In what way? Perhaps I have exotic tastes."

[dark_light]

Yerena casts a doubtful look in Isabella's direction. "You've been a target of so many discourteous attempts at - at collecting you, it's natural to wonder when you appear to have fallen for one for the very first time and from such foreign quarters, don't you think? We're concerned."

"You think I slipped him something or cast something on him and it worked where all your... relatives... failed because I'm working with different stuff," says Isabella bluntly in their language. "It's actually not a ridiculous thing to wonder from your perspective of not being close enough to the situation to have gotten any details since we are not friends... but the answer is no."

[aestrix]

"It's not like magical or - or herbal methods are all you have available," points out Gervail.

His penguin makes an agreeing chirp, preening her feathers. She's getting used to existing, though it's still strange.

[prodigal_miser]

"And what," growls Adarin, "other methods are you accusing her of? She's innocent of them all, I assure you. Because she hasn't done anything 'discourteous' to win me over."