surefooted moccasins

[thaumobabble]

Bella completes her moccasins. They're easy, but tedious; she's putting tiny parts of the spell on each of the hundreds of glass beads that gets sewn on. Last time it took her a couple of days, but by the end of the process she could do the magic and the sewing at the same time; this time it's an easy rhythm and by an hour after lunch she's got them beaded and pieced and a binding enchantment laid on each of them and the pair together to hold all the beads in a coherent whole. She says her cleaning spell - the castle isn't dirty, but any amount of walking around barefoot leaves dirt on one's feet - and slips them on and gets up and walks around experimentally. Success!

She spends the rest of the time before the delegation is prepared to go sitting outside at the Skyvault, looking at it with various lens combinations and taking fascinated notes, and spending time with her fiancée-and-a-half.

She's ready to leave when the rest of the wizard-visiting party is.

Comments

[thaumobabble]

"Yeah, I just mean - that's why they steal magic, because they don't think anybody else has anything much useful to do with it and because they feel it's a matter of personal safety."

[pythbox]

"Aha," says the diplomat.

[thaumobabble]

"That's pretty much what I know off the top of my head. I don't have my books on wizards with me."

[pythbox]

"Well," says the diplomat, "hopefully we won't need them."

[thaumobabble]

"Hopefully," agrees Bella.

With her moccasins on, she can safely read-and-walk as long as she looks up to course correct twice a page. She doesn't attempt further conversation with the diplomat during the journey. And she lets him take the lead, when they reach the wizards; apart from putting her spectacles on she doesn't do anything.

The wizards either don't notice the party standing outside their caves, or choose not to send out an interlocutor this time.

[pythbox]

The various members of the party all look at one another.

Finally the diplomat steps forward and... peers into the cave entrance.

[thaumobabble]

There are some wizards, and some wizards' wives, and some children, milling around. There's a smokeless fire with a stewpot simmering on top of it, and an adult wizard is carving a long piece of wood, perhaps into a staff, while a couple of little ones look on. One of the wizards looks the diplomat's way and there begins to be a general whispering among the cave inhabitants and cessation of activity that is not "look nervously at diplomat".

[pythbox]

The diplomat... blinks at them all.

[thaumobabble]

"...Hello?" says a wizard's wife.

Bella comes close enough to the cave edge to see that it's the same one who spoke to her and the princesses when they came this way.

[pythbox]

"I'm... here on behalf of the queen," he tries. "There's, er, no need to be alarmed?"

[thaumobabble]

"...All right," says the wizard's wife. "What does the queen want with us?"

[pythbox]

...That is a very good question.

Pity he doesn't seem to have an answer.

[thaumobabble]

The wizard's wife blinks quizzically at him, and then looks past his left arm at bespectacled Bella.

Bella has seen to her satisfaction that they're still not absorbing any but stray, unused magic. She murmurs to the diplomat, "Their staffs are behaving themselves."

[pythbox]

He looks at her helplessly.

[thaumobabble]

"Well, what did Her Majesty want you to find out, or tell them?" asks Bella in an undertone.

[pythbox]

"...Why... they're here?" he murmurs back.

[thaumobabble]

"...Do you want me to ask?"

[pythbox]

His eyes dart wizardward.

[thaumobabble]

The wizards are all holding quite still, watching the visitors. Their wives are mostly hiding behind their wizards, with the children, except for the one spokeswife.

"...My name is Cantha," offers the spokeswife, in apparent hope that this will help move things along.

[pythbox]

The diplomat nods slightly to Bella.

[thaumobabble]

Bella sighs inaudibly and steps forward and smiles and takes off and hats her spectacles. "Hello again, Cantha, I'm Bella. We're here to find out what brings you to the Enchanted Forest."

"We don't think think the other wizards will think to look for us here," Cantha says.

"And why are you hiding from other wizards?" Bella asks.

"There's been a - a schism in the Society. We're by far the smaller faction. So we're hiding."

[pythbox]

The diplomat is a good enough diplomat not to audibly sigh with relief.

[thaumobabble]

"What's the schism about?" Bella asks.

"P-procedures for choosing new Head Wizards, and some things about magic I don't understand myself, and relations with other - groups, and some other things. We're the Reformists," she adds helpfully.

"How come you don't have a Head Reformist Wizard who's talking for your group instead of you?" inquires Bella.

"We had one. My husband died before we got here," says Cantha quietly. "We haven't elected a replacement yet."

"Oh. I'm sorry," murmurs Bella. "Other wizards?"

"Yes. Orthodox wizards."

[pythbox]

The diplomat also manages to look sympathetic about Cantha's husband! He is such a good diplomat. Someone should give him a biscuit.

[thaumobabble]

Bella is too busy doing his job to fetch a biscuit for him.

"Shortly before the last time I was here, the princesses and I encountered another wizard. One of yours?"

Cantha shakes her head, alarmed. "We're all of ours that are left. We saw the others fall, and it was more than those few days ago. He was in the forest? They're looking for us here?"

"Well, he was interrupted," Bella says, "and we're not sure if his presence had to do with you or not."

"It must have," murmurs Cantha. "We were the first to risk entering the forest in nearly a century."