extradimensional space

[thaumobabble]

Here is a house.

It is pretty and trim and green-and-cream and really ought not to be able to hold itself up like that, and yet here it is, somehow defying the laws of architecture. It is surrounded by a neatly bordered garden of ornamental and useful plants of all sorts: here vegetables, there herbs, there spell components, there rows of flowers.

There is a sign out front. It says only: Magic. Not, Beware, Magic or Magic Emporium or anything like that. Just: Magic.

Sitting on top of this sign is a cream cat with smoke-dark points of color on each paw, his ears, and his face and tail.

All in all, you could be forgiven for thinking that a witch lives here.

Comments

[thaumobabble]

"Will she really? How do you know?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Because she is my mother," Sherlock says dryly.

[thaumobabble]

"Yes, but - are you authorized - to decide that sort of thing?" asks the woman, cringing as she utters the impertinent question.

[calendarofcrime]

"Yes," she says, untroubled.

[thaumobabble]

"Okay. I'll. Just go back in, then?"

[calendarofcrime]

"All right," says Sherlock.

[thaumobabble]

The woman backs away a few steps, then turns and hurries into the caves.

"There's some twenty adult wizards, half with wives and a third with one or more kids, as a cursory estimate," Bella says. "What would they be hiding from other wizards for? I don't get it."

[calendarofcrime]

"I do not know," says Sherlock. "Mother will likely want to send someone to find out."

[thaumobabble]

"I'm sure that will thrill the little wizard colony," says Bella dryly. "They were scared half to death. Do you suppose they had anything to do with the one we encountered earlier?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Mother will send someone who is not as terrifying as I am," says Sherlock. "He was almost certainly a member of the group, but not a close relative of either of the ones I met."

[thaumobabble]

"These ones didn't try to attack any of us, even though they had numbers," Bella observes. "Maybe he was looking for them, not with them."

[calendarofcrime]

"Yes, that is the other major possibility."

[thaumobabble]

"I suppose we could go back and describe him and see if they say 'yes, that's our cousin' and commence mourning or 'good riddance, that was our unexplained enemy' and commence celebrating."

[calendarofcrime]

"That is not something I desire to do."

[thaumobabble]

"Because it'd be awkward if it was the first one?" guesses Bella.

[calendarofcrime]

"It is possible that if it is the first one, someone might attack me. I prefer to avoid that."

[thaumobabble]

"That too. I suppose whoever Her Majesty sends can find out that sort of thing."

[calendarofcrime]

"Yes."

[thaumobabble]

Bella nods.

She falls over.

She picks herself up and drifts Tonyward, looking hopeful.

[allthebrightest]

Laughing, Tony scoops her up again.

[thaumobabble]

Bella smiles and plops her head onto Tony's shoulder and pulls out her book again.

[allthebrightest]

And on they go!

[thaumobabble]

Yay!

On they proceed, without further incident, wizard-related or otherwise, although they do see a unicorn who's in a terrible hurry to get somewhere and doesn't stop to talk, and a collection of birds who, combined, seem to know rather a lot about music theory.

They stop for the day by a tree with unseasonable icicles on it (but not directly underneath, because that would be silly for reasons of both temperature and sharpness).

Bella puts her book in her sleeve and waits to be set down.

[allthebrightest]

Tony sets Bella on her feet and then, on impulse, kisses her on the cheek.

[thaumobabble]

Ee!

Bella is pleased! And a little confused! Mostly pleased.