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

[calendarofcrime]

Sherlock sighs.

[thaumobabble]

"Aw, Calemar, she's not sca- she won't hurt you," corrects Bella.

"I don't wanna meeeeeeeeelt," wails Calemar, "it looks like it hurrrrrrrts!"

Oh.

Bella sits back a bit.

"Melting doesn't hurt," she offers. "It's just inconvenient."

"I don't belieeeeeeeve youuuuuuuu!" Calemar wails.

[calendarofcrime]

"I am not going to melt anyone today," says Sherlock.

[thaumobabble]

"Daddy said you would if anybody found us but the trees told you and we're all gonna be melted except Mommy and I don't wanna meeeeelt!"

Bella pats Calemar on the head awkwardly. It doesn't seem to help.

[calendarofcrime]

"Your father was wrong," says Sherlock. "Observe: I am not melting you."

[thaumobabble]

Calemar looks himself over, sniffing, and stops wailing on observing that he is not melted.

"What are you going to do with a family of wizards in the Enchanted Forest, Sherlock?" asks Bella quietly.

[calendarofcrime]

"Good question," says Sherlock. "Perhaps if I bring back their lost child, none of them will try to kill me."

[thaumobabble]

"Yeah, but - longer term."

[calendarofcrime]

"If they do not try to kill me or anyone else, or destroy parts of my forest, I don't see why I should do anything with them in particular."

[thaumobabble]

"Fair enough. Detour?"

"You're gonna take me home?" asks Calemar suspiciously. "By tree directions?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Yes," says Sherlock.

[thaumobabble]

"Oh."

Calemar seems to decide that there's nothing he can do about this. He gets up and shifts his weight from foot to foot.

"Is it far?" Bella asks Sherlock, wondering whether to solicit more carrying or just trip her way there on her own.

[calendarofcrime]

"Not terribly."

[thaumobabble]

Bella walks under her own power unless Tony says something about it, and she offers Calemar her hand, which he takes. This is actually a steadying influence, whether because of how it draws her attention or because of actual physical steadying; she doesn't fall on the way to -

The cave.

Yep, that's a cave. Calemar breaks away from Bella and hurtles into it, screaming for his parents.

[calendarofcrime]

Sherlock stands still and waits. She's good at that.

[thaumobabble]

No one appears to be emerging from the cave.

"They could be fleeing out a back entrance," Bella points out after a minute. "Or they could have teleportations set up, if they're good wizards."

[calendarofcrime]

"I can hear them," she murmurs. "Not words, but voices. They are not currently fleeing."

[thaumobabble]

"I'd be really surprised if a wizard came out to meet you. Maybe Calemar's mom, though."

[calendarofcrime]

"We shall see."

[thaumobabble]

Eventually, a woman of some sort - whether she is Calemar's mother or not is not immediately obvious - emerges from the cave with her hands held up palms-front and a terrified expression on her face.

[calendarofcrime]

"Hello," says Sherlock.

[thaumobabble]

"Please don't hurt me. Us, please don't hurt us," blurts the woman.

[calendarofcrime]

"I do not plan to hurt any of you," says Sherlock, "unless you try to hurt me first, which I don't expect is likely. Perhaps you would like to explain what you are doing in my forest?"

[thaumobabble]

"...We live here?" tries the woman.

[calendarofcrime]

"For how long," Sherlock says patiently, "have you lived here?"