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]

"Do not consider it going out of our way," says Sherlock. "That would imply far too much planning and coordination on our part."

[thaumobabble]

"So when you said you were looking for - no, come to think of it, you didn't, you said Her Majesty wanted you to look for husbands. Ah-ha."

[calendarofcrime]

"Let us say that if I were to look into the Pool of Heart's Desire, I do not think I would see a suitable husband looking back at me."

[thaumobabble]

"You know, I do actually know where that one is. The window I mentioned showed me someone who needed to find it, last year. What do you think you'd see?"

[calendarofcrime]

"I have no idea. But a husband would not be it."

[thaumobabble]

"Not even an unsuitable one?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Not even that."

[thaumobabble]

Notwitch giggles. "I had a look in the pool once. It's pretty useless to me. I already know what things I want, and it doesn't dispense advice on getting them."

[calendarofcrime]

"What did it show you?"

[thaumobabble]

"Well," says Notwitch. "It doesn't give you a complete rundown of everything you want - just the most indispensable heartfelt desire. Which is another reason it's not that practically useful. But since you're curious - I got a picture of me sitting in my study, with Cricket on my lap and a book in my hands - and the calendar displaying a date some nine thousand years in the future."

[calendarofcrime]

"Cat-inclusive immortality. Very nice."

[thaumobabble]

"Well, I'd miss him," says the not-a-witch. Cricket leaps to the table in front of her, purring. "Yes, I would, I'd miss you," she tells her cat. "I told you this when I got back from the pool then, don't you remember, silly creature."

"Mrrrow!"

"I love you too, Cricket."

[allthebrightest]

"Awwwwww," says Tony.

[thaumobabble]

"Mew," says Cricket to Tony.

"Be polite," says notwitch to Cricket. "Yes, I know she can't understand you, that doesn't make it less rude."

[allthebrightest]

"What'd he say?"

[thaumobabble]

"Are you sure you want the translation?"

[allthebrightest]

"...Yes?"

[thaumobabble]

"He says you only think it's cute that I'd miss him if he died because you don't have a sufficient conception of nonhuman personhood. It wasn't phrased quite that gently, though."

[allthebrightest]

"What," she says, "no, the cute part is you saying 'I love you too'!"

[thaumobabble]

"Mew."

"He apologizes. Resentfully."

"Mrrow meow meow."

"He thinks you wouldn't think it was cute for me to tell him that I love him too if he were not a cat."

[allthebrightest]

"One, he's wrong. Again. Two, cute things are cuter when there is more fluffiness involved, I have graphs."

She grins.

"But apology accepted anyway."

[thaumobabble]

Cricket begins licking his paw, affecting unconcern.

"It's just as well no one has ever figured out how to persistently make their cats understood to other people," sighs not-a-witch.

[calendarofcrime]

"She is completely serious about the graphs," Sherlock puts in. "We did research when we were six."

[thaumobabble]

"I am somewhat curious to see these graphs!"

[allthebrightest]

"They are at the castle! You can see them. At the castle," says Tony.