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]

"Just how fire-witchy are you two? My specs aren't that fine-grained. They just say 'not zero, not all the way', but if there's books on thinned-out fire-witch families I haven't got copies."

[allthebrightest]

"I think maybe it was our... great-great grandma?" she hazards. "And it's been pretty strong in the family since then, we're the first generation with no red hair. But we still do the fire thing and the knowing stuff about stuff thing."

[calendarofcrime]

"And it's hard to tell about the rest, because the royal family of the Enchanted Forest also has a strong natural affinity for magic."

[thaumobabble]

"The fire thing. There's parts to the fire thing - does your hair burn when you're mad? I saw you do an ignition -" She waves at Tony. "And the frost spell bothered you, although you were perfectly talkative and so on so I don't know how much -" She waves at Sherlock. "I'm not getting much of an impression of a temper off either of you - you were pretty calm about the wizard, sword or no sword - do you cry fire? Could you push magic into a wizard's staff and explode it? Thanks for not doing that if that's a thing you could've done," Bella adds, "I've never gotten hold of an intact recently-used staff whose owner wasn't liable to steal it back a few days later before."

[allthebrightest]

"Yeah, Sherry can be a real firestorm if you piss her off bad enough, it just takes a lot to get her going these days," says Tony. "Which is a good thing, 'cause we live in a forest. I dunno about exploding wizard's staffs, I've never tried."

[thaumobabble]

"If you're worried about burning down swaths of forest I could probably make you gear for that," says Bella. "Like my marble, only I think I'd make them out of something else if they were intended to contain fire-witch magic specifically."

[calendarofcrime]

"I have not set anything on fire that I did not fully intend to set on fire since I was nine," says Sherlock. "I believe I am all right on that front."

[allthebrightest]

"What's your marble do?"

[thaumobabble]

"Stores magic. It's like a wizard staff - some of the same basic principles on the storage end - it'll take all kinds, it could store fire-witch magic without exploding but it wouldn't like it - but it's not a thief. It takes runoff from my spells, anything I generate by accident, occasional donations. Then if I ever need a lot of power without a lot of time to prepare, it's there."

[allthebrightest]

"Cool," says Tony.

[thaumobabble]

"I think so! I like glass in general, the specs and the marble are good examples of its uses," says Bella. "That and windows and kitchenware."

[calendarofcrime]

"What sorts of kitchenware?"

[thaumobabble]

"The limeade pitcher, you saw. Mixing bowls and so on. I have as much as I can in glass and then it's easier to add it to the general spell I have over the kitchen that makes it so cooperative."

[calendarofcrime]

"Convenient. I want one."

[thaumobabble]

"If you want to park me in your kitchen for a day or two, I can do that," says Bella merrily. "The cooks aren't quick enough to suit you?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Oh, I love to cook."

[thaumobabble]

"Aha. Yes, you'll like the kitchen spell. It does take some getting used to, though - the spell does for you, and you do for the spell, it has to learn what you mean when you tell it this or that. I don't have to read off my pancake recipe anymore to get all the ingredients because I don't often change them, but if I did my kitchen would be petulant for hours."

[calendarofcrime]

"How large is the spell's vocabulary? Could I teach it several varieties of pancakes and not run into trouble so long as I kept the names straight?"

[thaumobabble]

"Yes, if the names are all distinct it will do fine, it has no trouble with the complexities of white bean soup versus black bean soup. Its memory is as large as I make it - mine's got a stack of paper tucked away in a cupboard-space to serve and hasn't run out of room yet."

[calendarofcrime]

She laughs. "How delightful. Yes, unless Mother raises an unexpected objection, I certainly think you should enchant our kitchen."

[thaumobabble]

"All right!" Normally she would bring up compensation at this point, but a kitchen enchantment and a witchsleeved bag are nowhere near what Bella would happily pay just for access to the Skyvault and possibly the sword. Plus this bonus wizard staff.

[allthebrightest]

"You are helpful!"

[thaumobabble]

"So helpful," agrees Bella. "Are there already any enchantments laid on the kitchen? That'll affect how I go about it."

[calendarofcrime]

"Not to my recollection, but the castle is quite old, so there's probably some residue."

[thaumobabble]

"Residue that's not in active use? I can just suck that up into the marble if nobody minds to get it out of the way."