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

[allthebrightest]

"Yep," says Tony. "That's the Enchanted Forest for you. Full of stuff."

[thaumobabble]

"Mostly trees and moss," says Bella. "But interesting trees, some of them, and pretty moss!"

[allthebrightest]

"I love my forest," Tony says happily.

[thaumobabble]

"In all its vast unmappable glory, so do I," grins Bella.

They walk till dark, and Bella knows less about where they are now, as she only rarely ventures this far from her home.

The weather's fair; Bella produces a bedroll but not a tent. "I can have a look at your bag now," she offers to Tony.

[allthebrightest]

Tony cheerfully unpacks it and hands it over. (The unpacking is surprisingly fast.)

[thaumobabble]

Bella takes the bag and starts inspecting it like she hopes to make a sewing pattern for another just like it. Then she sets to work.

It's a simple spell, but for anything that's not a sleeve it takes varying amounts of coaxing. She does some of this coaxing aloud. "C'mon, you're so sleevy, I bet you always wanted to be a sleeve when you grew up, huh, you'd make the best sleeve," she coos to Tony's bag.

[allthebrightest]

...Tony giggles.

[thaumobabble]

Bella smirks at her and goes back to wheedling the bag, interspersed with variants on the spell. Eventually she has made enough progress to sprinkle the bag's interior with a mix of herbs that smell almost like dinner. "Come onnnnnn... you can do it... you will fulfill your destiny..."

[allthebrightest]

Tony is absolutely cracking up at this point.

[thaumobabble]

"I bet my sleeves want to be bags. They work more like bags than sleeves anyway - c'mon - you know you wanna be sleeved - c'mon c'mon - deepandwidecapacioussleevealwaysgiveherwhatsheneedsbythepowerofthisspellkeepitallandkeepitwell!" she blurts as fast as possible without losing diction. She peers into the bag. "Sleeved!" she says triumphantly.

[allthebrightest]

Tony scoops up the bag and hugs it. Then she hugs Bella too, for good measure.

[thaumobabble]

Eee, hugs! Bella is pleased. And huggable.

[allthebrightest]

Hugs hugs huuuuuugs.

"You're my favourite magician," she says gleefully.

[thaumobabble]

"Have you met many?" asks Bella archly.

[allthebrightest]

"Nope!"

[thaumobabble]

"That only makes sense. We are rather uncommon."

[allthebrightest]

"It was a magician that did the first spell to keep wizards' greasy paws off our magic," she offers. "Way back before Mom was even born."

[thaumobabble]

"Yeah, I've read about Telemain. Good role model, kind of lousy writer, too fond of his jargon - I understand it now but it was kind of intimidating when I was just starting out."

[allthebrightest]

"Yeah, I remember Dad used to complain about him all the time."

[thaumobabble]

Bella laughs. "The jargon problem, or something else? Were they contemporaries at all?"

[allthebrightest]

"They might've been?" she hazards. "Mostly it was the jargon. He complained about the spell structure on the anti-wizard thing, too, but it was the admiring kind of complaining."

[thaumobabble]

"There's an admiring kind of complaint?"

[calendarofcrime]

"Oh, yes," says Sherlock.

[thaumobabble]

"Like what?"

[calendarofcrime]

"I cannot give you examples," she says. "It was mostly in the delivery."