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Post by demikara on Sept 25, 2020 14:27:01 GMT -6
"We'll get you a space heater for the winter. It's meant to warm a small room. The boys will love it." It would keep them warm enough. "We can also get some warm blankets to snuggle into. That will help too." At least a year. That was a long time. But it was also necessary. If Flynn was right, then the tree near her plane was dangerous. And she believed it too. Parts of the tree were incredibly dangerous, especially those areas where corruption set in.
"I'll help winterproof your studio as much as I can." They were her responsibility while they were on this plane after all. And they were friends of a sort now too.
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Post by littlekreen on Sept 25, 2020 17:33:23 GMT -6
Lips tightly pressed Flynn's throat tensed as she looked up and behind her to whistle. The sanguine shroud knelt behind her turned its eyeless gaze then stood up to turn about. The goblet held in both hands it looked at Flynn's head then circled opposite Molly until it could stare at Flynn's eyes. Flynn leaned with a whine from the pain in her pelvis to grab the pants around its knees. Pulling downward the shroud and its dripping eyes knelt again its goblet slowly pressed forward toward her. Inside the goblet was a grainy concoction with a harsh metallic smell and a faint scent of the lemonade Flynn used as a base for its feeding slurry.
Flynn's breath raced for a moment which woke Thebus with a concerned peeping noise until she got the pain under control to speak, "Hhhhh Sorry, time to feed the shroud. I keep it full or I might pass out right now when going inside."
Thebus peeped at the thing that smelled like clutch mother where its face tensed to return a smile in an immediate response to the noise which Flynn chirruped at, "*Ree* It took me most of a week to figure out how to imbue that. I am no writ of the blooded word to instruct it better. At least that bothers the whelps less when it does not stare blankly at their noises."
She pet Thebus whom started playing with her finger, " *RrRrRr* If you can get us some warmth for your frigid nights I think we all would be grateful! I made a sleeping pit out of some soiled blankets I cleaned but they are not very warm. There are too many shops with cameras I must avoid."
The cooler within reach she pulled open to reveal the two sets of jewelry and a vase full of fluid and a crude rubber stopper added. Other small knickknacks inside were two small sextants though a new one looked far cruder than the one in a cobalt blue metal with its brass filigree. A vial of fluid the same color added along the cruder sextant's axis. Similarly so a color for a circular bit of machinery entirely in cut pane glass though it was the sharp edges along the gears in similar blue undulating patterns that reveal some larger pattern visually unseen that's writ on them.
Flynn gasps while recovering her breath from the effort while removing the vase, "I made the best spare sextant and viewing axis I could. You can have them in return and if they work you might need them someday."
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Post by demikara on Sept 25, 2020 17:40:54 GMT -6
"I don't think I've ever used a sextant before. And we can probably get you to a thrift store that sells blankets and get a few. They won't necessarily be pretty, but enough of them would keep your sleeping pit warmer and softer at least. And a space heater would take care of the rest." It was a studio apartment. It couldn't be that big. Molly would find a decent space heater and buy it before it got too cold. She pulled the jewelry out of the cooler and held them up, testing them with her magic. "These are beat up. Definitely time to change and charge them." It wouldn't be much of a change, but it would be something at least. Maybe aim for closer to five?
She sighed and pulled a small notebook out of her purse and sketched through some equations. It would take more energy to make the changes. And making everything line up was trickier than she liked to admit.
Going from a saurian shape to a human shape was not so surprisingly difficult to do glamour wise. She doubted anyone else would manage it. "Is it getting too cold at you for night already? I can probably find a space heater today if I look. But if I want to get a good one, it would be a few days."
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Post by littlekreen on Sept 25, 2020 18:09:45 GMT -6
A pull of the stopper and the vase loosed the same smell as the goblet if a bit more lemon. Flynn reached up as the shroud reached forward to pour the mix inside. Deep black cast iron of the goblet made veins along its relief more evident by their faint thumping as they drained from the new addition.
Flynn made a flat warbling tone as she put the stopper back on, "*NyeEeEgh* They spent a lot of time sleeping in the forest with me at night in case I drifted out of the plane. Jewelry shouldn't get abuse so much anymore with a safer place for whelps. We should be okay to wait as long as we are not outside. The shroud keeps me warmer than the glamours do the whelps. I think your sixty is our freezing."
The two tools she just gestured at two tools than lean to get them, "The sextant is not hard to use. It shows points of dreaming flux exposed to this reality by its resonance with my blood if you have been to that place before. Even if their location has changed. The viewing axis shows you ones you have not been to but the ones I can make do not have a very long range. Do not recharge more than a third of what is left with your own blood at a time and don't have neophyte blood mages alter it."
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Post by demikara on Sept 25, 2020 18:19:23 GMT -6
"Sounds useful." Not something she could use on this plane, given the strictures against blood magic, but interesting all the same. "And that is cold for you then. I'll stop by a store tonight that should have one. If they don't I'll order one online and it'll be here in a few days. What's your address so I can bring it to you?" She placed the anklets on the ground and ran through some more calculations. "Hm. I can probably attune these to the boys so it grows with them. They have magic after all. It would just be super illegal to do on this plane."
And she was an officer of the law. She sort of was supposed to follow the laws. But this was another conflict with her other duties. Flynn, truth told, was one big conflict with her duties as an MCU cop. Molly was very careful to not think too deeply on what Flynn did, so she would not get into too much trouble.
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Post by littlekreen on Sept 25, 2020 19:26:44 GMT -6
Vase put away she nosed at Thebus who tittered at the contact as she thought for a moment on how to get there by ground, "It is at the end of warsaw drive. The abandoned warehouse behind the Dallas student busing transport building. I have an electrical line now but I try not to use it until I can seal more windows. The dark, barbed wire, and freeway keep most humans from nosing around." Though decided it was probably better not to mention she also kept the vagrants out while working under the table. That kept her from starving while she couldn't do the big-ticket jobs. There was little decent hunting in the city and far too many eyes. Though the pit in Flynn's stomach grew the more she thought of how long she'd have to remain hidden while the whelps grew up. Reachers were self-sufficient but even her luck would run out eventually. More and more people knew of her shroud's face even if she limited that as best she could. At least the face divined would point to the grandmother she'd borrowed it from far across town. Thebus seemed to sense his Clutch mother's pensive calm and stood up to lick Flynn's muzzle startling her into a cant of her head and a smile, "*Rrhfkt*! I'm fine little fluff. I will have to find a way to our [prison labryinth] as soon as I can. Would you like a mouse?" That particular phrase was what is said the red lady called in her tongue their part of the dreaming. Though as she stayed here it was starting to make a terrible kind of sense. Thebus head-fluff moved ever so faintly with his open-mouthed grin. Quinn however was busy staring at Molly's writing, though he understood nothing of it, the writing motion was hypnotic. He warked at molly from underneath her arm and scorched a bit closer to her elbow so he wouldn't move so much. Flynn picked up the slingshot and opened the carrier underneath it. There was a number of small squeaks of alarm and two of excitement from her whelps. Quinn seemed content to watch the moving pen though Thebus clambered to his feet then to the ground. A deft hand fished a live mouse out of the carrier and started arranging a rather unwilling sqirming passenger into the slingshot cup.
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Post by demikara on Sept 25, 2020 19:34:14 GMT -6
"Are you going to play catch with the mice?" That was interesting. Still, she noticed Quinn watching and smiled. "Almost done Quinn. You'll be able to grow some with this one." She promised and scritched under his chin. "And that's not the best neighborhood. How are you managing to get enough food there?" Meat was expensive, and she suspected the other wasn't exactly flush with cash. She also really didn't want to know exact details as to what Flynn was doing.
She scritched beneath Quinn's chin again and finished off her equations. Doing this completely from scratch would have been nearly impossible, given what she was working from. But the glamour was a masterpiece and had only needed slightly adjusted, a term added on. Molly was excellent at what she did and this glamour was 34/ths responsive ward. The glamour relied largely on warding and only a touch on illusion magic, and it worked better than any normal glamour could have. Figuring out how to make it responsive to the person underneath's movements had been tricky. It was easier if they were humanoid too. But the boys were definitely not human.
If she could submit her ward somewhere for an award, she gladly would. It was simply excellent.
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Post by littlekreen on Sept 25, 2020 20:07:37 GMT -6
Flynn finally gets the mouse in the cup and pinches it shut so the squirming body stays put, "Catch? Definitely! I like the bitter taste of your land creatures that have fled but if I hunt any large prey someone will notice. I feed them a lot of mice it is the only thing nobody will care is hunted. Though I have to blood-purge them individually first and that is tiring. Other than that I buy a lot of fried chicken in the store nearby. I peel off the breading for the whelps and feed it to the mice."
She couldn't catch fish at night without using a light. Hunter's sight couldn't see through water and it was rather hard to fish in the pitch black. Daylight was too much a risk as there were humans boating through there now and again and apparently, she needed a license to catch fish. Flynn's ribs weren't showing but the sunken stomach under her ribcage showed she definitely wasn't well fed for how much magic she was using. Everything first went to the whelps.
With the middle finger pulling the cup back and thumb and index finger holding the squirming critter in place, she launched the payload. The small furry creature sailed through the sky as the feathered rocket took off in case of it. Head held high Thebus shot off in chase of the small creature even as he disappeared into the tall grass. The canyon spreading between grass blades underneath the brown fur blotch of a snack-seeking missile.
Flynn leaned back, "I'm surprised your healers don't know how to blood purge by now with as much wasting disease clinics the humans have. Even if it's excruciating pain. Our Sear do a good job burning parasites and lumps away as long as they have not spread too far. I'm no Sear though."
Flynn looks over at the jewelry as Molly works and clutched her hands at Molly in a supplicating gesture, "It takes an artist to make great works! You are very good at what you do and I am grateful!"
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Post by demikara on Sept 25, 2020 20:18:23 GMT -6
"Everyone's healers focus on different things." Blood purge. It sounded like antibiotics? "We mostly use antibiotics to get rid of viruses and stuff. Or medicine for other types of things. I don't fully know how medicine works on this plane, but it mostly seems to at least." She usually just let the clinic do what was needed. "The meat in the grocery stores is already treated for anything like that. You should try that, when you can. I don't know how much food you guys need, but it seems fried chicken and mice alone can't possibly be enough." Plus, eventually the mice would probably learn to stay away from where she was hunting. Mice could be that smart right?
Probably at least. She didn't know enough about mice to know. Most of what she knew about was math and wards and that was more than enough for her. "And thanks. I just need to apply the wards now. Quinn, I'm going to have to put you down for this." It would be easier to apply if she could draw a circle around the jewelry.
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Post by littlekreen on Sept 25, 2020 20:46:09 GMT -6
Flynn chuffed at an idea that struck her, "Well whatever medicine they're using that makes the humans hairless I think the painful blood purge is better! I think humans would like it better if it's from a Sear than from a Reacher. We know the needful one than a comfortable one. I don't know what the antibiotics are and my purges are very painful! As long as I can hold the black off from my legs I should be okay. The black I catch here in wounds does not spread in me well. Which is good I think."
Quinn just stared at Molly's noises and chirruped back. The writing had stopped! After a faint whistle pattern from Flynn, it sent Quinn from Molly's arm straight to the ground pressing his chin to the earth. He looked around pensively not sure what was wrong but instinct said to hide.
Flynn remembered her last foray into fixing her food situation with better humor from time, "Well I was trying to fix a cooking device but I don't have the tinker twitch know-how. I don't think I want to try fixing one again. They have frozen meat at the grocery but I don't have anywhere to keep or thaw." She'd actually set her arm on fire from a spark while trying to fix a hot plate that left it numb for an hour. A wood fire was out of the question. Smoke would definitely give away her position and would make it hard for security to turn a blind eye to her even if they wanted to. Even if she had an idea what the electric was for and had a cord she wasn't really sure what she was supposed to attach to it.
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Post by demikara on Sept 25, 2020 20:51:42 GMT -6
"I'll get you mini fridge too then. You can keep it cool in there." Maybe two mini fridges. It depended on how much it cost. She drew a circle in magic on the ground and dropped the anklets in. A few flicks of her fingers had the current warding on them expanded into the air and Molly began working to improve the schema so it would grow some with the boys. "Hopefully this one will last longer. It depends on how much they grow." She had no clue what the growth rate was for Flynn's species.
It sounded like Molly really did need to take a look at Flynn's place though and make sure she had everything she needed. The entire affair would be easier if the boys were older and able to communicate, but for now they just had the whistles that Molly couldn't replicate if she tried. And she had tried occasionally. "And humans are naturally mostly hairless. But I guess there's some meds that can cause hair loss. Chemotherapy, for cancer."
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Post by littlekreen on Sept 26, 2020 22:35:34 GMT -6
Flynn tapped her arms remembering that word from news though for a number of reasons didn't quite pronounce it right, "Camo therapy! Yes! Void elementalists need a lot of Sear to keep from rotting away. We treat those unsanctioned like you do sanguimancy or they fall over dead from lumps in the lungs and cause void brood infestations." A thought occurred to Flynn remembering the letter she'd sent as she looked at the jewelry work, "Molly, if I sent a letter to the fae queen with a few dollars postage, would they get it? I wasn't sure what would happen." As a creature of field operations, Flynn still racked her mind for a way forward toward safety, "It's been a moon and a half now and nothing. RrRrRr... The whelps will slow their growth soon as feathers start to come in. The quiet worries me."
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Post by demikara on Sept 27, 2020 8:32:43 GMT -6
"I don't think so. She's not on this plane. It would greatly confuse the postal service." She was pretty sure there was no way to send a letter to the fae queen. "If you want, I can see if Pwyll will take on to the fae postal service for you. He may be willing enough." There may be a way of course, but she doubted it.It didn't make since for there to be a reason to send a letter at all. "Why are you wanting in contact with Queen Tatianna?" Maybe Molly could help. She was fae after all.
"We could probably get you and the whelps to the fae realm if you wanted. It's not far, on the tree." Just a twig over really. Molly knew the way there like she knew the back of her hand.
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Post by littlekreen on Sept 27, 2020 10:32:55 GMT -6
A growling cluck of noise with her look at the skies while fishing a spiral notebook from the shroud's pocket, "*RrRrPOK* I had to practice it a thousand times and I still don't know what it says. The songs say it's from the red lady that used to advise the circle of thirteen. We know she still exists but was silenced but not where that was so we could help."
A bic pen from the spiral notebook flew across artful curves on the page, "The first of us that touched Losthome she said to reach beyond it and deliver a message. So our name far back in our history well before I was an egg."
An extremely formal script in fae made difficult reading, unsurprising given to whom it was addressed, suffers little to someone who could read the intentionally obscure text. Though the years of diligent passing between generations treated it well some minor artifacts appear. A thing of intent to those that knew of the formal design showed it written quickly by someone with both inhuman hands and a passing familiarity of the language. Particularly so when it was done by Bic pen than a quill.
Flynn tore the note free after drawing it for the hundredth time if only twice in the last while and handed it to Molly, "I don't know what your realm would do to me outside the shroud. I would have to go alone first. Losthome is bad enough."
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Post by demikara on Sept 29, 2020 8:51:30 GMT -6
"I'll re-write it on some stationary and mail it in the fae realm. That's the best I can do. There's no guarantee she'll receive it or read it if she does. She probably gets lots of people writing to her." Molly had no clue about Queen Tatianna when it came down to it. She had never met the woman and sincerely doubted she ever would. She had never even seen the noble in charge of their lands. Nobility was beyond her as fas as she was concerned. And it wasn't like it mattered in her day to day life, here or in the fae lands. She paid her taxes in both and that was more than enough for her.
"And I don't know either. It should be fine though."
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