the golden age

[deepest_magic]

When the party has died down, Isabella, for one, is well and truly exhausted. She explores the palace until she finds a room with a bed in it, and into this bed she flops, still in her clothes and holding her staff and carrying the cordial in her pocket. She sleeps late, because the party kept her up so late and she hadn't really slept the night before; but around noon, she stirs, and gets up, and goes looking for James and wherever her backpack may have got to. The backpack she finds in the great hall where the principal mass of the party was; some enterprising creature took both bags from the battlefield at Beruna up to the castle for them, and she only wishes she knew who it was. She takes her bag to her room and carries James's with her and continues looking for her friend.

Comments

[deepest_magic]

"I have a magic bookshelf, so I could easily get a copy, and if you must be depressed at least you needn't be depressed and bored."

[jackfrostbite]

"And yet that does not explain why you brought me Alice in Wonderland."

[deepest_magic]

"James didn't seem to think it would be a worse idea than her doing it."

[jackfrostbite]

"Was she right?"

[deepest_magic]

"Well, I'm not scurrying up the stairs in regret yet, I don't know if you'd have preferred her to visit rather than me."

[jackfrostbite]

[deepest_magic]

"I have a question, as long as I'm here."

[jackfrostbite]

"Ask."

[deepest_magic]

"Are you unconscious while you're stabbed through the heart?"

[jackfrostbite]

"I dream unpleasant dreams."

[deepest_magic]

"Is it better than being awake?"

[jackfrostbite]

"No."

[deepest_magic]

"All right then, I won't offer to periodically toss you an icicle."

[jackfrostbite]

"An icicle?"

[deepest_magic]

"To stab yourself with. Apparently it wouldn't be an improvement."

[jackfrostbite]

[deepest_magic]

"One of us will be back later to swap the book out, if you think of another you'd like." And Isabella heads for the stairs.

[neverbeatme]

James is at her desk, dealing with non-urgent paperwork.

"How'd it go?"

[deepest_magic]

"Not too bad. But he has bad dreams while he's stabbed, so that won't help."

[neverbeatme]

"I'm definitely starting to get a sense of why he talks about being cursed so much."

[deepest_magic]

"I wonder if there's anything to learn from the place where he got the apples."

[neverbeatme]

"I'm very hesitant to send an expedition - we can warn people not to eat the fruit, but there's always a chance someone will decide otherwise, and I don't want any repeats of Winter's problem. And there's just no way I could justify personally travelling there, even if I got him to give me directions. Definitely not this year and probably not this decade. Too much else to do."

[deepest_magic]

"Yeah. Send a single trustworthy carnivorous scout, maybe."

[neverbeatme]

"I'm not sure I'm willing to bet the apples aren't somehow tempting to carnivores. Winter's situation fills me with feelings of extreme caution."

[deepest_magic]

Nod.