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Introductory Magic 101

Originally posted on Patreon in October 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
This is written as a follow-up to Going to Asthrifel and is about Sage (of Sage and Audrey)’s sister Artemesia.

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Artemisia had done a great deal of research on Asthrifel — she had visited the school three times, she has to read everything she could find about the place, she had devoured articles on going to college, on your first day at school, on how to study, on how to take an exam, on what spells were allowed and not allowed in classes, on school grounds, to be used by students at all — she’d removed three teas and four charms from her bag, but left the two that Sage and his wife snuck in there (because those, while not explicitly allowed, were also not explicitly disallowed.  Sage was, after all a smart man.).

Nothing, none of her reading, none of her studying, none of the teas and charms and  strange spells, none of it had prepared her for her first lecture class.

Artemisia had gone to a relatively small high school for the last three years of her secondary education — at her insistence, and in parallel with continuing the homeschooling that her mother had started when she was three.  None of her classes had held more than thirty people, and that would have been an unusually large lecture. Continue reading

Twins

Originally posted on Patreon in October 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
A story of Tír na Cali and gardening. Warning: this turned out a bit creepy.

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“Nobody would ever know we were twins.”

Savannah was strolling through her sister Sierra’s gardens, noting the carefully-pruned topiary and the softly-singing fountains.  It was a beautiful garden, she had to admit.  Everything was exactly in its place.

“Sav, we’re twins.  Nobody would ever doubt that.  They only need to look at us.”  Sierra, as was often the case, huffed at her sister’s melodramatics and ignored (as was also often the case) the fact that they looked quite similar to 9/10 of their relatives and a large handful of slaves.

“But look at -” Savannah gestured around.  “Your garden.  Your yard.  You saw my yard last week.” Continue reading

Knit Together

Originally posted on Patreon in September 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.

This story was prompted by this toot here – https://elekk.xyz/@eightbitsamurai/102849547549670548 – and is technically the last “Very short” (shh) story of the July Patreon theme, “arts and crafts.”

It is set, in my mind, in the Fae Apoc ‘verse, but while Esther uses a little bit of magic to …. nudge… things, it’s all very low-key.

Enjoy!

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Esther was knitting people together.

She was not all that good at hunting, having tried it twice and not gotten anything at all, but she was good at helping the hunters prepare the food they brought in and she wasn’t squeamish with the carcasses.

She had a bum leg and ankle, no matter what she tried, that meant that she couldn’t really do that much scavenging, though she went along when she could and she knew better than some what the good places would be around here and which should be avoided. Continue reading

Curating the Empire

Originally posted on Patreon in September 2019 and part of the Great Patreon Crossposting to WordPress.
A Story of Things Unspoken.  I did not unlock this one solely for Kelkyag, no, of course not. 

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It was called a Museum, and it served as such to the public in the Imperial Capital.

That is, people could visit and, for a nominal fee, they could peruse the items stored within.  They could awe at the sculptures, puzzle at the paintings, meander around the mosaics.

They could read portions of ancient texts, both in the original and in several translations.  They could learn from a trained and patient docent why a particular civilization had, for instance, created garments which were beaded over the entire (relatively skimpy) piece with shells and bits of shiny stones, or from another guide why the famed painter Kelizanie Patrischezch had chosen to use only five shades in her The Dawn Comes (Ukethetchesziezie)  series.

And, because it was available, because their were discounts for students, and because it insisted on a certain level of quiet but used firm barriers to keep small children from, say, climbing on the statue of The First Empress, it was well-attended, if perhaps not as well attented as it should have been.  It was, in terms of museums, quite a success.

All of which did a wonderful job of concealing the original mandate of the building and the organization which ran it.

Mayie Retoziven, lead curator for the Northeast Territories Section of the Imperial Museum of Arts and Culture, was up to her elbows in a box of trinkets and gizmos, objets d’art and fine embroidery when her alarm went off.

As she had both been trained in and then trained countless others in her decade as a lead curator, Mayie froze.  “Castellan!” she called to her assistant.  “There’s an issue.” Continue reading