Lucky Rabbit

Pandy fell backwards, and something else – someone else – fell on top of her. She opened her eyes, realized the someone was dead, closed them again, and pushed him off, scrambling out of the way as soon as she was free. A lance of pain shot through her right hand when it contacted the ground, and she yelped, yanking it back up, which very nearly ended up with her face-planting into the ground. Somehow, she managed to catch herself and scramble to her feet. Yay, increased Agility!

Looking up at the Cold Thing she’d backed into, Pandy babbled, “Sorry! Sorry sorry sorry, I, um, didn’t mean to! I was just looking, but you startled me, and then it just-” Her hands waved wildly, miming pushing coffins, falling corpses, catching, thrashing, bodies where bodies weren’t meant to be, and finally herself, thoroughly disheveled and panting as she tried to get enough air to apologize as profusely as she needed to.

For some reason, Nox didn’t look quite as angry as she would have expected, given that she’d thoroughly disturbed his master’s… Not grave. Resting Place? Was General Avington still resting? A cautious peek indicated that he was, indeed, as still and silent as the dead, unlike that poor woman in the, ah, whatever had just happened to her. Speaking of which, what just happened to her?

Reaching up, Pandy prodded at her head, feeling for any bumps, or maybe a gush of blood from where her skull had been caved in by a falling coffin, but found nothing except that her hand still hurt. Lowering her hand, she turned it palm up, staring at the seared flesh. It was gross, and she swallowed hard, casting Minor Heal as she looked away again, her gaze falling on General Preston Avington’s shriveled but upturned hand, where a white webwork of scar tissue was clearly visible.

Minor Heal successful.

Healed Pandora for +16 LF.

The skin of her hand wriggled in a Very Unpleasant way, and Pandy closed her fist around it, kneeling down beside the general. Glancing back up, Pandy asked, “May I, um, put him back? I’m not trying to hurt anything, or be, uh, disrespectful.”

The Apparition looked a bit like he wished he could rub his forehead, but he said, “I’ll do it. Leave him.” He wasn’t even gusty about it.

Once the body was back where it belonged – Pandy absolutely was not going to comment on the fact that it now looked like General Avington had a bit of scoliosis – Nox turned back to Pandy and said, “You saw.” There was no question in his voice, and she barely hesitated before nodding.

“Was that real?” she asked, questioning because she still had no idea how she could possibly have seen the memories of a man who had been dead for a century and a half. She did, however, have an active imagination, which was aided by the fact that much of her life consisted of events that other people would have insisted couldn’t actually happen, so she held up her newly intact hand and said, “Was it caused by this?”

Nox swelled up briefly before deflating again, the action accompanied by another of his moaning sighs. “Yes. Lord Avington left memories for his successors. So they would never forget what they fought against, and why protecting Nora’s descendants is so important.”

“On his body?” Pandy demanded. “That seems-” Nope, not going to say gross, weird, or crazy. “Ineffective, since he was buried.”

“In a mausoleum, where his family could visit him,” Nox said, sounding almost amused. Was amusement an emotion Apparitions had? But Nyssa often looked jolly, which paired well with amusement, so probably. Could Nox feel amusement? Apparently so.

Pandy glanced back at the general, seeing that his necklace had fallen forward in the tumble, the pendant now clearly revealed and even more obviously missing something. Holding up her hand again, since it was the only ‘proof’ she had that anything had actually happened, she said, “What is that stone? And where is it now?” She was fairly certain she knew the answer to the second question, at least, but she was curious what Nox would answer.

He shook his head. “You saw what you were meant to see. Though,” his eyes moved around his head, though the head itself didn’t turn, “perhaps next time you will be more respectful.”

Was he being sarcastic right now? He was! Were elementals allowed to be sarcastic? But the important thing was- “So if I touch him again, I’ll see more?”

She was already heading for the corpse – and ew, why was this how she had to get more information? – when Nox said, “No.”

Halting mid-reach, Pandy said, “No?”

“No,” he said firmly, then repeated himself more slowly, for the people in the back. “You have seen what you were meant to see. When you return the stone to its rightful place, you’ll earn more.”

“How am I meant to know where the stone is?” she asked, though inside she just might have stuck her mental tongue out at him just a little. She already knew, unless there were two different inch-wide black oval stones steeped in Dark magic. Which there might be, come to think of it, but if Nox didn’t know that, would it matter which one she brought back? Of course, there was the teeny tiny problem that the stone she had in mind was currently keeping Thaniel alive, but they would just have to jump that shark when it tried to eat them.

Nox had been slowly melting, his features sliding around in a very unsettling way, but now they vanished completely. His terminal protuberance swayed forward. “Fiiiiind iiiit,” he moaned, then sank through the floor. Really, it wasn’t fair that he and Nyssa always used their incorporeality to get the last word.

Releasing Shifting Faces, Pandy let out a little huff, shaking out her ears, then headed for the stairs. She was pretty much out of Mana, and while hurling herself around the lab had been fun, she thought she was finally ready to face the rest of the household. Besides, she wanted to see what they thought of the new and improved Nyssa.

She followed voices downstairs, discovering Nyssa, Isidor, and Eleanor in the library, chattering as they dug through the books. Eleanor had a bright red and green cloth tied over her lower face, and above it, her eyes sparkled in her dusty face. There was no sign of Glory, so Pandy – who had intended to watch from a safe distance – hopped through the open door.

“I’m certain we had a copy of Gorglannon’s Bestiary,” Nyssa said as she walked through a bookshelf, reappearing on the other side holding a thick green tome.

“I’ve never even heard of Gorglannon,” Isidor protested. “Professor Beeswick was using Intermediate Flora and Fauna by A. Malia.”

“Nonsense,” Nyssa said, putting the green book back apparently at random and plucking another from the shelf. “Gorglannon spent years collecting and categorizing data about all kinds of creatures. It was one of the first books adopted by the schools after they opened. Gorglannon himself taught at Condor when young Lady Penelope went there.”

Another ‘P’ name for an Avington family member. Was that something Preston did, or did his descendants start doing it on their own? His son was named Pierce, though, so…

“I found it!” Eleanor said triumphantly, holding up a book whose cover looked like it was mold-green because it was actually moldy, not because it had been dyed that color. The paint had flaked away from half of the letters stamped onto its spine, but what remained did indeed read G–G–NNON BEST.

“Oh, lovely. Well done!” Nyssa said, coming to Eleanor’s side. A small cloud of spores rose up from the book when she took it, which caused Eleanor to step back, holding her makeshift mask in place while blinking watering eyes.

Isidor climbed over what remained of a bookshelf, grimacing as another old shelf all but crumbled beneath the pressure of his hand. He frowned at the book Nyssa held out to him, but reluctantly took it between thumb and forefinger. Sighing, he said, “Thank you, Nyssa. But, ah, I believe Eurydice said I would be able to borrow books from the Kestrel library for a while.”

Nyssa sighed. “I know, but Avingtons shouldn’t need to borrow.” She looked around the library, which really was in terrible condition. Pandy had only seen it in the dark, but now a weak light came from everywhere and nowhere, and rather than gloomy and threatening, it just looked sad.

A muffled bark came from within the maze of shattered shelves and tumbled tomes, and everyone turned to look as Lord Winston’s head popped up in approximately the center of the room. One ear seemed to be stuck to the other, and something red was all over his jowly face. For a moment everyone stared, equally baffled and horrified, and then his tongue swept out, happily slurping his own nose.

“Oh my,” Nyssa said, floating over to lift the canine from his hiding spot. A length of red-stained fabric came with him. Eleanor let out a little cry, but Nyssa quickly reassured her. “No, no, my dear, it’s all right. It’s just jam. But I’m afraid he will need a bath.”

“Why is there jam in the library?” Isidor asked, getting close enough to gingerly remove a red-smeared book that had been stuck to the dog. It made a sticky sort of sound as it peeled away, and the dog squirmed, trying to lick it.

Nyssa’s rosy cheeks pinkened further as she cleared her throat. “Well, no time like the present for that bath,” she said briskly. “We’ll go draw the water before it gets dark, shall we?”

Pandy hopped out of the way, hiding in a small book-based bunny burrow as the children and elementals exited through the door behind her. They were fine, though rather dirtier than they probably ought to be. She mentally bumped ‘fix the plumbing’ a bit higher on her mental to-do list. Since it was already number one on the house-related part of the list, that didn’t actually change anything, but it did make her feel a bit better.

It didn’t take long to find Empress Glory, who was in her bedroom. Pandy could hear her in there, moving around, and used the Mana she’d managed to accumulate to cast Shield of Darkness just in time to hide in a cabinet before the woman emerged. Except that she wasn’t a woman any longer.

Gone were the long locks, either hidden beneath an expertly applied wig or cut short. Her face was free of makeup, and she wore a pair of pants and a shirt that looked like they might have started existence as one of the sheets that covered the furniture before Pandy disappeared most of said furniture into the book. Glory stopped in the doorway, glancing around, her lips pressed flat, and ran a trembling hand over her truncated tresses.

“I hate this,” she muttered, snatching her hand back, then closed her eyes and turned her face up to the ceiling, drawing in a slow, deep breath. “No, it’s just another role, Glory. You’re an actress. You can do it.”

Releasing the lungful of air in a single long gust, she strode out into the hallway. Even her walk was different – the sway of her hips replaced by a determined stride and a straight back. She paused, cocking her head as she heard a squeal from the direction of the kitchen, but it was followed by Eleanor’s bright laugh, and her lips curved.

Sticking her hands into her pockets and throwing back her shoulders, she called out, “I’m going to go arrange for someone to bring us food.” Then, before anyone could respond or come to see her off, she strode to the front door and threw it open, stepping out into the encroaching gloom before shutting the door behind her with a firm click.

Pandy sat there for a long moment, her ears twitching as she tried to decide what to do. She could go after Glory, but she couldn’t be there to watch the other woman all the time. She either trusted the Empress or she didn’t.

Well, she either trusted Professor Beeswick’s Skyrils and Augustus’s judgement or she didn’t, and as she searched her innards, she discovered that she did, in fact, trust all three of those things. No one smiled like that when listening to a child’s laughter when they intended to betray that child, and neither Beeswick nor Augustus had given her any reason to doubt them yet. All right, so there was that time Augustus got himself captured and poisoned, but he insisted he would have been fine, and that was good enough for her. Mostly.

Giving her ears another good shake, which sent up a cloud of library-dust, Pandy followed Glory’s example and headed for the door. Shifting quickly, she called out, “I’m going to Falconet, but I’ll be back before Lady Frances and Lady Arabelle get here in the morning.”

The kitchen door opened and Isidor stuck his head out. His hair was plastered to his head, and he was almost certainly soaked, though she couldn’t actually see the water from the front of the house. But the usually tense lines of his face were relaxed, and he actually smiled as he said, “Tell Thaniel hello for me.”

“Me too!” Eleanor said, poking her head out as well. There was a bark, and a definitely-soaked dog came scampering out into the hall, his paws slipping wildly on the wet boards as he ran away from his tormenters, barking in defiance. Eleanor and Isidor shouted, Eleanor sliding wildly down the hall as she chased the careening canine. Nyssa came after them, holding up a piece of cloth that was almost white, and was apparently serving as a towel.

Pandy watched until Eleanor slipped down the hall, sliding on her rear until she grabbed Lord Winston, lifting him into her arms with a grunt and a wild laugh. Her short hair stood up in damp clumps, but she looked like she was having the time of her life. Isidor and Nyssa were hot on her heels, Isidor trying to look exasperated while Nyssa clucked and held out the makeshift towel, ready to envelop girl and dog alike.

Closing the door, Pandy dismissed Shifting Faces and used Hop, launching herself up into the air. Her wings snapped out above her as she cast Wings of Glory, and she tilted to the side, riding a gust of wind upward until she soared up over the treetops, heading for Falconet.

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