57. Batch, Please

Last chapter…

Selene turned her Oly crush up to 10 (not that she has one ok) and suggested some light breaking and entering to steal magic books from the witches so that she can violate her best friend’s trust by creating a dream trap (well, when you say it like that it sounds bad).

Artemis was totally on board. The sisters turned to Coltsfoot as an unlikely ally. Artemis was totally not on board; I’m sure it’ll be fine though.

Oly and Persephone had some Dreamwalker Day Camp activities (Oly was not a fan), and we learned a bit about what humans can do (not soar FYI), but who the hell cares about all that after seeing Pili casually bump into Raet in the jungle?

Onward!

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To say that his sister was happy to see him was a bit of an understatement.

Truth be told, he was having a rough time keeping his shit together at seeing her too.

“I knew thou werest not yet bereft of life!” Raet could give any barnacle a run for it’s money, but it was totally fine.

“Can’t get rid of me that easily, RaRa,” she smelled like sunshine and flowers, and damned if he didn’t have to man through a fresh round of ‘don’t cry don’t cry’.

“See! I told you he wasn’t dead!” Nafi rounded on the man as he approached, “you shouldn’t have trapped him in the crypt!”

“Come on, kid, he looked dead, admit it…” So it was Khafre, then, not super shocking; if anyone could manage to drag a full grown vampire down into a basement and seal the door with a massive boulder, it was a fairy…or, well, pretty much any other supernatural creature for that matter.

“He’s a vampire, dummy, of course he looked dead,” wow, she was in full pre-teen swing, that one.

“Oh yeah, then why’s he walking around in the daytime, dummy,” Cassie would have hauled the pair of them into a family meeting right then and there.

Pili felt a pang of guilt hit him right in the gut.

“Ist it true? Art thou no longer afflicted with thine curse of undeath, mine brother?”

“You got it, all cured up and fully human,” Raet gasped at the confirmation.

“So…it worked then?” Khafre squinted at him, as though hoping to see whatever “it” was.

“Dude, what?”

“Well, you know, I healed you…I mean, you seemed like you were already dead…”

“Omg, except he wasn’t,” hissed Nafi.

“Right, but I did it anyhow, smart ass, just in case, and then…well…sorry I sealed you in that crypt man; it must’ve been a bitch to get out of there as a human.”

“No worries bud, I managed,” why not let them be impressed by his badassery for now, “you must have some pretty serious fae juju going on to heal the undeath right out of a guy.”

Khafre blinked rapidly for a moment, “er…”

“He knowest about thine miraculous gifts, mine heart!”

Nafi huffed and grumbled something under her breath.

“And that ist as it should be, for there ought exist no secrets betwixt us now the Goddess hast restored thou to Ourselves,” there was that guilt thing again.

“You know it,” she had mom’s eyes, this one, full of sparkles…or something, “how did you guys end up here, anyhow?” They were a long way from Al Simhara, out here in the jungles of Simchu Pichu.

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Mosi stood among the foliage regretting his choice of footwear, though, was it not the curse of genius to overlook the mundane? Yes, that was most assuredly it; he was simply too intelligent to foresee being appropriately shod for this obscene wilderness trek.

Why, they were at least 300 meters away from his house!

The ruffians had led him on a merry chase; through the back yard, past the elementary school, and finally cresting over the hill that separated them from their quarry…

Madam Blackthorne’s domicile.

Mosi watched them stride up to the entrance as though they had not a care in the world; his wayward sisters and their dimwitted thrall.

They thought they were so very clever! (Well, perhaps Artemis was moderately clever, though no where near his own level of genius, naturally) sneaking away to infiltrate the witch den while the residents were away hosting a booth at the Brooms & Booms Spellcraft Faire…

Another biting insect took advantage of his proximity to the natural world, “confound it!” He was relieve that mother wasn’t around to hear his foul language; there would be hives later, Mosi was certain of it.

Though…that rock formation over yon did seem to be the correct height and adequate level of smoothness to accommodate a pair of capricious, writhing, bod–

“For Jupiter’s sake!” There they went once again, those cursed hormones, invading the sacred sanctuary of his intellect, sullying the great repository of wisdom and logic that was his mind-temple.

Drat, the cretins had disappeared from view while he’d been inner-monologuing; good thing he’d remembered to bring his inhaler, this was proving to be a more lively event than he’d anticipated.

Excellent, they had yet to breach the fortifications.

“Omg shithead, please take even longer to find the key; I’m not dead yet,” as usual, Artemis was expressing her impatience with the last resort of the perpetually unwitty; sarcasm.

Still, Mosi would be lying if he said he wouldn’t appreciate every effort on the imbecile’s part to find said key; the foliage was beginning to get a bit handsy.

“I can’t do it when you’re yelling at me!” Whined the nincompoop…ehehe, that’s what he sai–

“Confound it again!” He was careful to mutter it peevishly under his breath so as not to alert the delinquents (these hormones could possibly be the end of him, however).

Although, perhaps the insects would devour him beforehand…

“About fucking time,” he heard Artemis grumble; ah, they’d pierced the defenses (much like said insects were piercing his tender flesh).

Mosi tried desperately to get his mind to abandon other potential scenarios involving the word ‘pierce’, and focus on the task at hand…

…and fortune, it seemed, had chosen to favour him that day.

At last, he would be granted succor from his earth-bound seraph, and put an end to his torment…surely then he would be free of this biological prison! Mosi’s hormones rallied to the cause, driving him boldly forward.

Voices came from the library on the lower level, no doubt the hoodlums were plundering it at that very moment, for he knew them to be in search of magical texts…

While he himself was after something infinitely more practical.

“Stars!” He couldn’t help the exclamation, Oly’s mother’s laboratory was…disheveled, to say the least; Mosi sighed, “this may take a while.”

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“This place always reminds me of home,” Persephone let her gaze linger over the overgrown Themysimran-style ruins of The Woulding’s upper cliffs; it was one of the few places within the boundaries of the witch sanctuary where they could speak openly among themselves, seeing as the other residents seldom bothered to come.

“One day, my children, I hope to show you the land of our origin,” her voice grew melancholy, “and present you to your beloved father.”

Orion sighed indolently, “but I don’t want to return to ancient times, mother,” he sighed a second time, for effect, a pout threatening his lower lip, “why can father not come to us instead?”

Aries held his tongue; he wished this also, but mother had been especially mercurial of late, and he did not desire her displeasure directed at him.

“If only it were so simple, my love, to pluck someone from the pages of time, at will…”

“The Anchor could yet be found, mother,” Aries jumped to sooth her, “the witches search for it still.”

“The witches have proven themselves next to useless in this endeavor,” Persephone hissed, “it was foolish of me to hope they might recover it where I could not.”

Orion blew out a third sigh, “I don’t understand, they found that beastly well, didn’t they?” Aries refrained from pointing out to his brother that the lack of understanding would improve the more he cared to pay attention.

“They found it in ruins, and I myself went to inspect the remains; the Anchor stone was missing of course, someone took it! Someone who knew what to look for!”

“Well, it was probably the witches then, or that shapeshifting chattel they keep!” Orion scoffed, as though this were the most obvious explanation and why had it not been deduced already?

“Brilliant, as usual, Orion, how ever would we get on without you?”

“Enough!” Persephone shot her elder son a stern glare, “do not taunt your brother, Aries, it is unworthy.”

Aries knew she did not mean to favour Orion, but could not help the pain it caused her to look upon the child that so resembled the love she had lost, “yes, of course, mother; I do apologize.”

“It was not the witches, of that I am certain,” her mien softened as she contemplated the puzzle at hand, “if they had it here, I would know…no, this was someone else, someone who has taken great pains to keep it hidden from me.”

“But you felt it, did you not? All those years ago when that recovered vampire disappeared?” Perhaps Orion was not as ridiculous as he had originally surmised; an unpleasant thought.

“Yes! It was here! But then gone again so swiftly!” Her voice trembled with the threat of tears, “I do not understand…it was as though someone desired to taunt me with it’s nearness, who could be so wicked? So cruel?”

It haunted her still, that night when she’d been roused from slumber by the siren song of her magic beckoning to her; in her childlike form she’d been powerless to answer it’s call in time, startled by it’s sudden appearance, unprepared…and it had slipped through her fingers like so many grains of sand.

“This is why mother is filled with so much hopelessness, my darling,” Persephone addressed her fairer child, “I am certain the witches do not have it; Primrose Pennyroyal would never permit anyone to keep it from us, and the person who does have it is clever and powerful enough to withhold it from her, even in her own haven.”

A fourth sigh, this one more theatrical than the rest, “well, who then? There is only witches here, and humans…surely you don’t think the humans did it?”

“No, of course not, the very idea!” Their mother snorted, “no, there is something else at play here, something I have not yet surmised; but it cannot remain hidden from me forever.”

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Footnotes:

Finally some questions answered! More of the little buggers seem to just pop right up again, though, don’t they? Ah well! At least we got some fairy exposition in (and got to hear both the twins speak, omg)…hmm, still no sighting of Mosi’s bedroom though yet, maybe next time?

Cred for the pose and book object below goes Kiru.

Artemis is way too engrossed to wish you HAPPY SIMMING!!