witchcraft and sorcery

[witchwatcher]

For a brief moment, in a certain part of fairyland there is a tear that leads to the cold sky above a snow-covered hilly forest somewhere in the mortal world.

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[imeanforever]

And someone goes through it and stops.

She can move her wings just enough to slow her fall into the snow.

She can sit up.

That's about it.

[witchwatcher]

After a while, possibly a few hours, it's hard to tell, a mortal in heavy clothes flies above her. Not in the usual way, with wings, but with some kind of metal thing four or five times bigger than she is. Her jacket says 'Courier' on it.

The courier glances down as she passes. She makes a wide, slow turn, and eventually comes in to land the thing nearby with a thump. "Hey. D'you need a jacket or something?"

[imeanforever]

Promise can look at her. She can't talk. She can't even nod.

[witchwatcher]

"...You're cursed. Or something. Can you do anything to communicate? Blink once for yes and twice for no, something like that?"

[imeanforever]

Promise blinks once.

[witchwatcher]

"Okay. First thing, you want me to start a fire? You want some heavy clothes? You look like you're going to freeze to death."

[imeanforever]

Blink. Long pause. Blink.

[witchwatcher]

"Right." She opens up a drawer on her big flying thing. In it are a few kinds of clothes - she extracts a big blanket that appears to be made out of animal fur and lays it over and around Promise, brushing the snow around her out of the mini-tent, leaving her head and not much else uncovered.

She snaps a few branches off the nearby trees without actually touching them, arranges them into a pyramid, and snaps her fingers at the pile of wood, which becomes a fire.

"Next thing. Curse-lifters are rare, but can I help you somehow? End conditions are usually easier the nastier the curse is..."

[imeanforever]

Those are... odd abilities... to discover from a mortal. In the mortal world. Weird. Promise can't do any sorcery to check the harmonics...

Blink. The mortal could help her. Given a sufficiently convoluted set of actions, which the mortal might never guess, but still.

[witchwatcher]

"Okay. Common curse-end clauses. A certain amount of time passing. Doing something heroic. Reuniting with family... Wait. Stupidity check: Are you actually under a curse?"

[imeanforever]

Blink blink.

[witchwatcher]

"Not a curse... Innata could have given you the wings and the plant-y sound your lifeforce gives off, but this whole not being able to do anything, no. I can help you somehow... Would that involve bringing you somewhere? Giving you something? Doing something to you? Finding someone for you? Blink thrice if none of those are on the right track."

[imeanforever]

Promise blinks once each at 'giving you something' and again at 'doing something to you'.

[witchwatcher]

"Giving you something. Food and water, a silver amulet, a certain kind of clothes..." She goes on to list increasingly random things unless interrupted by a blink.

[imeanforever]

Food is it.

[witchwatcher]

"Right, you can have my biscuit, then." She digs some sort of... Bread, wrapped in paper, out of a pocket and holds it out to her.

[imeanforever]

Promise opens her mouth.

[witchwatcher]

And Gren puts a small chunk of the biscuit inside it. "Water too?"

[imeanforever]

Blink. May as well. Chew chew.

[witchwatcher]

A glass bottle is deployed, and small sips offered to her.

"Did that fix you? Do I need to do something else?"

[imeanforever]

Blink for 'something else'.

[witchwatcher]

"Something else I need to do to you. Ugh. I have to get back to flying soon, I'll lose pay if I'm late to deliver this stuff. You can't talk, or do much of anything. You found a way around it, though a limited one. A loophole. Almost... Like... A geas."

Long pause. "Did the food give me control over your geas? Or something close enough?"

[imeanforever]

Blink for 'close enough'.

[witchwatcher]

"Ooookay then. I'm not qualified for this. Um. Unless you speaking could harm me somehow, you may speak. Answer me honestly, could you harm me if I removed your geas completely?"

[imeanforever]

"I don't think so. I don't think I can even do magic here and I'm tiny and clumsy and harmless without it."