Most Likely A Refuge

[whatamithinking]

It was probably safe.

The bar was...unusually reticent, in the lower layers of her mind (and she hadn't pried further; she wasn't sure if she'd be noticed; she wasn't sure if offending would get her kicked out, and regardless of whether it was actually safe it was safer than anywhere else she'd been for the past...three years?) so she couldn't be sure this place wasn't really a trap of some kind, but the higher layers gave a plausible explanation that didn't involve being a trap, and whatever else it was warm and dry and had food. Her guard was probably a full 25% down. Positively trusting, these days.

Comments

[mindovermagic]

"Mooom..."

[onceandforall]

"Should I not ask?" Bella inquires of Edie.

[mindovermagic]

"Uhhh..."

[ragexserenity]

"You're the first person she's had this strong a crush on who wasn't a fictional character."

[onceandforall]

"Aww."

[mutatis_mutandis]

"So we wanted to meet you now, since we can't rely on being able to do so in the future."

[onceandforall]

"Well, hi."

[mutatis_mutandis]

"Hello. My name is Charlotte, and this is my husband Erik. Edie tells us you're a completely different kind of magical girl with a rather unfortunate home situation. What did you do before saving the world from deceptively fuzzy aliens and the results of their evil emotion-vampire system?"

[onceandforall]

"It actually took me a few loops to figure out the evil emotion-vampire part. Before I was a magical girl I think I was fairly ordinary to the outside observer? I attended high school. Woo."

[mutatis_mutandis]

"Ah, high school. I have such fond memories of weaseling my way out of Phys Ed. And not much else. You're well rid of that, anyway."

[onceandforall]

"Well, I didn't have to do gym class, before I was magical I was so clumsy I didn't even have a very good track record at walking on level surfaces, I brought in my medical records and did yoga in the corner."

[mutatis_mutandis]

"Lucky you. Unfortunately, 'several years younger than everyone else there' wasn't considered such a valid excuse."

[onceandforall]

"Pity."

[ragexserenity]

"Now that you're also our kind of magical girl and your primary hazard has become significantly less so, what are the major dangers your loops contain?"

[onceandforall]

"Uh, I just got a mind defense spell, so I guess the things that could most easily take me out at this point would be prolonged separation from my body, excessively informed fluff shenanigans with unfamiliar magic to counter or alter mine, and non-magical methods of mind-warping which don't admit suicide as an escape hatch for some reason."

[ragexserenity]

"I don't know if it's come up, but our world has more kinds of magic than just magical girls. I'm a sorcerer. I can't say I know enough about fluff magic to usefully counter it, but I do know of spells to keep one from being separated from individual belongings and as a sort of magical poison tooth."

[mutatis_mutandis]

Charlotte...doesn't look entirely happy, but doesn't comment.

[onceandforall]

"Those would be very useful."

[ragexserenity]

"I don't have either of them memorized at the moment. I'll be right back with my old notes." And he goes out the door.

[mutatis_mutandis]

Charlotte sighs and rubs her face.

[onceandforall]

"Is something wrong?"

[mutatis_mutandis]

"Sometimes it bothers me how cavalier he is about the part of his life that taught him that spell."

[onceandforall]

"Edie hadn't mentioned sorcery at all that I remember, what is it?"

[mutatis_mutandis]

"Sorcery is magic that...can do anything, essentially. It's limited sharply by the skill of the sorcerer in question, but it doesn't have hard limits to what you're capable of doing at any given time like magical girls or artifact users have."

[onceandforall]

"...I want it."