pumpkin princess

[imeanforever]

Promise settles in. Her garden grows. Her tree grows; she stores her map and the rest of the notebook in there, first, and after she's been there for seven days, she can fit inside it herself. (At that early stage it's only an improvement over the outdoors when it's raining, but it's her tree. It'll get bigger.) She slowly broadens her diet as she learns the peculiar local plants and which ones she likes. She coaxes her tree into flower, picks one and ensorcels it, wraps cottony fluff from one of her trees in a giant flower petal of the same kind her bag is made of, and she has a pillow. The other flowers turn into haw berries that taste like home. She practices fairylights and then more complicated spells all around her new turf with her map, then without, until she has it memorized by feel and by the response of the magic when she casts.

When she doesn't need to do magic to her plants every single day to get and keep them producing at a rate sufficient to sustain her, she goes to the library and tells them things about the continent she came from in exchange for a half-century's membership. She brings home books. She makes paper to take notes on.

She doesn't have any near neighbors, but she has distant ones, and she trades foreign seeds and candied dewdrops for glass and books. She drinks her stream and writes her thoughts (a lot of her thoughts are about Arcane). She decompresses. She reads and thinks.

Time goes by. It's dark at night; sometimes she watches the stars.

Comments

[infinitely_stranger]

"Shimmer can escape them if she has access to enough water; I tested it once for curiosity's sake."

[imeanforever]

Promise makes a note of that.

[infinitely_stranger]

"All four of the decoy queens are lithes. They can run very fast. It isn't tremendously useful, but I've caught them out that way once or twice; even prevented from running at more-than-royal speeds, they move differently sometimes."

[imeanforever]

"Oh, I was assuming they had harmonic tells."

[infinitely_stranger]

"That too. But you have a chance of learning to notice how lithes move, and you don't have a chance of learning to distinguish the Queen's harmonic properties from her duplicates'."

[imeanforever]

Nod nod.

[infinitely_stranger]

He starts marking down kinds and magics in the Red Flight (Canvas - marigold calyx - sees heat; Triumph - silkpuff - sleeps 24 hours once a year) and the Diamond Nine (Prism - flamewreath - control fire at a touch; Signature - inkvein - acute hearing).

[imeanforever]

Promise makes stars next to ones that could be inconvenient and leaves unmarked things like the silkpuff that she thinks are unlikely to interact with anything they do.

[infinitely_stranger]

This seems like a sensible practice.

[imeanforever]

So sensible.

Eventually it is late. Promise is on a sleep cycle concordant with the forest's night; she flutters up to bed and utters nouns.

[infinitely_stranger]

Arcane stays up a little later, filling out the chart with more details and starting on Queenspalace maps with traps and harmonics included; then he occupies the guest room in a noun-free fashion.

[imeanforever]

Promise is up bright and early and chipper the next morning. She's gonna overthrow the Queeeeeeeeeen! With Arcaaaaaaane!

She makes enough breakfast for three in case Secret's already on her way.

[feel_so_free]

How astute of her. Secret shows up whole she's making breakfast.

Secret looks... like somebody who has been sleeping on a forest floor and eating only intermittently for several years.

[imeanforever]

"Hi, Secret. Are you okay? Here, breakfast."

[feel_so_free]

"Mm," says Secret. "Thanks."

She sits down to consume breakfast.

[infinitely_stranger]

Arcane emerges from the guest room.

He peers at Secret.

[imeanforever]

"Secret, Arcane. Arcane, Secret."

[infinitely_stranger]

Arcane... looks concerned.

[feel_so_free]

"Hi," yawns Secret.

[imeanforever]

"Secret, have you been eating anything besides what I've left with my notes?"

[feel_so_free]

"...maybe," she says. "I don't remember."

[infinitely_stranger]

"At a guess, no," says Arcane.

[imeanforever]

"I would've left food more often if I'd known you weren't going to forage."

[feel_so_free]

"'Sok," mumbles Secret.

[imeanforever]

Promise gets her some extra food.