fashion statement

[revivian]

Isabella eats up as much magic as Vivian can teach her; both of their library cards see a lot of use. The list of spells she's allowed to cast gets longer, and eventually she gains permission to cast one or two by herself. Vivian worries, but she's also proud. It's nice to see Isabella so motivated.

Now that Isabella has a medallion and a library card, they go to the Avalon more than just "as necessary to replenish her cash." It becomes something of a habit for Vivian to arrive, drop Isabella off at the library, and then wander around to sell her charms, do her shopping, catch up with her friends, or whatever else she feels like exploring that day. The critters are blinder to human society and politics than she might like, but she thinks she's getting through to some of them. If they want to blend into human culture, these things matter, after all.

Today in particular being a nice day, Vivian and Isabella took the whole day to go out. After a protest demanding equal rights for LGBT employees, they head into Avalon. Vivian leaves Isabella at the library and goes to grab a cup of tea from the cafe next to the marina. She drapes her jacket over the back of her chair, but when she sees the woman at the next table eyes her Out and Proud! button on it warily and grimacing, she removes it from the coat and puts it onto her shirt, front and center. Take that, nosy lady.

Comments

[shesepankh]

"I can read the books too, right?"

[revivian]

"When I'm not reading them!"

They're all technically far above Isabella's reading level, and many are in old and near-illegible scripts. Vivian has no expectation that any of this will stop her daughter. If she's lucky, it will slow her down.

[shesepankh]

The illegibility sure will.

The reading level, not so much.

[revivian]

It takes Vivian a good week and a half to find anything meaningful. She blames this on the fact that she wound up having to double check a translation of ancient Greek, but she finds it. Once she's found the one, she can find a few more. Mentions in passing of the "untrained" passing out, but with no indication that it's harmful. One source even includes jokes about it. It is, as nearly as she can tell, just one of those things that happens when you're not yet good at sphinx magic.

She gives Isabella the good news, but says firmly that healing people will wait until they are sure they can do it without revealing her either to the humans (as a critter) or to the dragons (as a sphinx).

And, after some dithering, she calls Gianna to tell her that yes, she checked, Isabella is totally fine, and how are she and her brother doing?

[alicornucopia]

Gianna and her brother are back in Italy telling everyone vague things about experimental US treatments and crystal healing, and he is pretending to be tired and not want visitors for extra cover, but they're both doing great, and are ever so grateful, and so glad that Isabella is all right.