faun

[shesepankh]

Saturday morning sees Bella with her notebooks about magic all in her knapsack, her medallion safety-pinned by its chain to her bra just in case she trips the wrong way, waiting with Charlie for pickup for the Avalon trip.

Comments

[shesepankh]

"It was leaving a strange enough trail that it might have looked like arson, I can ask Charlie to see if there's anybody worrying about serial arson among the cops in case there's a pattern news reports wouldn't mention."

[castmyown]

Darren nods. "Sounds good. I guess maybe we could also ask Mrs. Adams about bugbear senses, and ask if she knows much about its habits or its route before it found us?"

[shesepankh]

"Yes, that's a good idea," agrees Bella, snapping her fingers, "and if there's any - I mean, it's more likely to be some kind of critter, right, than a human? If there's any critters around who aren't ruled out on account of obviously not wanting me dead."

[castmyown]

"It could be a human that has been made aware of critters and knows magic," points out Darren. "Or something to get a Cherufe to work for them, some leverage of another sort or something."

[shesepankh]

"What's the relative population of critters and critter-aware humans, though?"

[castmyown]

"More critters to critter-aware humans - I don't have the actual numbers, but... Usually a human gets told if they're best friends with or spouse of a critter. Neither leads very well to large numbers."

[shesepankh]

"So, most likely a critter, and Mrs. Adams can find those - although I guess it could be a critter like Angela who knows about things but hasn't turned."

[castmyown]

"Yeah. So it's probably a bad idea to rule out other options, entirely. Unfortunately."

[shesepankh]

"Yeah. But critters are people of interest, at least. Even if they aren't in fact trying to kill me. I think I'd like to know more critters."

[castmyown]

"Fair point. Okay, we can see about meeting the critter community in and around Forks for reasons other than extremely justified paranoia," he teases.

[shesepankh]

Bella giggles. "We can start a club."

[castmyown]

"We can! What should we call it? Hopefully something funny and clever."

[shesepankh]

"Oh, you've gone and set the bar awfully high there."

[castmyown]

"I have. I will settle for nothing less, now. Excellence only."

[shesepankh]

"Well, there go all my ideas, I hope you have something good in mind."

[castmyown]

"... Nope! Nothing in the slightest."

[shesepankh]

"Well, then your high standards might not be satisfied."

[castmyown]

"I don't know what I'll do if they aren't! I might cry, Bella."

[shesepankh]

"Oh no! That would be tragic. Hmmmm. Well, let's see, Angela's not a quadruped, so we can't play off that..."

[castmyown]

"And you're not part deer, so we can't play off of that."

[shesepankh]

"How does all this - animal affinity - work, anyway? Do I literally have ancestors who were lions and birds in, like, the zoo sense?"

[castmyown]

"I really hope not? Because um. That implies some things that I don't want to think about very much. As for how it works - I have no idea."

[shesepankh]

"And apparently there are several kinds of perytons and gryphons and so on? Are they any more related than perytons are to fauns, or are they just loosely similar and sharing words?"

[castmyown]

"Yeah - I've got no idea why there are several kinds. I think they're actually similar in species, it's just some cosmetic changes? But I haven't studied critter biology, I majored in magic in creature lessons."

[shesepankh]

"But where do the cosmetic changes come from? Is one or the other kind a recent mutation of the other?"