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 Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 2:44 pm
Sosiqui paused. Where HAD that gone?
... that's right. She'd seen Quagmire, the theiving gembird, making off with it a few nights ago, and she hadn't felt like stopping the bird. It was only a pen, after all.
"Dammit! The bird's got it!"
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 2:50 pm
"Bird? Oh GREAT. Look, we've gotta get that pen and destroy it. My headband can be re-etched to reshape the signet and destroy the enchantment, but if we don't find that pen the Striders can find me anytime they want!"
Carda kept quiet about the scar on his arm for the time being. He figured this wasn't the best time to bring that up.
Carda started pacing. "Any idea where this bird might have gone?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 2:51 pm
"It's your... didn't you say you used that to find me? Well, find it again!" Sosiqui flailed. "That stupid bird could be anywhere. Quagmire loves taking shiny things and ferreting them away, who knows where. I usually chase the damn bird out whenever I see him, but he keeps coming back..."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:04 pm
Carda slapped his forehead with his palm. "I'm not normally this stupid, I swear." Carda reached out with his sense of detection and got a general fix on the location of the pen. Unfortunately there was so much magical interference that he couldn't get an exact location.
"Well, I think the pen is about a mile that way," Carda answered, pointing in a vague direction. "There's so much interference that I can't get a good fix until I get closer to it."
Carda reached for his scarf and staff. "Shall we go? The sooner we roast that pen the better."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:13 pm
"Fine." Sosiqui slung her coat out of the hall closet and scribbled a note to Riven, which she stuck onto the fridge. "Let's go," she ordered, checking to make sure she had her wand.
She waited for Carda to go out, then locked the door and walked over to Five. "Hey kiddo, that was good, but there's something else we want to burn up like that." She eyed the yard - the snow where the spell had been centered had been melted down to the grass. The grass was unharmed, though, oddly enough. A faint smell of melted metal hung in the air. "Let's go for a walk, okay?"
Five nodded and slipped his gloved hand into hers. "Okay," Sosiqui said, turning to Carda. "Oh, this is Carda, Five."
Five squirmed shyly.
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:19 pm
Carda blinked, but smiled. The little guy seemed shy, but at least he wasn't setting off Carda's suspension of belief. That was something.
As they set off down the road, Carda kept checking his detection sense every so often, and sure enough, the closer he got, the more sure he was of the pen's location. Finally after about fifteen minutes of walking, he stopped. "There. It's in the attic of that house."
Seraphim floated up and alighted on Carda's shoulder. "Well this house certainly looks familiar," she quipped.
Carda blinked. "Oh you have GOT to be KIDDING me."
He was looking at his own house.
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:24 pm
Sosiqui arched one eyebrow. "Something wrong?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:31 pm
Carda crossed his arms and continued staring at the house. "I'll say there is! That damn bird has taken up residence in MY HOUSE!" Without waiting for a reply he marched towards his front door. "I knew that this house was empty for quite a while before I bought it, but I'll be damned if I'm going to let Klepto the Wonder Bird shack up in my attic!"
Carda threw the front door open, pulled a ladder out of the back of the coat closet, and headed for his spare bedroom, which was thankfully empty. The closet with attic access sat in the back corner of this room.
Carda set the ladder up in the closet and pushed hard against the trap door to the attic. Slowly, as if a heavy weight was being leveraged off of the door, the door gave way and flipped up into the attic.
"I've got a sneaky suspicion that a lot of this stuff belongs to you," he commented to Sosiqui.
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:37 pm
Sosiqui peered up the ladder, only to hear a sudden flurry of wingbeats. "Kweh! KWEH!"
She groaned. "That sounds like Quagmire, alright. Move over." She climbed up the ladder and poked her head into the attic. Sure enough, the purple gembird was blinking at her, perched atop a hodgepodge of assorted stuff - most of it junk. Bottlecaps, soda cans, brightly-colored feathers...
"Move it," she ordered the bird, reaching for the pile.
"Wark!" Quagmire aimed a peck at her hand, but she avoided it, shooting the bird a glare. He fluffed his feathers and grumbled at her. "Wark."
"Let's see..." She didn't care about the junk, or where it came from... and, despite Carda's suspicion, she didn't see anything of hers in the bird's hoard. She'd long since put the fear of God into the little bird, and he rarely took anything important anymore. She hadn't thought the pen was important.
Ah. She pulled the pen out of the pile, shaking a few stray feathers off of it. "Gotcha. And YOU," she added, smacking Quagmire on the head with the pen.
"Kwehh..."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:43 pm
Carda watched as Sosiqui successfully retrieved the pen and descended the ladder with a mildly triumphant look on her face.
"Well, the little guy can do his... Flare... thing... out in the front yard, I guess. As for me..." Carda hefted his staff. "I'm going to have a little 'conversation' with the squatter in my attic."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:49 pm
Sosiqui shook her head. "I'll take him back with me. He's, um, not quite right in the head. Happens a lot with this particular kind of bird. Fortunately the other one we keep is sweet as sugar, or else there'd be roasting going on at my house." She raised her voice. "Come on, you."
"Wark," came from the attic, but in a flurry of purple the bird flew down to perch on Sosiqui's shoulder. He shifted back and forth and looked vaguely annoyed at being caught.
"Stay there," Sosiqui ordered, then walked outside, quickly. She tossed the pen on the snow and took a few steps back as Five raised his staff again.
FOOM.
"That should work," Sosiqui managed to say over Quagmire's terrified "WARK! WARK! WAAAAAAARK!"-ing.
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:52 pm
Carda suddenly realized that he had left quite a few things at Sosiqui's house. "Guess I'll be heading back with you," he replied. "No sense leaving all my stuff at your place. Especially my headband..."
Carda paused for a moment. "You know, in all the excitement, I don't think I ever explained to you exactly WHY I quit the Striders."
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:55 pm
Sosiqui was abruptly tired. "Considering all the trouble this was, I'd almost rather you hadn't," she grumbled at him. Five toddled over and leaned against her leg; he was tired. "You did good, Five," she reassured the little mage, taking his hand again and depositing Quagmire on the brim of his hat.
"Let's go, then," she muttered, then stopped as a book tumbled out of her jacket. "Oops. Forgot about that. It's yours, right?" She held it out with her free hand.
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 3:58 pm
"Oh yeah, thanks. I didn't realize you still had my novel." Carda's thoughts returned to Xironielle. He couldn't let anything happen to her; not in the state she was in.
Carda had an abrupt thought; so abrupt it surprised him. "Hey, I know this is going to seem like a weird question, but do you know anyone who could reunite a soul with its body?"
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Posted: Mon Jan 17, 2005 4:01 pm
Sosiqui blinked. "You do ask the weirdest questions for somone with... er... your odd fainting problem," she said. "And I do, actually... but I haven't seen Shina for months now. She's another Fa'e, like my son Riven... sort of, anyway. It's complicated." She waved her free hand dismissively. "In any case, Shina's pregnant. Her powers will weaken if not vanish completely quite soon. Don't ask about that, either."
Really, the more she thought about it, the more she wanted to go and KICK that other Sosiqui.
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