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crossposted in Serif's diary

It was for situations like this that the term "delayed reaction" was coined.

Kumoru caught the bus home at the stop a block up the street from the laboratory. He sat down on a seat near the back, and as he did so, the essence vial that had been resting, nearly forgotten, in his pocket, touched his leg through the pocket of his pants. Instantly, he felt a deep cold sensation coming from it where it contacted his skin, and sent chills all up and down that side of his body.

This was a necessary thing, as it finally managed to fully snap him out of his intense study of the soul bottle that was still in his hands. The mage narrowly avoided dropping it in surprise, then reached into his pocket to take the cold essence vial out to look at it.

Inside the bottle was a rose encased in ice.

Kumoru, who had even previously admitted to Isi that he was the worst of gardeners, felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach. Of all the things they could have given him, they gave him a plant. And a rose, too. He knew from trips to the grocery store that roses were not cheap. Placing one in his care, frozen or not, was a most glaring waste of a rose.

And then he remembered what the receptionist had told him.

"Welcome to the family."

He was going to get another child out of this.

The mage twisted around in his seat to look out the window, even though he knew it would do no good as the bus was already moving. Perhaps there was some sort of mistake? She grabbed the wrong sticky-note, perhaps, that said he was supposed to get a flower of all things, and that he would get one of these Raevan creatures out of it, too.

Well, granted, it would be interesting, but still. Three children were quite enough.

With a sigh, Kumoru set the ice rose bottle in his lap carefully where it would not roll away with the bus's motion, and hopefully not chill any vital parts of him before he got to his stop.

In the mean time, he would have the soul bottle to examine and poke at. A smile spread across the necromancer's features. Maybe he could just keep the thing for study, and ignore the essence. Keep the rose in his freezer or something. It would die in his care anyway. It was a terribly irresponsible thought, and that bothered Kumoru, but still....

Honestly, he knew it was not the best course of action. If he wanted to take care of the rose entrusted to him, Kumoru knew he would have about three days to catch a soul and get it back to the lab. Well, three days, provided that this rose was prone to death just like a real one. Maybe two days.

Much as he was reluctant to get himself another something to take care of, and also to part with the soul bottle so quickly, the Laboratory had given him this essence thing.... Oh well, perhaps he could just play it by ear. If the rose died more quickly than expected, than Kumoru would have all the time he wanted to study the soul bottle. And Lab 305 would simply not hear about it.

Truth be told, Kumoru forgot to come back for the bottle later that day. It sat in the darkness of the refrigerator - the light really does go out when the door is closed - overnight and into the next morning.

The unknown properties of the soul bottle still had their mission in mind, though. The top of the bottle was purple, but the rod-shapped patterns like dotted lines on a treasure map were nearly colorless. The small glass vessel, of course, had no mind of its own, yet somehow, by magic or science, it was determined to find something that looked enough like the patterned top, and take its soul.

The other things in the refrigerator were many and varied, what with four people in the house. There was very little meat, since Donat would not eat it, and Serif was quite picky herself. Plenty of vegetables sat in the bottom drawers. There was lots of milk available for growing children. Closest to the soul bottle, however, happened to be a little six-pack of plastic cups of youghurt, topped with colorfol foil printed with pictures of animals.

It was clearly more science than magic, but the yoghurt was quite alive, even during the wee hours of the morning. Too small to be seen unaided by even the sharpest eyes, the Lactobacillus bulgaricus within the youghurt did the one thing it was programmed to do, and devoured lactose to turn into lactic acid. Without feeling at all, the tens of thousands of them carried out their singular task, making youghurt what it was.

The soul bottle rested directly above the six-pack of childrens' yoghurt. It had its own single task as well. Perhaps the unusual glass even shared some sort of mindless understanding with the bacteria going about their business on the shelf below. Maybe this was what set the soul bottle's mysterious magic into motion.

On the other side of the bottle's glass shelf, down through the shiny foil covers, within the yoghurt, the little bacteria started to die. The ones closest to the tops of the little cups first, then more and more, further and further down. They did not feel a thing, but regardless, an infinitesimal flake of soul was released from each. They must have been bouyant in yoghurt, too, for they rose and gathered just under the foil.

They had no will of their own; all they knew was to stick together as a group. Mysteriously, the souls all felt that they no longer had to keep eating at the milk of the yoghurt, though. They were confused. What was their purpose now?

The soul bottle told them. With great spiritual force, it sucked all the little clumps of sprits straight through the tops of the yoghurt cups and through the four or so inches of empty space below the shelf. Then, with more effort, it pulled all of them through the glass shelf itself, until they were up against the vessel's own outside surface.

The bacteria souls stuck all over the soul bottle like the finest of purple glitter. There were enough of them to fill that corner of the refigerator with the faintest of lights. And then, in an instant, they vanished. There was nothing for a moment, and then the glow reappeared within the soul bottle, where it spread to fill the space like milk through coffee, and slowly started to turn over and over itself in little misty swirls.

While Kumoru himself was asleep and quite unaware of the goings on in his refrigerator, the soul bottle had made its capture.

Kumoru came rushing downstairs to his kitchen to the music of Arlyn's shrieking. As he skidded into the room on the tiled floor, the mage saw the boy curled up on the floor in front of the refrigerator, his arms and legs almost completely faded into nothingness. He appeared to be starting to sink into the floor as well.

Not taking the time to think rationally, the mage reached down and grabbed at the Anima's wings, tail, ankles, anything on which he might be able to get a grip. His hands went straight through the boy, though.

He sure as hell knew no magic for a situation like this.

"Arlyn, hold on!" Kumoru shouted, not sure what else he could do. He clenched his hands into fists, then tried again to pick the boy up or something, anything.

Arlyn shouted to hear himself shout. There was some other voice as well. That was good. He had to find his way back or something. The Anima kept screaming, and trying to pound where the floor should be with his fists.

And then, with surprising suddenness, there was resistance against the muscles in his arm bringing his hand down. The warmth of other fingers around his arm. And his father.

Shaking, Arlyn punched the floor a few times with his other hand, just to be sure it was still there below him. He could feel his father's presence not far away, and, too shaken to know what else to do, the Anima allowed himself to fall over against Kumoru's legs. He was solid enough to land against them, his wings even aching welcomingly at the awkward position.

Gently releasing Arlyn's now-solid wrist, Kumoru crouched down and played with the boy's hair a little, wondering how best to calm him down. He seemed to be mostly alright as soon as he stopped disappearing, but the Anima was still shaking a little.

It was quite unlike Revenge to look this shaken-up, Kumoru thought, but the boy had good reason. How long had this been going on? Was this the first time Arlyn had nearly vanished?

With a sudden wave of dread, the mage abruptly remembered the soul bottle in the refrigerator. Right mrere inches from where Arlyn's ghostly hands had been grasping.

Had the bottle tried to take his son's soul? Had it succeeded? Was that what had made Arlyn nearly disappear?

With renewed energy, Kumoru moved the boy out from in front of the refrigerator and threw the door open, reaching back to where he had placed the soul bottle and forgotten about it.

The light of a soul glowed from within.

Crossposted in Arlyn's journal

._Open Sesame





















(( crossposted to Arlyn's journal ))

._Release and Confusion 2

"Hi, Dad," Donat greeted as he stepped into the kitchen and tugged the refrigerator door open. "Oh yeah, did you get more yoghurt last time you went to the store?"

Kumoru had been slouching in his seat at the kitchen table with his head resting against his palm and his fingers tangled in his bangs when Donat came into the room. He looked up as the boy spoke to him, though, then nodded at his question.

"Yeah, more of the strawberry-banana. That was the kind you liked, right?"

"Those are good," the goat said as he took the package of six out of the back of the refrigerator. "The berry ones are better, though. But thanks." He broke one of the little cups off of the six-pack, then went to get a spoon.

"Alright. I'll look for berry next time." Kumoru sat up and brushed the metallic bits of the soul bottle lock mechanism into a small pile. Then he leaned over and checked the floor to see if he had dropped any.

Donat laughed a little. "I could come and look, too. You always go in the middle of the night and forget stuff." He pushed the drawer of utensils shut, then walked over to sit in his own seat at the table, to Kumoru's left.

With some effort, he peeled the foil lid off of the yoghurt and ate a spoonful. Then he made a face. "You just got this last week, Dad? It tastes kind of... old."

Kumoru frowned a little. "I just got it a few days ago. And you were all out, right? There weren't some left in the back of the refrigerator that you forgot about?"

The goat shook his head and brushed his hair away from his face. "This was in the back, but it was the only yoghurt in there."

The necromancer took the cup of yoghurt from Donat and looked it over for the expiration date. He did tend to forget to check things like that when he was grocery shopping, but the yoghurt looked like it should be okay for another three weeks. It still a little funny, though.

Wrinkling his nose again, Donat took the yoghurt back and looked into the cup at it. "I guess we'll have to go get more berry anyway. All of it must be yucky."

"Alright," Kumoru said, standing up. He picked up the pieces of the soul bottle and put them in his sleeve. "You want something else to eat before we go? I have to take these upstairs."

"Yeah, I can get it." Donat shoved his chair back and went over to the pantry.

Once all the bits and pieces were in the pockets Kumoru's sleeves formed at the end, he headed upstairs, laughing a little to himself at the way he clanked when he moved his arms.

When he got to his desk, he shoved a couple books and papers aside, then started to take the pieces out of his sleeves one by one. He tried to lay them out on the blotter as well as he could remember how they had originally fit together. The mage planned on playing with them later, to see what else he could figure out.

And then he had a thought. What if the yoghurt had had its soul taken out somehow by the bottle? It was crazy, but still - the bottle had been on a back shelf, as had the little six-pack of yoghurt cups. Did yoghurt even have a soul? Kumoru had never seen one. But things without souls died, crumbled, went bad, whatever.

Regardless of what had happened, though, the soul in the bottle had not been Arlyn's. He may never know for sure, since the little bits of soul had been so weak and faint that they had passed on within a few hours of being released from the bottle.

Oh well, the mage would get the new soul on purpose when he got his new bottle, and not by mistake like whatever had happened this time.

But first, new yoghurt.

Kumoru went to Arlyn's room to check on him before they left.

._Stopping the mail

Kumoru paced just inside his kitchen with his arms crossed, watching the mail truck parked across the street. It had been slowly making its way up the block over the last hour or so as the mailcarrier delivered the letters on his way up to the mage's house.

Maybe today the new soul bottle would arrive.

It was just another day before the necromancer and the infant Fa'e bull Bhel would have to leave to go to Earth. He planned on stopping his mail for the trip, and, while it would be no trouble to pick up the bottle at the post office with the rest of his mail upon his return, Kumoru would have felt much better knowing he had the bottle before he left.

The owl ghost was still chained with magic to his roof, and was not likely to be going anywhere with the spells Kumoru had placed upon it. The magical bonds would wear out eventually, of course, but Kumoru was not sure if his disappearing to another world would sever them entirely, even if he was only gone for three days.

As soon as he heard the telltale rattling of his mailbox lid, the necromancer swept outside and went to retreive the day's mail. No boxes yet.

With a sigh, he flipped through the bills and catalogues and stepped away from the house until he would have been able to see the ghost on his roof had he been using his magical sight beyond life. Even without the magic to actually see it, he could sense that the owl was there.

"Just a matter of days, I'm sure," Kumoru half-assured himself and half-warned the bound spirit, then took his mail inside.

._Fish in a Barrel

Kumoru made sure all of his children were asleep, and then waited ten minutes more just to be on the safe side. What he was going to do was something he definitely did not want the kids to know about. Donat in particular - the necromancer was certain the goat boy would want to try it.

After letting a safe interval of time pass, Kumoru climbed up onto his desk and slid the window behind it open all the way. The soul bottle tried to roll away from his fingertips when he reached to pick it up, but he caught it anyway and stored it safely in the pocket of his sleeve.

The cool night air blew in gently as he gripped the edges of the frame and set one foot lightly on the sill.

... Robes were really not made for climbing, especially out of windows, Kumoru quickly determined as he tripped over a fold of robe that had gotten under his back foot. With a frustrated sigh, he backed away from the window and stepped from the desk to the chair to the floor. The necromancer glanced out the open window, then shrugged off his outer navy blue robes. He still had beige robes and pants on underneath, at least, and it was not like anyone would see him. It was late, and dark, and the window did not even face the street.

So his legs would be unhindered, Kumoru hiked the robes below his waist from his ankles to his thighs and tied them up that way so they would stay. Figuring he now looked thoroughly stupid, the mage just tried to reassure himself that no one would see him climbing onto his roof, and there was no need to worry about his appearance.

It had been so much easier getting the ghost of the owl up there in the first place.

The sleeves of the beige robes did not have pockets, so Kumoru settled for tucking the new soul bottle into one of the weird-looking folds of fabric around his waist. When he was sure the bottle would stay where it was, Kumoru climbed back onto the desk again, and out the window.

The necromancer's study was on the top floor; the edge of the roof was only three or so feet above the top of the window. Fortunately it had a wide sill, or it felt wide when Kumoru could stand on it facing the house with his toes still touching his desk inside. The edge of the gutter was at about eye-level. Kumoru had managed to hit his head on it as he had climbed out.

All he had to do was pull himself up onto the roof now. Fortunately, where his physical strength was lacking, Kumoru had magic. He lacked the magic words to just fly himself onto the roof - he would have taken floating up from the front lawn over climbing out the window in a heartbeat - but he could still employ some of his old elemental wind spells to help support his weight.

Murmuring a few magic words, Kumoru summoned a strong, dense area of air beneath him, which he used to push himself upwards as he pulled himself onto the roof with his arms. It was tiring, maintaining the spell while pulling off stupid climbing maneuvers, but it got him onto the tiled roof.

Kumoru climbed to his feet and brushed the grit from the roof tiles off of his palms, then took the soul bottle out of his makeshift pocket. He walked over to where the ghost of the barn owl was chained to the house by magic, and sat down close by.

The ghost watched the necromancer approach, then stretched its wings out lazily. It had not felt compelled to resist the magic since it had been put up here, nor did it feel anything against the man who had bound it. It had a limited range of motion, but it also had a nice view, and it had not been attacked by anything either. So this home certainly qualified as a good perch.

The bottle the man set nearby frightened the ghost, however. It could discern no visible threat - it had no moving parts, or even any apparent sharp edges. But it got too close, and the owl instinctively tried to fly away.

It looked to Kumoru like the ghost started to dissolve ever so slowly. It tried to fly away, apparently forgetting that it was chained to the spot with a spell. He shifted his weight a little and watched the owl struggle against his magical bonds as its wings and tail blurred behind it, seemingly drawn like smoke to the soul bottle.

After several minutes, the entire owl had been dragged about six inches closer to the soul glass, and it looked as though Kumoru was seeing it through a fogged window. The faintest of glows was already starting to appear inside the bottle. But it looked like it would be a slow process.

Kumoru shifted again about ten minutes later, twirling his ponytail around his hand in impatience. It was like watching sand fall through an hourglass one grain at a time. He wished he had some magic to speed up the process, but he was not at all sure what to try. And the necromancer was not about to go messing up another bottle.

He stifled a yawn, and figured he could rest up here until the bottle had drawn in the ghost completely.

And ponder just what it was that made the thing suck in some souls and not others....

~~~~

He was not at all sure how long it took in the end, but Kumoru was exhausted by the time he dragged himself back through his window. After closing the window, he fixed his robes again and put the navy outer one back on. Then he shut the soul bottle in a drawer for the time being, and slumped in his desk chair to sleep.