andaisq | aesthetically displeasing

Mortimer Halliwell, warlock extraordinaire and small-time crook, is having a remarkably bad day. First he runs out of the good coffee and has to use Folgers. Then the demon he summons to rob a bank for him only speaks Egyptian, which is hell on his throat. Then the demon gets discorporated and tracked back to his lair/duplex, the door of which is currently being battered down by some cheerful blonde madman.

He needs to summon another demon, and he needs to do it fast. He whips out the Black Book, flips desperately through its pages, and arranges the offerings around the iron circle set into the floor of his basement. A phonebook, a pile of dust, a miniature casket, a oh my god he got in screw it he'll do it without the rest!

He forces an immense amount of energy through his body into the summoning. The dust whirls into the air. He screams as his skin crackles and snaps with static. "I summon thee! I summon thee! I summon thee, K-Kh-"

It is possibly the most regrettable sneeze in Mortimer Halliwell's life.

There is a plume of red flame, and there is someone in his circle.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Yes," she says. "I will find her among the soulless dead. Just a moment."

She searches among them for someone who called herself Belinda the Kind. The easiest way to do that is to look for female soulless beings who died during Ari's lifetime, and then read their life histories until she finds one with the right name. It's a lot of information to sort through, but she doesn't need to pay attention to most of it.

There's a Winter Sidhe over here who answers to that description! Doesn't seem very kind, though.

...She investigates more closely. The parts of Belinda's life history that intersect with Ari's life, in particular.

She seems to have started out by killing his parents when he was four years old. She took him in, out of the goodness of her heart and because she had run out of working milkteeth. She raised him with very close attention to his every need, because that's how you get good milkteeth. She was indulgent in the extreme, her only imposition that he pay attention to his lessons and that he give her blood when she needed it. And that he obey her.

Around the time he turns fifteen, she begins planning the ritual in which she will sacrifice him. It's quite intricate. She tells him she's got the most darling surprise for his seventeenth birthday. He hugs her and says he's sure it'll be perfect. She ruffles his hair and tells him it will.

She waits.

She dies of a centaur's spear to the heart a week before the ritual is to take place.

It has been about ten seconds now since Ari made his request.

The administrator speaks to him again. Her voice sounds noticeably annoyed.

"I have found your mother," she says. "In the process, I learned some things about her which I expect will distress you."

"How d'you mean?"

Rather than attempt to answer in words, she just provides him with Belinda's memory of planning the ritual and then telling him about his darling surprise.

"If you would still like me to retrieve her, I can, but I would rather not."

"Don't. I... Don't."

"I won't, then."

"Was she always like that?"

"Yes. I dislike her."

Ari does not respond.

Ari does not consciously respond. The link between them lets through an echo of wracking sobs. This is unlikely to be Ari's intention.

This situation is totally alien to the administrator's experience and she has no idea what to do.

For sheer lack of better ideas, she instantiates a soft blanket next to him. Many people find those comforting.

There is no audible indication that Ari has taken or noticed the blanket! There is no counterindication, either. Ari is not talking, he is too busy crying.