Sudoku is such a lame new hyperfixation. No one cares that I hate the tedium of Y-Wings or is going to ask why I find Finned X-Wings more fun than Cranes. And if they DID ask I would be like "Uhh...I like it when the numbers go brrr."
Yanno what's shitty. We could have had five more episodes, if the surviving author wasn't a rapist, and they would probably have had a lot more dramatic build-up and a much punchier payout.
I bent my moral code and used my Amazon free trial for this. They get my ad revenue. I said bent.
Ugh.
I dont know what I was expecting when I broke my boycott on two things at once. Shame on me.
ms word ms excel and ms powerpoint are all snooty disagreeable ladies who wont speak to me due to my meager dowry but then i meet their beautiful sister ms paint whos clumsy but charming and we fall in beautiful love. and i become mr paint
Coworker literally just told me to enjoy my sinning when I said I was gonna go home and have wings and banana split in bed. She said it jokingly (because she realizes that mentality is a vestigial remnant of a fucked up too-Catholic childhood, and also because in her heart of hearts she of course wants to eat wings and ice cream in bed too) but it still rubbed me wrong. Who is saying this to people? What is wrong with them? It's not pouring a pot roast between the crisp linens and grinding it to an unholy pulp, it's just sitting in a different place to enjoy something delicious. And the dress code is phenomenal.
Wizards live in towers, Princesses are kept captive in towers. You, a mage of wandering interests, come back to find half your towers upper floors occupied by a bored young woman. There are worse ways to find an apprentice.
She screams, so then you scream, so then she screams again, and your familiar jumps off your shoulder and runs away.
"I didn't think wizards were the, um. Screaming type," she says afterwards, when you've magicked up two cups of tea.
"Well," you say, "Well. Um. Maybe not most of them, no."
She blinks at you. You look down at yourself and realize you haven't even cast a hair-cleaning spell in a month, let alone actually washed anything, and you're wearing your travel clothes (aka pajamas). You quickly look back up so you don't come off as self-conscious.
"...I see," she says.
The cat is still sulking.
---
The way the curse works- she explains- is straightforward. Her father the King was getting antsy about only having a girl, and demanded help from the Fae to secure his line. They decided it was only fair that if they gave him power of one kind, they'd take away power of another.
"...So now you're in my house?"
She blinks again. "He's not allowed to marry me out," she says, a little slowly. Like what she's saying is obvious.
"Oh." You pause. She pauses. "So... now you're in my house."
"We didn't know it was your house," she grimaces.
But why are you in it? you think to yourself, but she clearly thinks it's obvious, so you keep your mouth shut.
"Well- it looked abandoned!" she cries out suddenly, making you jump. "There aren't very many abandoned towers around here, you know! And the other ones we checked out were- open to the elements, or- they had mold! He wasn't going to put me in a tower like that!"
"Well, yes," you say, "I have enchantments for that."
She buries her face in her hands.
---
After you've washed your- everything- and slept for at least 12 hours, the whole situation feels a lot more manageable. You find her on the penultimate floor, sitting with a glum expression at the table where you both had tea.
"Hello. Would you like breakfast?"
"It's well past noon," she says, then makes a face like she just ate a lemon. "Sorry. That was rude. I've been alone for like six months in here. Um, yes, that would be lovely."
As you touch the stones to unfold the kitchen and start the fire, she stares at you, her eyes getting wider and wider. By the time you've got the quickbread baking, and open the cellar to access your frozen sausages, her jaw has dropped.
"Er," you say, hands full of rapidly thawing meat. "It's all perfectly safe. It's kept in stasis, see, and-"
"Was that there the whole time?" she gasps, voice cracking.
You take a moment to figure out how to answer that in layperson's terms. "Well, sort of? It's in stasis, so. It's 'there' in the sense that you can access it. But it's not 'there' in the sense that. Mmm." You place sausages in the pan and raise your voice against the sizzling of hot oil. "It's cold in there because it's not on the plane that you and I-"
"The kitchen's not cold," she interrupts.
"Oh. No, the kitchen was just folded away. The cellar-"
"Folded away?"
You blink at her. She blinks back.
"...how have you been eating?"
"Basket and rope through the window. My father pays some of the peasants to cook for me."
"Sounds... elaborate." You poke at the sausages but it's too early to flip them. Then you realize: "Did you ever figure out how to unfold my water closet?"
She colors scarlet. "Chamber pot," she mutters.
---
"If you don't mind me asking... Why were you in the astronomy room?" you say, taking the plates away. "I, um. I was planning on fixing the telescope when I got back. So for right now it's just a long climb with nothing to do."
She heaves a long sigh. "I don't know. There was nothing to do anywhere. I was just looking from the highest point I could. It makes all the villages look like toys."
"Oh." You frown. "I hope you'll be happier with the rooms unfolded. I just didn't want them to gather dust while I was away."
She tilts her head, leaning in. "How long have you been away? We checked this tower a few months before I moved in, so it's been at least three seasons, right?"
You bite the inside of your cheek. "I... don't remember."
"You don't remember?"
"I wasn't on this plane very much. It's easy to lose track of how time flows here." You shrug sheepishly. "Long enough for a princess to move in, I guess?"
She looks sheepish too. "I am sorry about that. We'll find me a different tower."
"Oh, um... no, it's fine... I mean. I'm sure you looked at all the options available to you. I wouldn't want you to have to live in. Mold."
"But I'm in your house!"
"It's a lot of house?"
She stares at you. You would maybe describe her look as 'incredulous'. "You're... a wizard. Wizards live in towers. Because they're solitary and proud creatures."
You wince. "That is what they say, yes."
"I'm going to be honest, you don't seem very... 'proud'. I don't mean that as an insult!" she says, waving her hands. "I'm sure you are proud of things you've- done- or- you just don't seem. Arrogant?" She looks at you apologetically.
"It's just the easiest shape," you explain.
"What?"
"To create. With magic."
"...A tower?"
"Yes. Up is easier." Your hands go up to sketch incantation shapes in the air before you realize what you're doing and drop them again. "Boxes are easier to build, but towers are easiest to cast."
"...Why?"
"I could explain but it would take a while."
She huffs, then covers her face with her hands again. It takes you a second to realize that she's laughing.
"I'm sorry?" you say reflexively.
She keeps laughing. The cat steals the last sausage out of the pan and runs back downstairs with it.
---
You open up the kitchen, the sitting room and fireplace, the library, the water closet, the bathing room, the guest bedroom (she had been sleeping on the floor- with a mattress and blankets and pillows, of course, but still) and the study and laboratory, which you warn her not to touch without supervision. She nods, wide-eyed, and asks questions about how it all works and which stones to touch, which you try to explain, but it just leads to more questions.
You realize halfway through an explanation of location runes that: "Wait! Oh, I'm sorry, I should have asked what your preference is. I just set it up the way I normally do."
"You're saying something I don't understand again," she says, but she makes it sound friendly.
"Er- well- if you're living here, you should get a say in how the rooms are arranged?"
Her brows furrow. "You can rearrange the rooms?"
"Of course you can. You're just unfolding them, after all."
She squeezes her eyes shut like she's working through a tough problem. "You... can unfold them... to different rooms?"
"Yes?"
She stays like that for a moment, her entire face scrunched as she works through whatever puzzle she's stuck on. Then she suddenly grins, eyes open wide and sparkling, staring directly at you.
"I want to learn all of this," she says.
"Oh!" you say. "Okay. I mean, you should know it anyways, if you're going to be living-"
"No! Like- I want to learn all of this," she says, sweeping her hands to encompass the runes. "All of the- the folding, and..."
"You mean. You want to learn magic?"
"Yes!" She nods several times for emphasis. "I mean! This is the best thing I've ever heard in my life. You can rearrange the rooms?"
Privately, you think that's a fairly minor magical trick to get excited over, but- it is practical. "That's excellent! Really. I mean, I can't recommend it enough. Magic is the best thing in the world."
"It really is! It must be!" She nods, still staring at you, and grabs at your hand- you avoid flinching- and starts pumping it, like a massive handshake. "When can I start? Today? Right now?"
"Start?"
She takes a second to hear this, then freezes mid-pump. Her smile looks a little pasted on; manic. "As your apprentice."
"Oh. Oh. Oh! Um."
"I'm so sorry. I assumed, didn't I." She releases your arm and takes a step back. "You didn't say-"
"Oh, um, no, well, it's just. Well." You wring your hands. "I've never had an apprentice before. So I might not be very good at it?"
"Nonsense!" She looks back at you and you can feel a kind of desperate hope emanating from her. "You've been explaining all this stuff really well! I mean- it's a lot- but I feel like I'm getting it. We can figure it out."
The vote of confidence is unexpected, and warming. But, also: "Will it interfere with the. Your curse?"
She snorts and cocks an eyebrow. "Is your goal to try and marry me to combine our political powers?"
"No!" You bring your hands up and shake your head firmly. "No, no, no, no. Definitely not."
"Then no, it won't have any problem with that." She exhales and smiles half-heartedly. "It would be pretty funny if locking me in a tower resulted in me getting into a powerful marriage, instead of hiding me from one."
Now you're the one furrowing your brow. "Are you in here just to. Hide? From potentially getting married?"
She shrugs. "Basically. And a tower is traditional."
"...Traditional?"
"Well. Princesses in towers. It's a thing." She shrugs again. "You know."
"I really don't??"
---
The cat hops from the top of the wingback reading chair into the Princess's lap, interrupting her attempts at reading your old copy of Basic Wizardry Primer 1 from your own apprenticeship. (You magicked all the handwritten answers out.) She rolls her eyes and starts petting him, leaving the book aside.
You've spent yesterday and today unpacking your old books, preparing for continuing on your knowledge to the next generation. Your first apprentice! You knew it would happen some day, but...
Well. Much as you'd like to say 'you didn't expect it like this': Serendipity has power. You can't say no to a confluence like this.
That being said, you realize you have two burningly important questions to ask your new apprentice, and you've spent the past hour trying to figure out how to ask them.
"You're looking at me like I've got something on my face," she says suddenly. "I'm bothering you, aren't I? Should I give you more space?"
"Oh- no! No, it's not that. It's. Um. Well." No better chance than this. "I wanted to ask you. Something."
She nods.
"Some things. Plural."
She nods again, looking a little more concerned.
You pause.
She raises a hand from the cat's fur to make a motion like, go on...?
"Do you. Are you hoping that... this training will help you break your curse?" You frown and look down at your hands. "I know- um. There's probably more to it than just being locked in a tower. I don't mean to pry, but."
She sighs. When you look up, she's looking down at the cat. "I did think about that." She thinks a moment, then shrugs and looks up. "It would be nice, but it's not really my main goal, I guess. Magic just looks fun? Plus. I was never very good at being at court. It's so hard to not just say stuff. You know?"
You don't know but you nod with hopefully appropriate levels of sympathy.
"So... yeah. Now I just want to do magic, I think. At least for now. The curse is- it's not a big deal. How hard can it be to not get married?" She quirks a smile.
You exhale slowly. "I'm glad. Um... I ask because. You should know that we probably won't be able to break it. At least not with the magic I can teach you. Fae magic is..." you suck air through your teeth, "tricky."
She takes that in and nods solemnly, focusing on petting the cat and avoiding your eyes.
You don't know what the consequence for getting married would be, but based on what you've heard of Fae curses, it definitely will not be good. No one would enjoy having something like that hanging over them, especially when the terms were as vague as 'marriage' and 'powerful'; who knew how the Fae defined marriage and power?
"You said you had multiple questions," she says, breaking you out of imagining various horrific curses triggering on technicality. "What's the next one?"
You look up at her and bite the inside of your cheek. You hate asking this, but it's really unavoidable here.
"So, uh. What's your name?"
She stares at you.
"I. I never got the chance to ask."
She blinks.
You start to sweat. "This happened sort of quickly, so-"
"I am the Princess of the kingdom in which you reside," she says. "You have to know my name."
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