NOVEL NEXT Book 5, Chapter 5
"So... what's your read on your cousin Silas?" Dad asked.
"He's an asshole, and I'm not sure if I trust him to be unsupervised," I said. "However, his mother is here, and I'm reasonably certain that telling her to spend more time with her son isn't going to be too much of an imposition for her."
"Fair enough," Dad said. "Anything less pragmatic and martial?"
"I didn't exactly sit him down for a cup of tea before I killed him," I said dryly. "You'll just have to get to know the little shit the same way the rest of us do."
"Ugh, I hate honest work," Dad grumbled.
"So what's your plan for today?" Mom asked.
"Talia's gonna take Faith out on the grand tour of Greenwood, Emily's gonna go see her hearth-mother and Robert, and I am going to do magic to my bedroom to account for the fact that I now have three girlfriends instead of one," I said. "Which... I'm gonna have to make sure it's not hard to undo, aren't I? You're gonna need that room back at some point."
Mom wrapped me up in a tight hug.
"I'm one of the world's best dimensionalists," Mom said. "I assure you, Catherine, we have plenty of room in this house; that room is yours alone for the rest of your life."
"Ariel here would prefer that you never move out and keep living with us for all eternity," Dad said primly.
"Thank you, I am acquainted with my own mother," I said dryly. "I'm less acquainted with Aunt Rebecca, though. Any ideas what she might like as a gift?"
"One of those stuffed dragons you made for all the neighborhood kids will work just fine," Dad said. "You've got spares, yeah?"
"Even if I didn't, I could make another," I said, shrugging, even as I kept hugging Mom. "Silas will be getting one as well, although I do also have something more substantial in the can for him. Some Occult sense of mine is telling me that he's got more in common with me than I think, and that... well, I think I know what he might like."
"So your Occult senses are enough to tell you what Silas would like as a New Year's gift, but not what he's like as a person?" Mom asked.
"Yeah, I feel like you keep forgetting you're a Bard," Dad added.
"I'm more of an Occultist than a proper Bard," I admitted. "Which I know sounds like a very nitpicky technical difference that nobody in the room besides me cares about, but basically, I keep approaching the Occult as a vocational skill that I employ whenever it suits me, rather than truly embodying the Bard's path, which is... well, it's complicated. Turns out the school of magic that makes you do tedious amounts of math and science is the least demanding one to practice properly."
"You're only saying that because you're good at the math and science," Mom said. "I've spoken to James Freeman, and he tells me the Bard's craft is simple and intuitive for him- furthermore, that he was of the opinion that you would struggle with the Bard's craft, being as its fundamental skills are unintuitive things you had to consciously learn."
"...Does he actually let you call him James?" I asked. "Because he's been very firm with me over the years that it's Jimmy."
"I'm the nice old elf next door who remembers when his great grandfather was born," Mom said. "He would let me call him anything, and assume it was part of some grand story of a woman left behind by time, going senile despite her youthful good looks, rather than the truth being that 'Jimmy' sounds childish and I'm hoping he'll grow out of it."
"Or maybe he does know the truth, and is just politely ignoring it because he doesn't think he can productively correct you," Dad added.
"...I'm gonna have to give him something nice for New Year's," I resolved. "Alright, well, today's gonna be productive, then. Mom, are you busy today, or would you like to help me with the pocket dimensions?"
"Busy, unfortunately," Mom said. "Spatially expanded living spaces are my bread and butter, but... well, you're my apprentice in Wizardry. They should be yours as well."
"I did take Arcane Architecture this semester," I admitted. "I'll be fine, yeah. I'll show you the results once I'm done."
---
"I'm surprised you didn't overdo it, this time," Volex said.
"Would've been no point," I said, shrugging. "The point of sleeping in my room, instead of in the van, is nostalgia. Radically revamping and remodeling my childhood bedroom would've fucked up the nostalgia factor, because I sure hadn't done this before now. No, I'm just going with the simple solution... well. 'Simple.'"
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"Looks simple to me," Volex said, glancing at the bed.
"I know you've got a telepathic bond with me," I said. "You know full well why this was still a pain in the ass."
"You also know that I know that you like the sound of your own voice," Volex said, smirking. "So, ramble away, girl."
"It's an open-air pocket dimension," I said, simply. "My bed has always been tucked out of the way, into a corner, so that's two sides that have proper boundaries. The bottom, of course, is also a boundary- nobody exits a bed through the bottom, not on a regular basis- and the ceiling is also a boundary because I don't go up through the ceiling either. Which leaves two open sides- the foot of the bed has to be a viable entry-exit because otherwise getting up in the middle of the night to piss involves climbing over people- that I have to define boundaries for. And open-air pocket dimensions are... well, they're fucking hard. Pocket dimensions are a lot easier to design and implement when they just have a defined portal entrance."
"And that's why you've added corner-posts and curtains to enclose your bed," Volex finished.
"Pretty much," I said, nodding. "Those little details made this whole project way more doable in a single day. The hardest part was getting the new wood bits to fit properly- wood's never as stable and accurate as a machinist like me would like, but whatever, I'll live."
"So, what's next?" Volex asked.
"Well, I did say I owed Jimmy a nice New Year's gift," I said, "so at some point I'm gonna have to get that done for him. Maybe he'll like a guitar like the one I built for Summer..."
"So, now that you're finally back home for the holidays, you're going to spend your first day back cooped up in your room instead of going outside and talking to people?" Volex asked.
"...Alright, alright, I'll go outside and talk to people."
---
Fortunately for me- and not at all because of an exertion of Occult magic by either myself or Volex, nosirree- it turned out that the rest of my party was at the Freeman residence, playing dominoes with Winston Freeman and some of his other old man friends.
"So, what'd I miss?" I asked, as I stepped up onto the porch.
"Me getting my ass kicked by an old man," Faith said, as she played her second-to-last domino. An instant later, Winston had played his actual last domino, and Faith grunted. "So, nothing- it just happened again."
"It's good to see you again, Catherine," Winston said, grinning at me. "Any plans to top last year's New Year's gift?"
"The kids are gonna like theirs," I said. "For the adults... well, I'm just gonna have to admit last year was a fluke, because I did not have the time for it this year."
"We made so many stuffed animals," Emily said, turning to address Amelie and Robert.
"So many," I said, nodding. "And I was considering also doing a custom deck of playing cards for the adults, with a Greenwood Village theme, but then I realized that would mean I had to draw fifty two separate pictures that looked good, fit the theme, and clearly conveyed the vital information of suit and rank, and I decided that I wasn't that committed to the bit."
"Also, you'd have to run 'em down to the publishing house to get 'em printed," Robert added. "Unless you're about to reveal you've got a printing press in your pocket or something."
"Honestly, I might," I admitted. "But no, I did a summer apprenticeship down at the publishing house a few years back, and learned a whole lot about printing, and the sorts of Wizard spells that're useful for it. If I did have to print off a big run of playing cards, I'm pretty confident I could set all that up in my house, and would do exactly that for all of fifteen minutes before one of these killjoys reminds me that there's publishing houses already set up to do this. But hell, what's the point of being a Wizard if I'm gonna do everything the sensible way?" I sighed. "Anyhow. How're you holding together, Rob?"
"Better than ever, honestly," Robert admitted. "Thanks for helping me get set up here, it's... Honestly, you saved my life. And my mom's life."
"Say the word, and I'll bake you as many pies as you want," Amelie added.
"Hey now, none of that," I said. "I did what any follower of The Mother would've done in that moment. Don't bother paying me back; pay it forward, to the next poor sap you run into who needs help."
"Will do," Robert said, nodding.
"Also, I brought you back something pretty from Mount Fate," I added, as I pulled a pair of orc-made mugs out of my pocket. They were covered in geometric patterns of bright and bold primary colors, and I made the day of the poor apprentice potter who'd made 'em when I went off about their beauty and artistry in the middle of the market, before haggling him up from his initial price. "Y'know, just in case your apartment isn't completely full of pretty little trinkets people keep giving you to liven up the space."
"We've got a few, but mugs are well appreciated," Amelie said, nodding as Robert gingerly took the mugs and set them in his lap. "We've only got four of them at the moment, and haven't gotten around to buying more."
"The New Year is as good a time as any to load people up with whatever they need but don't have," I said, nodding. "Napoleon sure took that excuse back during the early days. Of course, considering that humans do die of old age, Greenwood Village reached the point of having too many enchanted sweaters in circulation pretty quickly, and Napoleon had to start getting creative. But now?" I grinned at Robert and Amelie, and then at Emily and Faith. "Well. You'll understand the full scope of your situation in a few days. It's not often that Napoleon gets fresh blood."