Tales of the Ice Harpy from Glacia

Lucivar stormed into Saetan's study at the Hall and slammed the door behind him, snarling something incoherent. Karla, alone in the study, just raised an eyebrow at him and set aside the papers she'd been reading, leaning back in Uncle Saetan's comfortable chair. "Yes?" she drawled.

"What the Hell are you doing in here?" Lucivar snapped, temper punctured by seeing Karla sitting where he was expecting his father.( Half the reason I'm adapting this plotline is for all the scenes that Lucivar and Karla get to have together, no lie. )

Karla had been packing for her move to Haven, to spend a few months being an unofficial Queen to a village full of refugee Black Widows. Had been, however, because 'packing' apparently meant 'getting chased of her chambers by Helene and several other maids while they packed because no guest leaving SaDiablo Hall would ever be seen unpacking the mess that Karla considered properly packed, which, for the record, she should be ashamed of herself for.' There had been more, but Karla had taken the better part of valour and scurried away to hide regally decamped to one of the gardens on the far side of the Hall.

Lesson learned: don't bundle up clothes and shove them into a pack. Hearth witches got testy about things like that.

She'd been hiding enjoying the sunlight for about an hour when the coven piled out of the Hall to find her. Apparently a package had arrived from Emma and if there was one thing they'd learned by now, mail from Emma meant embarrassment for some and hilarity for everyone else.

"Were you expecting anything?" "Is it from that store?" "Did she include a note?" "Open! Open it! Hurry! I want to see what she sent!" "Ten silvermarks says it's going to make the boyos blush!" "Too easy! Fifteen gold says it make ths High Lord put up an aural shield when he finds out about it." "Do you think this one runs on batteries, too? I want one like Karla has."

That last earned several scandalized gasps. "KALUSH!!!"

"What?" Kalush just laughed at them, tossing her dark hair over her shoulder. "Not all of us get to enjoy a lover before the summer is out, Karla. Morghann."

At which point Karla managed to open the box before the conversation could involve any further mention of her own purchases from Dite's. There was a moment of hushed silence as they stared at the contents of the package. Karla was the first to break down into giggles, especially when she saw that Emma had made sure to include a special adornment to show that they were meant to be Kaeleeran, err, candies. Her laughter triggered the others and soon they were laughing so hard there were tears in their eyes.

"The second one is for you lot to split amongst yourselves," Karla said, wiping her face. "Who wants to borrow a knife from the boyos so you can divvy it up?"

"No, no!" Gabrielle said between gasps. "We should wait until they're around and then take bites off of it!"

"Dibs on the tip!" Morghann said.

"And look!" Kalush announced, snagging a smaller package within the box. "Emma sent batteries, too!" Which just set Karla to facepalming and the rest of them to laughing even harder. Yup. Embarrassing one, amusing to everyone else. Good show.

[NFB, open for folks in Kaeleer, phone calls, whatever! Second and third links NSFW!]

This was...well, this was weird.

When Karla had received a letter from Uncle Saetan summoning her home, she'd assumed that she'd been summoned home to talk to him. Which, considering her currently mixed up feelings in regards to Jaenelle, had caused no little trepidation on its own. Arriving at the Hall to find out that it wasn't the Hall Lord that had required her presence but someone else entirely had been, well, weird.

She'd heard of Jaenelle's Black Widow friend who lived in a snug cottage in the village of course. Jaenelle had wandered into the Twisted Kingdom to help lead Tersa out, as far as the broken Black Widow was willing to come, at least. Wise, by what Jaenelle had said, and trustworthy, but that still didn't answer the question as why she'd want to talk to Karla.

But with both Saetan and Jaenelle adamant she go talk to Tersa--though Jaenelle's insistence had kind of raised Karla's hackles a bit and she might have gotten just the tiiiiiiniest bit snippy--she was pushing aside her confusion and knocking on the cottage door.

[NFB, please]

There was a letter for Karla in the mail today. It bore the SaDiablo seal and was from Dhemlan, but just holding it filled Karla with foreboding. Even the feel of the fine linen paper under her fingers gave her a chill, like a cold, dead wind was blowing through her.

She shivered as she opened it, wishing with all her might that it was a bill for the kitchen or a written tirade from Mrs. Beale and Helene both.

( It wasn't. )

All the breath whooshed out of her lungs and the note fluttered to the floor. Mini-Morton scurried over to pick it up with a series of concerned beeps, but Karla barely noticed.

Anger and planning would come later. Right now, there was only shock and a kind of fuzzy blankness.

[Door and post open. Morton's note written by the fantastic glacial_warlord]

Okay. On a scale of 1 to awful, this was about a 9. Not only was Saetan here, trying to explain the Kaeleeran concept of Hell to people (while conveniently being able to check up on Karla while he was at it), but Raven's father Trigon was here as well. He hadn't forgotten his original plans for Karla, either.

Because that's what every girl wanted, right? To be married to a demon who thought loincloths were sexy and to die bearing his children. Riiiight.

So she'd left a message for Raven, so hopefully she could warn the girl about her incipient family reunion before she found out about it the hard way, and then lay back on her bed and contemplated running away from the island for the weekend.

Hell's fire, Mother Night, and may the Darkness be merciful.

[Establishy and link-droppy, but certainly open for visitors and phonecalls! Though SP for the afternoon as I'll be at a wedding.]