Tales of the Ice Harpy from Glacia

It was a beautiful day in early fall, the kind of day where warm sunshine poured over the land like honey, saved from being overly warm by a refreshing breeze. The leaves had started to turn colors on the edges and the air smelled green as the crops in the fields readied themselves for harvest. Glacian winters were long and bitterly cold, the summers short and generally humid, and the springs chilly and damp, but their autumns were damn near perfect.

Karla and Warren had recently had a birthday, at least according to the island's calendar, which was a good enough reason to celebrate. Nommy, who had been kind of colicky and sickly when he'd been born seemed to be growing out of both traits and now, at two months, was old enough to start meeting the family his parents had met and made at Fandom. And over in Ebon Rih, Lucivar's wife, Marian, had just given birth to a healthy son, Daemonar, leaving Lucivar both pole-axed and proud. Three reasons made for a party, right?

Sending out quick, handwavy invites over phone calls and social media, Karla and Ermengarde set up a casual tea in one of the gardens in the back of the Estate, giving the children plenty of room to run around and explore while the adults had space to relax and enjoy the good weather and better company.

[Open! Blow the dust off your alumni and have them come visit! If you think you got an invite, you certainly did. Many thanks to future_sandworm who made sure this happened! SP forever.]

When Mallory had been asked by Queen Ilyse and Prince Audric to come tutor their young daughter, he had been honored and delighted. Several months later, the shiny had been rubbed off both the honor and delight, but he had become fond of enough Karla to continue to teach her for years, up until the tragic accident that had claimed her parents' lives and gotten her shipped off to live with the local Hourglass coven her aunt Kay had been a part of. When Hobart had announced Karla's 'death,' Mallory had spent a week mourning the spoiled, yes, but also sweet, imaginative, and precocious child he had taught.

In the years she'd been gone, time and nostalgia had blunted the worst of her childhood antics, helping him forget that classes were just as often characterized by biting, kicking, crying, and arguing as they were learning, studying, and behaving (Darkness bless behaving.) All that had come rushing back to him over the past four days, dealing with her much-younger self--and her much-younger friends. Even being the Steward to the headstrong and still impetuous Queen and her entire Court was easier than this.

Mallory couldn't help but reflect on these facts as he pulled Karla down the hall by her ear. He'd caught her in his office a few moments earlier "playing" some kind of game that had involved a jam sandwich and a great deal of ink all over his desk, his chair, and the floor. Coincidentally enough, those were the same places he could see much of his paperwork, also under the ink. Any last ideals he'd had about respecting the Queenly dignity she was due as an adult when flying out the window (possibly with more of his papers) as he'd grabbed her ear and began dragging Karla towards her room, a bath, and the tender mercies of anyone who was not him.

What neither of them had been expecting, however, was for the filthy, shrieking child was to suddenly return to being an equally-filthy-but-less-inclined-to-shriek adult halfway towards their destination. It was Mallory who ended up yelping when the ear he was pinching shot up two feet in the air.

"Karla!" he said, half-surprised and half-thrilled. "You're back!" Before she could respond, however, he was grasping her shoulders with a hissed, "Don't you move or I will throttle you," and running off to find Julian, Morton, and anyone else he could find. Their Queen was an adult again. They were going to get this bloody coronation over with before something else could happen, come Hell or high water.

[NFB, open for folks what are here, SP is gonna be a thing, pls to be waiting for OCD]

Karla was planning to head upstairs to Warren's room in a few minutes, she just had a few more herbs to mix for brews. It seemed less and less likely that this--whatever if was--was going to end in a fight, but she figured it would be best to be prepared anyway. The last of her spidersilk was spun into Healing webs, there were potions and tinctures and unguents prepared. Hopefully this meant that when it all went down, Karla would be ready for something.

[Open!]

Ahhh, the glory of mid-afternoon naps. There was something so comforting about snuggling down under a bunch of blankets imbued with warming spells while snow fell outside. With school, the play, and Reserves, Karla didn't often feel like she could afford an afternoon nap, but since it was break and she didn't have to worry about any of those things, Karla felt she could indulge herself and nap a bit today.

She had been asleep for maybe ten minutes when her cellphone rang. Groggily, she groped about for it, and peered at the screen to see who was calling.

( Huh. An unknown number. Odd. )

[Establishy but open, assuming you're good with SP. I'm baking Christmas cookies!]