Mother of Magic

Silena and the Guild of Assassins

Stephanie and Le now split their time between the Hotel and their new, magically constructed home.

Living up and away from Collins was private. Isolating during heavy snowfall. Being isolated in the mountains was nothing they had to worry about now. Food, drink, and heat were all available merely by creating them. Their mountain retreat was exactly that. They had privacy other than the occasional visits from Tasha or Ava. Tasha could tromp through pretty much any snow to get there in her cat form. Ava could fly. Frequently Ava flew in with Tasha if Tasha had been up at Ava's upslope abode. It was hard to gauge the level of commitment the two magic people had, and neither Stephanie nor Le asked. The couple assumed that Tasha, being part cat, had a wide streak of independence, but it also could just be that both women liked to keep their options open. It did not affect either of them, so they never asked.

In their mountain abode, the couple could practice magic, play catch to stay loose for baseball, or do what newlywed couples do when their delayed by the baseball season honeymoon is delayed again. This time in new and unimaginable ways. Being kidnapped to an entirely new world in a different universe will do that. Now they could make up for lost time.

At one point, laying on a fluffy rug in front of their new picture window, and after some honeymooning, Stephanie had commented on this. Sighing, basking in her body's warm afterglow, she looked out at their barely window-framed snowscape. "You know Le: I somehow hate how much I am enjoying being kidnapped." She held a temperature-sensing hand toward to window, rotating it so the back of her hand faced the glass. "This is so amazing. It's like the glass is not even there, but none of the cold gets in. It looks like a hole in the wall, but it isn't. We can lay here and make love all day, and never get hungry or cold. As kidnappings go, this is pretty top-end."

"Here, we are not famous. Here we are unknowns. I don't miss the fame. As witches, we don't need fortunes either. I get all this time with you. I have no idea when this ends. It's not like at home. Training for the next season setting a time limit on us. Our time to do this. Here we are free. I hate how much I like that."

"Same. But I do love the open-ended ness. We have no idea what we are here for. Not really. So we have all the time in the world to lay here, and not feel the pressure of time to enjoy the now because in two weeks we have to go do something. Batting practice. Hitting practice. Fielding. Working out. Working with the team. Coaching. On and on. Before you, I never cared about that. I liked having a focus. A mission. Now? I just want to enjoy you, and not have that have a time limit."

"The only limits are sunrise, sunset, and what my body can do." Le said.

Which of course led quickly to learning what that last limit might be. Followed by more basking in the afterglow.

When Stephanie and Le were in Collins they met new people. Le loved being able to talk to people about ideas he had for making this world's level of technology work better. When he had studied for his degree, it had been hard. He used mental focus and discipline to take his mind off his cancer and put it on solving technical problems. Once he had his health, his mind naturally moved to solving baseball problems because the woman who gave him that health was a world-famous baseball player, but a member of a team where the rest of the players needed to improve their play.

Le felt like the way he had coped with being sick would help the team. That what they needed was technical focus. Mental discipline. Not everyone could be a savant like Stephanie. He was correct. His work improved the team drastically, even as it also improved Stephanie's level of play. With his health, the mental discipline allowed him to become like her. The second-best player on a rapidly improving team.

Here, in this world, there was no baseball. No computers or programming. Nothing like that to apply his mind to. There were other technical challenges. More basic.