Ilere Finds a Baby

Perhaps she should have. Sophie, though she’d doubtless be irritated, would be able to deal with the baby, and Ilere could surely deal with whatever vengeance a wrathful Sophie could cook up.

And yet...

...for some reason, Ilere allowed Sophie to drag her along to Neovia.

It wasn’t a terrible place, Ilere supposed. A little too civilised for her liking, but she’d never been fond of cities. Too many buildings, too close together… too cramped. Too much hustle and bustle and noise.

Faerieland had been worse. Too bright. Too busy. Too pink. Leaving it had been a relief, as if she were a plant in a too-small pot finally being transplanted outdoors.

Neovia, in comparison, was relatively subdued, its edges softened by fog, comfortably cloaked in the shadows of the Haunted Woods.

Still, Ilere had no desire to linger.

Feeling a bit off-balance, she followed Sophie into a shop.

“Spell stuff first, since I know where all that is,” said Sophie. Ilere saw no reason to object, though she did notice the odd look the shopkeeper gave them when they entered.

“Ah, Miss Sophie,” said the shopkeeper—an elderly-looking Kyrii. “Always a pleasure to see you. And, ah, Lady Ilere? An... honour to have you in my shop, of course.”

Flattery didn’t get anyone far with Ilere, but it didn’t offend her, either. She simply nodded.

“She’s no lady,” said Sophie. “But yeah, that’s her. I don’t think she’s buying anything.”

The shopkeeper looked at the covered baby basket, clearly curious, but also clearly too intimidated to ask.

“So, Randolph, you have any ectoplasm in stock?” Sophie asked.

“I’m terribly sorry,” said Randolph. “Someone bought the last of it this morning. Another shipment is supposed to arrive by next Monday.”

“Drat,” said Sophie. “At this rate, I might need to just harvest the stuff myself… but that takes time, too.”

Gilly croaked sadly.

“Terribly sorry for the inconvenience, Miss Sophie,” said Randolph. “Would your Mortog like a complimentary treat?” He gestured to a glass jar on the front counter filled with what appeared to be dehydrated grubs.

Gilly made a distressed-sounding croak.

“Uh, no,” said Sophie. “I don’t think she’s hungry. But… you wouldn’t happen to know of anyone who’s recently had a baby girl—an Elephante—who’s apparently showing some, uh, early signs of magic? Like, transmogrifying anyone she sneezes on?”

Randolph looked again at the basket, clearly alarmed. “Ah, no. I hadn’t heard anything like that.”

“I guess that’d just be too convenient,” said Sophie. “Thanks anyway.”

“Although…” Randolph said, “I did have a stranger show up in my shop a couple of days ago. He was a Korbat with these terrible green warts all over his face—not natural-looking at all. He’s the fellow who bought the last of the ectoplasm; he said he had an old family recipe for an ectoplasm-based ointment for warts. But he asked about you, Lady Ilere—asked if I could give him directions to your home.”

Ilere raised her eyebrows. “And what did you tell him?” she asked.

Randolph’s ears flattened anxiously against his head. “Just that you don’t welcome visitors! I’m quite aware that you don’t enjoy being disturbed, Lady Ilere.”

Ilere gave a slight nod. “Good.”

Seeming relieved, he added, “But he didn’t say anything about a baby. Just bought the last of my ectoplasm and left. I take it you haven’t seen him.”

“No,” said Ilere. “Though I suspect he may have stopped by. Describe him.”

Randolph hesitated a moment, then said, “Well, as I mentioned, his face was covered in some nasty-looking green warts—quite a bright, garish shade. As for the rest of him, he had tan fur and black spots—with a particularly big spot over his right eye. But he really seemed to be doing badly already. And it’s possible he took my advice—I’m not certain you need to, ah, trouble yourself looking for him.”

“If he’s the one who left a baby on my doorstep,” said Ilere, “I’m quite willing to trouble myself to ensure he doesn’t do so again.”

“Yeah, we really can’t be having people just dropping their kids off in the woods,” said Sophie. After a moment, she added, “Okay, technically Reggie did that with me, but that was a special circumstance, and it’s not like he just left me on her doorstep and ran.”

Randolph was once again staring at the covered baby basket. “I have to say, this is all quite odd. Perhaps you should report this to the mayor’s office. I know the Korbat wasn’t from Neovia—he said he was from out of town—but surely there’s some procedure for babies left on doorsteps.”

“I’ll keep that in mind,” said Sophie. “Thanks for your help, Randolph. In the meantime, do you happen to have any dried Clawmatoe?”

Thankfully, he did. Shortly thereafter, Ilere, Sophie, and Gilly left the shop with a package of dried Clawmatoe and set out for the grocery store.

“If there is some government ‘procedure’ that gets this child off my hands,” said Ilere, “it’s worth considering.”

“I’m not about to get myself permanently banished from Neovia for getting the mayor turned into a Mortog or something,” said Sophie. “I already turned the last one into a Moquot.”

Gilly ribbited what sounded like an objection.

“Sure, that time was justified,” said Sophie. “But I probably shouldn’t make a habit of transforming politicians into swamp critters. Even if it’s often an improvement.”

“You wouldn’t be turning anyone into anything,” Ilere pointed out. “The baby would be doing it.”

“Not sure the mayor would see it that way,” said Sophie. “Or whoever else got sneezed on; the mayor probably wouldn’t be babysitting the kid himself. I don’t necessarily want to get any low-paid government employee turned into anything green and slimy either, as long as they haven’t caused me trouble. There was that one guy who showed up at my shack, saying I owed some sort of taxes… unfortunately, he was really good at dodging spells, but at least he never came back.”

Their trip to the general store was uneventful, and as they stepped out of the store with a container of baby formula, Sophie said, “All right. We’ll see if Bruno’s in—I think he might be resistant to being transmogrified, what with the whole getting-stuck-in-his-cursed-form thing, so he’s probably the best option to take the baby while I work on a cure for Gilly.”

“That sounds reasonable,” said Ilere.

“Fantastic,” said Sophie. “Glad I have your approval. Really, it’s all I’ve ever wanted.”

“That’s hardly an ideal ambition,” said Ilere. “I approve of very few things. Though I will say that your swamp looks quite healthy; it’s continued to flourish around you.”

“...thanks?” said Sophie, looking strangely confused at what, from Ilere, was high praise indeed.

“It needed a witch,” said Ilere. “It’s good that it has one.”

“Uh, I guess,” said Sophie, still looking off-balance.

They fell silent, and Ilere continued to follow Sophie through the streets of Neovia.

Bruno had taken up residence in a little flat in a quieter area of town. Sophie walked up a set of stairs to one door in what seemed like a row of identical doors to identical dwellings and knocked.

“I’m pretty sure he’s off work today,” said Sophie, “and he doesn’t get out much. Even now.”

Gilly croaked sympathetically.

Sophie sighed. “I wish I could help him, but… well, I’m not exactly one to lecture anybody on being more social.”

The door opened a crack. After a moment, it opened all the way.

“Sophie? And… Ilere,” said Bruno. No ‘Lady’ here, at least.

“And Gilly,” said Sophie, gesturing towards the Mortog.

Gilly croaked a greeting.

“...what happened?” Bruno asked. He looked at Ilere. “Did she have something to do with this?”

“Not directly,” said Ilere.

“It’s a… okay, it’s not that long of a story,” said Sophie. “But it’s a story. Mind if we come inside?”

“Uh, sure,” said Bruno, stepping aside to admit the four of them.

The flat was tidier than Ilere expected, though “sparse” was perhaps a better term. It was harder for clutter to build when one didn’t have much to get cluttered.

Still, there was a little table with four chairs, and the four non-infants—including Gilly, who leapt from Sophie’s arms onto the table-top, as she wouldn’t be able to see over the table otherwise—seated themselves. Ilere set the basket down next to her chair, where she’d be in easy sleep-spell or shielding range if need be.

“So, someone decided to leave a baby on Ilere’s doorstep,” said Sophie.

“Why would anyone do that?” asked Bruno.

“People do a lot of stupid things,” said Sophie. “Anyways, Ilere brought the baby down to my place, because apparently she thinks my shack is her designated child-dumping area—it’s not, thank you very much—but I’m not a babysitter.”

Gilly ribbited.

“Sorry, Gilly,” said Sophie. “I figured you’d at least be better at it than me, but…” She turned back to Bruno. “Anyways, the baby has some kind of uncontrolled-magic-sneezes thing going on; she sneezed on Gilly and turned her into a Mortog. I’m not sure if it’ll wear off, or, assuming it’s the sort of thing that wears off, how long it would take, so I need to get back home to all my equipment so I can work on a cure. And I can’t really do that if I have a baby to take care of.”

Bruno looked doubtfully at the basket. “Sophie… I don’t exactly have a lot of childcare experience. I spent ten years living alone in a shack. I never even learned how to cook.”

“You don’t need to cook anything—just warm up some formula,” said Sophie. “Look, if I could ask someone else, I would—but given your, uh, history with transformation magic, I think you’re probably resistant to it. Just… be careful, step back if the baby looks sneezy, and try to keep the kid alive until I figure something else out.”

Gilly ribbited again.

“Gilly can help you out,” said Sophie.

Bruno looked at Gilly, obviously skeptical about the level of help a Mortog could provide.

“And you can make sure she stays safe, too,” said Sophie. “It’s a dangerous world for Mortogs. Dusty dragged one in the other night—”

Gilly ribbited, alarmed.

“It survived,” Sophie reassured her. “Took some patching up, though. I’d rather not have you and my Meowclops in the same room until you’re back to your usual self,”

Gilly croaked glumly.

“I’ll get you sorted out,” said Sophie. “Don’t worry. Just give me a little time.”

Gilly hopped closer, putting one of her webbed fore-feet on top of Sophie’s hand.

“I’ll get you fixed,” said Sophie, more quietly. “I promise.”

“If that’s settled,” said Ilere, “there’s no need for me to remain. Sophie can work on the cure, and I can work on tracking down whoever left the child on my doorstep.”

“Oh, I don’t think so,” said Sophie. “You’re the one who pulled me and Gilly into this mess in the first place—you don’t get to run off now.”

Ilere narrowed her eyes. “I pulled you into this. You pulled Gilly into this. She’s your responsibility. I’ve tarried long enough. The baby is in reasonably-safe hands, so I can wash my hands of this affair as soon as I find whoever left the baby on my doorstep.”

“In case you’ve forgotten—you know, like you forgot a whole entire child at a shack a few years back—you agreed I’d be helping you track the baby’s wayward mother down,” said Sophie. “Which will wait until Gilly’s an Usul again.”

“I didn’t forget you,” said Ilere. “I knew where you were the whole time.”

“Which really just makes things worse,” said Sophie. “Because it means you chose to leave me there. Again, I was eight years old. I’d never spent a night without an adult in my whole life, and you left me alone in a creaky, musty old shack without so much as a goodbye!”

Ilere blinked. “I kept an eye on you from a distance for the first few days. You seemed distressed at first, but you adapted quickly. You seemed to be doing all right on your own after that.”

“Because you forced me to!” said Sophie. “I took care of myself because no one else was there to take care of me—what, is it normal for faeries to just abandon their kids in the woods?”

“Not usually,” said Ilere. “Though rarely, when the magical conditions are just right, a faerie egg will coalesce, motherless, away from the rest of her kind.”

“...what?” said Sophie.

“Still, stray larvae generally find someone to take them in before they pupate,” Ilere continued. “They’re naturally drawn to sources of digestible magic, and any faerie in the area will almost certainly have the most concentrated amount of it.”

“What?” said Bruno.

“Faerie larvae need a lot of magic before they’re ready to metamorphose,” Ilere explained. “It’s far harder for feral larvae to consume sufficient amounts. Faerie parents usually feed their own larvae magic directly, though most let their larvae do at least a little grazing outdoors.”

Though Ilere didn’t remember it herself, apparently her mother had left her unsupervised in her back garden for just a few minutes and returned to discover that a larval Ilere had already chewed through one-and-a-half of her prized rosebushes.

Gilly ribbited interrogatively.

“Okay, hold on a minute,” said Sophie. “You keep saying ‘larvae.’”

“Yes,” said Ilere.

“...you know what, sure, I’ll bite,” said Sophie. “What on Neopia do faerie larvae look like?”

“Small,” said Ilere. “Wriggly. Tendrils for sensing edible sources of magic. Mouthparts for both chewing and grinding. An arrangement of eyes. Sometimes spines, stingers, or other defense mechanisms; it varies from larva to larva. Occasionally, tentacles,” said Ilere. “But none of that is relevant to the current situation. To return to the matter at hand...”

“No,” said Sophie, “I think we can stay on this for a little longer. What do you mean, occasionally tentacles?”

“I don’t see what’s so hard to understand,” said Ilere. “Surely you know what a tentacle is, and what ‘occasionally’ means. To get back on topic…”

“I want visual aids,” said Sophie.

Ilere raised her eyebrows. “I don’t see how this is at all relevant to the task at hand.”

“We can get back to that after I get to see what a faerie larva looks like,” said Sophie. “Come on, don’t you have baby pictures or something?”

“Do you?” Ilere asked.

“I mean, not at my place,” said Sophie. “But my parents have a photo album.”

“Then why do you think I would?” said Ilere.

In truth, Ilere did have a small painting of herself as a larva. Her mother had commissioned it, and Ilere had swiped it off the wall on a whim when she’d moved out in the middle of the night.

She hadn’t bothered to hang it up on her own wall. It wasn’t as if she cared to look at it much herself. But she knew which box it was kept in.

Sophie shrugged. “Can’t you, like, do some kind of magic illusion-picture thingy?”

“I don’t see why I should,” said Ilere.

“I just don’t think I’ll be able to focus until I know,” said Sophie, smirking.

Ilere closed her eyes, took a deep breath, and considered just turning everyone else in this room into a shrub. Shrubs hardly ever bothered her. They sat nicely where they were planted, converted carbon dioxide into oxygen, provided food and shelter for woodland creatures, and had never attempted to manipulate her into doing things she didn’t want to do.

But one couldn’t turn all of one’s problems into shrubs, and Ilere supposed Sophie probably did more good for the swamp as a witch than she would as shrubbery, so she opened her eyes, snapped her fingers, summoned her larva picture to her hand, and held it out.

“There. Now you’ve seen what a faerie larva looks like,” said Ilere. With another snap, she made it disappear.

An Ixi, Gelert, and Mortog stared wide-eyed at the space where the picture had been.

“Um,” said Sophie. “What…”

“Yes, yes, I was adorable, shall we move on?” said Ilere.

“Not… the word I’d’ve used,” said Bruno, looking strangely harrowed. “That’s… a different number of eyes than I expected. And… the teeth…”

Gilly gave a subdued ribbit.

“Well,” said Sophie, blinking, “That sure was an unexpected learning experience. Let’s get back on topic and never think about this again.”

“Let’s,” said Ilere.

“Anyways,” said Sophie, “as I was saying, you’re going to help me fix Gilly before running off to seek vengeance or whatever.”

“Again,” said Ilere, “what happened to Gilly was not my doing, and I’ve had quite enough disturbances in my life for one day. I am leaving. If you finish up what you’re doing before I find the culprit, you’re free to assist, but—”

“I might have a lead,” said Bruno.

Sophie turned to him. “Well, why didn’t you say so earlier?”

“I’m not entirely sure it’s connected, but someone did approach me the other day during my lunch break,” said Bruno.

“Spotted Korbat? Green warts?” Sophie asked.

Bruno’s brow furrowed. “No, definitely not. But she was asking about Ilere.”

“And what, exactly, did you tell her?” Ilere asked.

Bruno glared at her. “That you’d only offer the teeniest, tiniest, barely-any-help-at-all bit of aid—even if it cost you nothing—if you got strong-armed into it, so if she was thinking about asking you for anything she might as well give up now. But she kept pressing—said she’d heard how I was one of the people involved in saving Neovia, and how Ilere had been part of it, so she knew I knew where you were—and yes, after she wouldn’t give up, I told her more-or-less where you were.”

“I see,” said Ilere, icily. “Describe her for me.”

“No,” Bruno growled. “I’ll tell her,” he said, jerking his chin towards Sophie. “Not you. Fair’s fair.”

Ilere turned to Sophie. “Fine. Ask.”

Sophie smirked. “Y’know, I’m kind of busy at the moment, actually.” She looked back at Bruno. “How about you tell me after we’re finished curing Gilly?”

“Sounds good to me,” said Bruno, with an infuriating grin.

Ilere did not appreciate this little sibling conspiracy. “Fine,” said Ilere. “I have one lead already. I’ll simply follow that one.” She rose from her chair, more than ready to get away from this place.

“Hey,” Sophie piped up, “you know that patch of mushrooms a little northeast of your house? The one with some especially rare specimens?”

Ilere narrowed her eyes. She knew that patch of mushrooms quite well; she’d cultivated them.

“I know of some really irritating mushroom-collectors that’d love to learn where it is,” Sophie continued.

“I would turn them into mushrooms if they tried taking mine,” said Ilere.

“Like I said, they’re really irritating,” said Sophie. “I wouldn’t mind not seeing them again. But given that you just hate ‘disturbances,’ don’t you think your life will have fewer of those in the long run if you help me with this one small thing?”

Ilere stared at Sophie for a few moments. “I don’t understand why you’re doing this.”

“There’s a lot you don’t understand,” said Sophie. “But maybe I just want to make your day a little worse because you made several of my days a lot worse all those years ago. I’m probably going to need ectoplasm to make a cure for Gilly. If you don’t already have some on hand, I bet you can get it faster than I could.”

That made sense, at least. And Ilere supposed any witch had the right to hold onto grudges and act out of spite.

So she gave Sophie a slight nod. “I don’t often use ectoplasm, and it becomes inert if stored too long, so I don’t have any in storage. But I do know a few places to harvest it fresh. Very well. If this is your vengeance, I suppose it’s tolerable for now. I’ll bring you the ectoplasm, you’ll finish Gilly’s cure, we’ll track down the wayward parents, and then this disruption will be finished.”

“Sounds good to me,” said Sophie.

“And if you help anyone steal my mushrooms,” said Ilere, “I will turn you into replacement mushrooms.”

“I doubt it. I’m not an easy target,” said Sophie. “But if you somehow manage it, I’ll do my best to be poisonous. Unless you wanted me to be poisonous mushrooms, in which case I wouldn’t be. Now, mind giving me a lift back to my shack?”

“I can do that,” said Ilere. “Give me your hand.”

“Just a second,” said Sophie. She reached into one of her belt pouches and pulled out some gauze and a glass vial. “Sorry, Gilly, but I need to get a sample of your slime.”

Gilly croaked a disheartened-sounding assent, and a few moments later Sophie had tucked the now-slimed gauze into the glass vial, then tucked the vial back into her pouch. “All right, there we go,” said Sophie, putting her hand in Ilere’s. “All right. Take me to the shack. Again.”

Ilere didn’t especially enjoy teleportation. It was abrupt, disorienting, and robbed one of the experience of roving through the forest—or wherever one was going. But it seemed that some expediency was in order, and she was familiar enough with Sophie’s shack to teleport the two of them right in front.

“Oof,” said Sophie, staggering a little as they appeared in front of her home. “All right. Thanks, I guess. You will be back with ectoplasm, right?”

“Yes,” said Ilere. “I keep my word.”

“Yeah, like you did when you told Reggie that you’d look after me,” said Sophie.

“I told him I’d bring you somewhere safe from the curse which plagued your hometown,” said Ilere. “I did. I kept my word to him then. I’ll keep my word to you now. How much ectoplasm do you require?”

“If you could just fill a couple bottles—let me go grab them,” said Sophie.

She disappeared into the shack. After a moment, Ilere followed her inside.

The shack was comfortably cluttered with spellbooks, containers of magical reagents, and other odds and ends. A Spyder was perched up by one corner of the ceiling, and a Meowclops—Dusty, Ilere presumed—was crouching beneath the table, eyeing Ilere suspiciously.

Sophie rummaged in one of the cabinets for a few moments, then turned back towards Ilere.

“Didn’t say you could come in, but I guess that’s a moot point,” said Sophie, handing Ilere a couple of empty bottles. “These’ve already been enchanted to hold ectoplasm. Just keep them out of direct sunlight and don’t drop them.”

“I know how to handle a bottle of ectoplasm,” Ilere said, taking the bottles. “I’ve been gathering it since before your grandmother’s grandmother was born.”

“Great. Then you won’t have any issues. See you back… soonish, I guess,” said Sophie. “I’ll get all the other prep work done while you’re working on the ectoplasm.”

“I’ll return shortly,” said Ilere.

As Ilere closed the shack door behind her, she had a strange sense of deja vu.

But it was followed with a sense of satisfaction.

The girl she’d left here years ago had flowered into a fine witch, no less than the last one who’d lived in that shack—the previous owner of the books and magic supplies which had been in the chest a much-younger Sophie had found when Ilere had first led her here.

That last witch—Amaranth, a violet-colored Scorchio—hadn’t been fleeing a curse on her town, so far as Ilere knew, though she had been fleeing something. Ilere hadn’t cared to pry, but the girl—Ilere didn’t think she’d been that much older than Sophie had been, though she wasn’t exactly an expert on Neopet aging—had said she couldn’t go home, and that she just wanted to go anywhere she could be safe from those she’d escaped.

Ilere took her at her word. The previous swamp witch near Ilere’s home—an adult when she’d come; she’d built the shack herself—had passed away some time prior, so Ilere brought her there, and she’d taken to witchery almost as quickly as Sophie had.

So when, after Amaranth’s passing, Ilere met a desperate young Lupe and an even younger Ixi in the woods, speaking of a terrible curse, Ilere knew a place that might suit her.

And it had. Sophie was bound to the swamp; her magic was intertwined with it. The swamp flourished, and so did she.

...though she didn’t seem quite happy with the way Ilere had left her here.

Still, it had turned out well enough, hadn’t it? How could Ilere not be at least a little pleased?

Provided Sophie didn’t follow through on her earlier threat, of. Ilere would be deeply put-out if her private—and apparently not as secret as she’d thought; how had Sophie found it?—mushroom patch suddenly became a target of fungus-filchers.

But she was pretty certain Sophie wouldn’t actually tell anyone.

In any case, it wasn’t too much bother getting the ectoplasm. While it could be harvested from ghosts, Ilere knew of a few secluded places where the natural magic of the Haunted Woods congealed into great globs of ectoplasm that would simply evaporate if left alone.

Ilere collected two bottles full, then, carefully tucking the bottles away so they wouldn’t be exposed to too much light, returned to Sophie’s shack.

She considered knocking. It would be polite.

However, after being extorted into running an errand instead of hunting down whoever had disturbed her life via an unexpected baby, Ilere was not inclined to be especially polite, so she simply opened the door and strode inside.

Sophie was sitting at the kitchen table reading a book. Two potions sat on the table in front of her.

“Great, you’re back,” said Sophie. “You get the ectoplasm?”

Wordlessly, Ilere extracted the bottles of ectoplasm and placed them on the table in front of Sophie.

“Thanks,” said Sophie. “Now, mind teleporting me back to Bruno’s place so I can have Gilly try these?”

Ilere looked at the potions, then back at Sophie.

“I thought you needed ectoplasm for the potions,” said Ilere.

“I still might, if I’m wrong,” said Sophie. “Ectoplasm’s great for transmutations, but I was able to make do with other ingredients.”

Ilere narrowed her eyes. “I am not your errand-runner.”

Sophie shrugged. “These two recipes might not work! If they don’t, then I’ll need the ectoplasm. But now I’m set either way.”

Ilere snatched up the bottles of ectoplasm and shoved them back in the bag.

“Hey!” said Sophie.

“If your potions don’t work, I’ll give you some ectoplasm,” said Ilere. “But again—I am not your errand-runner.”

“You said you don’t even use ectoplasm all that often,” said Sophie.

“I’ll find some use for it,” said Ilere. “I’ll add it to my morning tea if I can’t think of anything else.”

“Ew,” said Sophie. “Fine. Take me to Gilly.”

One more teleportation spell later, the two of them were once again in front of Bruno’s apartment building.

Unfortunately, it was on fire.

To be continued…