Mari glanced at Jacob, mentally begging him not to back down. To stand up for himself. Maybe there was something in telepathy after all - he seemed to get the hint one way or another. He stood up straighter and said in the most sickeningly polite tone he could muster, with a saucy tilt of his head, "Well hello yourself! Mari, do hand your guest a towel. It appears a bird chose her face as an unfortunate target. Won't you, there's a dear."

His taunting tone acted like a whip on Kanti. Her face hardened and her eyes narrowed into stony slits of frost. She tried to match his syrupy tone but was sadly lacking in self-control. Her voice shook with anger. "Don't display your alarm so plainly, child."  She lifted her arm, fingers stiffened, and all but shouted a holding spell at Jacob, her voice grating and gravelly with fury. He smiled condescendingly and flicked a single finger at her. In an instant the holding spell was gone and had been replaced by a much stronger one on Kanti. Jacob began walking grimly toward her, punctuating each slow, ponderous step with a scathing sentence. 

"Child, you said? Child? Well, consider your position, Kanti. You know nothing about me. You don't know my name or my age or where I come from. For all you know, I could be one of the NINE!" Here his voice thundered through the bottle and Mari shrank against the wall, suddenly conscious that her guest had greater powers than she had suspected, whether or not his threat was true. She didn't think it was - he looked too young. "But you didn't consider that, did you? No, you felt it necessary to insult a guest the way no proper fairy would to regain your sense of self esteem. Congratualtions. You've just made a complete and utter fool of yourself." By now he was right in front of Kanti, and she was backed against the door of the bottle, trembling like a frail leaf. He smiled contemptuously and turned away, scorn packed into every fiber of his bearing. "Fortunately for you, I'm not one of the Nine. But...." Here he let the silence hang ominously and stood with his back to Kanti, his hands clasped behind him, bearing regal. He spoke without turning around, each word ringing like a peal of doom. "But my father is!" Kanti and Mari let out simultanious gasps, Kanti's of horror, Mari's of awe that she had entertained the successor to the Council in her own home unawares. There was no doubt that what he said was true. When fairies lied, their wings fluttered and they couldn't stand still, and Jacob looked like he had been carved of granite just now. He spun around and glared fiercely at Kanti, a shrinking coward with all her false bravado gone. His voice was quiet and threatening, layered richly with scorn. "You're a liar and a bully, you who call yourself Kanti. I would suggest you leave. NOW!" She turned and fled through the door in terror, regardless of the rain that had turned to hail. In an instant, she was gone.

Mari raised one eyebrow at Jacob. "And why, pray tell, didn't you tell me that before?" She was a little annoyed, even if he was the son of on of the Nine. 

He raised an eyebrow back. "I don't like how people walk on eggshells when they're near me and treat me like I'm made of glass and might explode. I do blow up now and then, like when there's a bully like that one. I should have done something more - she's of the sort that will be bent on revenge now." He wrinkled his nose in an amazingly ordinary way. "It really doesn't make me different from other fairies, you know. Sure, I'm stronger in magic than most, but I can't help that - it's hereditery. Please don't be mad that I didn't tell you, Mari.

((Admins, is the spellcheck thing new? Whether or not it is, thanks for putting it in! I was actually about to start a thread to ask for that. Very nice! Thanks! And Ema, my dialogue is usually pretty bad. Sorry if it is here - I'm still having a hard time reading objectively 'cause I just wrote it. :P Dialogue is one of my weakest points. Anywho, that was fun! I like cliffhangers where you can do fun things. Thanks! I just realized that this is getting a bit long for a short story. Maybe for revenge Kanti should go to the king regardless of the Nine or the council deciding the debates. From my point of view, the Nine are the most powerful magicians, and they're a strong force in the fairy government for that reason. I didn't say so, though, so you can change it if you want. My opinions are flexible. :D It's getting late, so I'd better stop before I start to ramble.))

-EH

Ema? Maybe I'm getting paranoid about disappearances, just like the rest of the Chatterbox, but where are you? Please?

-A worried EH

Jacob yawned suddenly, hugely. Mari slapped her forehead. "I'm sorry, Jacob! You've got to be tired. Not to mention sore. Go all the way back and take the bottlecape at the end of the bottle. I'll make myself a bed up front here." She tossed him a towel and walked back with him, carrying an acorn cup of steaming water. When she set it down on a chair in the back room, she spoke quietly to him. "And don't be surprised if Kanti tries something tonight. She's petty and vengeful. I just hope she doesn't do anything really stupid. Last time she almost burned down half of Paris. Neimu and his following all had to cast a damping spell." She blushed. "And, well, Kanti was trying to melt the glass of my bottle, so it was getting pretty hot in here. It was all I could do to keep myself cool enough to stay alive." She straightened and walked to the doorway. "All that to say that Kanti will try to get back at me, and you too. You especially, really. Just be warned." She pulled aside the light, silky curtain that formed the door and disappeared behind it.

((I've got to stop and go practice piano and make dinner cause my mom's out of town. Sorry it's short. :P))

-EH

Ema, I probably won't be able to get on again today and I'll be at engineering camp the rest of the week, so don't be surprised if my posts are much less frequent. I'll try to get on some still, though.

-EH the departing

((Ok, so I'm a little later than "tomorrow" as I said in my last post. Sorry.))

Jacob opened his eyes, his vision still bleary. Someone was shaking him, and he was shaking himself. At least, that was the way it seemed. Then he realized that Mari was shaking him a little, and he was shivering so hard that between the two motions, he was practically rolling back and forth. A silvery light danced throught the room; then he saw that the light was reflections reflecting off reflections from ice crystals. He was awake in an instant.

He sat up and saw the full extent of the damage the cold had wrecked on the bottle. Without looking at Mari, he stood up and said in a voice grim and icy enough to match the room, "Kanti?" "Kanti," came the affirmation from his friend. He cast an opening spell on the door. Nothing. This can't be only Kanti. His mind raced, remembering the lessons his father had taught him. "Stand back. This might hurt." He raised his arm and began to chant methodically - 

"Open door and open wide

Bring the outer world inside.

Open ice and open cold

Let your inner warmth unfold."

Over and over, again and again, first forwards, then last line first. Mari was confused. They sounded so... so... childish. Like a jump-rope rhyme. Then again, aren't the rhymes of lore the same way? The spells of healing? Of binding? Of light? They're all like this. In a vain hope, Mari began to whisper the lines with Jacob, adding what force she could. She could feel the power from Jacob, like a river, an elephant, an irrisitible gust of wind. It could do nothing. Hers was a stream, a mouse, the faintest summer breeze. What could it do? 

Everything.

With the addition of her few drops, her pattering footsteps, her breath of wind, the door, against the will of some mighty binding-spell, began to force its way open. The cold air whoshed out, the ice began to melt. But before the ice melted, it obeyed the spell; that is, it opened. Every crystal unfolded like a blooming flower, a flower of such beauty and clarity it seemed to Mari she had never seen any other blossoms. 

And the door was open.

((There was more to the freezing-spell and shutting-spell than just Kanti. They've won a major victory here. And you have to figure out how and why. :D But it has to be major.  Really big. If you can't make it really big, can I? Por favor? Pretty please with cherries? And whipped cream? This next part has to be big. And sorry I wrote you into such a corner. I'm not sure what happened - that's just the way the story told itself. Sorry. Does that make sense? :P))

-EH