All very impressive, she's quite sure, except that as usual, his sense of drama is completely impractical. "Bartimaeus," she huffs in frustration, "I paid a deposit, and now - ugh - " A chunk of plaster drops from the ceiling. "And my landlady was very sweet, you know. We are not destroying her wall on the way out."
She does, obligingly, climb onto the back of the sphinx. Which is actually quite comfortable, when you get down to it. The last time she and Bartimaeus had traveled together, he'd been dangling her over the London rooftops, and she'd been furiously stabbing at his scaly feet in an attempt to cause any sort of damage. In contrast, now, her perch is quite nice: the spinx's back is narrow enough that it doesn't strain her thighs, and its fur is thick and luxurious enough that she can dig her hands in and enjoy the plushness. Really quite lovely.
"You," she dictates, "are going to lower your head and take the stairs and then use the front door like a rational perso- spirit. Understood?"
"Excuse me?" Here at last he begins to sound like his old dignified self again. "Take the stairs?!"
He surruptiotiously stops flexing the toes of one forepaw from where he'd just been about to flick a Detonation at the unsuspecting wall. Had she taken even a split second longer about being so particular, she could have kissed that fading wallpaper goodbye.
"I'm trying to do you a favor, Kitty. And your sweet landlord, come to think of it. This room could use some more natural light. Do you know I nearly missed seeing that window entirely when I was trying to figure out how to get inside? I can barely even see you now. I've been squinting in the dark this whole time we've been talking. It's dreadful. It really is."
This he complains without remit as he sulkily maneuvers himself around in the tight confines of the room, making loathed changes to his shape and dimension as he goes. By the time he's facing the door inside of the perfectly good window he can fit through it without so much as cracking the door frame. Lower his head? Use the front door? Just who does she think she is? He is perfectly within his rights to refuse her entirely, thank you very much.
He takes the stairs, though makes a point of staying as large as the stairwell allows without scraping her off on any light fixtures or low hanging doorways like gum from a shoe. Which for the record, is actually more technically skilled than blowing out any old crumbling wall and flouncing off into the sky. It requires a constant subtle manipulation of his essence to both maintain the sphinx's appearance and gravitas all while elongating and contracting certain key elements of his form to fill every available cobwebby corner. Any old djinni can bust through a few inches of plaster and stone. It takes one of real ability to look imposing in a little old foyer.
"Thank you, Bartimaeus," Kitty says primly once they're outside, and gives the djinni a scratch between the shoulder blades. Which, yes, her earlier stroking of his head made it clear enough that he didn't have a birdlike reaction to her touch, so there's no reason to think he'll have a catlike reaction to a bit of rubbing, but it just feels like the right thing to do. "And Mrs Koehler thanks you, too, even if she doesn't know it."
She wraps her arms around him, then, bracing for liftoff. "Now," she says, "you can make as much of a scene as you'd like. I'm with you."
She wraps her arms around him. He can feel the warmth of her through his feathers and fur, the pinch of her knees at his sides, and the dispersing tingle between his shoulder blades where she'd scratched the sphinx approvingly. For just a moment, he lingers there on Mrs Koehler's doorstep in one of city's many quiet side streets as a chill breath of air twists up the road to ruffle the great wine dark primary feathers of his wings and through the pale gossamer of Kitty's hair.
Well. No time like the present.
"You're going to regret not bringing that jacket," he tells Kitty tartly even as he spins a barrier about her against the wind.
Then, with a coil of its muscular haunches and a powerful beat of outstretched wings, the sphinx leaps into the air. The force batters the shutters of the nearest houses. It shakes window glass in panes. Licked with streaming embers, they climb level to the gray rooftops where they startle an assortment of pigeons and blackbirds from their roosts. The lion body moves with great undulations as it climbs higher and higher above the old neighborhood and then the district, but his head is steady and the thick fur and feathers at his neck makes for a reasonably good handhold until they catch an updraft and can coast in a dazzling glitter of red fire and black feathers against a steel sky over the heart of Berlin. With only the briefest of detours to buzz dramatically through the Brandenburg Gate, he turns at last toward their destination - not West to London, but South for somewhere else entirely.
𓅁 𓅁 𓅁
But they won't get there all in one go. Powerful as he is, being the picture of efficiency and grace at all times, Kitty's heavier than she looks. Having altered his shape since leaving Berlin, gradually reducing in bulk and majesty, by the time they spiral down alongside a broad country lane at the outskirts of a positively saccharine Bavarian town he might as well be a giant falcon made of folded origami paper for all his weariness. His good will has similarly dwindled. When the dark shape he'd very sensibly assumed to be a low stone wall where he might delicately come to rest instead materializes out of the night as an unexpected hedgerow, he curses loudly and at length6 before landing with an unsophisticated crunch of greenery and poking twigs.
"Who ruins a perfectly good roadside with an ugly old hedge?! Off, off! We're done with this free ride nonsense. You're on foot from here on out."
6. Now there's some real swearing for you, and in five different languages to boot.
He comes to a halt. But she still has some momentum. Kitty gives a very reasonable cry of surprise as she tumbles off him (a noise which uncharitable people might describe as a "squeak," but which is really just a perfectly normal and normally-pitched noise of protest, thanks) and into the hedgerow. Now she regrets not bringing that jacket indeed, as the scratchy twigs and leaves jab at her poor arms and legs.
"Ow," she says, firmly and calmly registering her displeasure. She thrashes about a moment, then manages to dig herself out of the hedge with a minimum of bloodshed - and then she gives Bartimaeus a look. Oh, he managed to get out of the hedge just fine, didn't he.
"Warn me next time, won't you. Honestly - " She purses her lips, brushing more foliage off herself. "It's like you've never given someone a ride before." Then, straightening her tunic and squaring her shoulders, she squints around them. This...seems a long way from anything of note. "Are we...almost there, then? Is this - erm - France, or...?"
Oh sure, he'd made it out of the hedgerow without much in the way of nicks and scratches, but that doesn't account for all places he's worn tragically thin elsewhere. Have you ever seen a huge bird waddling along the ground? Well he's living it and it's not exactly dignified, now is it?
"Not even slightly. What on earth did they teach you in school? Aren't you meant to be something of a globe trotter these days? France. As if they've a monopoly on stupid shrubs. Pah!" He's lumbered awkwardly up to the road proper and pauses there, looking critically down onto the town with its horrible cheery street lights and it's sickeningly cute red tiled roofs. "No, we're just into Austria with a day yet to go, but I'm done carrying you. Has anyone ever told you how pointy your knees are7?"
He'd have no trouble at all after a little rest of course, but only the stupidest of foliots solves every problem by throwing themselves at it. And seeing as she's not actively running in the opposite direction the moment they'd set down, why put himself out when they have the luxury of being smart about it? It might not be the more stylish way of getting where they're going, but as long as no one's looking then there's no harm in loosening the belt just a little.
"There's a train track running through here. If I'm right" --as per usual-- "It should get us where we're going. Or close enough to count."
Even better: a train might tell her most of what he couldn't.
7. They're really not that bad, but you try carrying someone around on your shoulders for twelve hours and see how you like it. You'd have some insults ready too.
"A train?" In spite of her irritation over that jab at her knees (oh, she could show him exactly how pointy her knees are if she wanted), and in spite of her continued apprehension, she can't help but smile at that. Bartimaeus. On a train. She imagines Ptolemy's form, resolute and stern-faced, perched cross-legged atop a locomotive and trying ever so hard to look impressive and imposing, and the image is perfect in every way. Or perhaps even better, him as a little old German granny, hunched over her playing cards, staying incognito.
"Honestly, all of this seems like such a production. Couldn't you just materialize me where you want to go? Not that I'm complaining, mind, this truly is lovely countryside - " And it's not like she's in a rush to reach their destination - "but surely there's an easier way to go about this."
Still, she obediently bends over and holds out her hand. "I can carry you a while, if you'd like. I think we ought to stop off in this town and get something to eat. I'm utterly famished."
He scoffs or laughs with a certain superior, but no doubt infinitely kind and knowing air. It might be easy to forget that for all that Kitty knows a thing or two about-- well, about a thing or two, that she doesn't have a clue when it comes to numbers three through forty thousand if it weren't for her habit of bringing it up every thirty seconds or so. If he were a less understanding sort and she was a little more irritating, he might find himself telling all sorts of stories purely because no one in the room would know enough to catch him at it.
But he's tired and boundless though his creativity is, it might be best to keep a lid on it before he talks his way out of that free ride she's offering. Besides, she can't exactly help being so painfully oblivious.
He settles for airy, but painstakingly educational: "As a matter of fact, I can't. I might be above most of the rules that you have to deal with, but I can't just jump around willy nilly without being summoned. And you--! Well you're even more exhausting to take with me that way than this one. And you have enough complicated parts that it might be perfectly understandable to lose a few on the way even for the likes of me."
Somewhere in there, the falcon has disappeared. In its place - and clambering wearily into her open palm now - is a field mouse with twitching whiskers and small velveteen ears.
It's always funny to see Bartimaeus in forms like that. She sometimes wonders what it means when he goes drab and little. Most of the time, he's so ridiculously focused on looking powerful and impressive, picking his guises to strike awe into the hearts of onlookers. Like that absurd sphinx - honestly, he probably could have made it another hundred miles if he hadn't been so focused on ensuring that the helmet was perfectly gleaming and gorgeous. It must have taken quite a lot of mental energy. If she were in a situation like that, she'd absolutely give no thought whatsoever to her appearance, as she's quite above common vanity of that sort, thanks.
She tugs her tunic back into place and adjusts her hair as she straightens up. Her resilience is, no doubt, less than pleasant for him, so she slips him instead into her breast pocket. Close enough that they can chat, but sheltered from her skin and from the world around them.
"Well, then," she says, "I do quite appreciate you taking the slow route. Not least because the view was quite lovely." She uses a single finger to stroke him gently where he's nestled.
She's a little weary from the journey, but in decent enough condition that she can stride towards the village at reasonable speed. "Now, I'll need you to be my translator, if you don't mind. Doubt any of these people speak English. And do it subtly, if you please, I'd sooner not have any of these poor folks getting nervous about demons and all that. How do I ask for - oh - I suppose something with apples in it would be nice. One of those turnover-type things?"
He's being low profile, thank you very much. It's a shape perfectly calculated for subtlety, for whispering things secretly at her, for - as is just so happens - fitting neatly into pockets where he can nest with his long tail tucked close about him like a cat's. If anyone spots him in this guise, they can mistake Kitty for a batty woman and nothing more.
Which of course he thinks no part of whatsoever, seeing as she's been so prudent as to keep her thoughts to herself. But had Kitty mentioned anything about his chosen form or if he were the sort to uselessly rationalize at length to himself, that might be the sort of thing he'd come up with. Instead, the mouse flicks it ears, wets a paw and smooths its fur back where the tip of her finger - he really should correct that behavior - has mussed it.
"You might as well ask for it in German. --Hey now, here's your chance to really get in some practice on those finer points we discussed earlier," he says, then tells her slowly and with typically flawless pronunciation how to go about it all the while cleaning his whiskers and squirming to get comfortable in the corner of her pocket.
Now that's more like it. The strange squint-and-miss-it texture of her aura isn't quite as offensive like this as it had been after hours of her behind his wings.
"Slow down when you say it," Kitty says, a little exasperated. "That was way too fast. And also, did you use one of those swear words in there? You know I can pick them out now that you've taught them to me."
The town really is a sweet little place. There were parts of the countryside that she'd seen when she traveled that were still scorched with remnants of magic from the Great War those hundred years before. There were parts of London like that, too - areas that felt unsettled and poisoned, wastelands of destruction where no one dared to live. She supposed that that's what the remnants of the Crystal Palace would become, too, in time...But this town clearly had been untouched by the hand of war, hadn't seen violence or destruction or anything of the sort. It's just nice and ordinary.
She does hope it stays like that. Things do have a tendency to get destroyed when Bartimaeus is around, after all.
There's an inn with windows bright and golden with the light inside. Kitty pushes in and is rewarded with warmth and bustling activity, the noise of two dozen people enjoying a pint and chattering away to each other. She gets a few curious looks, but no suspicion or hostility; she suspects she's not the only outsider to come here, not with the train line so close. In fact - yeah, there's a table with a knot of three people with travel-rumpled clothes, hunching over a map and looking awfully confused...She'll be fine here.
"There's a fire in the corner," she says to him softly. "Would it help your essence to be near it?" She knows Bartimaeus is made up of fire and air, more than anything else - but, admittedly, she doesn't exactly know what that means for him in terms of...things that make his time on Earth more comfortable or anything like that.
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She does, obligingly, climb onto the back of the sphinx. Which is actually quite comfortable, when you get down to it. The last time she and Bartimaeus had traveled together, he'd been dangling her over the London rooftops, and she'd been furiously stabbing at his scaly feet in an attempt to cause any sort of damage. In contrast, now, her perch is quite nice: the spinx's back is narrow enough that it doesn't strain her thighs, and its fur is thick and luxurious enough that she can dig her hands in and enjoy the plushness. Really quite lovely.
"You," she dictates, "are going to lower your head and take the stairs and then use the front door like a rational perso- spirit. Understood?"
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He surruptiotiously stops flexing the toes of one forepaw from where he'd just been about to flick a Detonation at the unsuspecting wall. Had she taken even a split second longer about being so particular, she could have kissed that fading wallpaper goodbye.
"I'm trying to do you a favor, Kitty. And your sweet landlord, come to think of it. This room could use some more natural light. Do you know I nearly missed seeing that window entirely when I was trying to figure out how to get inside? I can barely even see you now. I've been squinting in the dark this whole time we've been talking. It's dreadful. It really is."
This he complains without remit as he sulkily maneuvers himself around in the tight confines of the room, making loathed changes to his shape and dimension as he goes. By the time he's facing the door inside of the perfectly good window he can fit through it without so much as cracking the door frame. Lower his head? Use the front door? Just who does she think she is? He is perfectly within his rights to refuse her entirely, thank you very much.
He takes the stairs, though makes a point of staying as large as the stairwell allows without scraping her off on any light fixtures or low hanging doorways like gum from a shoe. Which for the record, is actually more technically skilled than blowing out any old crumbling wall and flouncing off into the sky. It requires a constant subtle manipulation of his essence to both maintain the sphinx's appearance and gravitas all while elongating and contracting certain key elements of his form to fill every available cobwebby corner. Any old djinni can bust through a few inches of plaster and stone. It takes one of real ability to look imposing in a little old foyer.
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She wraps her arms around him, then, bracing for liftoff. "Now," she says, "you can make as much of a scene as you'd like. I'm with you."
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Well. No time like the present.
"You're going to regret not bringing that jacket," he tells Kitty tartly even as he spins a barrier about her against the wind.
Then, with a coil of its muscular haunches and a powerful beat of outstretched wings, the sphinx leaps into the air. The force batters the shutters of the nearest houses. It shakes window glass in panes. Licked with streaming embers, they climb level to the gray rooftops where they startle an assortment of pigeons and blackbirds from their roosts. The lion body moves with great undulations as it climbs higher and higher above the old neighborhood and then the district, but his head is steady and the thick fur and feathers at his neck makes for a reasonably good handhold until they catch an updraft and can coast in a dazzling glitter of red fire and black feathers against a steel sky over the heart of Berlin. With only the briefest of detours to buzz dramatically through the Brandenburg Gate, he turns at last toward their destination - not West to London, but South for somewhere else entirely.
But they won't get there all in one go. Powerful as he is, being the picture of efficiency and grace at all times, Kitty's heavier than she looks. Having altered his shape since leaving Berlin, gradually reducing in bulk and majesty, by the time they spiral down alongside a broad country lane at the outskirts of a positively saccharine Bavarian town he might as well be a giant falcon made of folded origami paper for all his weariness. His good will has similarly dwindled. When the dark shape he'd very sensibly assumed to be a low stone wall where he might delicately come to rest instead materializes out of the night as an unexpected hedgerow, he curses loudly and at length6 before landing with an unsophisticated crunch of greenery and poking twigs.
"Who ruins a perfectly good roadside with an ugly old hedge?! Off, off! We're done with this free ride nonsense. You're on foot from here on out."
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"Ow," she says, firmly and calmly registering her displeasure. She thrashes about a moment, then manages to dig herself out of the hedge with a minimum of bloodshed - and then she gives Bartimaeus a look. Oh, he managed to get out of the hedge just fine, didn't he.
"Warn me next time, won't you. Honestly - " She purses her lips, brushing more foliage off herself. "It's like you've never given someone a ride before." Then, straightening her tunic and squaring her shoulders, she squints around them. This...seems a long way from anything of note. "Are we...almost there, then? Is this - erm - France, or...?"
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"Not even slightly. What on earth did they teach you in school? Aren't you meant to be something of a globe trotter these days? France. As if they've a monopoly on stupid shrubs. Pah!" He's lumbered awkwardly up to the road proper and pauses there, looking critically down onto the town with its horrible cheery street lights and it's sickeningly cute red tiled roofs. "No, we're just into Austria with a day yet to go, but I'm done carrying you. Has anyone ever told you how pointy your knees are7?"
He'd have no trouble at all after a little rest of course, but only the stupidest of foliots solves every problem by throwing themselves at it. And seeing as she's not actively running in the opposite direction the moment they'd set down, why put himself out when they have the luxury of being smart about it? It might not be the more stylish way of getting where they're going, but as long as no one's looking then there's no harm in loosening the belt just a little.
"There's a train track running through here. If I'm right" --as per usual-- "It should get us where we're going. Or close enough to count."
Even better: a train might tell her most of what he couldn't.
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"Honestly, all of this seems like such a production. Couldn't you just materialize me where you want to go? Not that I'm complaining, mind, this truly is lovely countryside - " And it's not like she's in a rush to reach their destination - "but surely there's an easier way to go about this."
Still, she obediently bends over and holds out her hand. "I can carry you a while, if you'd like. I think we ought to stop off in this town and get something to eat. I'm utterly famished."
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But he's tired and boundless though his creativity is, it might be best to keep a lid on it before he talks his way out of that free ride she's offering. Besides, she can't exactly help being so painfully oblivious.
He settles for airy, but painstakingly educational: "As a matter of fact, I can't. I might be above most of the rules that you have to deal with, but I can't just jump around willy nilly without being summoned. And you--! Well you're even more exhausting to take with me that way than this one. And you have enough complicated parts that it might be perfectly understandable to lose a few on the way even for the likes of me."
Somewhere in there, the falcon has disappeared. In its place - and clambering wearily into her open palm now - is a field mouse with twitching whiskers and small velveteen ears.
no subject
She tugs her tunic back into place and adjusts her hair as she straightens up. Her resilience is, no doubt, less than pleasant for him, so she slips him instead into her breast pocket. Close enough that they can chat, but sheltered from her skin and from the world around them.
"Well, then," she says, "I do quite appreciate you taking the slow route. Not least because the view was quite lovely." She uses a single finger to stroke him gently where he's nestled.
She's a little weary from the journey, but in decent enough condition that she can stride towards the village at reasonable speed. "Now, I'll need you to be my translator, if you don't mind. Doubt any of these people speak English. And do it subtly, if you please, I'd sooner not have any of these poor folks getting nervous about demons and all that. How do I ask for - oh - I suppose something with apples in it would be nice. One of those turnover-type things?"
no subject
Which of course he thinks no part of whatsoever, seeing as she's been so prudent as to keep her thoughts to herself. But had Kitty mentioned anything about his chosen form or if he were the sort to uselessly rationalize at length to himself, that might be the sort of thing he'd come up with. Instead, the mouse flicks it ears, wets a paw and smooths its fur back where the tip of her finger - he really should correct that behavior - has mussed it.
"You might as well ask for it in German. --Hey now, here's your chance to really get in some practice on those finer points we discussed earlier," he says, then tells her slowly and with typically flawless pronunciation how to go about it all the while cleaning his whiskers and squirming to get comfortable in the corner of her pocket.
Now that's more like it. The strange squint-and-miss-it texture of her aura isn't quite as offensive like this as it had been after hours of her behind his wings.
no subject
The town really is a sweet little place. There were parts of the countryside that she'd seen when she traveled that were still scorched with remnants of magic from the Great War those hundred years before. There were parts of London like that, too - areas that felt unsettled and poisoned, wastelands of destruction where no one dared to live. She supposed that that's what the remnants of the Crystal Palace would become, too, in time...But this town clearly had been untouched by the hand of war, hadn't seen violence or destruction or anything of the sort. It's just nice and ordinary.
She does hope it stays like that. Things do have a tendency to get destroyed when Bartimaeus is around, after all.
There's an inn with windows bright and golden with the light inside. Kitty pushes in and is rewarded with warmth and bustling activity, the noise of two dozen people enjoying a pint and chattering away to each other. She gets a few curious looks, but no suspicion or hostility; she suspects she's not the only outsider to come here, not with the train line so close. In fact - yeah, there's a table with a knot of three people with travel-rumpled clothes, hunching over a map and looking awfully confused...She'll be fine here.
"There's a fire in the corner," she says to him softly. "Would it help your essence to be near it?" She knows Bartimaeus is made up of fire and air, more than anything else - but, admittedly, she doesn't exactly know what that means for him in terms of...things that make his time on Earth more comfortable or anything like that.