Chapter 11

Cassidy was struggling to hold in her frustration. This must have been the fiftieth time she had walked down the center aisle tossing her “petals”, that were really paper scraps, from a wooden basket. Each time being swiftly told no by Clovis, and given some vague direction about how to do it right. Allyson every now and then would interrupt with something like “you’re doing so good.” or “you’ll get it sweetie.” Phrases you would tell a toddler to keep them from getting frustrated at something like this. It wasn’t particularly effective but Cassidy appreciated Allyson’s cooing more than Clovis’ short reprimands.

“There yes just like that!” Clovis exclaimed as Cassidy dropped more paper shreds onto the ground.

“Like this?” Cassidy repeated the technique she had just used. Over the course of this ordeal she had picked up more than she ever thought possible about the inner workings and minutia of grabbing and dropping objects from a basket. She was able to replicate the hand movements pretty accurately, even if Cassidy doubted anyone in the audience would be paying enough attention to notice.

“Yes just like that,” Clovis said plainly.

“Good girl Cassidy!” Allyson’s exuberance more than made up for Clovis’ lack thereof. Allyson quickly closed the gap to Cassidy and began petting between her ears. “Good job such a smart little girl.” Cassidy smiled at the affection. Despite how childish it was, she couldn’t deny that being pet right there did feel really good. Callie often petted her in a similar fashion, though hers were better in whatever metric Cassidy was using to value pets at.

“Now I wanted to go over when she needs to come out,” Clovis spoke to Allyson as if Cassidy wasn’t there. “I assume you’re her keeper while she’s here?”

“I suppose that’s what I’ve turned into,” Allyson spoke with a happy smile to signal that she wasn’t bothered by it.

“Well can you make sure she comes out at the right time and sits in the right spot?”

“I’m sure I can,” Allyson and Clovis walked further down the aisle, probably expecting Cassidy to be the obedient child and follow them, but Cassidy had different ideas. She was getting kind of sick of being around Clovis and wanted a short break from him. Cassidy would take this moment while both he and Allyson were distracted to wander off somewhere she could be alone, or at least away from the two of them. She doubted that Clovis was actually concerned for her anyway, he would only be concerned if she messed with any of the decorating that was going on. And Allyson knew that Cassidy was an adult that could take care of herself, despite how well she was fitting into her caretaker role. At least Cassidy hoped she knew that.

While Clovis and Allyson’s back was turned Cassidy casually strolled out of the large room and back to the foyer. Despite her rather bright outfit, and the fact that her diaper audibly crinkled as she walked, Cassidy was able to move around basically unnoticed with everyone else being so busy.

She decided to make her way down the left hall. She had already seen the right when Allyson took her to be changed earlier, and Cassidy wanted to be as far away from that nursery as possible. Predictably this other hallway was simply a mirror of the one Cassidy had been down earlier. Though, while that one was empty, this one had a few Biscotti about. Only a handful, some from the Callgahorn family, and some from the family that ran the temple. All somewhat laxidasically working to put together decorations of some kind. Some were working on table decorations, others on a long string of flowers, and one was even using magic to levitate some white ribbon in the air. They were probably testing how feasible it would be for them to hold that spell for the entire ceremony. Cassidy probably could she thought to herself. The crinkling coming from her bottom reminded her that she was already busy with something else though.

As Cassidy passed by another room she couldn’t help but overhear a conversation emerging from inside.

“This is supposed to be an arch,” a female Biscotti spoke to a male in annoyance.

“Sorry ma’am we just got the order for how long it was, we didn’t get anything about it needing to be an arch,” the other said plainly.

“Ok ok,” the female sighed in annoyance. “Let me go ahead and order another in an arch shape,” she made sure to emphasize the last part of her sentence.

“I’ll note it down here ma’am,” the other said as the two left the room in a hurry.

“Oh watch out sweetheart. You almost got squished,” the woman said gently to Cassidy after almost plowing into her on the way out. Cassidy peeked into the room once the two were gone. Sure enough in the room was two long thin pieces of metal connected to each other with smaller pieces of metal placed awkwardly in the middle of the floor. Off to one corner of the room was some decorations that would have adorned the would-be arch were it actually arch shaped. The metal itself wasn’t sturdy at all, and could be bent by hand, but the result would not be the elegant looking curve that Brita no doubt wanted. That is unless someone were to shape it with magic.

Cassidy looked at the ring on her finger as she walked into the room. The same magic ring that she almost used to shoot lighting at a flugewhale a few days earlier. Admittedly the metal school of magic wasn’t one of Cassidy’s stronger schools, and she was missing her staff which would have made a better focus, but the spell to make metal malleable wasn’t that complicated. Worst case scenario the metal would retain its current consistency.

Cassidy gave another quick look around to make sure she was alone before approaching and kneeling down next to the piece of metal. Helping out by shaping this arch would be a nice change of pace from helping out by being obnoxiously cute. She placed one hand on the metal and slowly began to focus her magical energy, first into the crystal on her ring and then out through her hand into the metal. It took a few moments since she wasn’t working with her staff, but before long a good section of the metal arch way was giving off a faint yellow glow. Cassidy stopped channeling the magic and quickly tested the affected area. As expected it had less the consistency of metal and more the consistency of putty or clay. It would remain that way only for a few minutes, but it would be more than enough time for Cassidy to shape it how she wanted.

Cassidy quickly but carefully began to curve the affected area of the metal structure slowly forming it into the arch shape. She was finished, with some time left on the enchantment to boot. Satisfied Cassidy placed her hand back on the metal and attempted to remove the magic from the metal and put it back into her. She could have just let the magic fizzle out on its own, but Cassidy thought herself better than that. A mage as skilled as her shouldn’t waste magic.

When Cassidy tried to break the spell something suddenly felt off. The flow of magic into her was different. The momentary hiccup broke her focus and suddenly Cassidy was left with a bunch of ambient magic that she couldn’t store safely in herself any more. She tensed a little. Unstored magic like this had the tendency to get unstable fast. Thinking quickly Cassidy decided the best course of action was to just put it back into the metal where it was and let it fizzle out. She began to do just that when once again she felt the flow of her magic blocked and interrupted. Something was off with her and it was affecting her ability to channel her spells correctly. Cassidy was trying to cast the same spell she did before, one to make the metal malleable, but with her magical flow interrupted that wasn’t the spell she cast. Quite suddenly the meatal began to reform and a sharp metal spike jutted out of the arch, with Cassidy barely managing to scoot herself out of the way of it in time.

“Fuck!” Cassidy exclaimed as she dodged. She struggled for a moment to ease her adrenaline. If she hadn’t of moved Cassidy would be dealing with a spike going through her chest right now.

As she looked back to the arch she could see that the metal to make that spike came from one end of the arch. It looked as if someone had pulled a loose thread too much, only instead of soft cotton it was sharp metal.

Cassidy didn’t understand how this could happen. Something was messing with her magic, but she didn’t know what, or why, and that concerned her almost as much as nearly getting stabbed.

“Oh goodness sweetie are you ok,” the female Biscotti from before had rushed to Cassidy upon hearing the commotion.

“Yeah yeah I’m ok.” Cassidy stood up and only now realized that she didn’t get away totally unscathed. One of the straps on her skirtall fell uselessly to the side as it had been cut through by the metal spike.

“How on earth did this happen?” the Biscotti stared at the strange metal shape.

“Cassidy!” Came a concerned cry from Allyson as she entered the room and inspected Cassidy. “I take my eye off you for one second and you nearly get a spike run through you.” Allyson’s tone was a distinctly motherly mix of concerned and angry.

“Sorry,” Cassidy said suddenly on the defensive. “I just thought I could help.”

“You did this?” the other Biscotti questioned.

“Sweetie,” Allyson thought quickly. “I’ve told you magic isn’t something you should be playing around with. I’m so sorry. I hope she didn’t mess anything up.” Allyson directed the last half of her statement to the female Biscotti who was looking on at the metal monstrosity Cassidy created with awe.

“Oh no,” she said coming to her senses. “We were going to have to order a new one anyway. I’m just glad our little one isn’t hurt. She must be quite talented to manage that at her age.”

“She is. Only her talents tend to get her in trouble,” Allyson said with a smile. She quickly took Cassidy by the hand and led her out of the room.

“What were you doing?” Allyson questioned angrily as she continued to lead Cassidy down the hall toward the foyer.

“They wanted it to be an arch,” Cassidy said confused. “I know enough metal magic to shape it.”

“But you almost got ran through by a spike. Besides you should be focusing on being a flower girl. Leave the decorating to the grownups.”

“What just drop paper scraps from my hand all day and listen to Clovis complain about me like I’m not in the room?”

“Yes!” Allyson said exasperated. The two had crossed the foyer and were now going down the other hallway. “We’re all making sacrifices to make sure this goes off well. The least you can do is take your part in it seriously and not sneak off to get into trouble.”

“I wasn’t trying to start trouble,” Cassidy said with a pout.

“You nearly killed yourself,” Allyson countered.

“That’s wasn’t my fault,” Cassidy said defensively. “Something is up with my magic.”

“Or maybe you just underestimated what you could do without your staff,” Allyson spoke in a way that let Cassidy know there wasn’t going to be any convincing her. At this point the two arrived back at the nursery and Allyson opened the door and pointed inside with a frown. Cassidy got the hint and walked in. Allyson was right behind her shutting the door. “Gimme the ring,” Allyson demanded with her palm held open.

“What?” Cassidy asked incredulously.

“Give. Me. Your. Ring. Your magic ring.”

“But …” Cassidy tried to argue but Allyson cut her off.

“You’ve already proven that you can’t be trusted. Ring. Now.” Allyson demanded. Cassidy almost audibly rolled her eyes as she handed Allyson the magic ring.

“Please don’t lose that it’s very valuable,” Cassidy said seriously as she handed the ring over it.

“I’ll keep it safe,” Allyson said sincerely placing the ring in her pocket. “Now what did you do to your skirtalls,” Allyson inspected the torn strap closely.

“Hey just be glad it’s only the skirtalls,” Cassidy complained as Allyson looked her over.

“Ok let’s get you out of these,” Allyson said already part way through removing them.

“Hey!” Cassidy complained as the only thing covering her diaper was yanked off of her, not that it was doing that great of a job covering it. Being left in just a blouse and a soggy diaper wasn’t ideal though, especially since Cassidy was only now realizing that she was soggy.

“I need to get this fixed,” Allyson explained folding the skirtall and setting it on the changing table in the room. “I borrowed this from the daycare where I work and I don’t need to return it broken.” Cassidy pouted a little but didn’t protest the reason. “Besides it’s not like you’re going to be out of this room any more today.”

“What?” Cassidy more spat than asked.

“Clovis was already wary about you before. Now that you messed with the decorations I can guarantee you he won’t want you wandering around off a leash, and since I don’t have a leash on me I’m just gonna keep you in the play pen.”

“Allyson you can’t be serious!” Cassidy fumed. “I’m an adult you can’t just lock me up in a play pen all day.”

“Are you sure about that? You don’t look like an adult to me. Standing there pouting in your soggy diaper. And you certainly haven't been acting like an adult wandering off and getting into trouble.” Cassidy didn’t have a response to that so she just grumbled and blushed. Now that she didn't have anything covering her diaper, she realized she'd rather just stay in the nursery anyway.

“Fine fine,” Cassidy resigned and over dramatically walked into the play pen.

“Good. Everything goes smoother if you’re a child anyway,” Allyson was speaking more calmly as she closed the gate to the playpen. “It’s already a bit out of the norm for anyone outside of the family to be a part of the ceremony, you being an adult flower girl on top of that would be too much. A lot of older people won’t come if we break too many traditions,” Allyson was digging into the diaper bag as she spoke retrieving the sippy cup from the ride over. “Be right back I’ll go get you a drink,” Allyson quickly left the nursery to fill the sippy cup leaving Cassidy alone with herself for a moment.

She was stuck in the playpen. A pretty large square pen the walls made of plastic filled with small holes only big enough for Cassidy to maybe slide a finger through. They were made to keep Biscotti children contained which meant the walls were about as tall as Cassidy. Tall enough that she would be unable to step over them, they actually took up most of the height of the room. The gate was made out of a similar material as the walls. The latch was about halfway down. Cassidy made an attempt at the gate, sticking her fingers through the tiny holes in the walls as best she could. She could touch the latch, but the mechanism was designed to be unable to be operated from the inside. In order to open it one would have to press firmly on two buttons while opening the gate. Cassidy could not get enough of her hand through to do this effectively. She was stuck inside like any child would be.

She sighed and plopped down on the floor which was covered in a soft play mat. Now that she was alone she had time to be concerned about her magic. There’s not a lot that could cause a block like that. The most common way was through some sort of debilitating spell or a poison, Cassidy would have known if someone had hit her with a spell recently, which only left poison as the option. Being poisoned could also explain the bladder problems she’s had recently. Who would want to poison her though? And why? Why this particularly embarrassing kind of poison? She couldn’t really do anything about it now, she would have to wait to she got back to the Callgahorn house, and her staff. That would hopefully help her figure out what was going on.