Moon Shadow, continues, part four...

Bonegeek: "Are you sitting comfortably?"

Wiping my hands on the skirt of my fitted kirtle, I flung the door open.
The Pedant: "How do you fit a kirtle? It's a shapeless, loose garment."

He had the sexiest voice I'd ever heard. The Star Goddess herself would be weak in the knees with his voice.
The Chronicler: "No, she wouldn't. The Star Goddess is made of tougher stuff than that."
The Pedant: "She doesn't have knees."
Big L (mistaking him for the hero): "She's seen him jerk off in a box."
The Pedant: "What you need is not a prayer or a summoning spell, it's a personal ad."

A face like a fox, angles and laughter.
The Pedant: "Angles plus laughter does not equal fox!"
The Anthropologist:It's a mokosh on his head."

Eyes the color of turquoise stones and just as bright. They very nearly matched the unusual jerkin he wore.
The Balance (who allegedly has fashion scent): "Ewww!"
Big L: "It's always about the jerkin..."

(The Chronicler notes that this seems to suggest fashion-wise, this scene is somewhere in the Renaissance.)

Turquoise leather wasn't something I'd seen before...
The Balance: "That's because it's tasteless!"

... but if designers saw how this man wore it, blue jerkins would be all over the streets.
The Pedant: "Turquoise is not blue!"
Bonegeek: "I think I need to make some turquoise armour now."
Ramble and  diversion about Maelstrom and Bonegeek's desire to get some turquoise marriage armour.

"come in," I said, warmly, "No, the position isn't filled."
The Anthropologist: "Dodgy comments..."
The Anthropologist: "He's wearing a turquoise jerkin, he has to be trustworthy!"

"I hadn't realized from the ad," he said, "but you're a Love Wizard, aren't you?" [...]
Not stupid, then. "What gave it away?"
The Pedant: "Because she's only wearing a kirtle."
The Anthropologist: "Because she has a heart in her pentagram."

Oh, my flier had finally found the guy I needed, the guy I wanted.
The Pedant: "He's literate."
The Anthropologist: "On the bright side, we haven't had any I'm not a Slut moments."

I sent a mental kiss of thanks to the Star Goddess.
The Anthropologist: "Who didn't appreciate it..."
The Pedant: "and washed her face afterwards."

Retrieving the Wabizi hand mirror from the end table, I settled next to him.
The Anthropologist: "Is that a second wave feminist hand mirror? The ones you use to inspect your own vaginas with?"
The Pedant (in some sort of flashback): "Middle-aged muff!"

If he passed the mirror's test, I'd have the perfect partner. Handing him the mirror, I said, "Look in the depths for a minute while I ask you some questions."
The Anthropologist: "Can you try to find my clit?"

The mirror reflected a truth for him nearly immediately. He had strong magic. [...] He was touching the face of a woman, both gazes filled with an intense love. She was beautiful. Her chestnut-colored hair was twisted at the top of her head.
The Balance: "Like Palin."
The Anthropologist: "Yes, yes, like Palin."

Wispy tendrils had escaped, and they framed her high-cheekboned face.
The Anthropologist: "Like Palin."

Her eyes looked kind.
Bonegeek: "Not like Palin."

"This is amazing magic," he said. "I've never heard of such a thing."
(The Chronicler wonders why, since he lives in the same bloody world setting. Is he part of the underclass? The unmagical masses? Who knows?)

In the depths of the glass, I watched as Fyord presented a box made of rosewood to the beautiful woman.
The Anthropologist: "It's a bomb, isn't it?"
The Pedant: "It's a baby's leg."

A fire crackled in a bedroom...
Big L: "We need to clarify this to be a metaphorical fire..."

...sending cozy shadows dancing across huge tapestries. Bathed in the light of flickering flames, the largest tapestry depicted fair maids picking daisies form a huge field of wildflowers while tall hounds stood at their sides.
(Tapestries are expensive things, dear reader, even today. It rather undermines their later claims of poverty and financial problems.)
The Anthropologist: "I'm making that a new category for Housekeeping fetishes!"
Big L: "You can't ... you're trying to kill us with the sips we'd have to take for that?"
The Balance: "She can, she's got the book."

Lying on a tall four-poster bed made of cherry, the woman wore a filmy gauze of virginal white. More relaxed, Fyord lay naked beside her, holding her hand. She looked ready to bolt...
The Anthropologist: "That's not a good sign."

He did it again, getting closer to that ticklish spot beneath her arm.
Bonegeek: "Oh, how erotic..."

...she picked up a pillow and bopped him over his head.
The Anthropologist: "And then beat him to death with it. Dear God, please!"

He ran his hand over her stomach, her ivory thigh.
The Balance: "She's only go one leg... it's a very expensive prosthetic."

She quivered under his touch, but fear wasn't on her face. Anticipation was.
The Balance: "It's literally there, sitting. It's a little imp by the name..."

On the love seat next to me, Fyord placed his hand over the glass protectively. "That's my wedding night," he said.
Bonegeek: "She's a voyeur."
The Chronicler notes that it's quite an invasion of privacy to look into the memories of a job applicant. Why can't she just ask him questions like a normal person? This is a setting that awknowledges "brainscans" as creepy, but somehow when you're doing it through a mirror and it's the heroine doing it, it's perfectly alright.
The Anthropologist: "This is a lot quicker than installing security cameras into everyone's houses."

From this bed, a tiny kitchen could be seen.
The Anthropologist: "Good housekeeping fetish!"

This image must have been from that morning, because Fyord was wearing his unusual turquoise jerkin...
Bonegeek: "I should hope significant time has passed, since she's thick with child."
Big L: "It could be magic semen."

"You love her, don't you?" I asked, knowing the answer before I heard it.
"With all my heart. Ceara's brother gambled away the family fortune..."
The Anthropologist: "So you have mindrape magic of many varieties, but you choose not to use it for anything useful. Like finding that rapist, instead you go off and pry on other people's honeymoon night."

"Gambling terrorizes some people," I said. "It's an addiction, like alcoholism."
"Can you treat it?" he asked with a sudden rush of hope.
"No," I said, my mind working the problem as it always did.
The Chronicler: "Because no one has asked her this before and she's thought about it before."

"Addictions are hard to treat. Wizards can Sense the illness, we can see the disease in the molecular structures of the cells, but we can't change the cellular structures."
The Balance (pained): "You can see gambling in the cellular structure..."

I looked across the room thinking with frustration of the various addicts who'd sought my help. It didn't matter what they were addicted to – alcohol, drugs, sex, gambling – I couldn't help them.
The Pedant: "But you think a Love Mage would be able to help with sex addiction."
The Chronicler: "But why would you go to a Love Mage for addiction? Maybe you could try a Addiction Mage..."

"Perhaps someday..."
There followed here an explanation about hyphens and ellipsis, how they have complicated relationships across the pages of these books.

"Then you see I need a job, a profession. My parents and I decided a long time ago to ignore my magical aptitude and focus on the family business. I've been trained in banking and investment..."
(The Chronicler: "Yes, this is the pseudo-fantasy pseudo-Renaissance setting with half-orcs, brownstones and banking and investment banking firms.")

...but Ceara's brother... after he did with my signature, well, I've been blackballed from any of the money careers."
The Anthropologist: "Can't he just report the bastard and clear his name?"
Big L: "You have seen the Police in this setting."
The Pedant: "They're only interested in cum-covered hoboes."

"I'm a Tan," he said, his dark hair hanging in his eyes.
The Anthropologist: "That's the lamest magic colour ever."
The Pedant: "Is it better or worse than brown?"

"I can't hire you," I said. The breadth of his shoulders gave me so many reasons to want to hire him.
The Chronicler: "I can only think of one there."

"But you've found your heart's mate. If you take this job with me, the love of your life will be jeopardized. You don't want to put your relationship with your wife on the line for this, believe me."
"But she wants me to get this job as badly as I want it. We have a strong relationship."
Big L: "Waspor would approve of strength."

"Neither of you understand of a Love Wizard's assistant."
Big L: "I think we can guess."
The Pedant: "Maybe she needs love, as a love wizard."

"We didn't' know what kind of Wizard you were, but it's such a respectable line of work...
There are giggles over the word "respectable".

If only he weren't so happily married. "Fyord," I said, taking his hand in mine. I worked hard to ignore the chemistry of his cells whispering to mine.
The Balance: "What? Are they reacting? Fusing together into one horrible mutant?"

If you were to take this job, you and I would have sex frequently [...]It's true that many times you'd think – you'd feel like – you were making love to your wife. Those times probably wouldn't hurt your relationship."
The Chronicler: "Because if you're fantasising of someone else whilst having sex with your boss, it doesn't actually count."

"But there're other times when you'd have to lead the spell. During those times, you'd know exactly who you were having sex with...
The Anthropologist: "Because all the other times, I'd be drugging you to the point of oblivion."

...Very few human relationships can withstand that, and from what I've seen of you in the mirror ...
The Chronicler: "What did you see? Some generic love scenes? There was no personality developed there?!"

...it would kill you and your beloved."
The Chronicler: "Why can't she trust him and his wife to make that decision? Themselves?"
The Anthropologist: "To be fair, most people would argue that having sex with someone else ruins your relationship."
The Chronicler: "True, not everyone has an open relationship... but I'm sure Dan Savage will beg to differ."

... and I wished I'd found him first.
The Chronicler: "There you go. The true reason she doesn't want him is because she can't do with just sex and wants a lover instead of an assistant."

Fyord sat silently for a moment, staring at his hands as if they could help him.
Big L: "It's weird, I feel like I have cum on my hands."

"I need a job," he said finally.
The Anthropologist: "I can sweep the cum off the floor for you when you're done..."

"Fyord, I'm a Love Wizard. I fix relationships – not ruin them."
The Chronicler: "Curious how we're on page 26 and we still don't really know what she means by that."

"I have a friend at the local Guild who might be able to guide you toward a more appropriate apprenticeship."
The Chronicler: "Maybe one in which you work in an environment where everyone wears a mask with your wife's face painted on it. Because you really shouldn't be talking to anyone else... but as long as you think you're talking to your wife. It's all okay."

"That might help," he said. "I'm looking into every possibility."
Big L: "Not looking very hard, clearly."
The Pedant: "We're back to the fact that she needs a personal ad." 

"Also," I added a warning, "Ceara is due within the month."
He looked at me and blinked. "No," he said. "She's due in two months time."
"I saw her only through the mirror, but I Sensed she's due imminently...
The Chronicler: "Imminently =/= a month."

Love Wizards deliver a lot of babies, and I'll happily deliver your child...
The Chronicler: "Because I'm that good. I see her through a mindrape mirror and I can tell... And more importantly, is there anything she doesn't do?"

He'd been so damn perfect. Grabbing the right hormones from his pituitary and his adrenal, pulling proteins from his blood to make love potions would've been so much fun.
Bonegeek: "Because biochemistry makes her hot."
The Anthropologist: "And makes us bleed."

Now I neede to make a new flier.
The Pedant: "Is it going to be described all over again?"