Enroute to Granny's

You're sure that you and Fay are getting looks from the folks at the Cider House. You had Fay check to make sure you didn't have any grass in your hair or on your clothes, and the night sack was actually pretty good at keeping you from looking like you were rolling around on the ground for a good part of the night. Which, well, you had. Fay had also cast a freshening-up spell, with a more delicate hand than you've had from the instructors at Boarbristle, who favor a style you might describe as hurricane followed by volcanic blast.

"It would be good of us not to show up for breakfast reeking of fuck," Fay had said. "Though I'm sure it must happen in Turnbuckle, and not all that rarely. Don't giggle, Morgan, you know it happens."

"Probably a Beavertail with, well, any other House?" you say.

"Precisely," Fay says. "All. Night. Long."

That gets a giggle out of you.

After you finish your breakfast of oat porridge and milk and take turns in the Ladies' Necessary Room, you and Fay find a sort of pumpkin-headed scarecrow waiting outside. it beckons to you, turns about to reveal that it has another face carved upon the back of its pumpkin-head, and strides off into the woods in the direction you were sure that Granny Threadneedle's cottage would be.

Granny's emissary leads you into the woods. You try and keep an eye on how things are different this time, compared to yesterday afternoon. You get a little tingle at several points where if you didn't have the long-limbed scarecrow to follow, you might have veered off in one direction or another.

Fay laughs. "You should see the expression on your face," she says. "Should we have brought some breadcrumbs to follow back to the village?"

"Well, I hope she doesn't have the way out hexed," you say.

"You were always the hopeful one of us two," Fay says. "I put a witch mark inside the door of the Ladies' Necessary Room in the Cider House. That should call me back if I should happen to be feeling lost in the woods."

"At least we don't have the Tarn to deal with," you say.

You and Fay share a laugh. After the experience of a dip in the Chilly Tarn, most day-to-day discomforts seem petty.

Granny's pumpkin-headed walking scarecrow leads you up to a little cottage in the trees, then around the back. As you approach, you can hear a voice. A loud, resonant male voice moans rhythmically, alternating with panting in and out.

Finally the voice reaches a crescendo. "AHHHHHH!" it cries out.

You and Fay grasp your wands and look round the corner with concern.

Granny is sitting on a low wooden stool next to a dapple-coated young male centaur. His fists are balled, his head is tilted back, his cheeks are pink and his mouth is wide open. "Ohhh, ohhh, ohhh," he groans. His breaths are deep and fast and his hindquarters are trembling. Granny is sitting where a milkmaid would sit with her hands under his equine belly. You can see from her shoulders that one of her arms is moving.

"Very good, Dap," she says. "Very, very good. Just what I needed."

You remember the centaurs who snatched Asteria -- Ness, Tepp, and Nole. This wasn't one of them. Even at night, you would have recognized this one by his dappled coat.

Dap shuffles his hind feet. "Mercy, Granny, mercy," he says.

"All right, I have enough," she says. She draws back her hands from under Dap's belly. One of them is holding a small iron cauldron with a drop of thick white fluid lacing down the side. "I'll be making use of this soon." She pats Dap's flank with her free hand. "You've done good, Dap. Two fine loads this morning. Run along now, I have company."

"Oh-h-h?" he says, almost a whinny. He looks round and sees you and Fay. "Academy witches."

The young centaur looks somewhere between afraid, ashamed, and annoyed.

"Now don't you worry," Granny tells him. "You've been a good boy. See you next moon."

With another uneasy glance, the dapple-coated centaur trots off into the forest, his half-hard member bouncing under his belly, wet at the tip with his white seed.

Granny turns head and shoulders round toward you. "Well, if it isn't a pair of nice young scholars from House Leontes," she says. "How about you wait right here while I take care of this." She swings the little iron cauldron. "Then we'll have some tea and talk about why you're here."

She stands up from the low stool and inclines her head.

Granny Threadneedle is tall and broadshouldered, wearing a plain brown dress and gray apron, with her long dark hair in some sort of complicated knot at the back, then trailing down. Dress and apron both have pockets, knots, and thread loops for holding things, though she seems mostly unburdened at the moment.

"Just a minute," she tells you, and walks in the open back door of the cottage, closing it behind herself.

"Doesn't look that old, for someone called Granny," Fay says.

"Maybe it's a title," you say. "Or she takes special care of herself."

"Or she puts on glamour every morning," Fay says.

"I heard that!" Granny's voice comes from inside the cottage.

You sit silently and await her for a time.

"Come in, Morgan and Fay," she says. The cottage door swings open and a tendril of fragrant smoke curls around the doorframe.

GOAL: Gain and interpret a divination to guide your choice of a magical specialty, -2 vs. Cunning. On success, gain +1 XP and choose a magical specialty. On a 7-9, you may ACHIEVE YOUR GOAL. Cross it off and choose an option from GOALS and FAVORS to achieve the goal with a complication or consequence, or abandon it for an alternative.

If you choose to succeed in your GOAL, you may use ADVANCEMENT to gain a FRIEND (your instructor or mentor) and a FAVOR from them, or choose another advancement appropriate to your specialty.

You have +2 Ambition, +0 Bravery, +2 Cunning, +0 Diligence.
You know the Forbidden Spell TRANSFORM and the spell MORPHO PHALLUS.
Your FRIENDs are Fay and Barbara Torch, the Warden of House Leontes. Barbara Torch owes you a FAVOR.

Apologies for the drawn-out resolution of Morgan's GOAL; Fay and Morgan and Granny have run away with the story a bit.