fandomtownies | Magic Box, Thursday, 10/7

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Magic Box, Thursday, 10/7

There wasn't a lot interesting going on at the Magic Box today, but that was okay with Tara. It meant she could spend it paging through Wicca Today and rolling her eyes at the letters column. She was all for being respectful of other life forms, but when you tried to rewrite old spells to make them totally vegan, you were getting a little ridiculous.

[OOC: Open shop. OCD is trying to find the soy equivalent of newt eyes.]

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"Oh, god, Ethics. Grossest. Danger Shop. Simulation. Ever." Kennedy was about twenty minutes late for her usual lunchtime visit, and looked like she'd taken a long and vigorous shower after class, what with her still-damp hair and the slightly pink flush to her cheeks.

...it hadn't done much to ruin her appetite, evidently, since she still had a loaded bag from El Burrito Loco.

"But lunchtime, so never mind that," she went on, breezing into the shop. "Why the eyerolling today?"

"So you got to that class, huh," Tara said sympathetically. "Did the gross fat guy try to talk to you?"

She shuddered just remembering being in his presence.

"And nothing, just stupid witches."

"I so did not go near him." Kennedy brushed at a nonexistent smudge of dirt on her sleeve, then whined, "I feel like I'll never be clean again."

Maybe she could shower again after lunch. But anyway-- unpacking the sides of beans and coleslaw and rice from the bag would suffice as a distraction.

"This the kind of stupid that'd go over my head?"

"Well, you look all nice and squeaky," Tara said, trying to coax a smile out of Kennedy. She poked at the rice, spooning some onto a plate. "No, it's just boring. There's a movement to rewrite old spells to make them cruelty free? Which -- I get it, I do, but you can't just use soy instead of newt and expect everything to come out the same."

Tara did not think the Powers were PETA members.

"I think I'm down about seven layers of skin," Kennedy went on, but less complainy this time and, yes, smiling. "So I better be. Wait, can you even do that, with the soy? 'cause it sounds like the magic equivalent of tofurkey, and ew."

[[and here i never thought i'd be sorry her brother who got more crap for being vegan than she did for being gay got cut out of the scripts.]]

"See, I don't think you can," Tara said, as if entering into an old argument. "It sounds good, but these are really old forces you're calling on. They aren't going to just -- accept tofu all of a sudden because you don't like the idea of snakeskin."

She frowned, uncertain of herself. "I think, anyhow. Maybe I'm not being totally fair..."

"Like, really old forces that are set in their ways?" Kennedy guessed-- and it was a wild guess, since she had no idea what she was talking about here. "I can sort of imagine what the arguments are like, though. At one of my old schools, there used to be this separate scoop for the sorbets and stuff at the ice cream bar? People would totally flip if it got used for the dairy."

Wow. That actually sounded kind of dumb, but she didn't seem to notice.

"Right," Tara said, not seeming to think it sounded dumb at all. "If you really don't like the idea of hurting animals, it's a whole big thing, y'know? It's just -- I think they're wrong. But I don't know. Maybe if you believe in what you're doing, it works anyhow?"

"I guess," Kennedy said slowly. "I mean, attitude gets you a lot of places when other stuff doesn't work. Maybe it works the same way for magic?"

Maybe that was a bad approach, on the other hand.

"It could," Tara said, looking thoughtful, if a bit skeptical. "Attitude's -- not really a specialty of mine."

"Kinda noticed," Kennedy said gently. "I, on the other hand, ended up with someone else's share, but not being so into the magic thing, I can't say I'd know how that works."

"Maybe you got mine," Tara said, and touched Kennedy's hand lightly. "Does that bug you? That I do magic stuff and you ... don't?"

Kennedy's issues at the restaurant the week before weren't totally gone from her mind.

Kennedy opened her mouth to deny it, but-- by some small miracle-- actually thought about it before she said anything. After her moment of outstanding idiocy on that date, it would be a pretty blatant lie.

"A little?" she admitted. "Not... I mean, you know I'm not big on the idea of doing it myself. Just sort of the principle of the thing. It's your thing. I don't really get it-- it's cool, but."

She mimed grasping at something with her free hand. "Sort of out of my reach, you know?"

"I guess," Tara said, as if she wasn't certain she quite understood it. "But you -- you're amazing. You've had people telling you you might have a destiny since you were tiny. I've never heard that -- in a good way, anyhow."

Being told she was going to turn evil was not the kind of destiny Tara had in mind.

It was the in a good way that had Kennedy shifting over to lean into her, and wanting (again) a chance to give Tara's father and brother hell.

"Yeah. I might have a destiny," she replied, a little frustration surfacing in her voice. "Until then I'm pretty much just hoping, or getting in trouble when I jump the gun."

The whole accidentally-staking-Maladicta thing was still way too confusing, but damn it, she felt bad about it.

"You, though? What you can do? There's no destiny clause you have to wait on for that. To tell the truth, I'm a little jealous."

Tara shrugged, a light complaining lift of her shoulders. "We can be jealous of each other?" she suggested. "Maybe it's good for us, or something."

"Maybe it is," Kennedy agreed without giving it too much thought. "Though mostly I still think that just makes us a pretty cool team."

"Even if the fighting vampires together thing, um, didn't exactly go the way we wanted it to," Tara said. "... have you talked to Maladicta?"

Kennedy laughed a bit sheepishly. "That did kind of go off the rails, huh? Yeah, I did. She, um, seems to be amazingly okay with it. Like it happens sometimes, so it's no big." She exhaled slowly and started unwrapping one of the chicken quesadillas, sounding annoyed with herself as she muttered, "God, that was stupid of me."

"I mean, she was turning from bats into a person in the middle of a graveyard," Tara pointed out. "I get why you feel dumb, but she's lucky she regenerates like that. I'm not sure I would have recognized her either."

For one, normally Maladicta was clothed when Tara saw her.

"I just got so excited about the idea of actually getting a chance to do it, I didn't think."

Oh, yes, let's not bring up that detail. Kennedy had noticed. She couldn't help it.

"I staked my Reserves co-leader," she mused, still incredulous, "and everything ended up okay. Vampires are weird in her world."

Really, naked Maladicta was hard for anyone to ignore.

"And she's fine with it," Tara reminded her. "Could have been worse. Anyhow, everybody thinks our vampires are weird. She didn't go all bumpy."

"Ours are the only ones who do, seems like." To tell the truth, Kennedy had been worried about how Tara was taking the whole thing. She leaned in to let her forehead drop against Tara's shoulder. "You know, I'm kind of really relieved you're not mad at me about this?"

"I'd probably be mad if she'd stayed dead," Tara said. "Freaked out, anyhow. What actually happens feels more like ... some kind of weird dream?"

"If she had, I'd probably be kicked out by now," Kennedy realized. Hello, fresh look of mortification, how are you? "Which, yay for my streak, but not so good for everything else. So I'm good with filing this away as a random sightseeing stop in bizarro world."

"And maybe next time talk to them before you stake them, or something?" Tara suggested gingerly. "I mean, unless they're attacking."

Kennedy gave her a mildly horrified look-- nothing to do with what she'd said, just that the concept of engaging in diplomatic talks with vampires was one more monkey wrench to toss into the smoking machinery of her comprehension of the subject.

"Who knew it would get so complicated?" she asked, half-laughing out of sheer confusion. "God, what would I do without you to be all logical?"

"Hopefully not stake too many of our friends?" Tara was smug.

She deserved to be.

"You're so laughing at me, aren't you?" Kennedy asked, her half-grin wry. "I deserved that."

"Only 'cause you're cute," Tara said, reaching out to draw Kennedy closer. "C'mere."

The quesadilla could wait. Kennedy slid closer, reaching up to put her arms around Tara's neck. "You called?"

"Mmmm," Tara said, nuzzling in. "I needed to kiss you before your mouth was full."

"Oooh, sneaky," Kennedy pretended to chide her, which wasn't very effective when she was leaning in for the kiss. "Because I wouldn't have let you kiss me afterward?"

"Because maybe I don't want a kiss that tastes like jalapenos," Tara returned. "This way it'll just taste like Kennedy."

And then she closed in before Kennedy could make a "hot" or "spicy" joke.

Out loud, anyway. There was nothing stopping her from making that joke in her head except oh, hi, there was kissing and she didn't really care about sparing the brainpower for jokes and besides, she didn't need the help from the jalapenos and...

"Starting to think you like that flavor," she said. Eventually.

"I like it a lot," Tara said, a touch over-earnest and very, very happy. "It's my favorite."

"Glad you approve," Kennedy drawled playfully; she couldn't help it if that over-earnestness was cute and made her stomach do that happy-swoopy sort of thing. "Convenient, huh? Since you might be my favorite."

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Magic Box, Thursday, 10/7

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