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Pixie Dust; Tuesday [ 11/02].

Now that she had a promising reward to strive for, Ariel was much more accepting of the idea of practicing her saxophone more. So much so that, not only did she work on her playing for the promised twenty minutes yesterday, but she also brought it with her to work today to practice in between customers.

Which meant she was getting a lot more playing than she'd expected; the sound that might have been like something being tortured into squealing and squawking was probably keeping most people away. Except maybe a few of the Troopers, who she wound up setting up with some super-cute leggings and shoes.

Pixie Dust is open!

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Because you can! Just don't mind the soundtrack of awesome.

Save the ears of the citizens while you can!

Oh, today.

Bruce decided that since he had a hell of a weekend, it was only fair to stop by and let Ariel know that things were better now.

And also to find out if she had changed into anything ridiculous on Sunday. He was curious, okay? "Ariel. How are you today?" he asked as he stepped inside.

He wasn't sure if she could hear him over the sound of the saxophone, of course.

Not at first, but Ariel did notice him there, so his ears would hereby be saved from there on in.

"Bruce!" She'd be happy for any distraction from playing; this one was particularly nice. "Hi! Feeling any better?"

It was like the saxophone couldn't get put away any quicker, really.

It seemed Ariel and Bruce were in agreement on the saxophone front. "I am. I was feeling better on Sunday, actually, but the rest of that day went in a different direction entirely."

He definitely sounded much better, but that scratchy voice tended to haunt, so if Ariel needed a moment to clear her throat to keep from laughing just remembering it, Bruce would have to excuse her.

"The rest of the day?" she asked. "You mean...?"

Having spent the rest of the evening in a pool, she had no idea what everyone else might have gone through, so she wasn't going to admit to anything outright quite yet.

"I did get a costume. It went poorly," Bruce admitted.

"...how poorly?" asked Ariel, but she was easily distracted by the more important part, anyway, which made her grin. "And you did dress up! As what? How did I miss it?"

"I was a ninja," Bruce said, answering both of her latter questions. "Not a very smart one, but one who was good at hiding. What about you? Have any unfortunate costume mishaps?"

"I...was a mermaid," Ariel said, with a look that may have suggested she meant it quite literally even if she wasn't exactly going to say it outright.

"You weren't in the duck pond, were you?" Bruce asked.

Ariel's face was trying to catch up to the color of her hair.

"The pool, actually," she admitted. "I guess I was a pool mermaid."

She felt the need to use this to her advantage, though, and shrugged. "It was still kind of neat, though, getting a chance to be something you're not..."

"It would make sense that you'd take to being a mermaid," Bruce said. "You do have an appreciation for sea life and all."

Ariel was pretty sure her heart just about stopped right there with that first part, but, thankfully, it kept plodding along in relief as Bruce continued, and she let out a small laugh.

"Hardly any fish in the pool, though!" she said. "But it made for a really good swim."

"How did you get to the pool after transforming anyway?" Bruce asked ~~because I'm a jerk~~.

"Well, I had so much candy already from trick or treating with Rinoa that I wanted to go back to my room to lighten the load a little," Ariel ~~had thought this through, okay, thanks~~ said, "and I was heading back down the stairs when it happened, and, hoooo," she shook her head a little, "my arms got a pretty good workout."

Edited 2010-11-03 01:52 (UTC)

It was possible that Bruce flinched slightly at the mention of Rinoa. Very slightly. Very, very slightly. "At least you made it before anything bad could happen."

"Like dehydration?" asked Ariel, who's face made it clear that such a concept was enough to distract from any flinching that she'd never actually notice anyway.

"That would be a concern for a mermaid, right?" Bruce asked.

"Big concern," said Ariel. "Because unlike dolphins, they do have gils. But they also have lungs, too, isn't that weird? It's still important to keep the tail wet. At least, it felt that way, but I think they might be able to do okay no matter where they are. Not that I'd really know for sure; it's not like I'm an expert on merfolk or anything."

"Are there mermaids in your world?" Bruce asked. Because she sure sounded like an expert on them. She even used a gender-neutral term for them.

It was terribly important for a princess to be PC about that sort of thing, especially when it was such a touchy subject for most mermen...

Having no idea what would be the best way to go with this one, Ariel shrugged. "I'm not sure. There might be! If they do exist, I hear they really try to avoid humans."

Ah, yes, that would work nicely.

"I see," Bruce said. He saw that it was a strange answer. But he decided not to push it today. "So once you were in the pool, everything went fine?"

"Yeah," Ariel nodded. "I didn't know if it would work, you know, because it's not the sea, but it was kind of nice. Quiet."

If she smiled and it seemed a little wistful, well, sometimes maybe she did miss swimming around a bit.

"How was being a ninja?"

"I terrorized some pirates, then was beaten by a demon of some sort," Bruce said. That was close enough to the truth.

"...so not so good, huh?"

Call it a wild guess.

And then Ariel's eyes widened. "Wait a second. Did the demon of some sort have wings, little horns, and a super cute dress?"

"The dress wasn't that cute," Bruce said.

Ariel was rendered fairly speechless for a moment, if only because she wasn't sure what was worse: discovering a difference in fashion sense for what was clearly adorable, or discovering that she and Rinoa had completely got it wrong on the level of evil of her costume.

"Well, no, probably not if she was attacking you in it! Are you okay?"

Pause.

"Is she okay?"

"We're both okay," Bruce said. "She drained some energy from me, I escaped to the park. It could have been worse for everyone involved."

"I should probably check on her," Ariel said, shaking her head. "We were hoping her costume had decided to be cute instead of evil. I guess we were wrong..."

"I talked to her earlier. She was embarrassed," Bruce said.

"Mmmm," Ariel hummed a little thoughtfully, before giving a slight nod. "I might need to plan some major girly time reinforcements for this..."

"Just so you know," Bruce said, deciding to come clean so that there wasn't an awkward moment later when Ariel figured things out, "she had a particular way of draining energy. She did it by kissing men."

There was a slight pause as Ariel considered that part.

"Okay..." she said slowly, as if trying to figure out what to say.

"Girly time and major dishing. How many people do you think she drained energy from?"

There really were some benefits to dating Ariel. She never seemed to get really mad about him making out with other girls.

"At least one other person," Bruce said. "We didn't talk about that part too much."

Well, kissing booths and your best friend turning into a demon seemed pretty good exceptions, especially when your relationship was still taking its time in sort-of territory.

"No," said Ariel, snorting a bit, "I can't imagine you did..."

She did have to wonder, though, how it was, but felt that was a question better left to Rinoa. Either Bruce wouldn't have noticed much due to his drained energy, or Ariel would have to confront if maybe Rinoa was a better kisser than she was, and then there might be issues.

"I meant earlier today. Since I was wearing a mask, she didn't know who I was. I figured it would be better for her to know so it didn't drive her crazy," Bruce said.

"Oh!" Ariel said. "Right; that makes more sense. So she was just...sort of awkward about it, then?"

"She was doing her best to hide in the stacks before I found her," Bruce said. "I think 'awkward' describes it pretty well."

"At least you can be pretty sure that she really didn't mean to kiss you and suck out all your energy?" Ariel offered, always eager to accentuate the positive of any situation.

"I'm alive. I learned not to buy costumes on the island. I've moved on," Bruce said.

"Good," Ariel said, nodding. "And I hope this doesn't get added to your list of reasons of why not to do costumes."

"Are you kidding? It's my number one reason now," Bruce said.

"Awwwww!" Ariel, despite her disappointment, had to laugh a little, because, well, he said he probably wasn't going to last time, but he still did. "It wasn't so bad! You said you got to bother pirates, and you did get a kiss out of it. At least you weren't stuck the whole time in a pool."

A kiss. He wasn't going to correct that. He had done his part. Anything else was up to Rinoa. "No, but I ended the night in the duck pond and slept on a park bench."

"Too bad I wasn't in the duck pond after all, then," Ariel offered, clearly determined toward the sunny side. "Then you could have really showed those pirates."

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Pixie Dust; Tuesday [ 11/02].

Mod your Shopping -- 11/02.

Talk to Ariel -- 11/02.

OOC -- 11/02.

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