fandomtownies | Magic Box, Thursday, 2/10

Maybe they'd been joking about it when they'd decided Kennedy was going to have to work extra hard to impress Tara for the dance this year, but it was an opportunity for her to do something ridiculously extravagant, and she wasn't passing it up.

So Kennedy had brought along a pair of tickets to the dance, in a fancy envelope attached to the bottom of a fruit and chocolate bouquet; weirdly fancy contrast to the burritos she'd brought for lunch today, but that was okay.

"No," she was telling the monkey clinging to her left arm on her way in, her tone exasperated as if she'd repeated it several dozen times already, "this isn't for you, okay?"

"What's not for me?" Tara asked, since she'd been distracted trying to convince her own personal monkey to get off her back so she could sit more comfortably.

Here eyes got big and impressed as she looked at Kennedy. "I'll get sad if you mean the strawberry thing."

"No, no, that was aimed at my super-grabby new friend here," Kennedy said quickly as she put the food down, which turned out to be an incredibly timely move; the monkey decided it would be fun to climb her shoulder, grab onto her ponytail with both hands, take a leap, and swing.

"God! Not cool!"

The monkey scrambled back up onto her other shoulder with a gleeful little giggle and proceeded to hug the side of her face. It looked like it was having a blast.

"Oh my god, your hair," Tara said, because that was even more important to her than how cute that was. She scrambled to her feet, monkey still clingng to her shoulder. "Did he rip any out? Bad monkey!"

Kennedy sighed and reached up to pick the monkey up by the scruff of its neck, but it wasn't having any of that, clinging to her with a stubborn little screech.

"No... scalp's a little tingly but I think I'm okay. How come you got the well-behaved one?" She settled for nudging the monkey until it scrambled down to hug her arm instead, which wasn't ideal, but it was a nice break from the face-hugging.

"Maybe because I'm not trying to grab Muffins here by the neck," Tara pointed out smugly.

Yes. She'd named her love monkey.

"Yours is ... uh. Feisty."

"...Muffins?" Kennedy repeated. No, she couldn't help laughing. "I wouldn't have to do that if Sparky--" because that was so much better-- "didn't keep trying to use me as a jungle gym. Besides, I almost dropped the food three times on the way over because of him."

She totally had a right to sound a little whiny about that part.

Tara was just going to raise one eyebrow at the name Sparky and not say anything.

"How'd you keep him from stealing any?" Tara wanted to know. "It's fruit. Monkeys like that, right?"

Muffins, apparently, liked working her way around Tara's shirt hand, over hand, until she clung to one shoulder.

Kennedy frowned and indicated a spot near the middle of the fruit bouquet. "I didn't so much succeed, and now he's all hyper. Man, monkeys and chocolate really do not mix."

They really didn't; Sparky had made it all the way down Kennedy's arm and was trying to crawl up the inside of her jacket sleeve now.

"I wonder if we could set up a monkey pplaypen?" Tara said thoughtfully, frowning at the chocolate-usurper now burrowing into Kennedy's sleeve. "Like ... a little time-out until we're done with lunch."

"Do you think they'd go for it?" Kennedy asked, poking at her sleeve only to elicit a chorus of indignant squeaks from Sparky. "They're really big on the snuggling. God, I hope they don't stick around all night."

"There'd be monkey blankets on our beds," Tara said, almost gloomy about the prospect as Muffins started poking through her hair. "It'd be all organic. And a little smelly."

And now Muffins looked affronted.

Sparky squirmed all the way up Kennedy's sleeve and poked his head out beside her collar to give Tara an indignant look, too.

"Also kind of noisy," Kennedy added, trying her best to look down at the little monkey. "Seriously, can you guys maybe give us a break for a while to eat, at least?"

She wasn't taking the way Sparky clutched at her collar with both hands as agreement.

Muffins practically glared at the suggestion, and defiantly gave Tara a kiss on the cheek.

"... I don't think we can reason with them," she said, defeated. "I guess we share?"

"Hey, keep those lips to yourself," Kennedy protested halfheartedly-- mostly because she was distracted by the monkey nuzzling the side of her neck, and that sort of took the fire out of her protest. (Plus it just felt ridiculous to be yelling at a tiny pink monkey.) "Fine, you guys can have a couple of strawberries or something, okay? And maybe a piece of quesadilla."

She gave Tara an apologetic look. "This is kind of taking the style out of my big plan to come and officially ask you to the dance."

"Didn't we already do that?" Tara asked before she thought.

As soon as she did think of how that sounded, she went as pink as Muffins' fur. "I m-meant, not that. Um. I love the strawberries. But I thought we just kind of ... agreed."

"We did," Kennedy replied, looking a tiny bit sheepish now. "I just wanted to make a big thing out of it, though?"

Mostly because she could, but also because it was their second Valentine's Day together and that was kind of huge.

"Oh." And now Tara felt dumb. "I ... would have liked that? Sorry, I'm just all flaky with the monkeys and the fruit and the -- I get distracted. But you can ask now."

Muffins had finally scaled down her skirt, and was inspecting the fruit.

"Monkeys are a weird diversion that way." Kennedy cast a regretful look at the little fruit gap in the bouquet where Sparky had absconded with a strawberry earlier.

Okay, she was over it; she picked up the arrangement and turned it to display the envelope as she held it out to Tara.

"So," she began, "there's this Valentine's dance, and I was thinking there's this amazing girl that I kind of really love, and really want to go with me. And this is me, asking if you want to do that."

She... hadn't really thought the speech itself out all that well.

Tara couldn't help the enormous smile that spread over her face at the sheer adorableness of that.

"And this is me," she said, bouncing just a bit, "saying yes, and, um, how -- how grateful I am that you asked me. And how much I love you."

"Yeah?" Kennedy grinned more broadly and reached out to pull her into a one-armed hug (couldn't just drop the bouquet, after all). "Awesome. I mean, I wasn't really worried you would say no, but..."

Sparky chose that moment to scamper down her arm and try to leap over and hug Tara.

"Hey, that's my job!"

It was too bad for the hug that the outburst was enough to get Tara to burst out in giggles. "Don't worry, Kennedy," she said, between chuckles. "I won't let him sweep me off my feet."

"Because that's my job, too," Kennedy insisted, but she was laughing along now. "Oh, fine. I know; she's totally huggable, huh?"

"But I promise I won't leave you for anything with pink fur," Tara said, and almost managed to make it sound solemn.

Until the giggles started again.

Elphaba, somewhat kindled by words she'd shared with Karla earlier this week, arrived at the Magic Box with a pleasant, if not smiling, expression.

"Tara," she greeted. "I hope now isn't a bad time?"

"Uh, no worse than any other," Tara said optimistically. "Hey, Elphaba. There's, um, a monkey on my lap so I can't stand up...?"

"...I normally rather like monkeys," Elphaba said. "But they seem to be everywhere today. It's like... fly away, pretty animals, fly away. Go home to where you came."

"I've never touched one before," Tara said. "Their fur is soft. Just i swear this one is stuck to me like velcro."

Muffins pouted anxiously. That wasn't a bad thing, was it?

"It doesn't hurt, I hope?" Elphaba asked, curious. "It's not hooked in like a cat with its claws?"

Tara shook her head. "Nuh-uh. He's just ... really really cuddly. And he looks all sad when i try to put him down."

"Awww," Elphaba said, even pulling a slightly cutesy face. "Maybe I should stop by next week, then. I wouldn't want to make the monkeys sad or anything."

"Today's fine for me unless it's not fine for you," Tara said, putting a hand under Muffins to lift him slightly as she stood. "Sorry. Tiny pink monkeys are just a little distracting. Where did you want to start?"

"The very beginning?" Elphaba said. "I admittedly don't know much, only that I might have magic inside me. And if I do, I certainly don't know how to control it or tap into it."

"Well, um, the place most people start at home is floating a pencil," Tara answered tentatively. "It's not ... it's pretty much the opposite of flashy. But it shows you can do something, right? And it teaches control."

"I'm not really out to start writing words in the sky or anything," Elphaba said. "Starting small is probably the best idea I can think of. So... pencil floating it is."

"Good," Tara said. "Especially 'cause I don't really know how to write words in the sky without an airplane."

She balanced her monkey on her hip as she walked toward a small study table tucked near the bookshelves. "Hang on, let me find a book about the theory of all of this ... oh, are you going to have an issue if Gods come up? I know some people kind of do."

[OOC: Crashing, night! Will pick this up in the a.m.]

"What sort of issues?" Elphaba said. "I'm not exactly a Lurlinist, and definitely not a Unionist. And the beliefs of Oz probably don't parallel anything on Earth, any way. I like to keep an open mind, though."

"It's just -- sometimes my kind of magic is about kind of invoking the powers of the gods in my world?" Tara said. "I don't think of it as worshipping anything. More -- admitting they're bigger than we are."

"There is much that is bigger than I am," Elphaba agreed with a nod. "I won't have any problem admitting there are powers that make me seem very small."

"Very, very small for some of them," Tara said. "... but we aren't starting with anything like that. Basically floating a pencil is just showing that you've learned how to manipulate the physical world."

she sat down, ignoring the monkey now caressing her hair. "Um, I can explain the theory more than that if you want..."

"I think that might be best," Elphaba said, unable to not stare incredulously at the monkey for a bit. "I mean, I honestly know so little. The subject was forbidden, back in my father's house."

Tara nodded, thinking that sounded far too familiar. "Okay, so where we start is..."

She was talking for a while, and there was some going over to the shelves to pull down this useful text and that one. It went esoteric in places, but eventually came back to earth. "And, uh, that's why floating a pencil works," she finished. "Sorry, it's ... hard to stop once I start talking about this stuff."

"No, please don't apologize," Elphaba said, having hung on every word. "I'm suddenly wishing I'd brought a journal and pencil to write down notes."

She smiled. "Whatever you have to say about it, I want to hear."

"Well, the next thing," Tara said, nudging a poencil toward Elphaba, "is to just ... see if it'll float. Clear your mind, focus, and see what happens."

She added, "Don't -- don't be hard on yourself if nothing happens at first. It takes a while."

Elphaba held the pencil for a moment, before setting it down. She proceeded to stare at it for a moment, trying to blank her mind of any thoughts other than on the pencil."

The monkey was making that very hard, so she wasn't really successful.

"I think this will take practice," she added, after a moment.

Edited 2011-02-12 01:18 (UTC)

"It should," Tara said. "I -- I hope it works for you. Want to take a few books home to practice, and then we can talk about it at Reserves next week?"

"That sounds like an excellent idea," Elphaba said with a nod. "After all, I think I might be able to better concentrate away from... well, primate distractions."

"But adorable primate distractions!" Tara said, before the monkey on her shoulder could start to pout. "So, uh ... we'll catch up later?"

"Very true," Elphaba said with a smile. "I'll see you at the next meeting, if not before. And... thank you, again."

Magic Box, Thursday, 2/10

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