The Magic Box, Wednesday

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

This was not Elsa's doing.

Elsa had sat herself down resolutely at the front desk of the Magic Box today with something of a 'deer in headlights' look (not that she knew what that even meant) as she stared out over the goings-on in the shop.

Snow. A light dusting of it, drifting lazily down from the ceiling, settling across the floor and the shelves in little glistening drifts of white. Every now and again a little breeze would even kick up, sending twirls of it scattering across the floor. It was beautiful overall, pristine white snowflakes in among the crystals and the candles and the herbs, but it was, at least to Elsa, mildly worrisome, too.

All she could really do was try to keep the books dry and remain calm.

This was absolutely not her doing.

[OOC: I would happily trade places with Elsa right now. Open, OCD-free!]

Comments

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

Celia wandered into the Magic Box after her class this morning, having changed her beach-appropriate sundress into a normal frock on her walk (because sometimes her powers were actually useful in practical ways.) And good thing, too, since she realized rather quickly that the shop was more suitable for sleeves than not.

She stepped through the door, looking around, and then just raised an eyebrow curiously at Elsa.

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

Elsa, in turn, just shook her head and spread her hands helplessly at Celia. She wasn't doing this. She'd know if she was doing this.

... Which was to say, she'd actually checked to see if Barry's gloves were still working, and they were.

"I think the island is sick of the summer already," she ventured. "I have no idea what's going on."

This was not stopping her from having to actually consciously stop herself from flailing, however.

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"The island," Celia decided, rolling her eyes upwards at the falling snow, "is occasionally particularly cruel, isn't it? As though it knows what will make us most insecure."

Because really. Of all people for this to happen to.

"At least it's pretty."

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

"It is pretty," Elsa allowed, "though I think I might have liked some sort of warning before coming in and having the shop make me question whether or not I'm about to cause some sort of eternal Magic Box winter."

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"Do you think it's something wrong with the shop?" Celia suggested thoughtfully, holding out a hand to catch a few snowflakes. "I mean, if it isn't you, something is causing it."

She slanted a curious look at Elsa and added, "I don't suppose it works in reverse, for you?"

Maybe she could just make the snow go away?

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

"I don't know," Elsa admitted. "I've never tried to get rid of the snow. My hands want to make it cold. I can't even imagine it working the other way."

Though here and now, she kind of wished it did.

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"I can try and melt it," Celia said thoughtfully, filtering the snow between her fingertips. "But I don't think I can get it to stop." Not if she didn't know why it was snowing in here.

She shook a few snowflakes out of her hair. "It might just be best to ignore it. I came to ask you about runes, if you've a moment."

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

"I have all the moments you need," Elsa promised, smiling faintly. "I'd far sooner be talking about runes than about snow in July. What about?"

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"Mostly I was hoping you could show me the basics," Celia said, shrugging a shoulder. "A runes primer, if you will."

Because snow in July was actually easier for Celia to comprehend than the strange symbols she'd seen a few times. Magic was magic, even if she couldn't fix it.

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

Really, this was quite the welcome distraction from the snow. Elsa nodded, and then reached for a piece of paper and a pen. It was going to get soggy with the snow falling on it, yes, but she'd sooner work with soggy scrap than ruin a perfectly good book.

"There have been a few different runic alphabets through history," she said, "but the one you're most likely to run into is probably going to be Futhark, unless something has changed significantly between my time and now. And it has a few offshoots from there, depending on region, but the alphabets are all fairly straightforward. They work phonetically, and at most, the variant alphabets have thirty-three letters."

As she spoke, she wrote down the ancient, 24-letter alphabet. (http://www.ancientscripts.com/futhark.html) She'd probably work her way through the variants as they went.

"Of course, because it's a phonetic alphabet and not pictographs like some others, you'll probably be limited to the Old English, unless you know other languages, too. I'll show you their variation, the long one I mentioned, in a bit."

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"I speak French and some Latin," Celia said, albeit distractedly. She characters were too interesting-looking. "But English is probably the best to start with, yes."

She reached out to trace the first letter with a fingertip, drawing any accumulated melted snow out of the paper as she did so. She could at least try to keep the paper dry, if she couldn't stop the snow itself. "It's not perfectly analogous, is it?" she asked, glancing up. "I wouldn't expect it to be." It looked like they were running a couple letters short, if nothing else.

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

"Not really, no," Elsa replied, almost apologetically. "Actually, that's where Futhark gets its name, the same way the alphabet you're more familiar with got its. The first few characters contributed to naming the whole."

Underneath each symbol, Elsa started to write how each one sounded, phonetically. F, U, TH, A, R, K...

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

"Futhark," she repeated, smiling. "That makes it easy to remember, doesn't it? And really, all the better that it's not analogous. English is a perfect mismash of languages. This seems to be doing practical things, like having the th sound be a single letter."

She could appreciate practicality, yes.

[notaweenie.livejournal.com]

The door opened and Barry walked through with a wave to Elsa.

"Hey, Elsa! Just coming to check on the-"

Then there was the registering of snow flitting around the room.

"What the fuck?"

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

Elsa pinched the bridge of her nose and shook her head. Clearly, this was not her day.

"It was like this when I came in," she insisted, waving her other hand around at the room. "The shop is messing around with me, I think."

A beat.

"I put hot water on for tea, if you're going to be here a while. I'm not sure if it's particularly cold in here or not."

It was tolerable, if you had long sleeves. Elsa wouldn't know that, though.

[notaweenie.livejournal.com]

Barry approached the counter still looking around at the shop and shaking his head. "Shit. Yeah, I'll take some tea," Barry said starting to pull out his tablet from his bag. "I was coming in to check on your gloves. Seeing the snow almost gave me a fucking heart attack."

He looked at his tablet and punched up a system's log. "Not seeing anything wrong with your gloves. God damn fucking island."

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

"Imagine how I felt," Elsa replied, a wry smile on her lips. "The gloves have been working wonderfully, though. I was a little worried at one point when people started complaining about sudden cold patches on Ingvar, but those have been happening whether or not I'm around, too."

She was pretty certain everything to do with going to school here was trying to give her a heart attack.

[notaweenie.livejournal.com]

"Well at least you've kept it together. I'm not sure what the fucking deal is with our new accommodations," Barry grumbled as he ran another diagnostic through his tablet and then ran a sensor sweep of the store. "I've been spending more time at the warehouse than that place. My gear keeps going out on me there and whatever fucking ghost is in my room keeps crying all the time."

Barry probably would have been happier with the ghost that swears all the time because of foreign language instructions.

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

"Mine doesn't cry, but I can't shake the feeling that it's getting into my personal space when my eyes are closed," Elsa replied with a shiver. "I can't handle many more weeks of this. I'm so close to just getting a hotel room, now."

[notaweenie.livejournal.com]

"Shit," Barry said looking concerned. "Well if it ever get's too freaky for you, feel free to drop by the warehouse for a bit. I got a cot there you can use if you'd like to get a fucking nap or something. It's not a trampoline bed but I'm sure you'll find it comfortable."

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

"I'm just as comfortable with regular, non-trampoline beds as well, Barry," Elsa replied serenely, reaching for the tea. "I might take you up on that if whatever is in my room keeps breathing down my neck at three in the morning."

[notaweenie.livejournal.com]

"Yeah."

Barry shivered a little bit at that. Definitely not from the snow.

"That's just fucking creepy. Not that the warehouse doesn't have it's own charm but at least it's not haunted or built with a fucking allen wrench."

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

"I'm sure I'd be more concerned about the allen wrench if I knew what one was," Elsa offered. "I have half a mind to rent one of the suites in the hotel for a night, and invite anybody who needs the rest to just come over and sleep. I'm certain a lot of people would take me up on that."

[notaweenie.livejournal.com]

Barry cracked a grin at that. "So you're going to host a slumber party?" Barry joked. "In my experience people screw around more at those things than fucking sleep. Lord knows I could use a fucking break from the place. Of course now that you've said it out loud the island is going to try and find a way to fuck with you."

The last statement was accompanied by a wave of Barry's arm at the snow currently in the Magic Box.

[iceolatedqueen.livejournal.com]

"Slumber party?" Elsa, honey, get with the times. "I think the island is already... er... messing with me. At this point, just so long as I can get some sleep, I'll be happy."

That was a good plan, right? She could get a place to sleep on the island for a night or two. Her birthday was this weekend, darn it. She deserved the break.