fandomtownies | The Magic Box, Wednesday

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The Magic Box, Wednesday

Elsa was actually in a pretty good mood, today. She had chocolates that she'd made herself in class yesterday, her weekend had been fantastic, and overall, her mood was surprisingly calm.

She was sorting through a shipment of candles, looking vaguely amused as she did so. After all, she'd walked into a store that was hung with decorations for Hallow'een, and it seemed only fitting that she add to the general ambiance.

Before long, she'd pulled out every orange, black, and purple candle in the store, and while she wasn't going to light them all, she had purchased and lit just enough to give the room a comfortable glow even after she turned off the lights. The rubber spiders and paper ghouls must have been thrilled.

[OOC: Open, OCD-free!]

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"Hey Elsa, I was-"

Barry stopped as soon as he entered the store and gave Elsa a quizzical look.

"Did I miss something or is it still July?"

"Oh, it's definitely still July," Elsa replied, smiling at Barry from her spot by the counter. "But when I came in today, the store was decorated for Hallow'een, and my options were to either clean up and take the decorations down, or else embrace it..."

She was giving the fun option a try today!

"All right. Good," Barry said relaxing a little. "Given this fucking island you never know when you might pull a Rip Van Fucking Winkle. Anyway, I was wondering if you guys had any books on alchemy? Specifically the "Keys of Wisdom" by some old fuck named Zosimos."

"Alchemy?" Elsa pursed her lips thoughtfully, and then reached for a candle and nodded toward the back where they kept the books. "Are you looking to break some of the fundamental rules of the elements, Barry?"

He didn't casually just rearrange atoms in his spare time, did he?

Then again, this was Barry.

Casually? No. For science? Fuck yeah he did. And he had nothing but spare time in Fandom.

"Eh. Fuck the fundamental rules," Barry joked as he let Elsa lead him to the back. "I view them more as fucking guidelines than rules. Plus some of those old alchemists might have had the right idea just not the fucking technology to get it done. Thought I might take a look at what these old farts had in mind."

"Old farts," Elsa echoed, amused. "Well, I'm not certain that we've got anything resembling the entirety of his work. The library might be a better place to look for that sort of thing, but we do have a few alchemy books citing his writing..."

Considering most of his work had actually been lost to the annals of time, that wasn't half bad, for a magic shop.

Well Fandom shops tend to have the unique items you won't find on Amazon. Or your Barnes and Noble...

"Yeah, well, I thought I'd see what you might have," Barry said with a shrug. "Plus libraries tend to want their books back eventually. They're fussy that way."

"I would think that you, of all people, would have figured out a way to make a copy of a book by now, Barry," Elsa teased. "But let's see what we can find."

She set her candle down on a nearby shelf, and then started poking through the selection to find what she could about alchemy.

"Yeah. Well I like books," Barry said somewhat lamely as he inspected some of the shelves. "Especially the old dusty ones that smell funky. Besides it gives me an excuse to drop by and say hi."

Elsa smiled a little more warmly at that.

"And I'll never complain about something that gives you an excuse to visit," she replied. "Though, between you and me? I think dropping by to say hi is a good enough excuse on its own."

She pulled a few books from the shelf, gave them a cursory looking-over, and then held them out to Barry for inspection.

Barry was momentarily disarmed by the smile.

"Yeah, well... I- uh. Um. Well I don't want to distract you from your work," Barry said finally returning the smile though just a tad bit awkwardly. "But I'll keep that in mind.

He took the books and gave them a cursory look. "This should do. They're dusty enough but I'm not sure if they are funky smelling enough."

"Well, give them a few weeks to sit somewhere cold and humid, and that problem ought to fix itself," Elsa offered, her tone almost playful, now. "If my understanding of modern students is at all accurate, we've got 'funky smelling' elevated to a fine art by now."

"I didn't know there was such a fine art," Barry joked and relaxing a little. "Unless you were working in sanitation or making cheese."

"I'm only relating what I've learned from watching television," Elsa replied, laughing softly. "Do you know many people who make cheese or work in sanitation?"

She knew exactly none!

"Not really but they're time honored professions," Barry joked and then gave Elsa a curious look. "So... you actually watch TV? Somehow I never pictured you doing that."

"Very, very rarely," Elsa clarified. "Mostly in the morning, watching the news while I drink my tea. It seems like a good way to go about getting used to the modern world."

Except the modern world was sort of horrifying.

Oh Elsa, it so much more horrifying than you know.

"News? Well that's hardly educational," Barry said shaking his head in amusement. "If you really want to see something that's ducking awesome and educational you should see this documentary about freak super storm cells and the effect it has on aquatic life."

Also known as Sharknado.

And suddenly Barry had a fit of nervousness that he hadn't felt since the fourth grade and he was asking Sara Tan to the Spring Fling dance.

"You could... Ah... Come over to the um, Warehouse and watch it with me. If you'd like."

"To the Warehouse?" Barry's nervousness didn't go unnoticed by Elsa, who suddenly found her own cheeks getting a little warmer. Fantastic. She was blushing. "I would... that is to say... it sounds like a very... educational..."

Oh no. How did words work?

"I'd love to."

Wait. Is she blushing? And did she say yes? Actually she said she'd love to which is the same thing, right? Were Barry's eyes popping out of his head? They felt like they were popping out of his head.

And no matter how hard he tried to look cool and calm he had the doofiest grin on his face.

"Really?"

Barry. You dumbass. Play it cool.

"Uh... Great! Cool. Keen. Say... Friday night?"

"Friday night," Elsa agreed, ducking her head a little and smiling all the more. "Friday night at the Warehouse."

That didn't sound sketchy in the least!

"I'm looking forward to it."

"Me too," Barry said deciding to make a quick exit before Elsa changed her mind. "I'll see you Friday. Night. On Friday."

He then suddenly smacked his head.

"Shit!"

He went back to the counter.

"Need to pay for the books."

Elsa wasn't laughing. Elsa wasn't laughing...

Elsa was covering her mouth and smiling a whole lot, though.

"We'll make the payment process as painless as possible," she promised, making her way to the counter and ringing the books into the register. "We'll have you rung in and on your way in no time."

Silly boy.

Barry couldn't stop smiling. Even if she was laughing at him.

"Here," Barry said pulling out the cash. "Just... keep the change."

He pick up the books and headed to the door. "See ya on Friday!"

"See you Friday," Elsa replied, and then waited until he was out the door before finally letting herself break into a fit of giggles.

What in the world had just happened, here?

Whatever it was, it didn't seem so bad at all.

Anders stopped by around midmorning, bearing not one but two packages of Oreos due to a last-minute burst of indecision that rendered him unable to pick between the usual kind, and the type with mint.

"Elsa! I brought the cookies," he greeted, then frowned as he looked around the shop. "What's all this? Did the electricity stop working?"

Candles, you know.

"It's mood lighting," Elsa replied. And then realized how that might sound before laughing softly and shaking her head, waving a hand toward the Halloween decor. "I mean, I came in here to see the shop decorated, and thought the candles would fit the theme well. The electricity is working just fine."

"I like it," Anders decided, after a beat. "Funny, it must be almost time for All Soul's Day at home. This reminds me of that -- only we use fewer rubber spiders."

"I can't imagine it's much different," Elsa replied, thoughtfully. "All Souls Day exists in this reality as well, and it's only a few days away from Hallow'een. In fact, Hallowe'en is the vigil that leads into All Saints Day, and then All Souls Day..."

Elsa, your inner nerd was showing.

"We don't use the rubber spiders at home, either."

"Halloween?" Anders repeated, shaking his head. "We just have All Souls Day, to honor the dead. It comes at the start of August. Some people dress up as spirits, and there's a lot of talk about Andraste in the temple. But the colors and such are the same."

"That sounds about the same," Elsa replied, looking thoughtful, "except that Hallowe'en comes at the very end of October, and All Souls Day is in early November."

She was actually kind of fascinated by this.

"But I'm not familiar with Andraste, I'm afraid."

"Bride of the Maker," Anders said, and laid the cookies to the side, the better to talk with his hands. (It improved his stories.) "The legend is our deity chose her to bring his message to the world. She was a prophet who led her people - my people, I guess -- into war against their oppressors. She won, but her human husband betrayed her and she was burned at the stake."

He didn't know how much he believed it, and that showed in his tone.

"Not that I think the Maker would much like what the Chantry's done with it all, but there's humans for you. Anyhow, she was supposedly put to death around this time of year."

"And that's what your All Souls Day is about?" Elsa was paying rapt attention, now. Even if Anders himself wasn't buying it, she was curious about the myths that other cultures carried dear to their hearts. "It's a fascinating legend, if tragic."

There's humans for you, indeed.

"Why did he betray her?"

Despite his skepticism about all things Chantry, Anders enjoyed telling the stories to a good listener like Elsa. Fereldan lore wasn't much use in his day-to-day island life, and his head was full of the stuff. He smiled as he continued.

"Jealousy," he answered. "He could see his wife loved the Maker more than him, and he couldn't stand it. So he handed her over to the enemy." (Historians outside the Chantry disagreed, said it was about power more than love -- but Anders hadn't had the chance to read those books.)

"They say his people killed him when they found out about it, so at least he didn't get to enjoy whatever he got out of the deal for very long."

Edited 2014-07-24 00:27 (UTC)

Elsa bit her lip at that, nodding.

"Well... at least there's that," she agreed. "I can't fathom that 'if I can't have her, nobody can' attitude. He punished her for not loving him enough, but what does that say about the so-called love that he supposedly told her he felt?"

"It wasn't real love, was it?" Anders asked rhetorically, nodding in agreement. "If it's real love, you want the other person to be their best. You don't whine and complain and have them killed because they find something more important to do than polishing your armor at night. I can't understand it either."

"He thought of her as a possession," Elsa noted, softly. "She deserved better than that."

She knew so little about her, but she was absolutely certain of that one.

"Anybody in the world would have," Anders agreed. "But after all she did -- maybe her especially."

There was a moment of silence, and then Elsa gave Anders a somewhat shaky smile.

"So... you brought cookies, you said?"

Anders cleared his throat. Andraste's legend was a story he'd known since childhood, and had long since turned into a rote set of words. Elsa's reaction made him feel the horror if it for the first time in a decade.

"Yes! Cookies!" he said, voice artificially bright. "Er,this bag is regular Oreos, and these say they have mint inside. Which shall we start with?"

"Perhaps the regular ones," Elsa offered. "So that I have a basis for comparison when we get to the mint ones? Since I haven't had either, before."

"Probably a better way to start," Anders agreed thoughtfully. "I should warn you, I haven't had the mint kind yet either. They might be horrendous."

He pulled open the bag of plain ones and offered it to Elsa, looking a bit doubtfully at her gloves as he did. "I don't know if these will stain."

Elsa gave a dubious glance down at her gloves in turn.

"That's a risk I'm willing to take," she decided, delicately plucking a cookie from the bag. "I've had a lot of practice with not staining them over the years, trust me."

"So you've been wearing them a while?" Anders asked as he claimed a cookie of his own and set the bag aside. "I suppose you'd have to sort out eating one way or another."

"I've been wearing gloves since my father gave me a pair when I was nine," she agreed, turning the cookie over in her hand, maybe a touch too casually fascinated by the thing. "I've had a lot of time to figure it out, yes."

A beat.

"I can honestly say I've never seen a cookie with such an intricate design on it."

"I think they must squirt the batter into molds," Anders suggested as he twisted his cookie apart. "Seems like a lot of work for a sweet, doesn't it?"

He was more curious about the gloves now, but it seemed like a sensitive topic with Elsa. Eating the top of a cookie gave him something to do with his mouth besides pestering her with questions.

"A fair bit," Elsa agreed, considering the cookie for a moment more before following his lead and twisting the top of the Oreo off. "But then, we hand-made chocolates in one of my classes yesterday. Those were quite a bit of work as well."

And yet they were absolutely worth the effort.

"We tied knots in things to dye them," Anders said ruefully. "Chocolates sound more useful. Maybe I'll take a cooking class in the fall..."

Sheepishly, he explained, "The white bit in the middle is the best part," before licking it off and crunching the bottom bit of the cookie between his teeth.

"The closest thing to a cooking class I've taken has involved Thor teaching us how to put instant food into the microwave," Elsa offered. "Useful here. Not so much in Arendelle."

She turned the half a cookie over a few more times, and then gave Anders a smile.

"Well, here I go, then."

And then she was taking a bite of the top half, the one without the Oreo cream. A moment of consideration while she chewed, and then she was making a humming noise and nodding her enthusiastic approval.

Anders laughed at her approval. "See, and I didn't even have to stick it in the microwave-thing. I'm a genius."

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The Magic Box, Wednesday

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