Groovy Tunes, Sunday

[furnaceface]

Jono wasn't sulking today while he opened up the Groovy Tunes, and anybody who told you that he was? Was lying. Definitely lying. He also most certainly hadn't attempted to pick up one of the new guitars to play, only to remember in the worst way possible that he had three injured fingertips, and he hadn't spent a good twenty minutes cussing out life, the universe, and everything before settling down behind the counter and instead cranking up the Pearl Jam very loudly.

If you thought any of these things had happened, clearly you were fooling yourself.

There was, however, a help wanted sign in the window. You were more than welcome to pay attention to that, instead of the leather-clad telepath with the bandaged hand who was absolutely not sulking behind the counter, today.

[OOC: Open! OCD-free! Squirrels: Specifics of Alluka/Nanika's powers in the Anders thread are NFB, please!]

Comments

[not_every_mage]

Anders came in around lunchtime, looking slightly out of breath from what had been a very fast walk over from the Magic Shop.

"So, I don't suppose there's some chance you wanted to talk to me about Alluka because her birthay's next week and we're planning a fantastic surprise party?"

[furnaceface]

//Actually, she would probably appreciate a fantastic surprise party either way,// Jono noted, glancing up from his sulking ... sulking and turning down the volume on the stereo. //She's a good kid, isn't she?//

[not_every_mage]

"She probably would. She's a darling," Anders said honestly. Then, because he was fairly certain he hadn't been summoned just to discuss how sweet Alluka was (though it would have been true): "Quite ... young-seeming for her age, though, isn't she?"

[furnaceface]

//You noticed that as well?// Jono bowed his head for a moment. Closed his eyes. //That's part of what I wanted to talk to you about. I don't think she knows just what it means, yet. Doesn't really understand it herself. But you will.//

He glanced up again, expression grim.

//She's been kept locked away. Kept hidden apart from people for a large part of her life. I think it's been years since she's been in casual contact with another person. Longer still since she's seen the outside.//

[not_every_mage]

Horror and anger tinted Anders' face bright red as Jono spoke.

"Right. Excuse me," he said, then went outside, kicked the wall hard some five or six times so he wouldn't scream at the unfairness of it all, or about how it kept happening to people in so many worlds, and came back in with his mouth in a thin, angry line. "Sorry. Just -- why?"

He assumed it was about powers. It usually was. But he was trying to remember not every world was exactly like his.

[furnaceface]

Jono sad patiently and waited for Anders to get the kicking and the anger at least somewhat out of his system. He understood. He'd done a fair bit of that himself, once he was no longer where Alluka could see.

//For exactly the reason I'm guessing you think it is,// Jono replied, gently. He looked briefly down at his bandaged hand. //She's not just Alluka. There's another aspect to her, another mind, Nanika. Nanika is greatly powerful. Is dangerous, if the people around her use that power wrong. My best guess is that her family locked her away to protect themselves from that possibility.//

He didn't look terribly pleased like that. Actually, he sort of looked like he wanted to punch something again.

//I'm worried for them,// he added. //But because of the way those powers work, I'm worried for anyone they come in contact with, as well. It's a complicated matter.//

[not_every_mage]

Anders looked at the hand too. "Can I help with that?" he asked as he gestured to it, healer instincts coming to the fore as he processed the rest of it.

Healing was simple. He liked healing. Dealing with what Jono had just told him was ... not simple. His tolerance for destructive entities that rode around in people's heads had certain hard limits. But there was no denying Alluka was an innocent.

"So, she's possessed," he said, folding his arms over his chest. "That is complicated. Can she control it?"

[furnaceface]

Jono shook his head a little.

//I don't think it's quite so simple as possession, either,// he noted, unwrapping his hand to show the damage left behind from Nanika's requests. //So far as Alluka is concerned, Nanika is family. She got fiercely protective of her when I assumed - stupidly - that she might not be aware of what was going on and tried to cover by saying that something got to my hand.//

You know, randomly, something just sort of showed up and took three fingernails. Because that sort of thing happened all the time, honest.

//I think that might be in part because they're two parts of a whole.// He bunched his shoulders up a little. //Or because Nanika is all that Alluka has had all these years. But I don't believe Nanika is a force to be controlled. Nanika is a force to be careful around. She demands a price, three things one after the other, and 'no' will not be taken for an answer. And then, once that price is paid, she'll grant a single request.//

So he imagined Anders could see how Nanika's power might be used... poorly. With that in mind. The prices ran high, and Jono could understand how anyone who had to pay three bloody fingernails would feel entitled to something extravagant in return. Which stood the chance of turning it into some sort of horrible snowball effect.

[not_every_mage]

Anders squinted at the hand. "I can't do anything about that," he admitted. "I could clean the wounds up a little, but the nails -- they're just gone. It'd be like regrowing your chest."

Was he talking about Jono's hand because he had absolutely no idea what to say about the rest of it? Whatever gave you that idea?

[furnaceface]

//Figured that might be the case. Don't worry about it, mate. I'll survive.//

And apparently he was stuck for the whole 'Hannibal is trying to get me to regenerate lost body parts just because I've rebuilt my entire body out of nothing but ash a few times' thing. Still.

His life was so hard. He shrugged it off, and then started wrapping his fingers again.

//Her prices, for what it's worth,// he said, trying to gently steer the conversation back on track, //should be gentler. No bodily harm, not from what I wished for. But if the next person wishes for something big or something selfish, that'll be shot to hell all over again. This is the cost I paid for somebody else's desire for material possessions. All the next person around is going to need to pay for is a conversation.//

[not_every_mage]

"Which is fantastic, until someone down the line is stupid and wishes to be a queen," Anders said sharply. "I don't know what to say. At home we'd put her to death. You can't have someone with that level of uncontrolled power --"

He cut himself off, rubbed the bridge of his nose. "I don't want to be afraid of a girl who still has bloody tea parties. Or to be talking about killing her, for that matter."

It wasn't that he thought Alluka should die. Alluka was an innocent, absolutely. Nanika, though? He'd kill Nanika without a second thought. His world was harsh that way.

[furnaceface]

//Then don't,// Jono replied, shaking his head. //Her powers are absolutely harmless... provided the wishes asked of her are. I know I, for one, won't be asking her anything in the future that might cause somebody else physical harm. But she shouldn't have to be feared or killed because of the selfishness of others, either.//

He finished re-wrapping his hand, and then looked Anders seriously in the eye.

//I intend to catch the worst of them, if I can,// he said, simply. //If somebody makes a selfish wish, I can handle paying most of the prices she asks. Hell, I've lived without a head before. But I can't be aware of who she's interacting with at all times. Shy of setting loose the squirrels to keep tabs on her at all times...//

His brows furrowed a little.

//Whatever comes down the road comes. And I won't stop it if it needs to happen. I intend to find out how often Nanika makes an appearance. It might make this less 'uncontrollable' than it sounds like, right now. And Alluka... she deserves a chance to exist in the world. Maybe she'll come to understand what the cost of Nanika really is. So long as she's locked away, unable to stop being a child, she'll never be able to do that.//

[not_every_mage]

"I don't understand what you're saying," Anders admitted. "You admit that you can't follow her every moment. You're trusting the people on the island not to wish for selfish things, when barely two months ago we had a demon twist half of us in knots because we're selfish. Because we want easy solutions to our problems. I did too."

He still hadn't forgiven himself for Gaunt. He doubted he ever would.

"Maybe living around people will help her realize what you're calling 'the cost,' but how many walking wounded will she leave in her trail first? And that's if we're lucky." He thought he was done there,then exhaled sharply and pushed his hair back. "And don't say it's like anyone else with powers that can be destructive. If my magic hurt someone in a way that was going to maim them for months, I would barely be able to live with myself. I certainly wouldn't be skipping about with a stuffed animal moments later."

[notamascot]

Kaylin was out wandering in the nice weather. Okay, okay, so she was sort of walking a beat. Just not officially or anything. But it made her feel better and more at home if she walked the streets and looked out for things the way she would have back home.

Not that anything ever really happened, but that totally was not the point.

The noise (sorry, Jono) coming out of Groovy Tunes made her stop and shake her head for a moment and in that moment she knew something was not right with Jono.

And being Kaylin, she just walked right in and up to the counter with a frown. "You're hurt."

[furnaceface]

And Jono... well, Jono blinked up. And reached to turn down the volume on the stereo.

For the uninitiated (and people who enjoyed hearing), it was probably noise. Fair enough.

//A little,// he admitted, holding up his bandaged hand. //It's annoying, but it's nothing terribly serious. I'll live.//

[notamascot]

She tilted her head, hands on hips, and gave him a Look. "It bothers you enough that I could feel it out there," she said. "I'd say that's annoying enough."

[furnaceface]

//Well, can't play guitar like this,// Jono admitted, wrinkling his nose a little. //It's still a fairly new injury. Limits how I can use this hand for a while, is the thing.//

It was a pretty big thing, when you were a guitarist. He could admit to that much.

[notamascot]

Kaylin hesitated, looking around the store to make sure they were alone, then stepped in a little closer. "Can I just fix it for you, please? It'll bother me like crazy otherwise."

Sure, technically she wasn't allowed, but they let her help the midwives - or at least pretended they didn't know what she did - and it wasn't like Jono was going to go running to the Dragon Emperor or anything.

Plus, fixing his fingers would be easy and get the itch out of her mind.

[furnaceface]

... There were worse reasons to accept a magical healing than 'it'll drive me crazy otherwise,' Jono figured. He shrugged, and then started unwrapping his hand to let her survey the damage.

//It's bugging you that much? Your sense for this sort of thing is rather sensitive, then?//

He was going to have to make damn certain to keep his distance from her until the hurt subsided again, the next time he re-built himself and then blew out his face and chest all over. If three fingernails were irritating her senses this much, that would be...

Unfortunate? Probably very unfortunate.

[notamascot]

Kaylin shrugged. "Sometimes. Maybe I mostly noticed because the music was annoying and then couldn't ignore it." Tact? What was that again.

"Sometimes I don't notice anything and sometimes it bugs me." She made a face. "I've learned to ignore it sometimes. Like when Karla wouldn't let me heal all the little kids at the hospital."

Someday, though, she was going to do something about that.

What she didn't say, and certainly wasn't about to, was that maybe it was because Jono had been her teacher and she liked him and he was good to people and she didn't want to see him suffer. All right, so she had a soft spot for people she sort of considered hers, okay?

[furnaceface]

Awww, Kaylin! Jono would have been flattered, if he knew! As it stood, well, mostly he was just coming to terms with the fact that everybody was a critic.

Pearl Jam was excellent, okay?

//It's always hardest to ignore when it's overwhelming numbers of people who shouldn't have to suffer,// Jono noted, because as a telepath, he could understand that much easily enough. //If it's not going to stop chewing at you, then by all means, do whatever will help you get it off your mind.//

He held his unwrapped hand out to her, down a few fingernails and not looking terribly attractive as a result. It felt about as bad as it looked, Jono mused, looking over the damage himself.

[notamascot]

Kaylin shoved up her sleeve and played her fingers over the jewels on the golden bracer she wore there. The gems flashed in pattern and the bracer opened. She set it on the counter and before her sleeve fell, Jona would probably be able to see the rune markings on her skin - greyish normally - beginning to glow a strange blue color.

She let the sleeve fall quickly and made a face at the bracer. "I know, I know. Don't worry I've been told so many times I could recite it in my sleep that the godsdamned thing is worth more than I am. I'll put the stupid thing back on after. I just can't... you know... with it on."

Normally she'd be fairly reticent about grabbing someone she didn't know - especially a man - unless she was sparring with them, but when it was healing she didn't think twice.

It was easy enough to figure out what was wrong and how his fingers were supposed to be. She followed all the nerves and blood vessels and whatever all those things were and just made them be the way they were supposed to be. A little trickier than healing a broken bone, but not nearly as bad as helping at a bad birth. Much less blood for one thing.

And then they were whole again and Kaylin needed a chair - no, look, the floor would do just fine. She slid down the counter to the floor and dropped her head to her knees. Yes, she'd just stay this way for a bit.

[furnaceface]

Well, that had been fascinating right up until it became worrying, and Jono didn't take so much as a second to marvel at his newly healed fingers before hurrying around the counter to crouch by her side.

//Kaylin, luv? You alright, there?//

He hadn't figured it would take this much out of her. But then, not everything came easy, did it? Especially when you held it back more often than not.

[notamascot]

Kaylin waved an arm at him without looking up. "Just need a minute. I always forget I ought to be sitting down or closer to the floor or something. Do you have any water?"

At least this time she remembered she should drink water. Maren knew to make her, as did the midwives, but she hadn't really done any healing here.

After a moment she shook her head and stood back up. "Fingernails are weird. Did you ever notice that?"

[furnaceface]

//Water? Of course.// He had a water cooler not far off, for... whatever reason. It wasn't as though he drank it, though maybe that wealth of employees he didn't have would make use of it someday? Whatever the case was, it meant that he could at least grab a paper cup and fill it for her without straying too far. //And weird how?//

Fingernails were one of those body parts that he actually hadn't spent much time contemplating.

He had been slightly less prone to losing them than certain other ones, over the years.