fandomtownies | The Magic Box, Thursday

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The Magic Box, Thursday

Norman was, like, super dead but Nina had priorities.

Which was why she'd shown up to work a few hours early on totally the wrong day (because as if she was waiting until Friday to run a rescue mission!) in order to first figure out a spell that would determine where the puppy had been sent.

(Luckily, they had plenty of puppy fur on his bed for her to cast that.)

And then, it had been spent painstakingly drawing chalk circles and symbols, and inscribing the right runes in the right places. Once she'd triple-checked her work, Nina got to work actually doing the whole summoning thing… wishing crazy hard that she'd get what she was wanting…

There was an explosion of glittery dust, exuberant yapping, and the nearly deafening cacophony of what sounded like a million of Foomy.

Nina cracked her eyes open as paws scrabbled over one of her shoes. But she couldn't see her feet. In fact, she couldn't see out the windows or any surface in the shop either. They were, from top to bottom, absolutely covered in cheerfully burbling Foomies.

"Oh my gosh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she squealed. "Look at all of you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

A three-tone chorus of barks answered her.

"And you're back!!!!!!!!!!!!" she said, kneeling down to pick up the puppies. "How dare Norman send you off????????"

The three-headed puppy licked her chin and neck, tail wiggling madly as it shook glitter everywhere.

"Oh, you," she said, letting her indignation go. How could she stay mad with him back? "I guess, like, I should figure out how to send all of these new friends home, huh????????"

A song of bubbling burbles answered her.

The Magic Box is Open!

[And OCD free!]

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Norman didn't work today, no, but he had some stuff he needed to pick up, there were study materials he'd meant to bring home on Tuesday, but he'd been slightly distracted by how totally dead he was.

... So when he stepped in today and froze in place, there was a long moment while he was clearly contemplating whether to throw the pop bottles in his arms and run, or--

"What."

WHAT.

Nina was in her element surrounded by absolutely obnoxious amounts of cuteness as she sat on the floor, holding a book up so that neither the puppy nor the Foomies could get it, and reading.

At the ringing of the bell, and then that voice, Nina lowered her book.

"You!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

As the puppy scrambled off her lap to flounder around Foomies to go and see Norman.

And Norman was immediately crouching down to say hello to the puppy, even while he stared wide-eyed at the three billion jelly demons.

"What happened here??"

He was going to die, but he had his priorities.

She looked at him incredulously.

"What does it look like??????????"

Well. It looked like an army of jelly demons, really.

"It looks like you've been summoning demons!" Norman waved an arm at the... happily chirping pink blobs. "You can't just summon demons!"

Said while being mercilessly licked to death by a wiggly trio of dog.

"I wasn't summoning demons," she protested, though the pink jelly demons gave lie to that in a happy chorus. "I was getting the puppy back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! You sent him away!!!!!!!!! How could you?????????""

"Mostly it was the snowflakes," Norman protested, even as the aforementioned puppy clamored up into his lap. "And even if it wasn't, you can't just keep demons as pets!"

Please don't mention that he was pretty much keeping Foomy around as his own until Nina had absconded with the little guy.

Even though he'd totally been keeping Foomy around as his own right up until Nina had absconded with the little guy.

Her mouth dropped open, indignant.

"Excuse me?????????" she protested vehemently. "You did it first!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And then you did nothing when Bob threatened horrible murder!!!!!!!!!!! I had to save Foomy!!!!!!!"

This was maybe a bit of a creative re-telling of events.

Nina crossed her arms. "And, like, what do you have against puppies???????"

"Bob is harmless," Norman sighed, for what felt like the ten millionth time. "He can't even touch Foomy."

The puppy wiggled right on into Norman's lap and curled right up there.

"And I don't have anything against puppies," he added, voice level, "but this puppy doesn't belong here."

The puppy seemed to disagree. That was kind of beside the point.

Nina didn't think it was beside the point, as she raised her eyebrows and looked at the puppy-lap tableau.

"I think he thinks he belongs here???????????" she said, with the breezy confidence of someone who knew they were right. "And you didn't even send him to the right place, so this is better for him!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Norman looked down at the puppy, frowning a little.

"I mean, I'm new at this," he muttered. "And snowflakes."

He hadn't been in his right mind at the time. He was going to maintain that one, damn it.

"But he's a puppy. He's happy anywhere that he's being taken good care of. That doesn't mean we didn't take him away from somewhere that he's meant to be. Maybe there's a little kid out there," in Hell? "who is really missing their dog...s. Maybe he's got family somewhere. All of this demon summoning is kind of..." He looked at the small sea of jelly blobs. "... Kind of like kidnapping. Don't you think?"

She blinked at him, genuinely and not just putting on surprise, as she did.

"Kidnapping?????? Oh my gosh, how are you doing your circles???????" Nina demanded. "Like, see--well, you can't see it right now, since there's jelly demons over it, but over on the left, there's an entire section for making sure whatever comes through wants to come through????????"

Nina was silly about a lot of things. She was not silly about her research.

"So, like, I didn't mean to get all of these cuties--and I'm sending them back before I leave tonight--but they're all here willingly. Like, a field trip?????????????? And the puppy wanted to leave jelly world too, since he's here!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"I'm not doing circles," Norman muttered. "That's kind of my point."

He gave in, resting his hand on the puppy's back. One of the heads looked around and licked it happily, and his expression softened slightly.

"Even this guy was an accident, you know. I was trying to clean up one of the circles you left behind."

"I just practicing, and then there was this whole thing and I had to leave before I cleaned it all up!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Nina was totally not accepting blame for it. Nope.

Though she was going to file away that one of her earlier attempts had apparently been to the puppy dimension.

Norman just stared at her at that.

"Whole thing? What kind of whole thing is more important than making sure nobody accidentally summons demon dogs?" He shook his head a little. "Not everything that wants to come over is going to be friendly."

They were kind of lucky this guy was basically a three-headed pomeranian.

"You can restrict that too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" she objected.

Had he done none of the reading?

And, okay, so she hadn't restricted anything that time, but then again, she hadn't actually been planning to summon anything that time either. She'd literally just been practicing her shapes.

"Besides, seriously, what do you have against the puppy??????"

"For starters, he's just sitting here alone unless somebody is working," Norman pointed out, frowning a little. "Demon dog or not, that isn't fair to him, Nina. I mean, he's got plenty of toys and... himself... I guess... but..."

Help. The puppies were dozing off.

And it was adorable.

"I mean, like, that's a total shame," Nina admitted, "but Vette said no to the puppy staying at my place..."

She brightened.

"Oh my gosh!!!!!!!!!! You could keep the puppy!!!!!!!!!"

Norman looked up with a jolt at that suggestion, wide-eyed.

"What? Of course I can't keep the puppy!"

... He couldn't, okay?

AS IF NINA WOULD BUY THAT.

"Why not?????????????"

"I have no idea how to take care of a puppy!"

How had this gone from him being told how evil he was to being told to take home a dog??

That was just how conversations with Nina went!

"Well, that's no problem," Nina scoffed. "I own a bookstore?????? Come get a book????? Or the library?????????????"

A beat.

"Besides, he loves you!!!!!!!!!!!!"

"He's a puppy," Norman pointed out. "I'm pretty sure he loves everybody. I can't take care of a dog! I am not even a little bit qualified to take care of a living animal!"

Keyword: Living.

Nina paused.

No, she had to ask.

"Living???????????????????"

Norman also paused.

...

"I mean... the dead ones are easy," he said, lamely.

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