Pick Your Poison, Wednesday

[witchoftheflesh]

So, Adrian had spent all of last Wednesday thirteen years old and hiding in the Grove, waiting for warlocks to come drag him back to their cabal on behalf of the Spider. That had put him in enough of a funk for him to skip Supper Club the next day--not that being a pony had made the concept of restaurants particularly appealing--and had brought back old nightmares he hadn't thought of in years.

Those troubled dreams were still lingering, so Adrian was here and drinking a lot of coffee to make up for it, already mentally putting together a list of things to put into a strong sleeping draught.

Comments

[thatwaslucky]

Rey had stopped at the Perk on the way back from training, and they'd taken a cue from the delivery places in town and given her more pastries than she'd actually ordered.

So she was poking her head in to ask, "Are you busy?"

[witchoftheflesh]

"Depends on whether you considering mainlining caffeine to be a task," Adrian said. "If yes, then incredibly so, otherwise, not really."

He glanced up at her, eyes crinkling in a smile. "Hello, Rey, good to see you."

[thatwaslucky]

"You too," she smiled back, and held up the bag. "Would you like pastries to offset the caffeine? They gave me extra."

[witchoftheflesh]

"I will be upset if it offsets the caffeine - and might probably fall asleep on the job - but I'm still not going to say no to some pastries." Who would? "What did you get?"

[thatwaslucky]

"I ordered a croissant but it looks like they threw some danishes and a bear claw in. I thought they maybe gave me the wrong order but I was the only one there so maybe they were bored," she said, and offered him the bag.

"Why are you falling asleep on the job?"

[witchoftheflesh]

"Oooh, a bear claw!" Adrian said, reaching in for the pastry. "Delicious! Thanks, Rey." He took a small bite and washed it down with another cup of coffee. "And, oh, nothing much." He added, sounding totally casual. "Just not sleeping well for the past--" week "--few days. I'll be fine, but I just need a bit of a pick-me-up, you know?"

Another bite and then, "So, how'd you make it through last week?" Change of subject? What change of subject? This was a natural conversational turn!

[thatwaslucky]

"Mostly annoyed," Rey admitted, picking her croissant out of the bag. "Supper Club was all ponies, but fighting snow monsters, dinosaurs- as a pony- and alligators was basically training."

She shrugged. What're you gonna do.

[witchoftheflesh]

Uhhh...hide in his Grove and grumpily kick things? That's what he'd done, anyway.

"Boston was insufferable," he told her with a small smile. "He very much enjoyed me learning what it was like to not have hands. I think he was disappointed when I turned back, even though it meant more scritches for him."

[thatwaslucky]

Rey grinned. "I missed you as a pony?"

[mustbeawitch]

Lydia was just popping into the shop to look around. This totally wasn't a welfare check. She didn't even know what that was.

"Oh, Adrian! There you are. I do hope you had a less exciting week than the rest of us!" Or at least that his grove wasn't too permeated with glitter. That couldn't be good for the soil.

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian was not emotionally or mentally prepared to discuss the glitter in his Grove. He wasn't sure if that day would ever come, but it definitely wasn't today.

"Depends," he said, toasting Lydia with his coffee mug in greeting. "Did you all turn into a teenager and then a pony and fight various weird monsters all week?"

[mustbeawitch]

"I didn't turn into a teenager, no," Lydia said, "but then, I've just finished being one so it would be cruel to make me go back, don't you think? But I have, let us say, gained a new appreciation for my hands, yes, and would prefer not to have to hurl a curse at a shark again anytime soon. You know, when I met Georgiana she was laboring under the most horrid mess of protective spells, and I took it off her so the poor dear could breathe...I remember that one of them was against shark attacks, and I wondered when she would ever need that. Well, question answered, I suppose!"

You did ask.

[witchoftheflesh]

He did! He was still very curious, in fact. "Who had put so many spells on her and why specifically for shark attacks?"

[mustbeawitch]

"Georgiana's brother--my brother Darcy, Lizzy's husband, that is--is very protective, you see, and he'd hired this woman who was--well, frankly not a very good witch, but she had a very thorough spellbook. She'd put every protective spell in the whole thing on poor Georgiana. La, you can't imagine the weight!" It had been a metaphysical weight, of course, but it had still made things tremendously difficult for Georgiana.

[witchoftheflesh]

"Ooof. I can imagine, poor girl," Adrian grimaced. "But didn't she also end up cursed?" Where was the protection against that?

[mustbeawitch]

"Well," Lydia said, "as I said, I had to take the lot off of her so she could breathe. I did put one layer--the ones I thought might actually do her some good--back on, of course." She had mostly done this so that the witch who was also Georgiana's headmistress wouldn't notice that all her hard work had been undone and that was why her pupil was so much more lively all of a sudden, but she had also had Georgiana's protection in mind! Really, she had! "It was a complicated situation, with the spell on her mind that neither of us, nor the person who cursed her--" Harriet. It was Harriet. "--knew was there. We do think the curse wouldn't have stuck if it hadn't been for that, but of course that meant that it--really stuck. And warped." Good thing, too, because before it melded to the spell on Georgiana's mind and warped out of true, it had been meant to make Georgiana kill Lydia.

[witchoftheflesh]

"Did you ever find out who cursed her?" Adrian asked.

He was pretty sure he knew who had, either because she'd mentioned it before or he could put context clues together even when sleepy, but it never hurt to remind Lydia of all the horrible things that other witch had done.

[joan_of_bark]

"Well," Pam commented, as she strode into the shop, her hands firmly embedded in her pockets. "At least things have quieted down."

[witchoftheflesh]

"I have thumbs again and am once more over the age of majority," Adrian drawled. "Truly a banner week, comparatively speaking. How've you been, Pam? Sorry I missed last week, but I was a kid who didn't know he had a shift." He sipped his coffee. "Also, I'm pretty sure putting me to work would have violated several labor laws."

[joan_of_bark]

"Because I'm known for my strong feelings about commerce and attendance records," Pam said, amused. "It's fine, Adrian. I'm glad you're back to normal."

[witchoftheflesh]

Hey, that sure was a singular pronoun there.

"Were you affected by any of that stuff?" he asked, very suspiciously.

[joan_of_bark]

"No," said Pam. And, "Is there any coffee left over?"

[witchoftheflesh]

"There is, but it's only for people who suffered last week," Adrian informed her. "You don't qualify."

YOU HADN'T HAD HOOVES, PAM. YOU DIDN'T KNOW THE STRUGGLE.

[joan_of_bark]

Sometimes it helped being an avatar of the Green.

"Was it really that bad?" Pam asked, amused.

[witchoftheflesh]

"Being a pony was...trying, yes," he said, picking his words carefully. "I will be very happy to never have hooves again."

Best of luck with that, Adrian.