A Fiery Bouquet of Welcome

[serpentinthegarden]

Heard the meet and greet was a bust. Guess the citizens decided to share their gloomy mood with the newbies, typical of humans. When you're in a bad mood you always feel the need to spread it around.

Even Chef has got a dose of it. Usually the candy shop makes a whole spread of goodies for those banquets. This time he didn't even bother suggesting it. I finally tempted him into at least making a few gift baskets... 

[Crowley sneered and looked at one of the baskets.]

Not sure that's a good thing. He was laughing and singing a made up song about hot peppers when he made these.

But it's free right? How bad could they be? If you are new to the Kingdom stop by the candy shop on Main Street to pick up your free basket.

 

Comments

[serpentinthegarden]

[ To him it sounded a bit like Latin crossed with Babylonian. ]

That a spell?

[darksmokerising]

...no, it's Enoch-- Different universe. Right. It's the Angelic language from my world. It's called Enochian. It's better sung, honestly. Sounds a bit bleh spoken but makes great insults.

[serpentinthegarden]

Angels aren't very good at insults in my universe. They are always too busy trying to be better than everyone else.

[ He leaned just a touch closer, like the pair of them were conspiring. ]

Have you tried wishing for anything yet?

[darksmokerising]

Pft. In my universe...well, it's not too different where I am. [She winks slyly.] I'm just really good at languages and bothered Micah until he told me the naughty words. As you do in learning languages, naughty first, then nice.

[Her eyebrows arch.]

I...have not, yet. I do rather need my painkillers, though, but that is across the room in my house way back where I came from. That's more of a miracle.

[serpentinthegarden]

That has always been my policy. I know curse words humanity has long since forgotten. That's the problem with dead languages... You can speak them but everyone else just thinks its babytalk or nonsense.

Anyway, you look too young for arthritis to be a thing. What does a lady like you need painkillers for?

[darksmokerising]

This is true. I'll have to sing some Enochian properly at some point. It's so much better sung - like Latin, Russian, or German.

[She wrinkled her nose a moment later.]

My central nervous system thinks it's fried, a magical mishap that not even Micah could fix. Flying into a magic storm with lightning? Bad idea. It pretty much makes it so all my nerve endings go mad. I usually have a batch of ganja on me that helps. It'd sure help now. Even my wings are irritated, no wonder they hurt.

[Her wings flick a little and then settle.]

Don't knock arthritis at a young age, though. I've seen kids with it and worse. Lots of people forget that things like that are much more common than one might think.

[serpentinthegarden]

[ Humans and their little issues. Crowley had seen worse, little kids all twisted up with rickets and people with spines bent so badly they could barely walk at all... Still he actually felt a touch sorry for her when her wing flickered. He wasn't a healer though, not even on his best days.

But... when you thought about it spreading around a drug that was probably illegal in this Norman Rockwell sort of world was a very 'demon' sort of thing to do...

Crowley glanced around and when he was sure no one was spying on them, he reached back to pull a few maple leaves off a nearby tree. With a snap of his fingers these transformed in his hand into a very slim and ladylike pair of cigarettes. ]

I assume you smoke them? Seems to be the best way to unlock their pain killing abilities.

[darksmokerising]

I do. Oh...that's handy.

[Demony, useful, and excellently done. And as if to mock her before, she had a lighter in her pocket and lit the end with a soft smile.]

I do appreciate that immensely, Crowley. Wishes, mm... [She blew a few smoke rings and aimed a third to pass through.]

[serpentinthegarden]

Energy transformation. If I want something all I have to do is make it from something else.

[ He shrugged off the praise as this was nothing compared to what he used to be able to do but he was secretly chuffed at having done a good/evil deed. ]

It helping?

[darksmokerising]

Oh, that's brilliant. I wonder how I'm meant to work.

[Her face lit up, not...literally...but the drawn sort of pallor was slowly lifting as she nodded and relaxed. The pins and needles, the burning, stabbing of raw nerves were starting to calm as it would have with her own concoction. Well done, Crowley.]

Much, much better.

[A few hazy, lazy rings chased each other as she let out a sigh and gave him a brightly relieved smile.] Candy shop job, mm? [She didn't quite glance back at the hot sauce made shop.]

I suppose I'll have to find a library and see if they need full-time staff. Nothing like books - for study, reading, and specialised information in a new place. It's that or I get into trouble and see what happens.

[serpentinthegarden]

[ Hey, you live a few centuries among humans and you learn a few things about what they like. He personally had never seen the appeal in filling ones lungs with smoke but it must have done something for humans or the vice would never have caught on. ]

What better job for a demon? I can use my skills to get people to buy more candy and desserts than they went in there for.

[ Find the library... Mmm. That put Crowley on edge slightly. Aziraphale was already in a weird mood and with all these new people running around he would be extra grumpy with them if anyone set out to paw all over his well sorted books. ]

Yea, might want to give that a few days... just until things settle down. What sort of trouble did you have in mind?

[darksmokerising]

This is true. I suppose it works quite well.

[He gets another grin, this one a little lopsided. She hates smoking but this was the price she had to pay for her early adventures with Micah. Magic always had a price.]

I probably will. The whole vibe is wrong for it, I guess. As for trouble, I did see some sort of, what was it, a board? But I suppose I should learn more about what I can and cannot do in this place before I really go looking for trouble. Missions, whatever it is out there I'm supposed to have come for.

[serpentinthegarden]

[ Crowley nodded his agreement. ]

I went off on a few of those missions before anyone actually knew what they were doing and I don't recommend it. You should get a basic grasp on what your magic is... Try a spell?

[ He waves towards a fire hydrant. ]

See if you can wish that into something?

[darksmokerising]

"Ahh," she murmured and concentrated for a moment. What did she need? It would have to be a need. A person couldn't wish for something trivial, could they? No. This was a place of horses and carriages. She would need a fast mount, something very fast, that ran like the wind. Perhaps even one that could fly if needed. The swifter the better.

But out of a fire-hydrant? Magic was magic. Matter was matter a difference of energy being translated into form, so in theory, it was the command of it that needed to be worked upon. She had learned how to wield magic by reading, practise and much work. Now, that work would begin anew.

Merlan smiled and put her wish in place. Her voice sang out in Enochian, the words twisting brightly on her tongue until they seemed made into light itself. Her eyes and throat glowed a bright gold, the words spilling out in symbols etched in golden light that covered the fire-hydrant.

For a moment nothing at all happened, maybe a few sparks and then it began, a line of light, then another that seemed to flicker through symbols and letters and the hydrant was no more. In its place stood a unicorn with small wings as gold as the symbols had been, its mane silvery, almost a pale gold, and rippling with a wash of symbols that shifted through shades of gold as if whipped up by wind.

Merlan and the flame-eyed yearling stood staring each other down.

"Oh," she said letting out a breath. "That went...well." She spoke a hum of Enochian and the yearling trotted up to her and shoved his head into her chest before sniffing at Crowley with obvious delight.

[serpentinthegarden]

"Overachiever."

Crowley grumbled until he caught a look at the creature she had made and made the valiant attempt to maintain some level of cool. But this was a unicorn! He hadn't seen one of those since that ill-fated Ark business!

"I didn't expect you to do that, just make a whole unicorn... I was thinking maybe a small toy car or a brush or something."

As he spoke the ground rumbled and the area where the hydrant had once been erupted in a jet of water that launched itself five feet into the air and began raining down on them. In hindsight maybe picking the hydrant had been a bad idea on his part.

[darksmokerising]

"I always was a bit of an overachiever. I'm surprised as well," she said with a bright laugh and then it was gushing water. "Oh dear. I suppose that should...be fixed. Like science, there are, uh, consequences."

Merlan shook her head and knew she was tired from all of that madness but perhaps... She tried again just to twist things back into some semblance of normal. There was a bright bark of sound that came from her throat, like a single pure note and the letters settled into the shape of the lost fire hydrant once more. The yearling pranced a little, dipping his head this way and that in curiosity. What was left after the letters had settled was definitely a hydrant only it was made of iron and...what looked like quartz and maybe semi-precious gems. She'd pulled it up from the earth but this time there were those aforementioned consequences.

She dropped senseless to the ground like a ragdoll. Too much, too soon, even if she probably could have asked Crowley to take care of it. They did get a cool new hydrant but Merlan? Merlan was completely out cold and the little unicorn nosed at her for a moment before looking up at Crowley with wide trusting eyes.

[serpentinthegarden]

Crowley regarded the unicorn with a very cool indifference like it was an every day occurrence to have some new apprentice land on the ground near your feet and he spoke calmly as if the creature might actually be able to respond... or know any of the answers even though he had only just been created.

"Probably should have asked which room she was staying in first."

He tilted his head at the creature and indulged in a momentary whim to reach out and pet his muzzle.

"You know you are the first unicorn I've seen in centuries. If I had known we could have a whole herd of you just by wishing I probably would have done it ages ago."

The demon then looked to the soaked girl laying on the ground. She wasn't in any danger of drowning so that was good.

"Guess we should take her back to the apartment. Maybe some one will claim her as their roomie in the lobby."

This is what he set out to do. Though he was soaked clean through from the rain as well he knelt on the ground beside the lady and collected her in his arms. The apartment wasn't too far away she could be carried there in only a short ten minute walk.

[strangeandunusual]

Lydia was on her way out to the Gallery when she saw Crowley coming into the lobby with one of the new Apprentices in his arms. Her eyes widened and she ran up to him, one hand already moving toward her choker.

"Oh my gosh, is she okay? What happened? Please tell me she didn't go near the train station..."

[serpentinthegarden]

"Nope," Crowley swung the lady around to lay her down on the lobby sofa, being mindful not to crush her wings, "She created a unicorn out of a fire hydrant and then blocked the escaping water with some kind of glittering gem encrusted castle or something."

Totally normal.

[strangeandunusual]

"She did all that with her magic, already? .... Wow." Lydia knelt down next to her and brushed her hair out of her forehead.

"Is she an angel, like Aziraphale? Her wings are so pretty..."

[serpentinthegarden]

"No. She's nothing like Aziraphale... other than having angelic wings, probably being a Princess, and yet still willing to talk to a demon."

Nothing alike at all!

"She is supposed to be a human who grew those wings from angelic possession. Never heard of anything like that before."

[strangeandunusual]

Lydia giggled a little at that quantifying list, but settled in on the ground beside the new girl. "I can't give her all her energy back, but ... I can at least give her enough to wake up, I think."

She placed her hands gently on the formerly possessed human's shoulders and closed her eyes. Normally when she healed, she tried to project feelings of home for whoever it was she was helping, but a stranger was a bit harder. She tried to think of peaceful things: the sound of Winter River, wind in trees, the feeling of snuggling under warm blankets on a crisp fall day with a good book and a cup of something warm and delicious to drink. The first tickle of breeze on a hot day, or the first few bites of a favorite meal. As she had told Crowley, it wasn't enough to completely replenish, but maybe Merlan would start to come back to herself a little ...