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xp_logsA rude awakening. Thirty hours later, Amanda wakes up with a hangover she doesn't remember getting and a visit from an old friend.
The thing about waking up with a hangover, Amanda decided muzzily, was that you really ought to have had the fun drinking part first. Otherwise it wasn't fair at all. At least her room was dark as she hazarded lifting her head out of the pillow. Her head throbbed and spun, but at least it stayed on. After a moment she hazarded sitting up, hanging her legs over the side of the bed. Still in her clothes, she realised, wrinkling her nose and trying to remember what the hell had happened. Must have been one hell of a bender.
Of course, the downside of having a dark room was that in trying to go to the bathroom, Amanda discovered just how much crap she'd left lying around. Having trodden on her hairbrush (unless a hedgehog had gotten in - her bare feet had trouble telling the difference), tripped over a pile of books and stubbed her toe on the end of the bed, Amanda decided that personal safety overrode whatever bright light would do to her head and groped for the light switch. Not an easy task when the room was spinning like a carousel.
"Light, light, c'mon, there's a fucking light here somewhere..." Verbalising seemed to help - the room was suddenly bathed in a neon-blue glow. Staggering slightly, Amanda headed for the bathroom. Aspirin. Aspirin and a more pressing business... Finished, Amanda stumbled back from the bathroom and plopped down on the bed again. She felt awful, tired and headachey - maybe she was coming down with something. And what the hell time was it? She felt like she had been sleeping for hours but it was dark so probably only four or five at the most... Scrubbing her had through her tangled hair, Amanda gave up trying to remember part the cottony feeling in her had and focussed instead on the present. Get up, have a shower and get something to eat, call Remy and find out what the hell had happened, do away with the werelight...
Wait a minute.
Amanda peered at the small ball of light bobbing in the air in front of her. True it was neon blue, no wait, make that streetlight red, no, flourescent green... "Stop that," she said irritably, and the colour shifting halted. True it was neon yellow, not marshy green, but it was a werelight. Not unless Marie-Ange had undergone a power upgrade and possession like an evil entity, to play such a cruel trick on her former roomie. But a werelight meant magic and Amanda had none.
Tante had been quite firm about that.
"George?"
The light bobbed up and down enthusiastically at the strangled whisper and swooped forward to bounce around her head with a crackle of static. Names were important and in naming the spell a five-year old had given it the beginnings of a personality. Her fingers shook as she reached up to touch it, the tingle an old familiar sensation. "Fuck me in the ear, it is you," she breathed, headache forgotten in the whirl of implications. Magic, she was doing magic again, how was it even possible?
The silence was broken by a sudden rapping on the door. Reflexively, Amanda's hand closed over the werelight to extinguish it. "Coming!" she called out, getting up to totter to the door.
When Wanda heard the muffled yell coming from the apartment, she relaxed and let her hand slip away from the door knob. She'd been out there long enough trying to get Amanda's attention that she had been two more knocks away from hexing the door. It was easier than spending the next twenty minutes pick locking it, something she left to Remy and her brother.
She'd been more than concerned with the fact that no one had seen hide nor hair of Remy or Amanda. It was a difficult anniversary that just passed, that was for sure, which made it even more worrisome.
She stepped back as the door swung open and then grinned a little at Amanda, the look on her face softened a little bit with the worry she'd been in. "You look like hell." The messenger's bag on her shoulder seemed oddly lumpy as she held it up. "I've brought food and all sorts of things to help with the morning after feeling."
"But I didn't..." Amanda began, perhaps a little defensively. She was interrupted by a tingle coming from her hand, the one she'd grabbed the werelight in and she glanced down to see light squeezing through the gaps between her fingers. Fuck. Almost guiltily she put her hand behind her back as she ran the counterspell in her mind, giving Wanda a weak smile. "I must've slept a bit longer than I expected, and I can't remember a bloody thing after the cemetary. Must've been one hell of a bender, hey?" Then she blinked. "Wait, morning after? What day is it?"
"It's Thursday evening, actually, so I suppose it would be an evening feeling." Wanda turned a critical eye on Amanda. It wasn't as if she was being judgmental -- hardly, considering her bar tab -- but while Amanda did look awful, it could easily have been the pain of loss as well. "Are you all right?"
"Thursday?" Amanda sagged slightly against the doorframe. "Bloody fucking hell..." The tingle was becoming a buzzing, like she was holding onto a particularly angry firefly. Go away, buggerit, she thought fiercely. And Wanda was still looking at her with Concerned Face. "I think I'm coming down with something," she admitted. "I swear, I don't remember having any booze and I feel like shite warmed over."
"I believe you," Wanda said, and she did, though her concern certainly wasn't dropping. Something was going on and she was walking that fine line of pushing and pushing too much.
Not that it had ever stopped her before, really. "Is everything alright?" If Amanda wanted her gone, she'd have to say so and Wanda would leave the food and go.
Amanda nearly snorted at that. Was anything all right? But Wanda was more than her boss, she was her friend and she wouldn't freak about this too much, right? Slowly, she pulled her hand from behind her back and opened her fist. The werelight - shifting from red to yellow to orange - bounced up indignantly, buzzing around their heads with an almost audible annoyed buzz.
"I woke up and it just... happened," she said helplessly.
With an almost audible click, Wanda shut her slightly gaping mouth. She didn't want to give the glowing ball of light a chance to decide to explore. Her gaze went back and forth between Amanda and the bit of magic bouncing around for a few seconds.
"Well then." She blinked at Amanda and smiled, just a little bit. "It sounds like you can do with a bit of food then, after all. No wonder you looked worse for wear and we can talk inside, yes?"
Wanda turned her head to stare at the light as it bounced off her hair for the third time. "And you can stop that," she said dryly.
"George, come here." The light reluctantly came back to her, spinning in an erratic orbit around her head. "I can't seem to turn it off," Amanda continued as Wanda came inside and she closed the door behind them. "None of the normal counterspells are working." Flopping down on the couch, the girl buried her face in her hands. "I don't know how the fuck this happened. Last thing I remember was talking to Remy at Charlie's grave, and now... this." George hovered in front of the her hands, as if trying to peek underneath them to see her face. "Tante swore I'd never do magic again. I don't get it."
"Hrm, now that is very interesting." Crouching down, Wanda started to clean off the coffee table so she could put the food that she had brought on it. She continued softly, "Charlie's death was very hard on you and while grief dulls with time, it never truly goes away. And strong emotions can open many doors. Perhaps this was one of them?"
She wrinkled her nose a little bit. "Now that I've reached my slightly pompous sounding speech quota for the day..." She grinned over at Amanda, her belief that food and a little bit of laughter was the cure for a great many things holding firm. "How do you feel about all of this?"
"Confused?" Amanda let her hands drop into her lap and looked at Wanda with big, worried eyes. "I was thinking of going to see Tante, talk to her about the magic and maybe one day working towards getting it back eventually, but she promised I'd never use it again. And Tante's not the sort to just bullshit you, not about something as important as this." In her lap, her hands moved to start twisting the hem of her sleep-rumpled t-shirt, the old, nervous gesture."To tell the truth, Wanda, I'm scared shitless. And pissed off. It feels like I've been lied to again and I wasn't half as safe as I thought I was. What if I'd done something in the middle of a job without meaning to? What if I hurt someone again? Even if it was an accident, who would believe me, after everything I did last year? I don't even know where the hell I'm getting the power from!"
Sitting down on the couch and taking a second to settle in gave Wanda enough time to absorb what Amanda was saying. "I know you're scared and, honestly, I cannot blame you. But this reemerged the best way that it probably could. A very safe, obviously familiar spell, at home..." She nodded. "That is something even if it does not feel like much. The first step would be to figure out where the power is coming from, if you can since it might have been stored up. Then you can work your way from there."
Logic. Nice, sensible logic that made perfect sense even through the headache. "Almost the first step," she said, taking a calming breath. Panic wouldn't help here. "First step's going to Tante to find out what's going on." Why she lied to me. "Remy didn't want me going - the Guilds're acting up by the sound of it - but this is too important. I can slip in, slip out and no-one'll be any the wiser. Just another tourist."
A cup of tea that came out of the little thermos and some asprin were handed over as Wanda listened. "That makes sense. Are you going to be letting Remy know? And do you want me to keep all of this quiet?"
Sipping gratefully on the tea, Amanda tried to think. "I'd rather keep it quiet for now - no sense putting everyone at the school in a panic if it's just a glitch in Tante's spell or something." It was easy enough to forgive her when she was harmless, but getting the magic back... She pushed that thought away. "And I don't want people worrying. Remy... well, he was there, maybe he's got some answers himself if he's not out of his head on painkillers. Did he come into work today?"
Wanda shook her head at that. "No, I did not see him at all today. It was why I was worried about both of you, actually. I decided to come by here first because I know you better. Less chance of getting something tossed at my head by you than him if I wake someone by coming calling. And I'll keep quiet about this, of course, but when you go stay in touch? Less chance of my hair going white with worry."
"Don't worry, I've learned my lesson about going off on my own half-cocked. I'll take the PDA with me - 's got a tracking device in it. Anything happens I'll hit the panic button and you lot can swoop down like big damn heroes in the nick of time." The tea was helping - she apparently was regaining her sense of humour. Although the fact Remy hadn't been seen was bothering her. Then again, he'd been so out of it on the pills lately, maybe he'd finally taken some sick leave. Leaning back on the couch so her head was resting on the back, she exhaled slowly. "Fuck," she said with feeling. It seemed to sum up the situation.
"I wonder if we could get 'Big Damn Heroes' in our job titles," Wanda mused and then reached over to pat Amanda on the knee. "~It will be all right, one way or another. And you always have us for support if things go wrong.~" Speaking in Romany was another way of reassurance, a reminder that there were bonds that weren't likely to go away any time soon.
"It'd look nifty on the business cards, that's for sure," Amanda joked, covering up the sudden prickling in her eyes. Bloody sap, she scolded herself, but she had to admit it was comforting, hearing Wanda speak Romany and she covered the hand on her knee with her own. "~Thank you~, Boss Lady. I'll say something before I go, but can you field questions for me? I figure I'll leave first thing in the morning, be back in a day or two, depending on how it goes."
"Of course. I am very good at not quite giving out full answers but making it sound like I have." Giving Amanda's hand one last squeeze, Wanda leaned back over the table and gave the younger girl a look. "But before you do anything, you need to eat. Wherever that power is coming from, it still means you're expending energy and you have had a rough couple of days. Packing can wait for just a little while."
"Won't need much," Amanda agreed as Wanda reached into the bag. "Tante's place isn't exactly a fashion runway and I don't want to stop long." The sight of food was making her mouth water and she accepted the container Wanda passed her eagerly."Thanks, Wanda. Really." Her voice and expression were sincere as she looked the older woman in the eyes. "For everything."
"Any time, Amanda, and I mean that." Wanda gave her a warm smile as they both settled back into the couch. "Now, when you get back I will probably have a new shipment of books coming in. You should see the kind of things that I was able to get a hold of this time..."
The thing about waking up with a hangover, Amanda decided muzzily, was that you really ought to have had the fun drinking part first. Otherwise it wasn't fair at all. At least her room was dark as she hazarded lifting her head out of the pillow. Her head throbbed and spun, but at least it stayed on. After a moment she hazarded sitting up, hanging her legs over the side of the bed. Still in her clothes, she realised, wrinkling her nose and trying to remember what the hell had happened. Must have been one hell of a bender.
Of course, the downside of having a dark room was that in trying to go to the bathroom, Amanda discovered just how much crap she'd left lying around. Having trodden on her hairbrush (unless a hedgehog had gotten in - her bare feet had trouble telling the difference), tripped over a pile of books and stubbed her toe on the end of the bed, Amanda decided that personal safety overrode whatever bright light would do to her head and groped for the light switch. Not an easy task when the room was spinning like a carousel.
"Light, light, c'mon, there's a fucking light here somewhere..." Verbalising seemed to help - the room was suddenly bathed in a neon-blue glow. Staggering slightly, Amanda headed for the bathroom. Aspirin. Aspirin and a more pressing business... Finished, Amanda stumbled back from the bathroom and plopped down on the bed again. She felt awful, tired and headachey - maybe she was coming down with something. And what the hell time was it? She felt like she had been sleeping for hours but it was dark so probably only four or five at the most... Scrubbing her had through her tangled hair, Amanda gave up trying to remember part the cottony feeling in her had and focussed instead on the present. Get up, have a shower and get something to eat, call Remy and find out what the hell had happened, do away with the werelight...
Wait a minute.
Amanda peered at the small ball of light bobbing in the air in front of her. True it was neon blue, no wait, make that streetlight red, no, flourescent green... "Stop that," she said irritably, and the colour shifting halted. True it was neon yellow, not marshy green, but it was a werelight. Not unless Marie-Ange had undergone a power upgrade and possession like an evil entity, to play such a cruel trick on her former roomie. But a werelight meant magic and Amanda had none.
Tante had been quite firm about that.
"George?"
The light bobbed up and down enthusiastically at the strangled whisper and swooped forward to bounce around her head with a crackle of static. Names were important and in naming the spell a five-year old had given it the beginnings of a personality. Her fingers shook as she reached up to touch it, the tingle an old familiar sensation. "Fuck me in the ear, it is you," she breathed, headache forgotten in the whirl of implications. Magic, she was doing magic again, how was it even possible?
The silence was broken by a sudden rapping on the door. Reflexively, Amanda's hand closed over the werelight to extinguish it. "Coming!" she called out, getting up to totter to the door.
When Wanda heard the muffled yell coming from the apartment, she relaxed and let her hand slip away from the door knob. She'd been out there long enough trying to get Amanda's attention that she had been two more knocks away from hexing the door. It was easier than spending the next twenty minutes pick locking it, something she left to Remy and her brother.
She'd been more than concerned with the fact that no one had seen hide nor hair of Remy or Amanda. It was a difficult anniversary that just passed, that was for sure, which made it even more worrisome.
She stepped back as the door swung open and then grinned a little at Amanda, the look on her face softened a little bit with the worry she'd been in. "You look like hell." The messenger's bag on her shoulder seemed oddly lumpy as she held it up. "I've brought food and all sorts of things to help with the morning after feeling."
"But I didn't..." Amanda began, perhaps a little defensively. She was interrupted by a tingle coming from her hand, the one she'd grabbed the werelight in and she glanced down to see light squeezing through the gaps between her fingers. Fuck. Almost guiltily she put her hand behind her back as she ran the counterspell in her mind, giving Wanda a weak smile. "I must've slept a bit longer than I expected, and I can't remember a bloody thing after the cemetary. Must've been one hell of a bender, hey?" Then she blinked. "Wait, morning after? What day is it?"
"It's Thursday evening, actually, so I suppose it would be an evening feeling." Wanda turned a critical eye on Amanda. It wasn't as if she was being judgmental -- hardly, considering her bar tab -- but while Amanda did look awful, it could easily have been the pain of loss as well. "Are you all right?"
"Thursday?" Amanda sagged slightly against the doorframe. "Bloody fucking hell..." The tingle was becoming a buzzing, like she was holding onto a particularly angry firefly. Go away, buggerit, she thought fiercely. And Wanda was still looking at her with Concerned Face. "I think I'm coming down with something," she admitted. "I swear, I don't remember having any booze and I feel like shite warmed over."
"I believe you," Wanda said, and she did, though her concern certainly wasn't dropping. Something was going on and she was walking that fine line of pushing and pushing too much.
Not that it had ever stopped her before, really. "Is everything alright?" If Amanda wanted her gone, she'd have to say so and Wanda would leave the food and go.
Amanda nearly snorted at that. Was anything all right? But Wanda was more than her boss, she was her friend and she wouldn't freak about this too much, right? Slowly, she pulled her hand from behind her back and opened her fist. The werelight - shifting from red to yellow to orange - bounced up indignantly, buzzing around their heads with an almost audible annoyed buzz.
"I woke up and it just... happened," she said helplessly.
With an almost audible click, Wanda shut her slightly gaping mouth. She didn't want to give the glowing ball of light a chance to decide to explore. Her gaze went back and forth between Amanda and the bit of magic bouncing around for a few seconds.
"Well then." She blinked at Amanda and smiled, just a little bit. "It sounds like you can do with a bit of food then, after all. No wonder you looked worse for wear and we can talk inside, yes?"
Wanda turned her head to stare at the light as it bounced off her hair for the third time. "And you can stop that," she said dryly.
"George, come here." The light reluctantly came back to her, spinning in an erratic orbit around her head. "I can't seem to turn it off," Amanda continued as Wanda came inside and she closed the door behind them. "None of the normal counterspells are working." Flopping down on the couch, the girl buried her face in her hands. "I don't know how the fuck this happened. Last thing I remember was talking to Remy at Charlie's grave, and now... this." George hovered in front of the her hands, as if trying to peek underneath them to see her face. "Tante swore I'd never do magic again. I don't get it."
"Hrm, now that is very interesting." Crouching down, Wanda started to clean off the coffee table so she could put the food that she had brought on it. She continued softly, "Charlie's death was very hard on you and while grief dulls with time, it never truly goes away. And strong emotions can open many doors. Perhaps this was one of them?"
She wrinkled her nose a little bit. "Now that I've reached my slightly pompous sounding speech quota for the day..." She grinned over at Amanda, her belief that food and a little bit of laughter was the cure for a great many things holding firm. "How do you feel about all of this?"
"Confused?" Amanda let her hands drop into her lap and looked at Wanda with big, worried eyes. "I was thinking of going to see Tante, talk to her about the magic and maybe one day working towards getting it back eventually, but she promised I'd never use it again. And Tante's not the sort to just bullshit you, not about something as important as this." In her lap, her hands moved to start twisting the hem of her sleep-rumpled t-shirt, the old, nervous gesture."To tell the truth, Wanda, I'm scared shitless. And pissed off. It feels like I've been lied to again and I wasn't half as safe as I thought I was. What if I'd done something in the middle of a job without meaning to? What if I hurt someone again? Even if it was an accident, who would believe me, after everything I did last year? I don't even know where the hell I'm getting the power from!"
Sitting down on the couch and taking a second to settle in gave Wanda enough time to absorb what Amanda was saying. "I know you're scared and, honestly, I cannot blame you. But this reemerged the best way that it probably could. A very safe, obviously familiar spell, at home..." She nodded. "That is something even if it does not feel like much. The first step would be to figure out where the power is coming from, if you can since it might have been stored up. Then you can work your way from there."
Logic. Nice, sensible logic that made perfect sense even through the headache. "Almost the first step," she said, taking a calming breath. Panic wouldn't help here. "First step's going to Tante to find out what's going on." Why she lied to me. "Remy didn't want me going - the Guilds're acting up by the sound of it - but this is too important. I can slip in, slip out and no-one'll be any the wiser. Just another tourist."
A cup of tea that came out of the little thermos and some asprin were handed over as Wanda listened. "That makes sense. Are you going to be letting Remy know? And do you want me to keep all of this quiet?"
Sipping gratefully on the tea, Amanda tried to think. "I'd rather keep it quiet for now - no sense putting everyone at the school in a panic if it's just a glitch in Tante's spell or something." It was easy enough to forgive her when she was harmless, but getting the magic back... She pushed that thought away. "And I don't want people worrying. Remy... well, he was there, maybe he's got some answers himself if he's not out of his head on painkillers. Did he come into work today?"
Wanda shook her head at that. "No, I did not see him at all today. It was why I was worried about both of you, actually. I decided to come by here first because I know you better. Less chance of getting something tossed at my head by you than him if I wake someone by coming calling. And I'll keep quiet about this, of course, but when you go stay in touch? Less chance of my hair going white with worry."
"Don't worry, I've learned my lesson about going off on my own half-cocked. I'll take the PDA with me - 's got a tracking device in it. Anything happens I'll hit the panic button and you lot can swoop down like big damn heroes in the nick of time." The tea was helping - she apparently was regaining her sense of humour. Although the fact Remy hadn't been seen was bothering her. Then again, he'd been so out of it on the pills lately, maybe he'd finally taken some sick leave. Leaning back on the couch so her head was resting on the back, she exhaled slowly. "Fuck," she said with feeling. It seemed to sum up the situation.
"I wonder if we could get 'Big Damn Heroes' in our job titles," Wanda mused and then reached over to pat Amanda on the knee. "~It will be all right, one way or another. And you always have us for support if things go wrong.~" Speaking in Romany was another way of reassurance, a reminder that there were bonds that weren't likely to go away any time soon.
"It'd look nifty on the business cards, that's for sure," Amanda joked, covering up the sudden prickling in her eyes. Bloody sap, she scolded herself, but she had to admit it was comforting, hearing Wanda speak Romany and she covered the hand on her knee with her own. "~Thank you~, Boss Lady. I'll say something before I go, but can you field questions for me? I figure I'll leave first thing in the morning, be back in a day or two, depending on how it goes."
"Of course. I am very good at not quite giving out full answers but making it sound like I have." Giving Amanda's hand one last squeeze, Wanda leaned back over the table and gave the younger girl a look. "But before you do anything, you need to eat. Wherever that power is coming from, it still means you're expending energy and you have had a rough couple of days. Packing can wait for just a little while."
"Won't need much," Amanda agreed as Wanda reached into the bag. "Tante's place isn't exactly a fashion runway and I don't want to stop long." The sight of food was making her mouth water and she accepted the container Wanda passed her eagerly."Thanks, Wanda. Really." Her voice and expression were sincere as she looked the older woman in the eyes. "For everything."
"Any time, Amanda, and I mean that." Wanda gave her a warm smile as they both settled back into the couch. "Now, when you get back I will probably have a new shipment of books coming in. You should see the kind of things that I was able to get a hold of this time..."
