xp_logs | Amanda, Tabitha, in the library with the spooky book

After these emails, Amanda comes down to the library to save Tabs from the boding book.

The heavy leather tome actually made Tabitha feel a little jumpy. She was ninety-nine percent certain it was just her overactive imagination assigning all sorts of vague portents of doom to the inscrutable symbols on the tooled cover. The one percent that sent the email to Amanda was just as glad she had.

She glanced at the hand-written card she'd started to fill out for it. Well, it was waiting for her to start. She wasn't entirely sure where it would fit in the Library of Congress numbering system.

Wow, deja vu. Stepping into the library made Amanda feel like she was sixteen again, and she coughed a little nervously as she approached the older girl. "Um, hello?"

Tabitha squeaked as she quickly turned. She closed her eyes in embarrassment before she smiled. "Hi, Amanda. Glad you could make it." She gestured vaguely over at the waiting book. "There it is." She reached for her bag of cheesy rice cakes and munched on one the the miniature snacks to cover up the red tinging her cheeks.

"No problem." Amanda gave Tabitha a brief grin as she moved to take a look at the book. She looked tired, dressed in a high-necked black t-shirt from a local punk band tour and a pair of cotton bike shorts. She seemed a most unlikely occult researcher, standing there in bare feet and her hair in two loose plaits. She ran her hand over the cover, and cracked it open. "Hello, lovely," she murmured, with a small smile. "Where'd you get to, huh?" Then she looked up at Tabitha with an embarrassed grin of her own. "Um, yeah, 's one of mine."

Tabitha bit her lip on the urge to laugh. The large book seemed so much less intimidating in the hands of the blonde. Which was silly, as Tabitha full-well knew some of what Amanda was capable of, and it could be quite scary. She shook her head and grabbed for her massive coffee mug. "What have you been up to lately? I've been hiding out down here," she waved vaguely around the room. "So I'm a little out of touch."

"Oh, you know, this and that." Which, around Xavier's, meant kidnapping and torture, apparently. "Keeping to myself - you're not the only one doing the hiding out thing." She closed the book, giving it a little pat. "I think everyone's been doing a bit of that - the whole school getting kidnapped knocked everyone around a bit," she added shrewdly, raising her eyebrow at Tabitha a little questioningly.

Tabitha took a large gulp of coffee to avoid answering right away. "I'd somehow managed to forget how crazy things could get around here." She pressed the mug to her cold face. "Even then, nothing like that happened when I was here last. A little forest fire, some FoH crazies." She shuddered.

"Oh, we're a talented bunch all right - always finding new and fun ways to get traumatised," Amanda said ironically, but with a certain degree of sympathy. There'd been those who hadn't been able to handle the whole thing and had fled. "How're you holding up, apart from the hiding out?"

Tabitha picked up her bag of rice cakes. "Between these and the fruit cups, I've lost five pounds." She turned her head away. "I fall asleep down here a lot, instead of going to my own room." She sighed and flopped down into a cracked leather chair. " I need to crawl out of my hole and start training again."

Amanda leaned her butt against the table, folding her arms over her chest. "From one shut in to another? Yeah, you do. You cut yourself off, you'll never get back out there, and then there's nothing for it but to start collecting cats and talking to yourself." The tone was irreverent, but the expression was still sympathetic. "Find some mates to drag you out, rejoin the world at large. Don't let the bastards win, yeah?"

A small smile curled the corners of Tabs' mouth. "I won't be a brat and tell you how much I like cats then." She rolled the bag of rice cakes closed. "The mental image of whatsisface laughing at me as I cower in the bowels of the library just pisses me off too much." She waved her hands around as she took the final chug of coffee. "I've an idea, at any rate." She scrunched her eyes closed. "If Marie is willing to put up with me anyhow."

"Ah, but how much will you like them when people start calling you the mad catlady of Westchester?" Amanda teased, to cover the involuntarily clenching of her fists and jaw at the mention of Belladonna laughing at them. "And they end up eating your face off? And whatever the plan, Marie'll probably be up for it. She's a good mate that way."

Tabitha shied away from any more cat lady comments, not entirely sure what to make of the face eating comment or Amanda's sudden tension. "Yeah, I've noticed her with others." She looked away, unable to meet the other woman's eyes. "And thanks."

"Not a problem." Amanda looked back at the book and picked it up, cradling it against her chest. "I'll take this off your hands - 's not exactly the sort of thing you want to leave lying around for kids to find," she said, trying to regain some of her previous bantering tone and largely succeeding. "You know, if you want out and about some time, you could do me a favour, actually. I know you and Kurt went out when he was all girly... he'd probably like the chance to do it again sometime. He needs to get out more, and he likes you." She smiled faintly. "I haven't been up for it, and I worry about him. The whole little sister thing, you know?"

Tabitha grinned faintly at the memory. "I've been tossing around the idea of taking him to someplace a bit more modern. Because I'm pretty sure he'd be hit on just as much. He's a cutie." Already, plans formed in her head, and her fingers itched for the pepper spray. "Though, it may have to be a gay bar, because women are just vicious."

"Kurt? In a gay bar?" The image did what little else had done in the last few weeks and sent Amanda into peals of laughter, regardless of the quiet library atmosphere. "Oh fuck, he just wouldn't know what to do with himself. If you do, you have to swear to me you'll get pictures."

Tabs leaned over to dig into her messenger bag, stored beneath the table. "I swear it's in here. I know I have one. Someone gave it to me before I'd fully come in the door. AHA!" She rose triumphantly, camera cellular phone in hand. "All bases covered." She took a practice shot of Amanda. It ended up slightly cockeyed, but mostly clear. "See?"

Amanda wrinkled her nose at the dumb expression on her face - she rarely photographed well - but grinned at the potential. "He'll probably kill me later, but I think it's worth it."

"Totally worth it." Tabitha saved the picture before she shuffled the phone back into her bag.