afraid_of_marshmallows | Midnight Manor Boarding House, Room 1A, Friday Morning

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Midnight Manor Boarding House, Room 1A, Friday Morning

Duke's 'gift' had been in her mailbox when she'd gone down to check this morning: a pendant of polished hematite strung on a slender gold chain. Arden recognized it immediately: a callstone. Hematite connected and ground energy from the ethereal planes in this reality, callstones were enchanted to enhance those abilities. Basically, he'd sent her an interplanar cell phone. Hematite was also fragile; a stone of this size could only reliably carry a single enchantment without fracturing. If it really was a callstone, it couldn't do anything else, couldn't be anything else.

If this really were a callstone, then it was probably safe.

If.

She picked the pendent up, cupping it in the palm of her hand--and then remembered the squirrels. "Excuse me, Midnight?" she called softly, getting up and closing the door to her balcony. "Could you make sure no squirrels come in and watch like a creeper?" She waited a minute or so and then looked down at the stone in her hand, now warmed to her body temperature, and concentrated. "Duke?"

The stone flared from hematite grey to red and then Duke's voice, warm and amused, issued forth from it. "Hello, Arden," he said. "See? I told you. A simple gift, no harm to anyone."

"I thought you said it could maybe harm you and Grimm or something?" she said.

"It's a callstone, Arden," Duke pointed out. "Keyed to you and the two of us. If someone got their hands on it, the odds are low they could use it to find our names, but I'm hardly going to call it impossible." Just vanishingly unlikely.

"Why?" Arden asked.

"Well, magical theory says that--"

"No, Duke," Arden glowered. "Why send me a callstone? You have my cellphone number."

"Ah yes, and which carrier reaches the Ethereal Plane, again?" he queried. "Verizon or T-Mobile. I always forget."

Right. He had a point. Arden blushed, glad that callstones didn't transmit visuals. "...So now I can reach you on whatever plane you and Grimm are on," she said, putting things together.

"Correct," Duke said. "Which isn't to say we're always going to answer, mind. We do have our own lives."

"Okay, but why?" Arden asked again. "I never had a callstone before."

"And you were never multiple states away from your only protection, either," Duke agreed. "Consider this a bit of insurance. If you're ever in danger, you're much more likely to get my attention or Grimm's with a callstone than a mundane cell."

"True..." Arden said, mulling that over. She was still wary, but she wasn't exactly seeing any downsides. "You had it made awfully quickly."

"Well, you weren't going to live under your foster mother's roof forever, were you?" he asked. "I've had it for some time now." Which, for a djinni, meant he could have made it mere days after he'd delivered her to Callista's or finished it the day before he'd mailed it. "So, Arden, do we have a deal? The callstone for a year's rent?"

A long pause. Her suspicion and good sense warred with her desire to be settled. But, as he'd mentioned before, he'd never harmed her. If anything, he and Grimm were the closest thing she had to friends amongst the Othersiders.

Or in general.

"It's a deal," she said, unfastening the necklace chain to loop it around her neck, careful to keep holding it or the 'call' would disconnect.

"Pleased to hear it," Duke said. "Now then, I'm off to go dangle knowledge in front of an academic studying the fall of Ur and see what he'll bargain for it. Bye, Arden."

The stone turned back to its dull gray as his consciousness faded and Arden let it drop against her chest. It hung lower than her father's onyx pendant and felt weird to boot-- though that wasn't the callstone's fault. She had worn her father's pendant every day since she was an infant; this was the first time she'd had another weight pressing against her skin.

"Thanks, Midnight," she said, hopping up to open her balcony doors again. "If you're doing anything to keep the squirrels out, you can relax it. Looks like I'm gonna be staying, at least the rest of this year." She gave the doorframe a companionable pat. "I should let Marc know he's good for the transfer, huh?"

[Open! Up early because I was given BG3. Everything not under the cut is okay for broadcast!]

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Marc was not going to admit the new chair was comfortable. If he did, Steven would be smug, and Steven needed no encouragement to be smug. (Which was to say Steven was smug about the chair already and nothing was going to stop it.)

It was nice though. Comfortable. Let you lean back, which was more than the chair he'd been using before did. Said previous chair was back in the dining room where it belonged.

As for Marc, he was in his office. Still not fully believing he had an office, but aware that Arden had talked about circling back on the rent situation sometime at the end of the week so, yanno, good as place for him to be as any.

He just might be checking sports scores while he had nothing else to do.

And lo, who was that rap rap rapping on his chamber door?

Just a Finch and nothing more.

"Hello? Marc? You in?"

"Against my best interests," Marc replied. He leaned back comfortably in his chair because hey: he had a chair that let him lean back comfortably now. "What's up?"

Arden leaned against the doorjamb looking much more relaxed than she had the last time she was here. "Just got finished talking to Duke," she said, hand coming up to unconsciously stroke over a flat gray stone on a necklace she was wearing. "All good, at least for this year."

Marc noticed the gesture but fuck if he knew necklaces so that was about as far as it went. He had the passing though that Layla might have some useful knowledge but oh well. "You good?" he asked, now looking her over in general to see how real that relaxation seemed

Perhaps relaxed was a bit overselling it. 'Less on edge and on the verge of being overwhelmed' was probably closer. "I'm good," she said. "Nice to have everything sorted and settled. Hadn't really unpacked in case I had to repack everything and get out of your hair."

"My hair's had worse," Marc told her. "This solution work for you? Because you've got options if you want to tell him to fuck off. Ones that don't involve moving out."

A slight pause, as suspicion and appreciation warred with one another. No-strings kindness was sus, but also appreciated.

Either way, she was still able to shake her head. "It's good," she promised. "I don't even know why he had to make it into a whole...thing. Other than he likes playing games."

"I know the type," Marc said. He reached for his phone and pulled up his banking app. He showed the screen to Arden so she could see the icon he needed to press to accept the transfer. "Yeah?"

The corner of Arden's mouth kicked up in a wry smile. She wasn't sure he did know the type, actually. At least not the djinn-around-since-before-the-fall-of-Ur type.

On the other hand, maybe he did? He hung out with gods, maybe djinn were old hat?

"Yeah," she said with a firm nod. "And, I know you told Steven it was no big deal, but I still appreciate you being cool about how weird this all was. And how long it took."

"I used to do mercenary work," Marc said. He hit the button to complete the transaction then closed out the screen and put the phone aside. "This doesn't even hit top ten weird on a payment plan. Nobody tried to kill me for start."

He motioned for her to take a seat if she wanted one. Fair warning: It wasn't a comfy one like his. No leaning back, after all.

Hey. Leaning chairs were boarding house manager privileges, okay? Everybody knew that.

Arden slipped inside and sat, again nodding like people saying they were mercenaries was just par for the course - in a much more relaxed, genuine way than when she, say, tried to pretend that any of the rest of the stuff happening on this island was in any way normal. Though his comment earned him a thin, wry kind of smile.

"I'll do my best to keep the amount of people attempting to murder you to a minimum," she said, a very funny ha ha joke.

"That something I need to worry about?" Marc asked, probably more casually than might be expected given the topic. "Because it's nice when I get a warning before it happens."

Arden opened her mouth to...well, not lie, but mislead a bit, maybe. And then closed it again. "No," she said. "I mean, if anybody is out there looking to murder me, I don't know about it."

Okay, so she mostly wasn't misleading. And there wasn't anybody looking to murder her specifically.

"...But I did kinda run away from home."

Marc shrugged as though that news didn't bother him. If she was clever she might be able to guess why when he said, "Can't say this place is any dumber than the Marines. So folks from home looking for you?"

"Good money's on yeah," she said. Casually. "Duke says that he and Grimm aren't saying anything, though."

A slight stress on 'says,' since she wasn't sure she entirely believed him. At least that Grimm wouldn't.

"Well," Marc said, "You're 18 and you're living in the place I'm responsible for. Far as I'm concerned that means I deal with you and not anybody who comes looking. If it's someone or something dangerous a heads up would be nice. But I've done more with less so - " he shrugged.

Another pause, this one longer. "I...don't know how to answer that," she admitted.

Callista was the most dangerous individual in the Triangle.

Arden had no idea how dangerous she was to humans because she'd never seen her interact with humans. Maybe she wouldn't see them as enough of a threat to bother? Or maybe she'd see them as stumbling blocks to be removed efficiently. Maybe, between the house and the Avatar thing and Illyana's whole deal, she'd deal with them as Othersiders.

Which meant danger.

"My foster mom is a lot."

"So if a woman comes looking for you you're definitely not at home?" Marc asked.

"Dunno if that would stop her," Arden said, rubbing her inner elbow. "And I dunno if she'd come herself."

Much more likely to send bounty hunters and just put that cost on Arden's tab.

"This place is pretty secure," Marc said. "When it goes into full lock down you need somebody like Illyana to rip it open. So not saying it can't happen, but it's not easy either. We talking military? Magic? Other?"

Arden froze. "It's so weird that people just leap towards magic around here," she said with a laugh that only sounded forced if you knew what to listen for. "You know that's not normal everywhere, right? Some places are just, like, normal humans and stuff."

She considered. "Possibly aliens. One of my classes was talking about aliens."

And then she shook her head. "But, honestly, I don't know what or who she'd hire. And maybe she won't. Maybe she'll just let me go. Like you said, I am eighteen."

Lololololololololol

"Where I come from we've got a bit of everything, it looks like," Marc said. "Except maybe vampires and werewolves."

Because certain teamups and/or expected cameos hadn't happened yet.

"And hey: no appearance is the answer we want, right?" Marc asked. "But if that's not the option she goes with I meant it. This is my place. The people in it - including you - are my responsibility. Somebody comes to start shit they're probably not going to like my company."

"Yeah, this is just borrowing a lot of trouble, honestly," Arden said. "I'm just a little twitchy."

She paused. "Oh and just, like, to be clear? This isn't some weird Lifetime Original Movie or whatever. Like, I didn't live out Mommy Dearest or freak out about coat hangars or anything. We just didn't get along."

If Marc had a reaction to that it didn't show on his face. "None of my business. And hey: I'm not forcing myself into yours either. But you strike me as somebody who likes knowing her options, so I'm filling in some of those blanks. You want to handle stuff by yourself I'm not gonna get in the way. But things get in my way and I will have opinions."

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