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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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."

Arden nodded. Good. Yes, she could respect that. She just didn't want people giving her soft eyes and pitying expressions, especially over things that hadn't happened.

She rubbed the inside of her elbow again. Unrelated.

"Makes perfect sense," she agreed. "And...appreciate it. The no bullshit factor. No point in faking it."

"Yeah, well, I'm trying a new thing," Marc said. Which applied for a lot of his current situation, really. Speaking of, "Things going okay? Nobody giving you any bullshit on the island?"

Arden shook her head. "No, if only to give me a chance to catch up," she said with a wry laugh. "I might be the only actually new person on the island? At least, that's from a world that's a little more, uhh..." How to phrase this without overusing the word 'normal'? "Gonzo seems like he's very used to...chaos. Like how this island is chaos. My home doesn't vibe with this place like his does and I think everybody is giving me a week or so to get my feet under me." A beat. "Or are waiting to see if I'm gonna run away back home, scared off by all the--" A big arm gesture encompassing the everything.

"I'm not, though," she adds, chin up.

Marc nodded because he got it. "Needle's got to move pretty far before it's out of the norm weird for me. Not saying this island works like things back home. But one of the last things I did before we moved here was meet a nine foot tall talking hippo so, yanno."

Marc made a gesture of invitation for Arden to let that speak for itself.

"Most people here are pretty nice though," Marc said. "They're good to Steven. That goes far with me."

"You met a what?" Arden asked, once again peering at him like she was trying to figure out if he was fucking with her. "And who wouldn't be good with Steven? He's possibly the nicest person I ever met. Even his biggest flaw comes from being nice."

Edited 2023-09-08 08:14 (UTC)

"Assholes," Marc said, because why sugar coat that one either? Though yes, he was noting Arden's reaction on Steven's behalf and giving her points accordingly. "And ask Steven about the hippo. He can tell you more than I can. Egyptian god is the short version. They're all fucking tall and animal shaped some way."

"I know there was the hyena-headed one," Arden said because I'm role-playing "--and a stork or something? Oh! And Bast! She's like a cat. The hippo one is new. To me. Not to the mythology."

A moment of consideration and then she suggested mischievously, "Maybe you and Steven could teach a course on Egyptian mythology up at the school sometime."

"All him," Marc said, waving that one off with both hands. "He's the one who likes that shit. I just do what they tell me."

Or what just the one told him. The others he couldn't really bother remembering their names. He did keep saying "the hippo" after all.

"But fair warning you ask him about it and you might not be able to get him to stop."

"So?" Arden asked with a shrug. "Listening to stuff that people are really passionate about is neat, more often than not. And you learn stuff."

"Oh he's gonna love you," Marc said, with possibly the closest thing he had to something that sounded like approval. Because, again: nice to Steven went far with Marc. "Honestly if it's anything Egyptian he doesn't know it's probably not worth knowing. He devours it."

And then, because you did have to clarify, "Not literally."

Arden closed her mouth, swallowing back the question he had just answered for her. Because you really did need to clarify on this island.

"Okay, so if he's teaching Egyptian mythology, what would you teach?" she asked. "...In this very hypothetical scenario where you found yourself teaching, I mean."

"A bunch of leading by bad example," Marc said, because he had some self awareness. "Don't Do What I Did. Title is the whole class too, so there you go."

"That just sounds like a request to have a whole class shadowing you so we can watch you do things in real time," Arden mused, because she wanted you to have that visual, Marc.

As might be expected, Marc made a face which indicated how appealing the idea wasn't. "One of the many reasons why I don't teach."

That and nobody deserved having Marc for some kind of mentor.

Sure, because that was how it worked on Fandom. People definitely only made good choices here, especially by way of who to imprint on. It's how both the cannibal serial killer and the hitter for a group of thieves ended up with adopted daughters.

"What did you do before Midnight showed up and you became the manager?" she asked, trying to keep her amusement at his expression off her face.

"On the island? Not much," Marc said. "Before that was the mercenary work. There's also the avatar thing but that's when Khonshu calls."

Also it didn't pay.

Of course it didn't. Because why would you pay a living wage to someone when you could forcibly recruit them on their deathbed?

Not that Arden had opinions on that or anything.

"Were you bored?" she asked. "Or appreciated the vacation? Not that being on the island sounds much quieter than being a mercenary, from all the stories I've heard thus far."

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