She'll teach those hatches! [Open to Multiple]

[rae_of_sun]

Well, if there's ever been a reason for Sunshine to start pushing herself in the magic-handling department, the arrival of a mega-toxic kali nightmare goon from wherever-the-hell - and a subsequent text containing a ward symbol against said nightmare goon - definitely qualifies. Gods, has she missed wards. And, okay, she finds it a little hard to fully trust the effectiveness of a ward symbol drawn by… well, anyone aside from an accredited wardsmith (herself included)… but if there's even a slight chance that it'll work, she will gladly wallpaper the entire damn building with the thing.

Better to start small, though, especially if what she's going for is 'permanent.' Which is why she's standing outside her own apartment door with the little image of the symbol pulled up on her phone. She examines the picture with a tight little frown, memorizing the details in case intent is not enough. Then she tucks her phone into the back pocket of her shorts and braces her palms against the door.

Okay. She can do this. It's big - far bigger than anything she's attempted before - but it's only wood. Easy compared to metal or stone. And her grandmother said she could do anything in bright sunlight, and there's plenty of that shining in through the window at the end of the hall, all of two feet to her right. So.

Sunshine shuts her eyes, pictures the ward symbol as clearly as she can, and shoves.

A bolt of power runs down her arms and into her door, the recoil strong enough to force her back a pace. She opens her eyes, regains her balance, and takes in her new door.

At first, she thinks it was a bust; the change is so subtle. But then she realizes that the ward symbol is there, right in the middle of her door and as large as a dinner plate. It's visible only because the grain of the wood abruptly changes direction, like an incredibly fine inlay. She steps closer and runs her fingertips over the line where symbol ends and door begins, but she can't feel a seam.

"Gods," she breathes. Could she darken it? Probably, yes, if she tried again. Make it a bit more obvious, if that's what's needed. A smile tugs at the corners of her mouth. It worked. How's that for permanent?

Okay. She'll come back to her own door later. First, she has to do Spike's. And then the main entrances. And then the windowsills. And then literally every other flat surface she can reach.


[ooc: Sunshine is gonna spend the day WARDING ALL THE THINGS, so feel free to have your character run into her in any given hallway, down by the front door, or even up on the roof. Pretty much anywhere in the rebel apartment building is fair game. And hey, she'll probably ward your door if you ask nicely.]

Comments

[fucking_ebay]

Peter can also be found in the hallway with Gabe's picture of the symbol loaded up on his phone. Unlike Sunshine, however, his approach involves slowly sketching it onto his door with a sharpie, pausing now and then to look back and forth between phone and door and check his work. He's got the basic circle done and is going around the rim to add all the weird, no doubt very important bits. The symbol itself isn't familiar, and this isn't something he's actually done before -- the sorts of demons he faced at home were either in his own head or needed an invitation by default.

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine's finished the front door and is working her way back up the building with the intention of hitting all the hallway windows when she sees someone else in the process of warding their door. It hasn't escaped her notice that a few other people have already take care of their own places - it's partly what prompted her to get moving. Granted, the main reason she didn't do it sooner was because she was otherwise occupied, magically speaking, but there was some general dubiousness about the whole idea of laymen-cut wards, too. It seems plenty of other people didn't share her doubts.

Including this gangly, vaguely familiar guy scribbling away on his door with a marker. Yeesh. He's not the only one to employ that method, but now that she's getting a decent handle on larger-scale transmutation, she can't help but think it's kind of a shame to end up with a ward so… grotty.

Well, she's in an exceptionally charitable mood at the moment. Sunshine wanders over to get a better look at the atrocity his work. "Hey," she offers. "New to warding?"

[fucking_ebay]

Peter spares a glance for the person horning in on his business, then keeps on drawing. "He didn't say draw it in blood," he says preemptively, recalling a somewhat disturbing conversation he had with the last person who came by while he was starting to draw. It occurs to him that this conversation might be going the opposite direction, too, and he adds, "And yeah, I do believe the pygmy arsehole who told us to do this, but don't ask me why after everything he's done."

This could still be a prank, and part of Peter really hopes it is. A bigger part trusts Gabriel more than he really wants to.

[rae_of_sun]

Okay, first of all, yuck. Sunshine wrinkles her nose. It is sort of reassuring to hear from someone who both knows who sent the text and is willing to bet on its veracity (particularly if what he's betting is his own safety and an unembarrassing door). Even if it sounds like this 'pygmy asshole' isn't exactly Mr. Popular.

"You know who sent it?" Sunshine raises her eyebrows. "So it's definitely legit?" It better be, given how many surfaces she's already plastered with the thing.

[peeta_mellark]

By late afternoon, Peeta's back on the roof. He bypasses his customary nook this time for the little sitting area Bee has set up. The choice is practical instead of emotional; he wants a different view.

After dragging one of the chairs to the perfect spot, he settles down in it and pulls out his sketchbook. The city skyline beckons, and within a few minutes he is caught up in his sketch - and his thoughts.

[rae_of_sun]

Shit, the roof; Sunshine almost forgot that pretty crucial access point. Can Lucifer fly? She probably shouldn't assume that he can't.

With those unsettling thoughts in mind, she nearly jumps out of her skin when she opens the door and sees that someone's on the roof. Never mind that said someone looks nothing like the eye-smarting thing that stalked the park. Get a grip, Sunshine. A moment later, she realizes she knows this someone, and her shoulders slump. Oh, gods. Poor Peeta.

Warding temporarily set aside, she crosses over to where he's sitting. "Hey," she says quietly to announce her presence.

[peeta_mellark]

Peeta startles slightly; he had, for the moment, forgotten where he was, and the sound of a voice was unexpected. Glancing up, he finds Sunshine looking down at him. From her expression, he can tell that she's heard what happened.

"Hi," he returns, giving her a small smile.

[rae_of_sun]

Oh, she did more than hear it. She experienced it in full dolby sensurroundsound, and then caught more highlights on the nine o'clock news. Said highlights included some pretty carthaginian awful footage of her number one apprentice.

He probably doesn't want to talk about it. Hell, she definitely doesn't want to talk about it. So she crouches beside his chair, leaning companionably against the arm rest, and nods at his sketchbook. "That's impressive." Smiling a little in return, she adds, "How are you at ward symbols?"

[apidae]

"Sunshine!" Bee bounds down the hall and gives her a big hug. "I haven't seen you for ages! I'm so glad you're all right! I've been so worried about everyone after what happened, I didn't know how many people were even there, or..."

She trails off, looking Sunshine's door, and then steps back. "Oh, it's - I just got a text message about that. I wasn't sure what to do... did you do that?!" She goggles at the beautifully rendered ward. "You did! That's amazing!" She gives Sunshine a big, excited grin. "Would... would you be willing to do my door?"

[rae_of_sun]

Whoa, hello, hug attack. The sound of Bee's voice gives her enough forewarning that she's braced for it, though, enough to actually return the gesture. Now that she thinks about it, Bee does rank pretty high on her list of people who really shouldn't have been mixed up in that park massacre. (Said list includes everyone, but Bee's near the top.) Sunshine's glad she's all right, too.

"I'm okay," she says. For good measure, she adds, "Spike, too. We were, um… we were there, but we're okay." She doesn't add: finally. Vampire lites do heal faster than average, as it turns out, but it would have been quicker if he'd let her help more instead of being deliberately standoffish until he was satisfied that she wouldn't kill herself in lending some assistance. As if she doesn't know her own limits. Psh.

She gives the door an assessing look of her own. She can see where it needs adjusting. Even if she didn't want to darken it a bit, she'd have to have another go. "Needs a touch-up," she admits, "but it beats using a marker."

Bee's request is only a little surprising - mostly because it's so immediate. But better to do an unwarded door - especially if it's Bee's - than fiddle with her own right now. "Sure," she says, returning the smile. "Windows too, if you want." That might be pushing it in terms of what's really necessary, but Sunshine isn't inclined to take any chances. Part of her is worried that if she wards the place too thoroughly, Lucifer will take an especial interest in getting inside just to see if he can... but if that does happen, she really doesn't want him getting in by way of Bee's place.

[apidae]

"I wasn't sure how I was going to do it, I bet your method's a lot better than whatever I could do," Bee says, moving back to her own door. She glances up at Sunshine, a little uncertain how to ask what it was like, if she should ask at all. "So it;s really Satan?" she says a bit tentatively. "Can I... can I ask what he looked like?"

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine lifts a shoulder. "I don't know how helpful my description would be. He looked… different, to my eyes, than he would to yours." Pressing her lips together, she thinks for a moment. "Human-shaped? Um. Not as tall as you might expect." She shrugs again, gently, then adds, "… Angry. He looked angry." She looks down at Bee and tries to smile. "Be glad you missed it."

Ugh. That is enough of that. Sunshine steps up to Bee's door and flattens her palms against the wood. No sunlight here, but her light-web has done a good job of picking up the slack, and it hasn't been that long since Aziraphale gave her a boost. Besides, she's practiced enough at it now that it's coming pretty easy to her.

Okay. Okay. She shuts her eyes, effortlessly calling up the ward's image in her mind's eye. No question of what she wants, now. Furrowing her brow, she gives the door a good, hard, magical shove, then leans back in response to the familiar recoil and opens her eyes.

"Hey, that's different," she says with a faint smile, taking in her handiwork. This ward is more clearly visible than the one on her door, the inlay made of narrow, alternating stripes of dark and blonde wood. It looks, she realizes with mingled pleasure and embarrassment, like frigging bee stripes. Oh, gods. Should she insist it wasn't on purpose?

More to the point, though, it feels right in the way her earlier attempts didn't, before Gabriel corrected them. When she holds her hand up to the door, an inch or so away from the surface, she can feel the energy of it beating against her palm. "It's live," she says, smile widening, "so there's your door taken care of."

[essentiallyharmless]

Lucy actually drew on her door the moment she got the text. She trusts Gabe enough to know that at worst it's a joke in poor taste. He wouldn't tell them to do anything that could actually be harmful, and so she doesn't see how it could hurt.

She had drawn it with a marker on the inside of her door (and window) though, and after seeing the marks appear on other doors, she figures she can go for something a bit more permanent, and perhaps it should be on the outside of the door. Never mind that she's moving out, she wants Daniel to be safe too when he takes over her apartment.

Turns out engraving tools aren't actually that expensive. So she's drawn the symbol onto the outside of her door with pencil, and is now noisily engraving it into the wood with a small engraving drill.

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine hears the racket before she even steps out of the stairwell and onto Lucy's floor. She gives Lucy a cursory once-over, eyes lingering for a few moments on the engraving tool. Well, hell, that's a step up from markers or paint - and about as permanent as what she's been doing. Here, she decides, is someone who isn't in need of her newfound large(ish)-scale transmutation prowess. Okay, so the results probably won't be as pretty, but Sunshine's not even going for pretty so much as functional. The relative attractiveness of her wards seems to just be a result of how good the sun is where she's working and whether there's any, uh, heightened desperation associated with the door or windowsill in question.

Spike's inlay might have been just a touch on the ornate side.

So she bypasses Lucy and heads for the window at the end of the hall, only to find that the broad sill she'd been working with on the other floors is absent, here. Maybe there was water damage, or maybe some previous rifty bashed it off the wall or something, but the end result is that there's no nice wooden surface to hold the ward. Hmph. Sunshine frowns at the narrow frame for a few moments, then presses a palm to the glass itself.

It won't be as easy as wood. Given that it's essentially stone that's been heavily worked by human hands, it's actually going to be a colossal pain in the ass to wrangle. And, best case scenario, the results will probably be less 'fancy stained glass' and more 'novelty decal you can't peel off.' But even that has to be better than nothing at all, right?

She starts to lift her other hand to the glass, then pauses. There's no way she's going to be able to do this with that carthaginian racket in the background. Turning back to the woman with the drill, she says, "Hey. Could you, uh… stop that, please? Just for a minute?"

[essentiallyharmless]

Lucy vaguely notices someone else passing her, but she's focusing on getting the engraving right. It's not until she's spoken to that she looks up and stops the tool.

"Oh, sure. Sorry," she answers, turning to blow off the wood residue. Thankfully she's almost done. It was actually pretty fast work, but the noise was getting to her as well, giving her dentist flashbacks.

Then she looks over to watch what the woman's doing, mostly just waiting for the sign she can start engraving again and be done with it.

[rae_of_sun]

"Thanks," Sunshine says, turning her attention back to the window. Okay. She's in full sunlight right now, and it's not as if she's asking the glass to do anything drastic. It's just some very specific color alteration. This should be doable. Right? Totally doable.

Sunshine presses both of her palms against the glass, brow furrowing. It already feels more stubborn than wooden doors and windowsills; it doesn't want to change. Well, tough. She wants a ward more than the glass wants to stay as it is. Gritting her teeth, she gives the window a forceful, magical shove.

The recoil is stronger this time, enough so that Sunshine's vaguely surprised the window doesn't shatter. But when she opens her eyes, there's the… ward? She frowns at it for a moment before realizing that a) it looks weird because it's backwards, and b) it probably should be backwards. And it's there, so hey, that's something. It's not anywhere near as nice as the doors, but it is a rather soothing shade of aquamarine. She reaches up to test it, her hand held an inch from the glass, and smiles when she feels the power of it beating against her palm.

Glass: 0, Sunshine: 1.

[bibliophale]

Aziraphale is relieved at the text from Gabriel, and had already imprinted the sigil all over both the bookshop and his flat. He can feel little bursts of magic all over the building today, though - someone's busy. Curious, and also feeling rather restless (he's stayed mostly out of sight, moderately insecure about the black mark that still lingers on his throat), he ventures out and searches for the source.

He shouldn't be surprised. He finds Sunshine on a lower floor, working on the windows in the hall. This seems to have made an impression on her. Oh, she wasn't there, was she? He hopes not. He's seen enough of his new friends hurt.

"You've been busy," he says lightly. He nods at the windows. "Taking the whole building upon yourself, are you?"

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine blinks at Aziraphale's voice, then shrugs a bit sheepishly as she turns to face him. Seeing the angel reminds her of just what he's capable of - which leads neatly into the question of why she's busting her chops to ward the place when he could do a more thorough job in an eye-blink. But then she notices the ugly mark on his neck, makes an educated guess as to where it came from, and guesses that he might not be quite at one hundred percent.

"Not the whole building," she says. "Just… most of it."

[bibliophale]

Aziraphale chuckles. He sees her notice the mark and unconsciously tilts his chin down a little, directing his smile at the floor. He's not unwilling to talk about it, and it's not even a pride thing, or at least he tells himself it's not. It feels like weakness, to carry it around with him. He wants the mortals to be able to see him and have hope.

At least Sunshine seems to be doing all right. Chipper, productive. Those are good signs.

"Well it's important work," he says. He peeks back up at her. He can't avoid asking. "Were you... were you there?" He says as delicately as he knows how.

[peacefulexplorer]

It took Daniel far too long to find his way back here.

No thanks to Peter. Plenty of thanks owed, however, to the local signage. And he's still worried, on multiple counts and for multiple people, about the...thing he ran into at Wilmot's but, well, not much to be done about that.

Now he just has to find Lucy's.

And it's roughly at this point that he notices that a lot of the doors and quite a few portions of wall are covered in writing. Well, not writing, strictly speaking, because it's more a singular symbol, over and over, everywhere, and these were definitely not there when he left the place earlier.

He crouches next to one of the doors, tracing at the glyph there with a finger. It's fairly complicated in structure, looking almost like it's been inlaid perfectly into the wood, completely smooth. It's also not written in a language he recognizes immediately - something Daniel soon plans to remedy.

[rae_of_sun]

Okay, she's gonna have to call it a day on the magic-handling front. There's no direct sunlight for her to work with anymore, and while Aziraphale's boost was appreciated, it can only get her so far after the general shitshow of the past 48 hours. Besides, she likes not passing out. Three cheers for consciousness.

She can still make a final sweep of the place, though. Make sure everything's up to code, take note of what might need tweaking tomorrow, admire her handiwork that sort of thing. So she's wandering the halls with a large thermos of tea in hand when she spots a guy who just about screams 'SOF.' Um. Sunshine stills, watching him examine one of her better-executed wards and reminding herself that even if he was Special Other Forces, they're both in the wrong universe for it to matter. It's not as if he's going to run off and tattle to the Goddess of Pain.

Anyway, the look he's giving the ward is less 'who did this significant act of transmutation' and more 'what even is this.' He runs his fingers over it, and the sudden worry that he might actually do something to it spurs her into some semblance of action.

"It's a ward," she says, glancing between him and the door with proprietary anxiety. 'So don't screw around with it' is the implied clause.

[peacefulexplorer]

He glances up, suitably startled. He hadn't realized anyone else was here. He straightens immediately.

"Are these - did you write these?" Which is a less than graceful way to start a conversation. "Sorry, I just, I didn't recognize the language. I was curious. Um, Daniel." He holds out a hand, and this is not the best way to start off introductions, but to be fair he's had a bit of a bad day.

[erratic_hematic]

Spike is heading out of his apartment for the afternoon, maybe to go searching for a better supply of blood than the butchers he's been going to. What he's been getting is alright, but he's definitely been noticing the difference in healing time from when he's been getting much fresher stuff.

He closes the door. Then pauses with his key halfway to the lock. That symbol he got over his phone is on his door. Or, actually, in his door. The inlay is beautiful. His hand drops back to his side and he just stares at the detailed work for a moment before it clicks for him who could have done this. Of course.

He locks the door quickly, gets in the elevator, and presses the button for Sunshine's floor instead of the lobby. When he gets there, there are even more of the symbols up. How many of these did she do? He frowns. She shouldn't be using her powers like this again so soon after healing him so extensively. What if she hurts herself?

He hammers on her door when he reaches it, but there's no response, so he heads back to the elevator. Unless she's left this building and moved on to others, she's got to be on one of these floors.

Five floors later, he's found her and she's still doing it- now on a window at the end of the hall instead of a door. He huffs and stiffly walks the length of the hall, caught halfway between concern and anger. "What the bloody hell do you think you're doing!"

[rae_of_sun]

Glass really is a beast to work with, but between Yolande's come-hither and Aziraphale's top-off, Sunshine's managing pretty well. It helps that the afternoon sun is shining in on her, too. She's just stepped back from her latest conquest to admire the amethyst color when she feels Spike's approach - and hears his question.

"Warding," she says, holding a palm to the glass to test that it's live. "I can actually ward." She turns to face him, still with a triumphant smile on her face, and it's only when she sees his expression that she belatedly realizes his tone wasn't just one of surprised inquiry. Oh. He's pissed, and just like that, she goes from pleased to defensive, arms folded.

"Well," she says, as if her warding frenzy was the only sensible response, given the circumstances. "Someone has to do it."

[erratic_hematic]

"What is wrong with you?" he shouts back, gesturing back the the window. "How many of those did you do? I saw an awful lot while I was trying to find you." There had been at least ten. How many does it take before it wears her out completely? "How many are in the building? Dozens?"

He pushes his hair back with a hand, quick and nervous. "Why couldn't Arizaphale do it?" He flails out the hand, encompassing a rough circle. "Pow, the whole place is warded. You didn't need to do it. You should be recovering. Not going and....and running yourself down to zero again!"