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

[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.

[essentiallyharmless]

Lucy's confused about what the woman is actually doing, but then she's knocked back a little and Lucy blinks in surprised at the shape suddenly on the window. Then of course she realises the woman hadn't questioned Lucy's own warding, so it seems they're pretty much up to the same thing.

"Nice one," she comments with a smile.

[rae_of_sun]

She'd almost forgotten Lucy in her little moment of triumph, but now she glances back and returns the smile. "Thanks. I've been trying to cover the more public entrances." Which isn't to say she's unwilling to help other residents out, but, well… priorities.

Sunshine wanders back toward the other woman, taking a closer look at her handiwork now that it's not so loud. It's nice to see someone else taking 'permanent' seriously, at least. "You too," she says. "Beats using a marker." She should probably get over that, but yeesh. "I'm Sunshine."

[essentiallyharmless]

"Well, that's what I started with, on the other side of the door, when I first got the message," Lucy answers with a half-shrug. But if it's really Satan, and he has powers anywhere near Gabriel's, well, it's definitely worth it.

"Lucy," she answers, taking the engraver in her other hand to offer her hand to Sunshine. "Do you know Gabe, then?" Lucy's not sure she would've believed the message if it had just come from a random source, so, she assumes the same goes for most others.