And this isn't Shadowfoot Island, either! [closed]

[biscuit_powered]

This again. The second time around the place is more familiar, which is weird because right up until reappearing in the exact same spot as the first time (minus weird lying man and helpful druid) Asmodia had completely forgotten that New York was ever anything more than a strange dream. And of course it took her from home when she was resting, again, so she and Biscuit are just as woefully unequipped as before. She's got her spell component pouch and a little bit of cash in her pockets this time, but no corset, no protective wonders, and no dagger or rod. What's really weird is that she does have her cloak of human guise, which she knows she didn't have on her before she got here.

At least this time she knows to put it on right away. A quick test proves that she can lie, too, which is just about the greatest mercy she's ever received. That begs the question of whether her magic is going to work this time, and another quick test confirms that yes, it does. That the test also renders Biscuit invisible is a bonus considering she's pretty sure she remembers that druid telling her this world lacks donkey rats.

Right. Strange world that's not as strange to her as she'd like it to be, no sign of her friends, and no gear. The situation is terrifying more than a little worrying, but she sternly reminds herself that as a slayer of devils and a traveler of demiplanes she can damned well handle this. Just let anyone try to hurt her and they'll find out firsthand why one doesn't meddle with witches. Alright, so there was a bit of panicked sobbing in the bushes in those first few minutes, but she is a mighty caster and a force to be reckoned with and no one is ever going to find out that the first thing she did when she realized she was back here was have a cry with her rat. No one is going to find out, either, that the second thing she did was to get hopelessly lost in a city park.

The third thing, though? Yeah, she's pretty sure the third thing is going to be good. She was aiming for the underground lair she'd been taken to before, but this fountain isn't a bad thing to come across -- this was supposed to be the center, wasn't it? No one would ever know it from all the people milling around it. She's been lurking at the edge of the crowd for a while, trying to remember which way to go, when it strikes her: She can use her magic this time. Portals and gates aren't exactly her thing, but it won't be hard to at least get a read on just what this thing is. Glancing around to make sure no one's watching her too closely, she mutters the words under her breath and curls the fingers of one hand just so --

Blinding waves of what her brain interprets as lime green and magenta light erupt across her entire field of vision, and her ears fill with the roar of her own blood rushing through her veins. The light parts and for a moment she thinks she's going blind until she realizes that no, she can see but there's nothing to see in the yawning chasm of nothingness that opens before her --

Then, mercifully, all perception shuts off as her stunned mind loses concentration on the spell. She doesn't register her knees buckling under her until she hits the ground, landing awkwardly on her invisible tail. She sways blindly, seeming not to hear the urgent squeaking of her invisible familiar, and finally gives up and slumps the rest of the way to the ground in the hope that it will make her head stop spinning.

Comments

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine arches an eyebrow. It's a little dubious at first, because 'aura' is one of those terms she has a hard time taking seriously. Granted, anyone who reads shadows has no room to talk, but the shadow-reading is still a comparatively recent development. But whatever. She can only assume Asmodia has a decent idea of what she should be able to do, magic-wise, and she can't blame anyone for wanting a better understanding of the thing that brought them here.

'Sun and fury' is a hell of an expression, though, and she looks a bit more pleased at that. "Does eating not come standard?" she asks, right before it occurs to her that it might be an issue not because Asmodia doesn't typically eat, but because she typically eats something really damn weird. It's not unheard of for partbloods to have some off-brand dietary needs.

Or maybe she really is brand new. "Um. We can find you someplace to stay and get your pantry stocked, if that's what you're worried about. The people who used to handle that have kind of been ousted, but I know a guy who can help." An angel, really, but one step at a time. Sunshine shrugs. "We try to look after one another - rifties, I mean."

[biscuit_powered]

Asmodia waves off the question -- of course, most people outside the adventuring profession wouldn't think to magically remove their need to eat even if they had the money for it. "Oh, I normally have a ring for that," she says as if that explains everything. "But it looks as though most of my things didn't come with me."

She gives the soft biscuit sort of thing in her hand a tentative sniff as she listens, frowning to herself. What will she do? Her memories of the last time she was here are vague, but she thinks she can recall a few days on this plane/in this world, all of them spent holed up in a room assigned her as she took stock of her resources and tried to break through whatever block had been put on her and Biscuit's magic. They had fed her, she remembers that now, but they'd also given her quarters in a dismal little space away from the sun, citing a lack of open apartments above ground. 'They' may no longer be a resource, it sounds like, but perhaps it is little wonder that there would be upheaval in her absence when she has been gone from here for several months.

"I was given a living space," she says slowly. "By a rebellion group, underneath the ground?" She watches Sunshine (it's hard not to take that name as some kind of positive omen, but one really can't make assumptions) for some sign of recognition as she takes an absent bite of the food in her hand.

All right, maybe Sunshine is a walking good omen, because Asmodia is surprised to find that the food so freely offered is amazing. "Oh!" she says through a mouthful of crumbs. "Oh," she says again, taking another big, unladylike bite.

[rae_of_sun]

Both of her eyebrows creep up at 'I normally have a ring for that,' and she can't help feeling vaguely affronted by the thought of someone bypassing the need of her services with an accessory. Considering how expensive Manhattan can be, maybe she shouldn't begrudge someone the ability to pare down their monthly expenses, but come on. Doesn't everyone enjoy eating?

"The Rebels, yeah," Sunshine says with a nod, her expression slightly troubled (though more, it must be said, as a result of the ring idea than the fate of her benefactors; from what she's gathered, they deserved what they got, and she's self sufficient enough by now that she doesn't miss the loss of that one particular safety net). "They set me up, too. Their base used to be underground, but it's, uh... not habitable anymore. Everyone's in above-ground apartments, now." So much the better, she figures. She doesn't know how anyone could stand living down there full time.

Asmodia's reaction to the cookie pretty well makes up for the whole ring thing - see, this is why eating is important - and Sunshine smiles faintly. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't offer her baking to animals, but Asmodia's just earned herself some figurative brownie points, and with Sunshine, those can transmute into literal brownie points. Besides, whatever that thing is under the bench, it probably counts as a rifty, too. "Does your, uh... pet want anything?" Sunshine leans out a little to look down at the thing, now fully visible. From a distance, it might be mistaken for some kind of weird mutt, but from where she's sitting, it's clearly some kind of massive carthaginian rodent. "What is that, anyway?" she asks, only a little perturbed. If it was going to start gnawing on her ankles, it would have already, right?

[biscuit_powered]

Eating is great until you find yourself stranded in the northern wilds without trail rations or the first clue which plants are safe to eat. Or stuck in a strange city on another planet, for that matter, without a single coin of the local currency in one's pocket. Doing away with food altogether might be a slightly unconventional way to carry out the promise to oneself that one would never go hungry again, but by the time money stopped being a concern in Asmodia's life she had come to rely on the convenience of never having to worry about it at all unless she especially desired the experience.

Not habitable suggests something even more violent than ousted, and Asmodia's eyebrows climb even as she keeps chowing down on the biscuit thing. So much for that residence, though she'll hardly miss it. She swallows thickly, briefly regretting biting off nearly half the thing at once, and glances down at the furry brown nose poking its way out from under the bench. "Donkey rat," she explains. "His name's Biscuit." At an insistent squeak, she rolls her eyes and adds, "Yes, he does -- and it's going to be his own fault if he makes himself sick eating human food." Take that, Biscuit.

"I take it your friend wasn't one of the Rebels?" she asks cautiously.

[rae_of_sun]

Sunshine doesn't have a detailed account of what happened in the base, but she's been given to understand that it now has a rat problem so severe that, short of direct Rift intervention, there's no getting rid of it. If she didn't already have sunlight-related reasons for avoiding the base, that would be a pretty effective deterrent.

'Donkey rat' is a little alarming, but 'Biscuit' is a cute name. And his size makes 'rat' seem like the wrong classification, anyway. He could almost be some kind of possum. That's higher up the ladder of Animals You'd Expect To Find In The Garbage, at least. Sunshine pokes through the bag until she finds a relatively plain butter cookie and leans down to offer it to the creature. For some reason, it doesn't feel quite right just dropping the cookie on the grass.

"Not exactly," she says, glancing up at Asmodia. "He owns a bookshop. He lives in the same building that I do, but a lot of us were only with the Rebels insofar as we took advantage of the free housing and stipend." She straightens and shrugs once Biscuit has taken the offering. "He's pretty powerful, though. Um, magically speaking. So he's sort of taken over building management."

[biscuit_powered]

It's a common name for the species, not a scientific one, and common nomenclature is rife with inaccuracies by nature. Asmodia keeps an eye on Biscuit and Sunshine, not that she's too worried about either of them doing anything untoward. Biscuit creeps a few steps further out from under the bench to inspect the offering, whiskers twitching with interest, before gently taking the item in his mouth and sitting back on his haunches to transfer the bulk of it to his front paws while he chews the first bite. The sounds of tooth clicking and little chirrups of contentment drift upward, and Asmodia's smile deepens as she works on her own biscuit thing. She's feeling less shaken now, whether because she's had time to recover or because the food and conversation have been enough to distract her from the memory of the shock she received.

"I was given the impression this place did not have many casters," she comments, wondering if it was a lie or if she has simply stumbled into a series of systematically unlikely meetings and associations. "If you think he will help, it would be...good. To have a place, I mean, until I can...until I can leave." This is not permanent. It's not entirely unpleasant here now that she's run into Sunshine, but it's absolutely not permanent.

[rae_of_sun]

Okay, the cookie seems to be going over well. Hopefully it won't actually make the thing sick. Well, there's no chocolate in it, and if Asmodia's not worried about it, Sunshine's not going to worry, either. Considering how rarely she gives her food to animals, Biscuit can just count himself fortunate.

She sits back against the bench and pulls out a cookie for herself. "If you mean people with innate magic-handling abilities, that's probably right," she says, taking a musing bite. Once she'd swallowed, she adds, "But the Rift tends to gift people with weird, specific stuff they didn't have before. Like, my boyfriend can summon books from nowhere." Or he could, anyway. "Couldn't do that back home." Or walk in sunlight, but let's not out Spike so soon. Things like 'housing' are way higher on the priority list, here.

Speaking of. "But yeah, housing should be doable." If there isn't an empty unit, Aziraphale can probably just miracle one up. "For as long as you're here," she adds, charitably not mentioning just how long that might be. She can handle the feeding and housing and leave the bubble-bursting to time and experience.

[biscuit_powered]

That's what healing hexes are for, right? It can't be worse than that time Stig fed Biscuit a laxative.

Innate suggests that Sunshine is limiting the scope to those magic users to whom power comes rather than those who study for it, but it's the second part that's a lot more interesting. She's aware that some people who can't otherwise use magic being born with one ability or another (she herself could cast darkness before she was ever a witch), but to have a small, specific power like that granted later in life is...weird. And why books??

"And that's all he can summon?" That is specific and weird, just as advertised. "I wonder if I'll -- or if I would notice any new powers if I were to stay." She's not stupid. She does realize that she was just put low merely by looking at this Rift, and that her chances of getting back to the other side are slim at best. She has to act like she will, though, because to give up already would go against everything she and her friends have accomplished.

She nods. "Yes, that would be, um...helpful. For as long as it's needful."

[rae_of_sun]

"That's all," Sunshine confirms with a nod. "I don't think it does stuff like that to everyone, for whatever that's worth. Pretty sure I didn't get anything, um... extra. But they don't always kick in right away."

She rolls up the bakery bag and stuffs it away, then looks over at Asmodia. "Are you good to start walking? We can head there now, if you're up for it." She doesn't want to make assumptions, considering she was just whammied by the rift. But lingering in the park probably isn't the best idea, either, not when Asmodia has a noticeably weird pet and the locals are so twitchy.

[biscuit_powered]

Asmodia winces and shifts herself more properly upright, testing the waters. Her head doesn't start spinning and her legs do not appear to be under the impression that they're gelatinous, so she gives a little nod before leaning forward to peer down at Biscuit. "Finish up," she tells him, and the donkey rat hurries to polish off the remains of his biscuit-thing as his mistress shoves the remains of her own food in her mouth and levers herself to her feet.

"Jus' fine," she decides through a mouthful of crumbs.