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Sherlock is usually very puncutal. He's only one minute late, but that's still not quite as punctual as usual. Bella peers out the window, not yet allowing herself outright concern.
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eversomuchfun
"Do you know exactly which parts of the Slayer package you're missing?" he inquires.
cross_and_bow
"I have no supernatural senses, and a Power That Is had to visit me in person to wonder why I wasn't slaying anything yet and wanted to know why I hadn't gotten its dreams," reports Juliet. "If there's more, I don't know enough to know it's missing."
eversomuchfun
"You clearly do have all the physical upgrades, and the battle instincts. That part is interesting. Why that and not the senses, I wonder?"
dark_light
"Stella wrote that Golden's 'witchcraft' let her daughter communicate with her until her daughter tried to send useful information in a quantity that would have been incapacitating for a while," volunteers Amariah. "Stella was briefly worried that when her Whistle got a brain upgrade, her mindreading would stop working if she didn't boost herself to match because it would've been overwhelming. Are the senses or the dreams - unpleasant? Do they interfere with other stuff? I bet the battle instincts only come up when you're in a fight and then they'd be a strict improvement over whatever you started with."
cross_and_bow
"I don't know if they're unpleasant, I never had them," Juliet points out. "I imagine they could be. The Slayer package wasn't really designed for my well-being."
eversomuchfun
"The official Watcherly term for a Slayer's supernaturally acquired dreams is 'the nightmares'," says Sherlock. "So there's that."
dark_light
"And if the idea is for you to kill vampires and such I don't imagine supernaturally sensing them would be a gentle breezy sensation or patterns of dots on a magic heads-up display," comments Amariah.
cross_and_bow
"Okay, this is if nothing else a reasonable working hypothesis for why I can't cast spells I've tried and why half the Slayer properties didn't stick to me, but I still don't know where the original opacity came from," says Juliet. "Sherlock, do you know anything about - random magical powers people sometimes have? Is that a thing?"
eversomuchfun
He shrugs. "It's a vague rumour, at any rate. Doesn't seem to happen very frequently."
cross_and_bow
"Those are cool," says Juliet. "On balance I think I'll stick with mine, though, I don't want nightmares or for magic to eat my brain or anything."
cross_and_bow
"I'd really object," says Juliet, nodding. "Maybe Mr. Giles will be able to help me find something that does work. He did pretty much agree to teach me in between all the dire warnings."
cross_and_bow
"Anyway. Lemme put my new magic through its paces, huh?" says Juliet, rolling her shoulders and reaching behind herself to poke at the hidden tattoos. "Just Sherlock to start, and when I'm used to the boosts I can practice trying not to give Amariah an opening into which she might insert something sharp."
Training ensues. Amariah doesn't prove particularly useful as a stabby prop, but the blessings she cast are definitely helping. Juliet is less tired, less bruised, barely scratched, more alert, and surer on her feet than before, and it adds up to a definite edge above and beyond the revisions she's been making to her "autopilot".
Sherlock violently encounters the wall on more than one occasion.
Training ensues. Amariah doesn't prove particularly useful as a stabby prop, but the blessings she cast are definitely helping. Juliet is less tired, less bruised, barely scratched, more alert, and surer on her feet than before, and it adds up to a definite edge above and beyond the revisions she's been making to her "autopilot".
Sherlock violently encounters the wall on more than one occasion.
dark_light
When Juliet's done for the night, Amariah gives Sherlock a hug, and then casts the quick verse-and-parsley notice-me-not spell so that she won't attract attention from bad guys, nosy neighbors, or Charlie. She walks home with Juliet and parks her cloud-pine, its hammock, and herself outside her alt's window.
cross_and_bow
The next day, Juliet takes Amariah to school with her. As long as Amariah doesn't do anything weirder than loitering and speaking in a normal tone of voice, she is completely unobtrusive.
Including to Mr. Giles when study hall rolls around and Juliet goes to return the books she's gotten through and talk magic.
Including to Mr. Giles when study hall rolls around and Juliet goes to return the books she's gotten through and talk magic.
"That's more than I expected," he says as he reclaims them. "Considering the depth of your note-taking."
cross_and_bow
"I read pretty quickly," says Juliet. "You can look over my notes on them if you want proof they got read, or something."
"I don't plan to be that kind of teacher," he says, with what might be a vestige of a smile.
cross_and_bow
"What kind of teacher do you plan to be?" she inquires.
dark_light
(Amariah, meanwhile, is reading through one of the books. Reading a book in a library is not unusual enough to break the spell, and she'll put it right back when Giles reaches for it.)