2022-04-16 - Practice

(TXT to Una Ravn) Ariadne : Greetings and salutations, intrepid Veil Spiters. How about we get together and practice some of these burgeoning powers before somebody accidentally pulls an X-Men comic book plot twist and somebody's toupee ends up in a flaming trash can somewhere while gravity is temporarily inverted? I'll bring a not-goulash kind of food?

(TXT to Ariadne Ravn) Una : I mean, the answer's not no (clearly), but... wouldn't that actually be kind of fun? The toupee?

(TXT to Ariadne Una) Ravn : I would like to state for the record and posterity that I do not wear a toupee, nor can I light a trash can on fire with my mind. I can, however, temporarily invert gravity. I'll bring something to drink that isn't alcoholic. And if we decide we do deserve whiskey after, it's not like I don't live next door to where we intend to congregate.

(TXT to Ravn Ariadne) Una : I mean, I can light things on fire, so... that's step one.

(TXT to Ariadne Ravn) Una : Also, I still have some of your whiskey. And the usual cookies (but no more boozy brownies, sorry you missed out on those, Ariadne). I take it you're coming to my place? (I mean, please do.)

(TXT to Ravn Una) Ariadne : I do vote Casa de la Kitchen Cleric (I still owe you that t-shirt and, yes, I'm still ordering the devil t-shirt) for this gathering if you're okay with it, Una? Boozy brownies another time! Your cookies are always awesome. Also, my example was not to be followed, you goobs, oh my god, Sam is staring at me because I'm laughing so hard. No fiery toupee deaths!

(TXT to Ariadne Una) Ravn : So we have the inverted trash can and the fire, you get to bring the toupee.

(TXT to Ariadne Ravn) Una : Mi casa es tu casa, of course!

(TXT to Ariadne Ravn) Una : ^ This.

(TXT to Ariadne Una) Ravn : Min kasse er din kasse, as we say in Danish except it means box.

(TXT to Una Ravn) Ariadne : One flaming toupee atop whatever food I manage to make, sounds good. Gimme a few hours to get Sam walked and food made and I'll be over to the box! If we fits, we sits?

(TXT to Ariadne Una) Ravn : I mean, it works fine with a picture of a cat in a box, yes.

(TXT to Ariadne Ravn) Una : 😆 😆 😆

(TXT to Ariadne Ravn) Una : Ok, sounds good! Drop in when you're ready.

(TXT to Ariadne Una) Ravn : Gotta check a lobster for hidden ammunition, walk home, and shower. Be right there.

Give Ariadne a few hours and Sam is walked to his content. She's showered after her run and managed to make up a dish meant to be shared. As such, befitting of the warm and yet somehow drizzly weather (Washington, make up your damn mind), she wears a light sweatshirt with deep hood and black cargo-jeans, feet tucked into what appear to be hard-soled slippers. Not Uggs. Never Uggs. She drove here anyways, who was really going to judge her choice of footwear?

Shave-and-a-haircut-two-bits at the door and tah-dah: she showcases the casserole dish in her hands holding none other than...casserole. A hearty mixture of noodles with red sauce rich and garlic-y, stuffed with ground beef and topped with what appears to be melted, shredded parmesan cheese.

"Couldn't find a toupee, unfortunately," the barista drily laugh-reports on her way to the kitchen. Her hair is still damp and up in an octopus clip to showcase its underpaneling of bright celestial colors. She looks comfortable as a whole.

It's not many minutes later that Ravn turns up at the same door. He carries a tote bag which clinks; inside it are bottles of some golden liquid with the label Kinnie and writing in a language that not only isn't English but uses a surprising amount of letters that does not exist in the English alphabet, too. His hair is damp; he too must have run through a shower. The usual black slacks and turtleneck are accompanied today by a -- gasp! -- dark cobalt blue scarf. Might be he's feeling a bit of chill. Might be he went through Aidan's entire wardrobe to find one that wasn't bright pink or full of plushy pineapples.

"I haven't found a toupee," he says, unaware that he echoes Ariadne's sentiment. "I considered sacrificing a few of Kinney's more colourful mohair sweaters but he'd give me the sad puppy eyes. Again."

"But now what are we going to practice on?" mock-sulks Una, whose ratty-looking cords have been tarted up with a patchwork array of old brocade, though her loose top and hoodie are in more normal condition. Her feet are bare, but then, it's not exactly especially cold within the confines of 5 Oak. "Ooh, but that looks good, so you're forgiven. Come on in, Ariadne."

The sentiment-- that is, the earlier one-- is repeated for Ravn, and this time comes accompanied by a dramatic sigh. "What is the world coming from, that no one has a toupee on hand to experiment with? I ask you. Wait."

It takes Una a few moments to get there, and then she does, raising her voice in surprise and amusement as she nears the kitchen again. "Is that a blue scarf, holy freaking shit, Ravn."

Casserole dish is set on the stove, its fate per any necessary reheating to be determined. Stovetop or microwaved bowls are options. It's Una's statement which makes the barista straighten and look over her shoulder, eyebrows nearly disappeared into her hairline like startled birds.

And she pokes her head around the frame of the kitchen door as if summoned by -- it totally summoned her, who are we kidding.

"Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat," she drawls, her lips turning up into a cheeky grin. "Color. Itzhak is influencing you, isn't he? Okay, next level is paisley." A finger-gun is accompanied by a friendly wink. The irony of 'paisley' is totally lost upon her. The Veil, it hears. Woe betide.

Ravn actually dusts a little pink at that. "And people wonder why I never bother. Look, I have to be able to talk a lot tomorrow. Now's a really bad time to catch a cold. And I do like a bit of colour in scarves. Particularly the kind of shade where if you accidentally wash it with something that gives off black, it just becomes, well, black."

He pulls out the bottles. "I ordered these bottles of kinnie a while back from an importer in Seattle -- apparently, this stuff is pretty much unknown outside of Malta where it's made and Sweden where they for some reason love it. It's a non-alcoholic cider made on wormwood and bitter oranges. Sweet but not sticky. It's kind of a love or hate deal, but if you like it, it's fantastic."

"Paisley would look spectacular against all the black," agrees Una, inadvertently reinforcing that particular Veil message. Truly, this is sheer delight: Una, with her love of colour, so very, very pleased. "Oh-- don't blush, Ravn, it's fine. We're just teasing you, just a little bit. Tomorrow's lobster day, isn't it? So that's fair."

She draws herself up against one of the counters, leaning her weight against it, with one hand pretzeled backwards on either side to help support her in the position. "Ooh," she adds, for the kinnie. "I've never heard of that before-- sounds, well, at least interesting, and therefore worth a try. Are we eating first, or-- what's the plan?"

"What she said. Nothing wrong with color and being pragmatic," Ariadne echoes of Una as she drifts into the area of the kitchen proper once more. Her hands in her sweatshirt pocket, she briefly lifts her shoulders in a little shiver. "I should have layered more anyways with my hair, but whatever." As Ravn displays the drinks on the kitchen table, she walks over to pick one up for the reading of the label and general consideration.

"I mean, I haven't eaten lunch, so my stomach is going to say food, but that's just me. I can probably drink one of these babies and be just fine with the sugar content for a bit." A lift and gentle tip back and forth of the bottle in her hand. "These look great though. Cider and orange and wormwood, huh. Absinthe. That's wormwood-based, right? Orange Fairy drinks. That's what I'm calling these now. So mote it be," declares the barista with a thespian's wave of her free hand across the vast expanse of kitchen.

"So mote it be except you will not get high or drunk from this. It's just a good drink for a Mediterranean climate because it will keep you hydrated without making you feel glazed over on the inside like sugary drinks will. The recipe is supposedly thousands of years old though I doubt the Phoenicians carbonated theirs." Ravn smirks. "Also, I'm perfectly fine with practising first, eating later -- while we evaluate what we were doing, maybe?"

'Orange Fairy drinks' makes Una laugh, and agree: "So mote it be. Even if it doesn't get you high or drunk... though my understanding is that most absinthe, these days, doesn't actually contain much by way of wormwood anyway, so it's really just missing the alcohol."

Across the kitchen, the ever-present cookie jar lifts its lid (literally, in this case: the lid rises straight up and off), and a cookie rises up from the depths in order to cross the room and hover in front of Ariadne.

"I couldn't possibly send you into practice without something," says Una, apparently pleased with herself, given the twitchy little smile that presses itself into service upon her lips. "To go with the rest of the sugar."

Ariadne nods as she sets the bottle back down on the table. "Practice first, eat while eVAL -- "

Sudden cookie!

"Okay, not used to that still," she laughs as she plucks the cookie out of the air. "Muchly appreciated, thank you." A grin for Una and her mystical levitating pastry skills. "I'm also fine with there being no actual concentrated wormwood in these critters. It's too bitter for me anyways. I wonder why they didn't think about coconut water, if this is based off an ancient recipe for keeping yourself hydrated while dealing with life on the ocean. I mean, hell, I've heard stories about coconut water being used to replace blood plasma. I sure as hell hope they're tall-tales because that just...you don't put fruit water into someone's veins...but the idea is nifty. So."

Bite of cookie, soft sound of delight. "What're we practicing first?" She looks between her hostess and the Dane.

"Well, for one, coconuts don't grow natively in the Mediterranean and sure as hell didn't when the Phoenicians ruled it." Ravn smiles lightly. "You can taste the bitter of the wormwood, it's just not a strong presence. A bit like adding lime to water, in warm weather. Also, the plasma story is entirely true, though how the bloody hell somebody came up with the idea -- sometime during World War II, in the Pacific Theatre, as far as I've read."

He nabs a chair and turns it around to plonk himself down on it in his usual fashion, elbows on the backrest. And then those blue-greys of his go saucer-sized. Look at these eyelashes, these long, brown eyelashes, watch them flutter. "Where's my flying cookie?"

Una's toes properly wiggle with delight as her little stunt with the cookie works (it's still a thrill, oh yes). "Wait," she says, then. "Coconut water to replace blood plasma? What? What?" No, this idea does not compute: it is filled with wrongness.

Not so wrong that she can't be swayed by those eyelashes, mind, but wrong enough that although the cookie jar opens again, and another cookie wings its way across, it does so in a somewhat haphazard way, losing altitude as it goes to the point where Ravn may need to rescue it before it hits the ground.

Poor cookie.

Cue half-disturbed, half-awed facial expression from Ariadne at the confirmation of coconut water being used as such. "...yeah, none of that for me, just get me to triage if I'm bleeding like that," she decides before taking another bite of cookie. "Insofar as practice goes, maybe we each pick something and focus on that for a bit before we -- "

No! Poor wounded cookie! A reach barely snatches the pastry from the ignominious demise of hitting the floor and the barista sighs as she then offers it out to Ravn. "We compare notes," she finishes her thought. "Looks like it's making things move first?" She gives Una a grin.

"That poor cookie. Wingshot little blighter. I better put him out of his misery." Ravn plucks it from Ariadne's fingers and without further ado starts picking it apart like he does all things edible; one might argue that this is a crueller fate. In the Irving kitchen, no one can hear you scream.

Then he nods. "Dimensions and space. That's what moving things is. We also discussed the whole talking in people's heads thing -- I can't do that, for example. Which makes me a good candidate for practising on. You'll be sure it's not me subconsciously helping, and you'll be able to practise communicating with someone who can only respond in emotions. It may come in handy down along the line, I figure."

That poor cookie! Una watches it drift downwards across the kitchen, her face scrunching up in concentration as she tries to save it, but: no, okay, this time more physical intervention is required. So be it. "I couldn't help myself," she admits, lifting her gaze back up so as not to need to witness the poor cookie's dismemberment (such betrayal! If cookies could make sad eyes, they no doubt would, Una the bad cookie mother).

"Cookies are easy, anyway. It's precision, I think, that's more difficult? And the talking-in-heads thing, which weirds me out a bit. You want to have first crack at that, Ariadne?"

Una is going to hoist herself up onto the bench-top properly, in the meantime, letting her bare feet thud idly against the surface of the bottom cupboard. "The nice thing about talking mentally is no one cares if there's cookie in your mouth when you do it, right?"

Snort-laugh. Poor cookie indeed. Not like Ariadne really has a leg to stand on; her cookie's demise is rapidly coming, only a few bites left of it. She pulls out a chair at the table and sits normally in it, bringing up a leg overtop the other to cross knees. Her slippered foot twitches in the air as she listens to Ravn and looks to Una in turn, brows lifted in expectation of thoughts.

A finger points at her own chest. "Me first with the talking-in-the-heads trick? Uh. Sure. Lemme get a napkin first." Her golden-hazel eyes then narrow on a small collection of them not too far from where Una sat down on the bench-top counter. Move but towards me.

She gets a napkin! She gets ALL THE NAPKINS! Suddenly, there's a small confined snowstorm of paper napkins littered all over Una's kitchen floor and while Ariadne does have one she plucked out of the air, she looks at the mess she's made. Slowly, pink fills her ears and the heights of her cheeks. "Yeeeeeeeeeah, okay, um, my bad." Shoving the rest of the cookie in her mouth, she gets up to start picking up the spare napkins and shakes them out, awkwardly unable to decide whether or not they get tossed or reused since they've touched the floor.

Ravn's blue-greys widen. He takes in the sight. He chomps down on his own cheek to not laugh out loud. Not laughing. Not laughing. No laughter here, no sirree. All the serious, look at how serious he is, seriouser than a serious thing at a ceremony of serious seriousness. Much sombre, all the gravity, such staying focused. He even resists the temptation to snap out his phone for a picture. Look at him; just sitting there, smiling, stone faced in a way to shame an English aristocrat; and maybe that's exactly the key -- after all, shaming English aristocrats has been a tradition of Danish aristocrats for a very long time.

"I presume you meant to do that," he offers pleasantly and picks at his cookie. Never before has a cookie been demolished with such nonchalance. "On the unlikely occasion that you may need to demonstrate a bit more subtlety, the trick is in the mass. Paper towels are very, very light. Move it as delicately as you would with your fingers -- you would not throw the whole box at me, either, if I asked you to give me one."

Pause. "Or maybe you would, but let's assume for the moment that you're not mad at me."

Una does not even blink as napkins rain down on the floor-- at least not for the first five seconds or so. Then she lets out a little snort cough, but really, that could be due to anything. She casts Ravn a quick glance, but though her eyes glint with amusement, she manages not to laugh further at his so-dignified, so-stone-faced expression.

"I mean, if you are mad, there's a jug of water over by the sink, and that could be more fun," she offers, and this time she is giggling, properly, outright, and with vast amusement. "Just stick 'em on the table. Five second rule, right? They'll get used. Floor isn't that dirty."

"Oh my goddddddd, you guys are jerrrrrrrrks," Ariadne comments as the process of picking up the napkins continued. She doesn't sound overly annoyed or flustered; her expression is more resigned in the end as she straightens with her collection of napkins. She is smirking in the end. The napkins do get placed on the table per her hostess' suggestion and then, with much dignity on display, the barista sits down in her previously-claimed chair again.

"I'm not hucking anything at anyone yet." A tart observation. One of the bottles of orange-cider is then taken up again and she fusses with the cap. "Okay, so, mind-talking stuff. Who wants to be my first target? Also, if anyone has any suggestions about volume control, I want them. I've seen you both flinch so far and it's really embarrassing to not know how to not shout. I feel like a toddler."

"In fairness, a toddler would not have mastered the skill in less than a week either." Ravn smirks and reaches for a bottle of his own. "I can't be of use there, I have none of this ability at all. But when I move light objects -- I find that it helps to think of it as pinching something lightly between two fingers rather than yanking at it. Maybe you can do the equivalent -- visualising that you are whispering."

Is that useful advice? How the hell would Ravn know. Until just a few months ago all he could do was float a lighter. Until a week ago he was still convinced that floating bridges, exploding chocolate displays and sprinkler malfunctions were just random flukes.

"The worst kind of jerk," agrees Una, with a modicum of equanimity, or maybe that's just sheer bravado given the way her eyes continue to gleam in that close-to-laughter way. Her toes stretch out against the wooden door below her yet again, wiggling merrily.

"Whispering seems sensible," she agrees. "I don't know-- I don't know how to yell, mentally? At least, I don't think I do. I have no idea. I've only tried once or twice."

Now the visiting redhead laughs, the sound bright. "I haven't mastered either of them, but thank you for your vote of confidence." Cap to drink removed, Ariadne salutes the Dane with the bottle and then sips at it. "Mmm." Her brows quirk. "Different." Another sip and she licks her lips, squinting at the bottle. Hmm. Undecided.

She glances over at Una and then at the napkin again. Whisper at it. Whisper at the napkin? No, pinch it lightly between two fingers. Delicate grip. But whisper with the mental voice rather than project. Maybe she's just stuck with an Army drill sergeant's grade of mental speech. How awkward, the barista considers as she sets her drink aside.

A sigh. "Okay, Ravn, I'm just going to say hello." Her golden-hazel eyes narrow on him. Again, there it is, like a voice too close to the ear: Hello? Hi? HELLO? SHIT LOWER VOLUME thank you brain come on we're whispering now is this a whisper? At least it's not a shout.

Ravn startles -- so much for a stiff upper lip -- but not enough to drop his bottle, at least. Then he looks at Ariadne and nods because yes, he hears her. And he wants to communicate --

-- well, whatever he wants to communicate, because he's not the one with the mental power here, so unless the person who is, is picking up emotion, it doesn't matter what he's trying to communicate.

It dawns on him too. "I hear you. You're loud but not shouting -- at least not at the end. It probably comes through very loudly also because there's nothing else interfering."

Una's watching, with great interest, as-- presumably-- Ariadne communicates with Ravn. Her gaze focuses on the other redhead, then flicks towards the slightly-less-a-redhead, then back again.

And while she's doing that? Another of those bottles lifts itself up off the table and floats across the kitchen to her. Got to use those powers for her own benefit too, right?

"Hey, good! Was it easier that time, Ariadne?"

Her own mouth pulls to one side at the startle, but Ravn doesn't seem like his mental ears are ringing. A short sigh and nod at his report followed by a glance over to Una.

Granted, a glance after she watches the bottle float from the table and over to her fellow redhead. "Still not used to that," the barista then titters, briefly putting her hands on her cheeks. Yes, they're still warm, damnit. "I mean, easier...I think? I'm kind of hoping that life interference makes things quieter because I'd really hate to have this power but with no volume control, like I said before. Fucking embarrassing."

Her attention lingers on Una. This time, the mental speech is for her. Hi Una! HI HI HI shit too loud uh hi? Hi uh shit it's like dropping a flashcard. You make great COOKIES! Even Ariadne winces. Apparently enthusiasm influences volume?

Ravn's bottle dances across his knuckles in ways that are entirely precarious and absolutely should not be possible for a bottle full of soda to do, outside of David Copperfield. Then he catches it, mid-air, and sips from it, before returning it to the table. Maybe he feels like showing off. Maybe he feels like showing off in a way that does not use power of any kind.

"I'm obviously not going to say it now because we do need to practise. But once we're not? Keep in mind that if you can do it without using the shine, do it without. Because every time there is that risk of something noticing the flare and slithering over to investigate," he murmurs.

Una's fingers wrap around the bottle she's floated, though she does nothing more than that: just holds it.

Maybe, in part, that's because she's caught Ariadne's attention, and is waiting for the mental-- 'intrusion' is the wrong word. So is 'onslaught'. There are other words, softer words. The corners of her mouth twist upwards; a pink flush darkens her cheeks. Um, thank you! she begins, and look, it's not difficult to catch the emotions in that: she's projecting them, inadvertently, as much as her words. Clearly, the praise means a lot to her. Your pasta looks amazing too, and-- um.

The communication fritzes out. Una blushes, and looks away.

"Right," she says. "Save it for the big stuff. What... kinds of things are going to slither over, though? Could slither over. Just the usual Dream-providing terrors?"

"Eh-heh....yeah, the big stuff," mumbles the barista. She's aware that she's brought that fluster to Una and flustered in turn to have caused it. Ariadne certainly never means to fluster friends! -- until she does, but this wasn't an intended instance. Her own bottle is retrieved and she sips from it again. Alright, alright, this isn't half-bad, especially with the citrus to cut the faint bitterness of the wormwood.

"Yeah, what kind of things could slither over? I'm not looking to have any sudden snakes in my house. Or Dreams." Her grimace game is strong. Rattlesnakes, ugh. "Also, that bottle trick was cool as hell and you did not use any shiny-ness to make it happen? Was I using any shiny when I talked to you? Could you tell? I...kind of have no idea how to tell." A glance between her comrades. "I don't want to accidentally bring down trouble on anyone's head."

"I'm pretty sure that talking in people's heads counts as shiny. Low key shiny, probably, since you kind of have to be included in the group DM to notice, though." Ravn sips his bottle; it brings back memories of being stuck in Valletta, waiting for his US Visa to go through. There are definitely worse places for a historian to be stuck for a while than a crusader capital from 1566 (March 28, to be precise, it's one of those rare cities where you know exactly when the first stone was laid, and who laid it). The Knights of St John are anything but not interesting, and the city itself is a cornucopia of history and crusader architecture. It's just that he also knew that every day he was not moving was one day more for the ghost of Benedikte to gain on him.

He taps the bottle. "Also, I spent a lot of time in my room bored as a kid." Excellent time to learn various sleight of hand tricks. Then he ponders. "I think when I say slither it's because I kind of associate these things with something awful and reptilian in the dark. But actually? Those fucking macaques are probably the closest thing I've been to seeing the actual Them."

"I assume... anything that we can do that normal people can't," 'normal' is probably nominally in inverted commas, because really, is anyone normal? On the other hand, normal people probably aren't offering hand-free cookie delivery, so maybe the point is moot. At least Una's voice is even enough: whatever it was, specifically, that flustered her, it's not a lingering sensation.

She opens her bottle, and takes a tentative sip (she coughs, but then goes in for another sip, which probably counts as a success?), and then pauses. "Okay, not actual slithering. Good. That's a relief. Wait-- macaques?"

"...well, fuck." The mutter mostly disappears into Ariadne's bottle after Ravn confirms low-wattage Glimmer use and Una classifies anything Grey Harbor Weird as potentially noticeable as well. So much for clandestine -- and how does someone then speak mentally to another person without using any of this wattage? By the knit of her brows, she's trying to figure out this mystery.

The mention of the macaques, however, makes her give Ravn one of those purse-lipped, single-brow-lift looks. "Yes, not actual slithering is good, but those...goddamn monkeys." She pinches the bridge of her nose while leaning an elbow on the table, schooling her face to something less thunderous. "Sooooooooo...Ravn and I got sucked into a Dream where I was supposed to be a ninja-guru-villain in safety-orange because fuck stealth and all I needed to do was get Ravn's heroic staff from him, but because Dream Fuckery, I ended up in a duck pond. After falling down a hill. And the macaques had buckets of popcorn and opinions like they were some demented Statler and Waldorf except times eight or something."

"If you can talk about a fourth wall in Dreams, those things were pissing all over it and taking bricks home as souvenirs." Ravn makes a face. "Red and white paper popcorn bags, in feudal Japan. They were trying very hard to force us into some kind of weird training montage slash romantic comedy. It was -- kind of funny but also kind of awful. And then Ariadne tried to beat them all up with the heroic staff in question. I liked that part."

He sips his Kinnie. "I think practising mind speaking is a good idea. And also practising getting answers from those of us who can't. Silent charades, kind of. Can you ask me a question -- something simple, something yes-no. Because all the answer you will get from me is probably a sensation of right or wrong. The real trick may be working out how to communicate with the rest of us, if you're going to make use of this thing in Dreams or other tight situations where you don't want to be overheard."

Una's brows knit together as she listens to both explanations and clearly, in the process, adds some numbers up based on previous conversations. Maybe that's the reason for her so-incredibly-sympathetic expression as she says, "Oh, ugh. I'm sorry-- that They put you in that position. That sounds... particularly unpleasant, yeah. Aside from beating them up with the staff; I like that bit. I didn't... ever even think of a whole fourth wall thing being possible, but I guess it makes sense?"

Her bare toes drum against the cupboard door. She casts a glance at Ravn, but seems... reluctant, somehow to continue her practice, and says, instead, "That's a valid point, I guess. It's a quicker way of passing information than trying to find a time to whisper."

"Best part," agrees the staff-wielder. She scattered that peanut (popcorn?) gallery like roaches under a sudden midnight kitchen light. Content at least to have done this and to receive sympathy in balm against feeling still vaguely crazy for how mad she'd been, Ariadne leans back in her chair more relaxed. She glances between the Dane and their hostess, tilting the bottle to her lips again for a longer sip.

A finger points at Una. "A quicker way, right, but how to manage to get it under the Veil's nose?" It's a question for anyone in the kitchen by the manner of her tone. "I'm still not following that. It makes sense that you'd have to use more...wattage to speak to somebody who doesn't have the same power. Why does it cost any wattage to talk to somebody who does?"

"I guess for the same reason it costs oxygen to talk to someone who can hear? You still need to set something in motion, whether it's your vocal cords or -- whatever it is that works for telepathy." Ravn nods his agreement and picks at his cookie; another bit of it is transferred to his mouth. Truly, this man is a pastry chef's nightmare (just ask Vydal). "I do think this is a very under-estimated power, particularly in a direct confrontation where you don't want the creatures or the people to hear."

"Telepathy," murmurs Una. Maybe that's the first time she's considered that word in relation to herself. 'Hi, I'm Una, and I'm a telepath' is a pretty awesome thing to be able to say, though.

"I imagine it doesn't use much power. It's not like-- I mean, you're probably not going to earn a pink post-it for talking to someone telepathically, I imagine," she concludes, then. "So maybe it slips under the radar. It's not as though they'd be able to pick up what's being said, I assume. Unless they can actually read minds, in a way that we can't."

Without shifting her position, or indeed the general direction of her gaze, she sends out a quick message to Ravn: Put the damn cookie out of its misery, will you?

What a pity she can't force his will, or make him suddenly, desperately, want to eat the thing immediately.

"Hmm." Thoughtfully, Ariadne nods. It makes sense, gotta trip the action into motion. Una shares her ten cents and a sense of relief slumps the barista's posture. "That's a good point, actually. The very fact that it's speaking to only Person A and not a whole crowd of people means it's along that...line. Like a phone connection. Nobody should be able to tap it. That should make it sneaky in itself."

As she speaks, the redhead has no idea Ravn has been encouraged to eat more cookie.

"Very underestimated..." muses she before laughing to herself. "Unless someone startles. That kind of gives up the jig."

Ravn puts his cookie -- half eaten, half destroyed -- down on the table in front of him; he looks almost guilty for a moment, as if asking himself how it even made it into his hands. Cookie, what cookie? What does this word, 'cookie' mean?

He swallows. "I've had it happen a few times in a tight spot. It's difficult to not get startled, like somebody is suddenly talking right behind you. But that little startle is still not as much of a give-away as somebody shouting across a room."

Una's brown eyes watch the cookie get set down, and she frowns, but there's also a nod: she may have intended 'eat the cookie' but clearly the message as it was actually sent was received.

"Ravn didn't startle, just then," she notes, easily. "But then, we're all half-expecting it at the moment, aren't we? It's getting used to it happening when we don't expect it that's going to be the real key, I guess."

"Oh." Ravn is given a quick, surprised look. Didn't startle? And she hadn't sensed a thing, which she's quick to note. Her gaze flicks to Una. "I didn't notice you do anything at all, holy shit. Totally clandestine." Assumes the complete novice in the field.

"It's definitely sneakier than a shout across the room, but...wow." She falls silent and ends up resting her mouth against her knuckles as she thinks, squinting at nothing on the floor in the process. The science major is momentarily overwhelmed by possibilities, please hold.

"What I want to learn is to fold space," Ravn notes. "To step in, and out. Imagine that you need to cross a room such as this, unseen? I can try to move along the wall, in the shadows, but you will see me because you will see movement where there should be none. Now imagine I stand by the door there -- and then I slip Across, and I walk right through the room to there, and then slip back out. It will be effectively like moving from one shadow to another as if for a moment I do not exist."

Ask an ex-burglar to contemplate the options in this.

Una drums her fingertips upon the corduroy that covers her thigh, thinking through-- well, logistics, possibly, or perhaps feasibility. Of one kind or another.

She blinks at Ravn. "Is... that possible? Making doors, I understand that. But folding space?"

Beat. "None of us would ever see you again. You'd just... slide on past. Impressive."

Fold space?

Such a concept brings Ariadne out of her contemplations. She lifts her face from her folded knuckles with mouth parted in mild surprise. A glance at Una followed by a nod of agreement. "The shit you could get up to! Oh my god. Is it possible? Actually folding space? I have a vague memory of watching a documentary about space-time and its theoretical physics, but this is...something else." She then appears to be ruefully working through accepting yet another blatant, no-holds-barred rearrangement of scientific laws.

Ravn raises his shoulders in an apologetic little shrug. "I don't know? I do know that it's possible to step Over There, walk the distance while invisible in this world, and step back out. It counts, yes? And I know there are people who can stuff amazing amounts of stuff into a very small and confined space -- creating a kind of portable little pocket dimension, I've seen it. Can I do either? I think I can maybe learn the doors trick. Not sure about the other. Only one way to find out -- pester Rosencrantz until he agrees to drill me like a drafted kid at boot camp."

The stepping over? That's not new. How that links to folding space-- that is, and it gives Una obvious pause.

But even that gets put aside a moment later as, brow furrowing deeply, she repeats, "Creating a kind of portable little pocket dimension. Hooooooly fuck, that's incredible. That's, that's-- that's take physics and bin it territory, isn't it?"

She shoots a glance at Ariadne, the scientist.

The scientist in question does an awkward one-sided jazz-handing; the other hand is occupied by bottle, which tips back and forth near-precariously.

"It's set physics on fire and push it into a river where it then goes over a waterfall territory. Grand, smoking destruction level of revision. All I ask is that if you get Itzhak to teach you this? I want to see you practice because, like...I'll need to see you do it to believe you. But also, let's be honest. The pocket dimension? Bag of Holding." Thank you, tabletop geek. "If it turns out I can't do this little trick, I will be so sad...though maybe it's for the better. I sometimes forget what I had for breakfast this morning and I'd need a notebook to keep track of what was in this Bag of Holding."

Ravn can't help a small laugh at that; it's a very graphic description and somehow he can also picture Ariadne sitting there looking like pigs just flew. Probably because he has seen her sit there, trying to reconcile the fact that pigs just flew.

"I think step one for me is understanding how this all works on a hands-on level. I can read quantum physics. I can read folding space theory. I can even read Dungeons & Dragons source books. But that is not at all the same as understanding it all deep down on a personal level, the way I understand gravel, or coffee, or sweaters." The folklorist sips his Kinnie. "And then there is the whole aspect of what I can tamper with. Some people -- the healers -- seem to work on living matter. I only work on dead. In theory? That means I could learn to walk on water, though. I'd just get soggy socks from the things that live in water."

"Poor physics," agrees Una, sagely. She pauses to take another swig from the bottle, evidently having come to the conclusion that she likes it... or, maybe, reconfirming that she doesn't ever sip, and still forgetting before she automatically takes the next. "I want to see, too," she says. "I've been through one of those doors, but I was a little distracted at the time."

She cants her head, considering Ravn with considerable seriousness. "Walk on water. Holy shit. Now we just need you to grow out your hair and--" Her brows wiggle. No?

It's the brow wiggle which gets Ariadne.

She'd been doing so great dealing with this potential reassignment and realignment and re-other things involving what she thought were the rules of reality. But now we've added 'walking on water' to a list which includes literal Bags of Holding and blinking across entire rooms in a single step and Una gets her.

Putting her fingertips to her mouth, she can't help the little upswing of twinkling giggling. "I'm sorry, I can't see it, the long hair and -- " Giggle. Titter. Snortle-fest.

Ravn blinks and stares at Una. Then he shakes his head, slowly. "No Jesus hair and beard. No Jedi robes. No Ewan McGregor impersonations."

He actually shudders. "It makes my head spin just as much as it does yours. The possibilities we have with these kinds of power are absurd. Mind blowing. Terrifying. And I think that's part of what keeps most of us in line. We know that we don't understand the consequences, so we don't go all out. Maybe it's better that way."

Ravn might stare, but Ariadne? She gets it. Una's pleased by that, undaunted by the stare and just... just grinning. "Not even one tiny little long braid, with the rest of your hair kept short? Not even for us?"

Only, well: Ravn's more serious with the rest of what he says, and that's hard to ignore, and hard not to respond to. Una's smile falters and when she responds, it's with a slow and serious nod. "They are," she agrees. "It's fun to experiment, but... I don't know that I want to know the limits of the power, because I know what can happen. I never, ever want to attract attention, like-- well, like Ava has, for instance. I need to know enough to be able to help myself, when necessary. I don't want to break the world in the process."

Tittering arcs higher in pitch. The one little braid.

Getting her composure back after another second or so, Ariadne sighs before taking a long sip of her drink. "Well...see, now, that's part of the fun of testing things though? And the terror. What are the limits? Why not know them to take full advantage of them? Maybe....maybe there's a way to do it even if it attracts attention." Nobody let this chick anywhere near Brennon when she gets to musing like this. "Like, someone can keep shit at bay while the levels are analyzed. Or something." One shoulder lifts in a shrug as she looks between her companions.

Ravn, on the other hand, agrees with Ariadne. "Brennon worries me a little with her enthusiasm. However, Brennon has lived here most of her life, and she's still in one piece, even if her clinic isn't. Have to have some confidence she knows what she's doing. Some of the local people are extremely powerful -- particularly the ones who grew up here, had all their lives to figure out how things work."

Una opens her mouth to object, but maybe it's peer pressure, in a sense, because she ultimately shakes her head and shrugs. "I guess so? But it does rather feel like she's poking the bear. Deliberately. On the other hand, maybe she can't help it. I know she's got a lot of power behind her."

It prompts something else in the shortest of the redheads. She doesn't have a plant in easy reach to encourage into bloom, so she resorts, instead, to picking up a dish cloth in easy reach, cupping it in her hand, and generating-- with a furrow of her brow-- an easy flame. Low, and not too hot: red flame, not blue.

"Fire goes with healing, and plants. I think? It feels like it does."

"Right," the barista agrees with Ravn. "Ava is proof that you can go toe-to-toe with these guys, use your powers at their most powerful, and come out of it. I say we test things in the long-honored manner of science everywhere, even if most of this stuff turns all the rules into a merry dumpster-fire of confusion."

Ariadne sips at her drink again and glances over at Una. A nod. She personally doesn't feel as if she's got a lot to bring to bear either. Still, watching the flame appear makes the barista inhale and grin. "See? Now that's cool as hell. I can't do that. I just...know I can't. But that, that's amazing. Fire could go with healing and plants. Why not? Remember we're bending rules. Why not categorize it like that?"

"I know healing and plants go together -- August Røn, the botanist. And I know fire and healing go together -- Aidan Kinney, the fire magician and healer. Might be that there is such a connection. Might be that manipulating living things tends to follow certain patterns. The people who can mind talk tend to be the same who can do the mindscape thing, and the object reading -- Chief de la Vega, for instance, he does those. And people who move things are the ones who bend the rules and dimensions for dead matter. There are definite patterns." Ravn nods. "What there isn't, is some kind of logic as to who can do what. There's no 'healing is a girl thing' or 'throwing big objects around is for boys'. It seems entirely tied to temper and coincidence."

Una is, let's be honest, a little smug with her little fire display. Maybe trying it like this is new: she may have set trees on fire, but... this fire isn't dangerous. It's not burning her. That's got to be a little satisfying.

(It goes out. Safely, and with nothing more than a burnt tea-towel to demonstrate that it was there in the first place.)

"Ah-hah," she says. "Okay. So there is proper categorisation. But it's also not an absolute, since you have people who specialise, like Ava-- or you, Ravn, I think?-- and then people like me who can do a little bit of a lot of things. But I can't do object reading, or the mindscape?" Questionmark, questionmark. "Or doors. Or a lot of things like that. But I can do fire, and a little healing, and a little mind-talking. What I want to know, can powers be awoken in people? I know you can make them stronger. Mine are definitely stronger."

"That's a good question," Ariadne agrees with another point off her bottle at Una. She swaps crossed legs now, her slippered foot still twitching in some unknown rhythm in her head. "Can you make them stronger through anything other than practice. I don't mind practicing, but like..."

Her golden-hazel eyes land on Ravn again. "You said suddenly, you could break Dreams. Like, snap," -- and she snaps her fingers. "You could shatter them. Something about great stress? Maybe the intensity of the Dream awoke something? Maybe any or all of us are going to have this moment of great stress and bam: we can do more than we thought, all of us with our naturally-varied power types."

"I think it's a combination of several factors." Ravn reaches for the half-cookie and then seems to change his mind and pull his hand back. "This place nurtures hidden talent. People kept telling me that -- you stay here, you'll grow stronger. Trauma seems to sometimes be what triggers latent powers. And sometimes, it's just managing to not stop ourselves. If I put any credit to that mindscape experience of someone removing my collar, then I had these powers all along but I never realised their extent."

He muses softly, "I don't think you can -- make a habit of breaking dreams. If it was that easy, people would do it more. I think that particular dream was meant to end like that -- with me lashing out, full power, in fear. And I think the macaque dream ended because it came to its natural conclusion; the macaques didn't actually feel like getting beaten up with a bo staff."

It would be tempting, for Una, to cram that cookie into Ravn's mouth. She doesn't. She's nice.

"You lashed out when we were facing the Nightmares, too," she points out, much more serious, focused on Ravn. "I don't know if that broke it, or if the impact of that, or-- what. But."

She glances at Ariadne, too, and then back at Ravn. "Why do you think you had a metaphysical collar?" she wonders, then.

"That Dream knew better than to keep fucking with me, yes." A dry stance of continued challenge on Ariadne's part. Finna whallop a macaque, that's what.

Still, Una has an excellent question and the barista has nothing more to add given she does want to hear this answer from Ravn. Why be collared, yes? By himself or by something else?

"Might have taught myself as a kid. You can get away with some things, and no one notices. If I was a toddler walking through alternate dimensions and stuffing half a years' supply of candy down my diaper, my nanny would probably have noticed. Maybe I just learned that staying out of sight is the best choice, and grew up thinking that's how it is." Ravn nods and hitches a shoulder lightly; it's the best answer he has. "I think the nightmares fled because they were getting hit in the face by an exploding bridge. I did not shatter a Dream -- I scared them off, but that's not the same. The idea of breaking Dreams means always being able to exit. That would be bloody useful."

The twitch of Una's smile is, possibly, related to the mental imagery of Ravn-the-toddler stuffing candy down his diaper. Though that way also leads to madness: diapers and candy are probably not the best possible mix and lead to sanitary questions and... look. Just stop. Brain, just stop.

"Okay," she agrees. "That's probably true of the nightmares. I was, admittedly, not at my best at the time. I'm intrigued by this whole Dream-breaking thing, though. I know there are Dreams I'd be glad to just be able to... walk out of."

"I'm still hearing the possibility of breaking Dreams by sheer force of willpower. Again, we test this. Science," proclaims the science major. She needs a shirt -- or does she already have one? Time will tell. Ariadne is still sober enough to nod understanding of the conundrum faced by the Dane in his youth. "Or, like, the door stuff. Imagine being able to slam a door in a Deam's face. Oh my god. Dude. The revenge. The schadenfreude. The vindication."

Nobody let this chick be a villain in a Dream either.

"If we could just exit as we wanted, we'd do so." Ravn nods. "But sometimes, people do. I think it varies whether we can. You remember when we were Sims? Kailey made a door out and we walked through it, each to wake up in our respective beds -- me with a fifty pound unhappy sea bass down my pants, which I am still trying to forget. It's worth practising for the occasions we can. One in ten is still better than none in ten, and so on."

With distance and time, Una can remember that particular Dream with amusement rather than deep-seated embarrassment; she grins, now. "Yeah," she says. "The one and only time I've been through a door like that. I remember. If only it were that easy."

She's still grinning when she glances back at Ariadne. "That's one scientific experiment I'm more than willing to engage in. Fuck you, Dreams; we're out."

Ariadne is trying to be an Adult.

She really is.

It keeps growing, like a balloon, behind her breastbone and at the tip of her tongue. Sea bass. Down pants.

No. Come on, brain. This is a serious conversation.

"Good statistics," she manages about getting free that one in ten time. "And a good experiment, right."

Oh, she was doing so well.

"Sea bass require quite the tackle box." There it goes. It slipped. Drinking not-soda, drinking drink, don't laugh, DON'T LAUGH.

Ravn stares. He just -- stares. Then he tries very hard to not laugh out loud. He fails. He snorts and has to steady himself with a gulp of Kinnie. And finally, half-chokedly, "Much as this is for science -- I don't think I'm going to lay it out on the table for inspection, sorry. Suffice it to say, the sea bass died. And Kitty Pryde had a good day."

Una, it seems, doesn't even try. She just... laughs. It could even be called a cackle. She's completely red-faced, apparently unable to breathe for as long as it takes to compose herself: one Mississippi, two Mississippi. Deep breath.

Deep breath.

"It's a good thing he doesn't cook," she says, finally, mostly to Ariadne. "I wouldn't trust any seafood suppers, I'm just saying."

Ariadne's bottle clunks on the table for the sake of drink safety at the rejoinders because now she's helplessly cackling. The entire kitchen sounds like it might belong to hyenas, perhaps.

"Shit, no -- I'm sorry -- "

But is she?

"Really, I couldn't help it -- "

But could she?

"It just slipped, no -- "

More laughing. There's no saving her, just for a little bit. Is she pink at the cheeks too? Yes.

"There's half a dozen jokes I feel like I am obliged to make, about seafood and things that taste salty and be careful with the white meat, simply on basis of being a bloke. Given I like sushi, though, I think I will refrain." Ravn struggles to recapture at least fragments of his shattered dignity. Ho hum. Ahem.

Dignity is over-rated.

Una properly hoots with laughter, drumming her feet against the cupboard door for emphasis.

Words will have to wait.

"I just need everyone to know that one time, at a bar in Seattle, a guy tried to pick me up with a line about being crankbait and the sexiest shad out there and christ on a cracker, I fucking howled for, like, five minutes, the poor bastard."

Annnnnd back to cackling, totally pink in the face, most of the sound muffled up behind Ariadne's hands.

"Do I even want to know what crankbait is?" Ravn can't help laughing softly again. "Also. So help me God. If I ever brave a pick-up line, please let me come up with something that sounds at least mildly intelligent. Better than that, at least. I'd almost rather do, did it hurt when you fell from heaven like it's 1950."

"Now I'm imagining pick-up lines delivered via telekinesis," says Una, abruptly. "I'm not going to try, because... that would be weird and uncomfortable, but..."

Una gets a Look despite the amount of wheezing coming from the direction of the barista.

Such a Look.

"That's an idea," admits Ariadne with what appears to be an innocently-thoughtful smile. "Wow. I mean, you're not wrong, it'd be abrupt as hell -- and crankbait is a plastic lure used for fish who eat bigger fish in turn. They're weighted on their ends so they drop like injured bait. A shad-shaped lure makes a great lure." The more you know! "Also, there's nothing wrong with the 'fell from heaven' line. It's cute when delivered correctly."

"You mean telepathy," Ravn murmurs, half-choked. "Unless you mean writing them on a card and floating them over."

"... that one, yes." Una waves a hand. She's still trying to compose herself from all the laughter. Although? "I mean, that would work too, wouldn't it?"

Did she notice Ariadne's Look? Of course she did. It's hard not to. Her return smile is just bright and broad and surely endearing. Besides, it's not like her comment is meant as anything but pure conversation fodder.

"Hey now, sending over a pick-up line on a floated card would be just as charming and abrupt." Ariadne waves her hand and laughs. Her bottle is retrieved, given it's now safe to sip at it again. Surely no one's going to make her cackle again. Surely. "Maybe something with stationary. Like, let's get Pride and Prejudice here. Drop some cologne or perfume on it, sign it with a quill, proclaim your affections in some dramatic manner."

Equally dramatic hand to brow, woe!

"As I recall, the one true quality of Mr Darcy as far as women are concerned, was not his note writing skills, nor his looks, nor his income, but the fact that he told the lady that if she wanted him to bugger off he would bugger off." Ravn is still chuckling. "I'm told that blokes who will in fact take no for an answer are rare in the dating circuit."

"'You must allow me to tell you how ardently I admire and love you,' floated at me would probably melt my cold, stone heart," Una decides. She's giggling again. Of course she is.

"I mean, you have a point. Men accepting no as an answer are surprisingly few and far between, unfortunately. I'd still be charmed."

"That guy was a smooth motherfucker with his words, it's true." Grinning up a storm, Ariadne glances down at the bottle. "I'm with you, Una. Somebody floated something like that at me, I'd about have to sit down and twitter like a bird. It'd be ridiculously charming."

A glance up at the ceiling. "That was NOT a Dream idea, okay, you Veil bastards? Fuck you." Just because general reality needed that admonition, thank you very much.

"Anyways. I've practiced, Una's practiced, Ravn! Spotlight's on you. What are we practicing now?" she asks of the Dane.

"Notes, apparently." Ravn reaches for one of those paper napkins that had a brief encounter with the floor earlier. He procures a fountain pen from a pocket somewhere -- who doesn't carry a sleek black fountain pen at any given time? -- and writes upon it, "HI."

Then he makes a waving little gesture with a gloved hand, and the thing flutters over to hover in the air between both women. Your move.

Una has, at least, composed herself enough to stop laughing-- enough, even to take a sip from her bottle and not risk choking on it. She watches that napkin flutter its way over, and smirks, shaking her head as she leans over to get a better look at what's written on it.

"Worst pick-up line ever," is teasing, but warmly so. "What else can you do? We've already established floating things as a thing."

Move...over here to me, gently.

Ariadne's obviously focusing on the napkin and it visibly tug-tugs as her own intent pulls on it. Slowly, surely, it begins drifting in her direction. New enough at this particular trick, she can't formulate words just yet. She can, however, nod agreement with Una's observation. Ravn can float things and does she ever know it. Peppa Pig will go down in infamy. A little wrinkle appears between her brows as she tries to tug a little harder on the floating napkin.

Here! Come here! Who's a cute little napkin? You are!

"I was trying to be funny," Ravn murmurs, still smiling a little. Then he holds up his hand. "Rosencrantz showed me this one, in a Dream."

He splays his fingers. A soft ghost-light spreads from his palm, in a fashion not too unlike bioluminescene; pale, golden, a bit liquid. "If I had been able to do this when I was a cat burglar, that would saved me a lot of trouble with hooded lights."

Una keeps half an eye on the floating napkin, but Ravn's naturally caught her attention again: she blinks, long and hard, as she watches that light.

"Whoa," is her answer. "Okay, that's super cool."

Given Ravn's focus goes to creating his light display, the napkin abruptly flies towards Ariadne. She flinches as it bounces off her face; she'd been watching the power she hasn't seen yet with a parted-mouth expression of honest awe. A pffffbbbt sound as she plucks the napkin off of her shoulder to place it on the table. The chair creaks as she leans in a little bit, hand upraised like she wants to poke at it.

Light. Liquid. Liquid light? If it's liquid, does it have texture? Or is it hot like plasma?

"Ohhhhhhh my goddddddddd," she murmur-drawls, blinking. "So...it's actually light? Is it warm? Like, does it give off heat energy?"

"It does nothing at all besides burn. The more energy I put into it, the brighter. I've been practising to make it burn less -- just small and dim and enough for me to see by, but not for someone else. A ghost light, a burglar's light." Ravn looks up. The light flickers a little. "Back in the day, thieves would use hooded lanterns to direct very small and precise beams of light and not alert the entire neighbourhood. I think I can get to a point where I can do something similar. And I am pissed that I didn't know how to do this, ten years ago."

"... please don't use this as an excuse to pick back up your life of crime," Una suggests, though the jut of her chin and parting of her lips suggests she's not actually being serious.

"That's actually super cool. I wonder if I can do it... do you just visualise it existing, and it happens?"

Given she's been told it's not going to burn her, Ariadne is going to touch it, apparently.

Reaching out, she barely brushes her finger against one of the liquiscent waves of collected light. It's not soft because it's not there but it is there and how fascinating is this.

"You heard Una, mister, none of this back-to-business business," she murmurs, glancing up at him with a single lifted brow. A glance back at Una. "If you can do it too, I'm going to be inordinately jealous."

Ravn closes his hand around the fluid little light and it fades out. "I can't do it long or well. Yet. In the Dream, Rosencrantz glowed -- and then so did I. I found when I thought about it, my hand began to glow. So it was largely a matter of trying to -- focus?" He frowns a little. "I feel a lot of the time like I should know all this. It's not hard. It's just that I have no idea what I can do, and I only find out when I see others do a thing and I copy it."

Una listens intently to Ravn's explanation, then lifts her own hand in an attempt to replicate. She looks-- well, a little constipated, by the end. Mental puuuuuuuuuuush.

Alas, nothing happens.

She shakes her head, putting her hand down again. "I guess that's a no, or I'm doing it wrong. That's okay. See-- no need to be jealous, right? We can do things Ravn can't do, and he can do things we can't."

There's a little sigh as Una fails to manifest a light of her own. Ariadne nods, her mouth twisted in a form of sympathy. Aw. She had been hoping her fellow redhead would be able to do it because cool.

"I bet that's how a lot of us learned though, watching somebody else do it and then trying it to see what happens. Monkey see, monkey do, and all." She doesn't even attempt to try and bring up any form of light, quite convinced she won't be able to do it in turn. "But Una, any plants which need primping? A little love? I can go grab a pot from the back deck," the barista asks, thumbing towards the area in question over her shoulder.

"Monkey see, monkey do is a valid learning technique," Ravn points out with a small smile. "And it stresses what I keep saying -- we all need to talk about these things. It's when we try to go it alone we don't go the distance -- and not knowing what we can do is one of the reasons. Someone like Brennon can go a lot further on her own because she knows what she can do."

He watches with interest; plant primping, eh? That, in turn, is something he has no power over whatsoever. Not once in his thirty-one years has anything living responded to his manipulations. Not for lack of trying either -- so many times, a bored kid looking at a potted petunia in a classroom window, thinking fall down, damnit, do something, anything, to interrupt this incessant droning on. (It helped when he started to think about the pot instead of the plant). Living things do not answer to Ravn's call.

Having completely failed in her attempt to make light, Una straightens-- and brightens; a different kind of light, really-- at the mention of plant primping. "I expect it's something one needs to keep trying, too," she says, as she hops down off of her perch. "Just because you can't do something now, it doesn't mean it'll always be the case, right? Though I'm guessing suddenly developing skills in a whole new discipline might be less likely."

She pads to the window where, up on the sill, a cluster of little plant pots sit. "Starters," she explains, picking up one that is just barely showing some germination above the soil surface. "I was trying to start my vegetable garden the old-fashioned way, acknowledging of course that most people don't have endless summer and still need to worry about frost killing their seedlings. This one-- hmm, carrot. That could be interesting. There's not really enough soil for it to grow in, is there?"

There's really not. That doesn't stop the little carrot that could, mind: a moment later, as Una concentrates on it, the little pot held up with a flourish for all to see, it sprouts. The carrot she pulls out of the soil is misshapen, of course, having curled around itself to try and find enough room to grow, but it's still demonstrably a carrot where, just seconds before, no carrot (properly) existed.

"Ha!"

"I figure it's like stumbling over stuff, yeah. You can see it happen and get inspired or you can be mucking around and la voila: you have the ability to make something fall off a desk." Ariadne spreads a hand and grins to herself. Creepy colored pencils, thank you very much. Her bottle is set aside on the table as she watches Una retrieve a little pot from indoors -- oh, starters, gotcha. Ravn gets a glance and a bigger grin. She knows he's seen this before, but for her, personally? It's the coolest damn thing.

And -- "Lookit that, eee." Little squeal from the barista. "Carrots on demand. Boom. So, I guess my question is..." She then pauses to laugh at herself, pinking lightly through her cheeks again. "I know I ask a lot of questions. It's a thing. Anyways! Is the carrot actually a good carrot? Like, nutrient panel and all? Or does it taste like a rushed carrot, one that grew too fast? Or something. I don't know what those taste like."

Some miracles don't become less miraculous just because you've seen them before. Ravn watched August Roen grow living trees into living bird volieres. He watched Finch de la Vega animate half the greens of Addington Damn Park in order to restrain a sixteen tons dragon and he's still amazed at the carrot. He always will be. The laws of nature don't work this way. It's amazing every single time they're broken.

That question makes his eyebrows shoot up, though. "I actually -- have no idea. I guess there's one way to find out? Taste and texture at least. Nutritional value, I have no idea. But I suspect it's fine. It's just a carrot after all. Una did not magic it into being -- she just encouraged it to grow faster than normal. But it's still a carrot, just a carrot that's in a hurry. Right?"

In lieu of a verbal answer, Una tosses the carrot in Ariadne's direction (underhand, which hopefully means it will at least get reasonably close to the other redhead). Sure, it's still got a light dusting of dirt on it, but there's a sink just there if she feels that way inclined, and otherwise, a little bit of dirty never hurt anyone. "Carrot in a hurry-- exactly. I expect it's probably not the best carrot ever, because it didn't have enough space to grow in, and I tend to assume most of us are better when we get everything we need and not just some of it, but I imagine it's otherwise just fine."

The little pot is empty now, except for what remains of the soil; Una sets it down, dusting her hands off. "It still feels like cheating, though. I'm not opposed to giving my garden a little nudge, but... I'd rather the joy of watching things grow, day by day, on the whole. On the other hand, realising you're short of bay leaves half-way through making a stew? A seed-store suddenly becomes exceptionally useful."

Ariadne nods, a lock of her hair waving about where it's fallen free. "Right, a carrot in a hurry." Looking back at Una, she lifts a hand and catches the carrot. Transferring the root veggie to her other hand, she wipes her palm off on her pants as she then starts looking the veggie over. Looks like a carrot. Smells like a carrot under that thin layering of dirt. Leaves smell green. The veggie makes a crisp snap as she breaks it in half to consider the innards. Usual color. Usual scent. The tip of her tongue tastes at the damp inner surface and she smacks her lips, frowning down at it.

"That's hella useful," she agrees of the sprout collection. "And this tastes like a carrot insofar as I can tell. Maybe a little bland, sure, but it'd be just fine for eating or cooking, I assume." Ariadne's not going to eat it, apparently, but remains content to keep fussing with it like a curious little science major might do.

"It's a pity we can't deploy this kind of power in a noticeworthy fashion, or I could see us knocking a few dents in poverty and local economics." Ravn can't help speculating. Nudge a few greenhouses to grow a little faster, a little better -- expand large scale, kiss world hunger goodbye. Probably better to stop himself right there because if the Veil would allow this? It'd have been done. If not in a useful way, then at least as Jeff Bezos employing Mexicans with growing shine in secret carrot production facilities in a desert somewhere.

He makes a little face over his bottle. "That's what annoys me the most about all of this, not going to lie: That we can't really make a difference with any of it. There has to be people like us, places like this all over the world, and we can't make a difference more than locally. I'm happy to make a difference locally but at the same time -- it feels like so much wasted potential."

A pleased, and slightly proud, smile replies to Ariadne's explorations of the carrot; she's interested, clearly, in the scientific outcomes.

"Think global, act local," she murmurs, but she acknowledges Ravn's point with a frown and a short, sharp nod. "I know what you mean. Half the time I'm not even sure we're making a difference here, you know? I could grow a new crop of vegetables every day, donate them to a food bank, and it still wouldn't actually fix anything, would it? The real issues are structural; everything we do is nothing more than a bandaid."

Turning the carrot up to the light, Ariadne continues looking it over even more closely now. None of the internal striations appear to be off or wider or thinner. No weird coloration. The leaves don't appear stressed or threaded with too many veins.

"I'm going to note that bandaids keep the gross out of cuts and wounds and duct tape continues to hold things together, so our efforts, while small, are important," she comments, sounding distracted as she looks at how the kitchen light falls through the leaves now. "Why can't we be an outpost? Keep watch at the tower? This isn't the only thin place in the world, I've heard that discussed around here. Maybe it's not the flashiest or a glamorous job with a good paycheck, but who really wants people butting in with news stories and a bigger influx of bodies?" She glances between her companions. "Only takes a pebble to start a rock slide."

"We do what we can anyhow because what kind of people would we be if we didn't? On the bottom line, it's about whether you can look yourself in the eyes when you shave." Ravn pauses. "Well, shave, apply mascara, whatever you do in front of a mirror."

He watches Ariadne's inspections with an amused expression. He can't tell that carrot from any other carrot but he recognises a scientific approach when he sees one; this is the look his own face has been known to adopt when taking apart a story for its tropes, archetypes, and purpose. The latter, in particular.

Una's confirmation comes on her slow exhale, and the nod that follows it. "That's true," she agrees. "We do what we can; I mean, that's got to be true even without these powers in life. The point is to leave a place better than when you arrived, if you can."

She, too, is still watching Ariadne with the carrot.

"I bet there are people at other thin spots all 'round the world having similar conversations, frustrated by their limitations and-- wishing they could do more. It's sort of the human condition, isn't it? We do the absolute best we can, with what we've got. Some of us, anyway."

Leaf is pinched and fingertips smelled. Ariadne makes an interested hum in the back of her throat before plucking one free. It's rolled upon itself to release more scent; she sniffs again and nods to herself.

"I don't mean to romanticize it either," she says, now emerging from her scientific inspection of the root veggie. "It's rough. We do what we can and sometimes, it doesn't feel like much, but it's something and yes: it's more than some people choose to do. I refuse to diminish anything helpful I do around here just because it's a bigger world out there. There has to be other thin spots with folks just like us, yes, and in the vein of this? I figure I owe them just as much effort as they're giving in turn. HOPE, right?"

Ravn winces at the pun, and smiles a bit at the same time. Then he nods. "There are other thin spots. I grew up at one, in Denmark. I've heard of others -- there's one near Portland somewhere, that's the closest other I'm familiar with. I strongly suspect they're all over -- and the reason we don't know is that the same thing happens as happens here."

He toys with the soda bottle; it's a different shape than most American soda and beer bottles which tend to be more long necked, less body. "I think that's the trick, though. Defeating the brain weasel that says, you could do more. Because, yes, we probably could. Could run ourselves right into the ground, too. Have to look at the bottom line -- can we do more in the long term by doing less right now? At least I tell myself that a lot when I try to justify hanging around this town like some kind of hipster vagabond, instead of going home and trying to make some kind of real change happen. It wouldn't work, you know? One man cannot change the world with big dramatic gestures. It's got to be less, from all of us, over more time."

"Yeah," agrees Una, finally. She doesn't like it, but she gets it. "From little things, big things grow-- except it feels a lot of the time like the growth is completely stunted. But if we're doing everything we personally can..."

She kicks at the cabinet door beneath her feet (she's climbed back up to her perch, now, somewhere along the way) again.

"Portland. That's not so far, not really."

Setting aside the halved carrot upon the table, Ariadne again brushes her palms along her jeans. A little dirt isn't going to bother her there, apparently; jeans are meant to take a beating and get dirty in her book.

"I'm telling you: as annoying as the adage is about pebbles and avalanches, it remains true. That, and consider another adage about wearing down a rock. How did the Grand Canyon come to be?" Lifting a slightly-grimy palm, the barista continues. "Water wearing down stone -- and look at it now. Maybe it took time, sure, but it's a permanent fixture of the landscape now. The Veil has no idea what it got into when it decided to start trying to manipulate humanity. I stand by this. Now."

Una specifically garners her attention now. "You want to head down to Portland and check it out?"

Ravn quirks an eyebrow. "Might be a project to approach with caution. From what I've heard the one constant for thin points is that they tend to happen in places of suffering. Might be worth at least talking to people like Røn who have been there, at least, get an idea of what to expect."

He toys with his bottle. "But yes. Grand Canyon, water hollows stone. I get moments where I feel like -- there's a Twitter account named Has Jeff Bezos Decided To End World Hunger Today? and all it tweets once a day is "No". I feel like that some. I'm obviously not Jeff Bezos nor capable of ending world hunger. I have to remind myself that I could probably be louder and more dramatic, but then, am I really doing anything for others? Or am I just propping myself and my Jesus complex up and hungering for recognition?"

"I--" begins Una, which probably means yes, though she falters at Ravn's caution. "I've still not actually met Mr Roen, not enough to talk to." Or even know his first name confidently enough to use it. "I don't know. I just feel like it'd be interesting to see. How it feels, compared to here. Maybe that's silly."

"Okay, yes. Grand Canyon, water droplets-- I get it. I'm just impatient. I feel like there's so much more we could be doing. In general. In life. In-- something and everything, probably. I'll get there. This is my, still trying to find my purpose."

Ariadne brings her palm down to rest on her thigh; her other hand very lightly tic-tacks fingernails off of the table. It's not impatient by any means, merely a fidget if an obvious one, as she looks between speakers.

A sigh. "I certainly don't mind digging up Roen. His name was given to me anyhow, maybe as a connection to becoming a part of Fish and Wildlife, should my interest in the local orcas pan out. I get the impatience though...and the uncertainty. Why can't it be that you're fulfilling a promise to yourself that you're making the world better a little at a time?" A look for Ravn which then shifts to Una. "And maybe it is one step at a time, yeah? One day at a time?"

"Yeah. I tell myself that. It's not about me. It's not about stepping up and making big gestures. I could probably pull some headlines, raise some awareness if I did, but -- tell me you ever looked at one of those philanthropist rich white guys and didn't think he's doing it for the back patting and the recognition?" Ravn makes a face. "Better to pull slow and steady and keep myself out of the spotlight. The thing I love most about this town? The way people outside it seem to forget you exist."

Then he nods. "Røn's wife either just gave birth or is about to. Neither August nor Eleanor are new to this rodeo -- they'll be in Portland, probably, because that's where August's family lives. Probably going to lie low until they're sure mother and kid is fine. They got married out of town too, same reason."

Ravn makes a good point, albeit one that Una does not especially like. But it's true: white philanthropist rich guys are always, always doing it for the recognition. "I guess," she says, not for the first time. Grumble, grumble, grumble.

On August and Eleanor: "That makes sense too, sure. Okay. It's not like I'm in a rush to do anything." Except of course the way she is, absolutely, yes in a rush. "I just-- I know you're both right. One day at a time."

Beat. "And in the meantime, I'mma grow those vegetables. At least I can make sure more people get to eat in this town."

"Yeah...no hurry to go find Roen then, especially if he's a new father." Ariadne's smile is sympathetic. "I remember my cousin when he was a new father. Everything was an awful lot all at once and he did more hand-wringing than his wife did because she needed to be with the baby all of the time and what was he supposed to do? He's a good man. She's very supported, she and the baby both."

Her little smile returns to Una. "What if you grew the veggies for donation to HOPE? Or the local food kitchen? That'd be making an impact. Ravn's already up to his ears in running HOPE and everything. Things are getting done, even if it doesn't feel like it."

"It's true. And there are absolutely, definitely families in this town who can use donations of food, particularly fresh food that isn't tinned or processed." Ravn taps his fingers against the surface of the table; not impatiently as much as his constant need for his fingers to do something. "You know what they say -- the so-called obesity epidemic isn't because people over-eat. It's because people can't afford food that isn't full of starch, sugar, and corn syrup. There are plenty people in this town who are trying to manage a couple of kids, long work hours, and personal issues -- people who could use a bag of fresh greens and no moralising. That's the thing people tell me all the time -- they don't go to religious charities and the like because the last thing they need on top of everything else is to be made feel guilty."

Una's nod starts slow, but certainly grows in certainty. "That's absolutely true," she agrees. "And vegetables are something I can do. Because it's not necessarily 'too poor to buy food', right, exactly. The last thing I'd want to do is moralise about it, because I don't care how people ended up needing the help: I care about making sure that they get it."

And inevitably, a cookie or two to go with it.

"So... screw keeping my head down, I guess. If I need to use my power to grow a million vegetables, I can do that. I will."

A snappoint at Una and big grin. "I like how you think! -- and I bet HOPE and the food kitchen will be pleased to get those donations of however much you decide to bump and grow. Just..."

Ravn's given a glance because the barista's certain he'll chime in on this one. "...don't ask the fairy ring for any help. That gets messy. Or so I hear." She takes up her bottle again and sips long at it, finishing off its contents at this point. Mmm. It's growing on her, the odd combination of flavors.

The Dane nods. "Yes. I have to second that. I like Petra. He was kind to me as a child. I've heard similar stories from others. But he's still a faerie out of Celtic tradition, and even when the sidhe are kindly, they are still dangerous. I want to help him, but I don't think we should start to rely on him. Human-sidhe relationships almost never end well, and it's almost always because humans expect faerie to think like humans."

He glances in the direction of Oak One. "I'm still not sure how I feel about it all. Brennon's summer, Brennon's greenhouse in which to grow Veil seeds. But on some level we also have to accept that we can't control others. There's a part of me that's very definitely a white boy raised in privilege that wants to stomp over there and start telling her to be careful and so on. And that kid needs to just stuff a sock -- or a carrot -- in it, because Brennon is a big girl, and she gets to decide for herself what risk she deems reasonable for herself."

"Della and Monroe want to meet the fae," ventures Una, whose expression has gotten a little tighter as both Ravn and Ariadne speak (not for the vegetables; the vegetables make her happy. But the rest...)

"I think the summer is here to stay, as long as I keep feeding them, which I intend to. I don't think Ava's doing anything to prolong it, now. But I also haven't had any contact with Petra, or anyone else, except that one time. I don't really know what I'm dealing with. And I'm very, very aware of that."

Beat. "I'm still carrying around my virgin-hair rope, pretty much all the time, to be ready."

"Nothing wrong with being prepared, especially because, yeah...we kind of can't control what others do unless it's stupidly-obvious that we intervene. That it's stupidly-obvious that they're in over their heads and might...I dunno, cause some big issue."

Which Ariadne does NOT volunteer in any formulation of ideas because why give general reality around here ideas.

She still raises a hand in a semi-awkward manner. "I...sort of want to meet the fae too, but like...because I'm curious, not because I want to make any deals or end up enamored with them."

Ravn actually pinks a bit at the ears. "I've been meaning to get one of those of my own. The unicorn rope, I mean. That night on the bridge -- I do not want to go through that again. It has to be possible to make a rope so thin that it can be worn as a braided bracelet or tucked into a shirt pocket. Those bloody nightmares are monstrous."

Then he nods, again. "Petra is nice, and I wouldn't say no to having coffee with him again. Here's to hoping that next time he walks into Espresso Yourself it's on your shift, Ariadne. He's pretty good at the whole blending in thing, no one but Una and I had any idea we were having coffee with Peter Pan."

Una's grin is wry. "Me too," she admits. "I'd very much like to meet them. I know about all the lore involved and making sure you don't agree to anything, and-- you know, all the rest? But I'd still like to meet them."

Ravn, with his pink ears, makes Una grin broader still-- though there's a twitch of her expression, and a seriousness, at the mention of that bridge. Amusement fades, distinctly. "They are, aren't they? Awful. I think that's what I'm afraid of: I can carry around that rope, but can I necessarily take it into a Dream? No. I'd love to pick Petra's brain about how to tackle that, let's be honest."

Ariadne's hand remains upraised. "I'd also like one of these virginal friendship bracelets if it keeps me safer from these...Nightmare things you guys have talked about." Yes, she's serious, even if the wording seems less so.

"However, you're saying an...Elf...lord? Fairy lord? King. Duke. Peter Pan, like, the iteration of the book character -- or the actual reference for the book character -- was drinking coffee in my shop one time?" She blinks, honestly boggled. "What."

"Yep. That one. The kid rescuing androgynous faerie prince whisking lost kids away. Think more the original incarnation. More Barrie, less Disney. But that bloke, yes." Ravn can't resist a chuckle. "He asked us to help keep an eye out for those bloody nightmares. And told us that the faerie circle in our yard is a window into his kingdom. I mean, as sidhe go, that's as neighbourly as you can possibly hope for, right?"

He taps his fingers against the table; poor cookie, half eaten and now drummed on. "We never get to pick what we have in Dreams, I find. But sometimes, it's not Dreams. When the nightmares turned up on the bridge, was that a Dream? I'm not sure. He asked us in this reality. Maybe we can at least carry it in this reality."

"Monroe offered, didn't he?" If he didn't, if Una is making this up, she'll probably feel terrible. "It makes sense. One for all of us. As many of us as possible."

She gives Ravn a thoughtful glance. "Was it? I thought it was. I mean, I don't remember going to the bridge, but that's where we ended up. Maybe that just means the whole bracelet idea is a really good one. Wear it for always; be prepared. Girl scout, through and through."

Una probably wasn't a girl scout. That shit costs money: uniforms, and cookie sales, and badges.

"Well, holy shit." The mutter remains flabbergasted. Expect Ariadne to start giving her regulars double-takes and squinty, furtive second glances, just in case.

She glances over at Una, her brows still lifted. "Monroe's hair? Ah, yeah, right, I remember this now. If...well, if the bracelets don't translate over to the Dreams -- a good question for this Petra regardless -- maybe their presence at least influences the topic of the Dream...? Maybe? Maybe wearing them negates the chance of the Dream to contain nightmares...? That'd be nifty as hell."

"Worth a shot." Ravn makes a yes-no handwavey kind of gesture with one gloved hand. "Ultimately? Each Dream has its own rules. But in general -- you can nudge it a bit. I learned early on, don't sleep commando. I don't sleep with a Glock strapped to one thigh and a first aid kit to the other, but I have thought about it. Think about all the times we wake up in our night clothes or our regular clothes. If unicorn friendship bracelets are our regular clothes, and so on."

Una can't help it: she begins to giggle when Ravn mentions sleeping commando.

More seriously, though: "I bought a sleep top with a built-in bra shelf," she admits. "Unicorn friendship bracelets are absolutely the kind of thing it makes sense to make part of normal attire. I'll do anything I need to to even the playing field a little."

No giggle from Ariadne, but is that a lip-fret?

It is. Don't mind it. Ahem.

"Y'all are terribly pragmatic," she compliments in a drily-amused manner. It is funny, the idea of preparing for sleeping at night with the off-chance of SUDDEN TEMPORAL AND SPATIAL DISPLACEMENT. Rude as fuck, those Dreams. "But I like your idea, Una, getting something with a little support to it...this, and making a habit of the unicorn friendship bracelets. I bet I could fall asleep wearing one, no big deal."

"I sleep in sweat pants and a t-shirt. Sexy as hell, truly." Ravn makes a face. "But better than turning up commando, though I will never forget that one Dream where Seth Monaghan did exactly that, and ended up spending that entire Dream wearing Joey Kelly's barbecue apron and nothing else."

This is a serious conversation, okay? But?

But.

Una begins to giggle, first. And then laugh outright. She's met Seth Monaghan, and... and.

And... and.

Ariadne is lost too, if only because she's seen the man briefly in passing and he was nothing to toy with in turn.

Except for now, poor visual-spatial individual that she is, she'll now see him next and immediately think of just a BBQ apron.

Titter-fest at the kitchen table, ahoy!

Ravn has to chuckle as well. Poor Seth. "Ask him about the pregnant frog sometime," he says, trying to not smile and failing. "Although he may swear quite a while about it. Also, it was a toad."

He smiles a bit. "That bloke. He's one big boy, and I'd sure as hell rather not have him come at me in his capacity as a bouncer at the Firefly. He's a good man, even when he tries to convince you otherwise. One of those blokes who, if life was a little more fair, would be working with his hands somewhere, living the good life, and befriending half of the town. Monaghan's a bit of a name to grow up with here -- not quite Addington, but some of the same vibes."

"Names are hard," concludes Una. "I'm... relieved, nothing more has turned up about mine. No one especially seems to have known my grandmother, and I'm grateful for it." Mostly. Mostly.

"Poor Seth, though. Do we really want to know about the pregnant toad? I mean, now I'm pretty tempted, so the answer is probably yes."

Una gets a lingering glance. Her last name? One can see Ariadne quickly flick through memory's notecards and come up with nothing. Hmm. A conversation for another time, she decides, letting the idea slide off to one side in her mind to simmer.

"I also want to know about the pregnant toad, if only to hear the man cuss. There's something about standing behind a counter and watching someone cuss. I mean, call me a bitch, but most of the time, the cussing is worth it," she notes, smirking up some dimples.

Ravn shakes his head. "That one you get to ask Monaghan himself about. It's not a big deal -- unless you think the mental image is funny, that big bloke wearing nothing but a chef's apron, playing midwife to a faerie frog. He got awarded a handful of ancient Swedish coins for it, I think."

Oh oops. Spilled the beans. Sorry, not at all sorry, Seth.

Then he nods at Una. "I know how many doors suddenly opened to me when folks thought, even for a short while, that I was dating Hyacinth Addington. Names are a big deal. Whatever your grandmother did here, she can't have made a huge fuss. And Asshole Irving's fuss may not have quite gone down in modern recollection at least."

"I don't even know if my grandmother was... like us. It's the weirdest thing, to have found your family, and still know next to nothing."

Weird, but perhaps not as weird as a lot of things in Una's life; 'weirdest thing' is clearly an exaggeration. "Midwife to a faerie frog, though! That's amazing. If nothing else, this town is great for stories, isn't it? I mean, no big deal: I've been Zorro, a pop-star, an intrepid NGO worker, and the rest."

Asshole Irving. Ariadne brings her knuckles up to her lips again, slouching a little in her chair. Nope. Still doesn't ring a bell. Maybe she'll ask around the shop. Addington, this name she does know, though not well. It seems to carry a reputation by what Ravn shares.

"Ohhhhh, he was midwife. Okay, that makes more sense. Somehow. I'm not sure how, but it does," the barista admits. "Una's right though. Could have been worse. She made a great Zorro, quite dashing, cape go swish." A grin for Una. "I wish I hadn't been bucked off my horse, but hey, I had to learn that the narrative is an asshole sometimes."

"Could be worse," Ravn says with a lopsided smile. "You could know exactly who your family are, and that you probably wouldn't get along with any of them, ever."

Then he nods. "If nothing else, we learn to see a lot of things in different light? I've had a new appreciation for Robin Hood since I've been Maid Marian. Being a damsel in distress sucks."

"Try being an actual woman," Una quips, but at least it's very genuinely something she's laughing over. "Zorro was actually pretty cool, I agree. It's-- it's not all bad, right?"

Beat. "Okay, now I'm hungry. What say you to heating up Ariadne's dish, and maybe getting out the whiskey? I don't think I want to risk any more practice today. The rest of you," she's aiming her words towards the other starter pots on the window ledge, "are safe for now. But just for now!"