our real estate is a great investment

[cross_and_bow]

"Welcome to Sunshine," says Juliet. "And to my front porch and whatever you do don't hit the light, it'll set Sherlock on fire."

Comments

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet takes the wand out of Shell Bell's hand. The octopus stays, although she doesn't try to move its tentacles or retain the colors, just focuses on the shape and place and woodfire-warmth and that it should not consume fuel.

[eversomuchfun]

That is fun. Sherlock smiles.

[cross_and_bow]

Juliet slowly adds spots of hotter colored fire to a few places on the octopus, and then starts moving its arms in a coordinated pattern, although she doesn't combine this with swimming it through the air. She maintains this for five minutes and then loses it with a gasp of temporarily forgotten air.

"Hard, though," she mutters.

[eversomuchfun]

"Fun things often are."

[cross_and_bow]

"It's true." She makes a more modest shape - a snake - and starts flying it around over the water, rippling patterns of heat/color along its length and undulating it in a sine wave. She manages a minute and a half. "I think I'm getting tired."

[she_sells_seashells]

"Don't operate the wand tired," says Shell Bell at once. "I'll take us home." And she does.

[eversomuchfun]

"What special terrors occur if you operate the wand tired? Or are you just more likely to fuck it up?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"More likely to fuck it up, less likely to notice right away if it goes out of control," says Shell Bell. "I don't have any permanent scars but I did have to dive into the sea a couple of times."

[eversomuchfun]

"Aha."

[cross_and_bow]

"I will avoid wanding when I'm tired," says Juliet. "Unless it's an emergency and I have at least one square on me. Square can probably conjure a fire extinguisher or just outright kill the flame if it splits up out of control, right?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"Yes, unless it's really huge, then you might need a couple," says Shell Bell. She's been continuously bending various fingers backwards throughout all this time; her hands would certainly be swollen with accumulated distress at this point if it weren't for her regen.

[cross_and_bow]

Come Monday morning, the Bells return to school after the usual stop at the morgue. (Vampires take long enough to rise, and there are few enough of them in Sunnydale now anyway, that Juliet has scaled back her visits to Monday-Wednesday-Friday only.) After Juliet's first classes, there is study hall in the library.

"I busted some demon nests in L.A. with a mask on and scent in the room killed, let a few go, made sure they saw me teleport, and started learning to use Shell Bell's fire wand that she's going to leave here for me," Juliet chirps to Mr. Giles after a check for bystanders.

[pythbox]

"I bought you a house," is how Giles chooses to return this greeting. "It's officially in my name, but you can do what you want with it, since I assume that turning part of it into a training area is on the agenda."

[cross_and_bow]

"Yup. Install the AI, have Sherlock move in, beat each other up in it, when I'm good enough with the wand that I don't have to practice on the beach I can do that there too." Pause. "Shell Bell, do you think squares could conjure copies of arbitrary demonology books?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"I could probably conjure a copy of Johanna Mason's unauthorized biography," says Shell Bell, "even though this universe doesn't have any copies and I have never read it before, so I assume demonology books that have actually been written in Sunshine would only be easier."

[pythbox]

Giles looks stunned.

Then he says, very rapidly and intently, "Can I write you up a list?"

[she_sells_seashells]

"Uh, sure," says Shell Bell, amused.

[cross_and_bow]

"Try it on one book first, to make sure it works," snorts Juliet.

[pythbox]

He rattles off a title as though he has been waiting for this day all his life.

[she_sells_seashells]

Shell Bell switches from bending her finger to biting her cheek, so that she can catch the conjured book and present it to him. "Is this what you were looking for?"

[pythbox]

"Yes it is," he says, and immediately hauls out pen and paper to start composing that list.

[cross_and_bow]

"Er, please do remember that Shell Bell's only here for a finite amount of time, can make only a finite number of squares, and every book you request will cost a square of its own," says Juliet. "I might or might not find another me with mint powers before I run out even if I only use them for emergencies, since Slayers encounter, you know, lots of emergencies. And the squares and the fire wand are the only safe magic we have access to right now."

[pythbox]

"That," he says without looking up from the page, "is why I am not just naming titles as fast as I can think of them."

[she_sells_seashells]

"It's not any more expensive to conjure a big book than a small one, so if any of them might have been omnibused or otherwise combined..."

[cross_and_bow]

"Your conservatism is appreciated, Mr. Giles," says Juliet.