Isabella Marie Swan ✝ &quot;Juliet&quot;

"You're doing really good. If you want tendrils like that, try to find a way to think of the shape in a higher-level abstract pattern," says Shell Bell, "move a few of them in parallel if you can, or lean them all counterclockwise at once, or whatever."

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Sherlock listens with interest.

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Practice continues, and Juliet improves considerably, although when she hands the wand back to Shell Bell and asks for a demo, she's blown away by the fire-octopus Shell Bell has dancing through the air, all different colors informed by the heat of the flame.

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"You can get this good," says Shell Bell. "It'll just take practice. And you don't need it for lightshows, anyway," she adds as her octopus swims in a lazy bright circle. "Just for fighting. I could cook swimming minnows reliably after just a couple of months practicing half an hour a day on average. And it's not like it's boring, is it?"

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"Not boring," agrees Juliet. "If I swipe the wand from you now does the fire go uncontrolled or just out?"

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"If I drop the wand, it goes uncontrolled. I'm not sure what happens if I hand it off. Try taking it, the octopus is over the ocean now, no real danger."

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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.

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That is fun. Sherlock smiles.

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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.

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"Fun things often are."

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"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."

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

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

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"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."

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"Aha."

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"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?"

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"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.

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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.

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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."

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"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?"

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