kismet_loop_logs | because this guy has a GREAT track record with fire...

because this guy has a GREAT track record with fire...

Who: Sam and Hiro
Where: Their hip happening bachelor(ette) pad
When: post-April-Fool's-effects (April 20th-ish)
What: COOKIES also Hiro clarifying a few things
Warnings: Excessive amounts of cookies and sad attempts at baking

Years of watching sitcoms about people in wacky roommate situations had not adequately prepared Hiro for the reality of living with someone. All right, yes, granted, he'd never so much "watched" them as "begged Aunt Cass to stop watching them and let him change to channel to something with monsters or robots", but still -- this never happened to people on TV.

"This" being a sad, well-meant but poorly executed attempt at baking. The butter was a solid lump in the middle of the mixing bowl, the vanilla smelled amazing but tasted nasty, and most of the flour was spread over the counters and in Hiro's hair, and he was way too young to rock the grey-haired look. He may have been a certified genius, but when it came to baking, he was absolutely hopeless.

"Stupid space cookies," he muttered, glaring at the congealed mess in the mixing bowl. That was a good plan, blame Haven for his mishaps, rather than taking responsibility. That miiiight not work too well once Sam returned home, however, especially not when Hiro took into account what Dirge had said.

A witch. Sam was a witch. A witch who could apparently curse people (though Hiro wasn't too sure how much faith he should put into a conversation had between talking about robotic tongues) if she was mad enough. Would the total destruction of her (their?) kitchen be enough to make her that mad?

Hiro exhaled slowly, wiping baking soda off his face. Well, that was that. He was going to spend the rest of his life as a newt. At least until Sam needed his eyes for some secret deadly potion. A dismal end to a dismal day.

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The line between 'traitorous' and 'pragmatic' was one easily blurred, but Sam offered the little robot an approving nod; it seemed to know the score.

"Ten percent." The answer came easily, almost immediately. As if it were only to be expected, Sam shrugged and started to scrub at the nearest sticky smear. "Next question?"

Hiro doesn't even remotely notice, but the blender wiggles just slightly at the nod. It is an older and wiser Blenderbot, not to fear~

Have a moment of blinking, then a thoughtful nod, as Hiro replaces the mop and goes to dip one of the clean(ish) rags into the soapy water. Gooey counters, beware! "Sort of a follow-up -- is that approximate? Or exactly?"

"Oh, approximate." Sam's crooked smile surfaced again, her tone almost teasing as she took up a towel. "And as the song says; 'ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, fifteen percent concentrated power of will, five percent pleasure, fifty percent pain.' So, roughly speaking."

Sam. Sam, you were doing so well and sounding so cool what with the magic and everything. And now you've ruined it all for a rap song from 2005.

Hiro just sort of stands and stares for a moment, then says: "That song is like fifty years old."

The secret was out---while Hiro's feet were his weakness, Samantha Patchowski, sole skin-witch of Haven, occasionally indulged in rap music. It was a guilty pleasure, but in spite of that fact (and in spite of the boy's stare, and in spite of the fact she really should've been sorry) the adept did not seem to regret even one word. She didn't apologize or offer an excuse, but only admitted, "I'm surprised you placed the song at all, honestly."

Hiro will need some time to fully accept this turn of events. His view of reality has been altered, and the only thing left to do is reconsider everything he knows about the world.

But he'll nod, grimly, helping himself to another cookie (or three) to help him through this trying time. "My aunt has weird taste," is his only explanation.

Funny how a rap song from 2005 could shake one's worldview after aliens and apports became commonplace. Sam would've been impressed, if she had an idea of the extent of it; impressed, and amused, as it was magic far more than Fort Minor pulling paradigms apart.

"Be that as it may, I'm sticking to my story. It basically is what magic breaks down to, give or take the odd component." She wiped the counter dry and tossed her towel to the floor, pushing it along with one foot. "Sometimes, a person will need certain stuff. My first month here was more like one long scavenger hunt, cause I had a communication ritual I had to at least try. That, that could be a demo, but it's one of those things that takes all afternoon. Other options..."

She made a noncommittal noise, and switched feet.

"The showier stuff is not so nice, and the useful stuff is not so showy. I normally ask if somebody has a birthmark or some sort of scar they aren't attached to, and take it off."

Magic and aliens and murderous boars are one thing. Songs his aunt listened to are something else entirely. Hiro's going to hop back up onto the clean counter with his cookie stash, and consider his options, now.

"Hm...useful is cool, though. I mean, it's all magic, so I'm not gonna complain...you can get rid of scars? Really?"

"I don't want to sound like I'm full of myself, but it is cool." Now noticing Hiro had even more cookies in hand, Sam tilted her head. "Off-topic; I know you're a teenager and everything, but bapteme; promise me you won't puke, not till there's a need of it. Aside aside, sure. Scars are easy. And if a wound is shallow, I can close it up like it wasn't ever there, even if it was inflicted only a minute earlier."

Hiro rolls his eyes, because he is, indeed, a teenager, but he nods. "I promise to bap-teeem not puke. Last time I puked from regular food was when I ate 13 slices of pizza and then chased my brother around the garage for the 14th." Then, wait for is... "Whaddya mean "need of it", anyways?"

This has Hiro thinking seriously, then rolling up his sleeve to show a relatively new (probably inflicted just before he arrived) mark on his left arm. "Like this one?"

The admission was enough Sam just studied her housemate for a long moment, before stepping over to have him well within arm's reach. Frowning thoughtfully, she braced herself, took hold of Hiro---a hand under each arm---and briefly lifted the boy as if assessing. "I have to ask, how did you hold it all, even temporarily? And how long ago was this last time? Given how someone your age would've grown in even something like six months..."

Damn, son.

"I mean just that; need of it. I know a ritual which requires a person's puke." Her tone suggested that there was nothing very strange about this, though she couldn't quite stay straight-faced. "And yeah, so if it would work for you..."

Sam glanced Hiro's face before turning her attention back to the mark, having barely eyed it in her initial appraisal. She didn't pay it much extra attention, but reached out to wipe it away with her thumb, the way someone would wipe away smudged dirt. It went the way dirt would've, leaving Hiro's arm unblemished and otherwise unremarkable.

Hiro is teensy-tiny, probably less than a hundred pounds soaking wet, so it's probably nothing at all for Sam to lift him, however briefly. He seems cool with it, too, just continues eating his cookies like he gets picked up every day, shrugging in response to her question. "I have a really high metabolism? Plus I don't sleep a lot, so I burn it all off pretty quickly. I've only grown like, two inches in the past year, though." Cue a woeful, but resigned look.

He's still reeling from the idea of a puke ritual, so he barely notices the removal of the mark until it's already over. Then he's looking down, doing a frankly comical double take, then reaching up to touch his arm, almost hesitantly. "...woah."

"Silver lining if that stays your standard? According to a real bouncer I used to know, thin little dudes tend to be able to go till they're basically burger. Your frame and metabolism would be worrisome. Not sure I shouldn't say 'are.'" With that--70% teasing, 30% truth---Sam stepped back, crossing her arms to wait and watch Hiro's reaction. The boy didn't disappoint; she couldn't stop herself smiling, even aware of the bars she'd burnt to work her little witchery.

"Abracadabra."

"So I can get into tons of bar fights?" Hiro, no, that's not something you should be this excited about. You will get in no bar fights, and that's that.

Have Hiro leaning forward, frowning at Sam. "How...how did...you didn't even say anything! Did you just...think it?"

"No." It wasn't even close to a question, but something in Sam's voice suggested where did you ever get that idea? "You shouldn't even be getting into bars. You're fourteen. When you are of age, you still shouldn't be getting into bar fights, but if you should find yourself scrapping, larger opponents will underestimate you and tire far faster. Or so the dude would probably say."

The adept's smile shifted, satisfaction showing through. "That's not too far from the truth, maybe. It's a push, but... pushing something you can't quite touch. Does that make some sense?"

The nightclub scene is popping in the future, Sam, jeez. "That's totally what I meant. Should the situation call for it. And as long as there are no me-sized lockers nearby." A pause, then: "Who's "the dude"?" Oh Hiro, honey...

This gets a frown, then a slow nod. "Sort...of? In a really nonsensical way?"

"Right, right, right. Somehow, I've got this feeling that your 'called-for' criteria is a little liberal." Sam hoisted herself onto the counter to sit beside Hiro once again, and to indulge in another elbowing. "The bouncer dude. I'm not sure that I ever actually got his name, though that doesn't have a whole lot of bearing on our here-and-now."

She leaned back, swinging her feet as she turned the problem of actually explaining over as if it were an object in her hands. After a minute or two spent silent, her heels bumping against a storage drawer, Sam shrugged. "It makes more sense than it seems to, but I have this sinking feeling that trying to explain how wouldn't help. I'll try if you want me to, though."

Now that his anxiety/cooking fit is mostly over and done with, Hiro's starting to feel a little tired, and much more amiable to this teasing and elbowing. Provided, of course, it doesn't make him drop his cookies. So he'll bump Sam back, gently, thumping his heels against the cabinets as well and thinking over the offer.

"...I guess I don't really need to understand. It's not something like calculus that'll make sense if you diagram it, right?"

"I don't know that anyone could diagram it, with the possible exceptions populating Lovecraft's short stories But..." She paused, before heaving a heavy sigh. "I realize now that I've gone about this wrong, with trying to explain the why as if it were the how. The two are tied up in each other, but the mostly-how half of what I might manage is more straight-forward. Sort of. It's something between 'sympathetic' and 'blood' magic, if that means anything to you...?"

The 'if' didn't imply anything---it was only an issue of establishing context.

"I had to read those for an English class," Hiro offers, off-handedly, making himself a cookie sandwich (which is a cookie between two other cookies, obvs). Then he frowns, almost choking on his delicious sandwich.

"...blood magic?"

"Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." Sam did her best to deadpan the words, sounding as serious as anyone could while navigating their crowded consonants. Her tone held as long as anyone who knew her should've expected, which was to say not very; it was back to casual-conversational in her answering "Yeah."

She paused to regard Hiro with a mild and momentary concern. Once she was certain he'd manage his mouthful, she continued, speaking as if the idea of blood magic wasn't really remarkable. "'Blood magic' is... kind of a wide term, because it can be referring to magic that has a direct effect on flesh-and-blood workings, or to magic that involves blood---like if you had to have something written in it for a ritual---or magic something or someone had to hurt for. But that latter kinda encompasses the other uses of it, so it's kind of like a three-way Venn diagram with one circle almost eclipsing the others."

"Yeah, that." Obviously having something as required reading doesn't automatically mean that Hiro absorbed it. Even awesome elder gods become boring when they're forced, after all.

Now that they're talking about serious weird things like blood magic, Hiro slows down his cookie intake to one at a time, crossing one ankle over the other. "Sooo...which one do you do?"

"A little of column A, a little of column C, but it's all in the overlap. An honourable mention goes to column B as the ritual which needs a person puking---as it was first presented to me---included a bit of blood which turned out to be not actually necessary. But, uh, that's beside the point." Sam turned up her palms, side-eyeing the Nth cookie sacrificed to Hiro's insatiable appetite for sweets. "A and C it is."

She left it at that, waiting for Hiro to ask what he would.

How many cookies are left at this point? It's anyone's guess. The only reason Hiro isn't actually licking the cookie sheet clean of crumbs is because he can't reach it from his perch on the counter. T

There's a pause before he asks his next question, this one posed quieter, accompanied by Hiro looking down at his feet. Despite this, the anxiety that was present when Sam first walked into the kitchen is completely gone. He's nervous, certainly, but not afraid. "Whose...blood do you use?"

'Whose blood do you use?' was a variation of what she'd expected to hear: Who's getting hurt?

"It's all mine. My blood, my ink. I wasn't just joking in listing 'fifty percent pain' as a part of what makes up my magic---but don't get bent out of shape over it. It's just that when you asked about my tattoos being magic, you weren't far from the mark." Sam smiled a little, following Hiro's gaze to his toes. "It's not the tattoos themselves, but that they're there. Every one I incorporate allows me to manage a little more. My superficiality changes a little, I can... kind of capitalize on the ripple, direct it to almost echo in a sort-of superficial change in the world outside myself."

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i missed this how???

i missed u

i r back 4ever~

\o/

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