The Kylie Coven System
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AotS Chapter 44.m - Arming Up
🕑 Added 2024-03-07 18:14:38 +0000 UTCAcceptance of the Self
Book 1: Attunement of the Hearts
Chapter 44.m - Arming Up
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Madelaine
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[ - Monday, September 16, 2019 - 9:32 am - Anderson House - ]
Ellie takes her time washing our hands in the porcelain sink of the Anderson's first floor bathroom. Her eyes are fixated on our reflection, staring into the mossy green irises of our physical face in the bathroom mirror above the sink. Our chin-length messy brown hair is held to either side of our face with little pink-colored hair clips, a new look that we’re trying today, and we’ve just finished shaving after our shower so our face is stubble-free.
I can't tell what Ellie's thinking, which is relatively unusual. I just get a vague impression that she's absorbed in thought about our reflection.
I settle back into my blue love seat and turn to my left to look at lulu, who's bouncing up and down on her sunny yellow armchair excitedly.
“I, get, a, comfy, chair!" she’s whispering to herself under her breath, bouncing with each word and looking down at the chair beneath her with wonder.
I get the feeling she's being quiet out of respect for Ellie's current reverie, and her thoughtfulness makes me feel all sorts of emotions, from sadness to happiness and a kind of sibling solidarity.
“Comfy, chair!" lulu whispers as she bounces away.
The sight is more than enough to melt my heart. The sadness and trauma lulu had endured in the past makes every moment of present happiness a miracle. lulu is a precious, precocious child that I must protect at all costs.
“Hey cutie," I whisper to her conversationally.
lulu looks over at me, not halting her bouncing. “Yes Maddie?”
I smile widely. “Do you like your chair?” I ask quietly.
“Yes yes yes! I do!” she says happily.
“Good,” I say, pausing a moment, before adding, “I bet you’ll have even more fun when you make your own headspace.”
lulu’s eyes widen, and she stops bouncing as her brow furrows in thought. “I get to make my own?” she asks incredulously, at normal volume.
“Yeah I’ve got mine, Ellie’s got hers, you should get one too, if you want it,” I reply softly, shifting so I’m facing her fully, one of my arms resting on the armrest in front of me.
“Ohmygoshohmygoshohmygosh,” lulu squeals with delight, “that would be the greatest thing ever!”
Then we’ll give you time and space to do that asap! Ellie says in thought-speak.
I turn to the viewing screen and see her grinning into the mirror as she finishes washing then drying our hands.
Absolutely, I think back at her and lulu, though realistically we may not get a quiet moment until after Sky’s free.
Ellie sighs externally while beside me lulu nods.
“Sky rescue comes first!” lulu says firmly.
Alrighty kiddo, Ellie thinks to us, causing lulu and I to focus on her once more, if you say so. We can always try and find a quiet moment to meditate and try to figure out how to dilate time in our head like Anne can?
“Hmm, true,” I say, which prompts lulu to turn in her seat so she’s facing toward me a bit more. I turn to meet her questioning green gaze. “You keep letting us know how you feel lulu, if you want your own space to disappear to that isn’t the background, we can set that up. I’m sure Ellie or I can help you do it, if you even need help.”
lulu nods, her face serious. “Thanks Maddie, I’m okay for now I think. It’s really weird having a body like this. I’m happy to just enjoy it and watch while you and Ellie do stuff.” she’s stopped bouncing and is instead kicking her feet a little, like a child, which she is.
I smile and reach over to gently tousle her hair a bit. “Okay kiddo,” I say lovingly.
she giggles as she ducks away from my hand.
Alrighty folks, time to see what goodies Claire’s brought us, Ellie announces as she turns and makes her way out of the bathroom.
Claire had arrived while we were using the facilities, we’d heard Jay welcome her in. Now Ellie walks into the front hall to find Vielet talking quietly on her phone in the living room while Claire, Jay, Aiden and Dawn speak softly in the kitchen.
Ellie gestures to Vielet, asking with her hands: you good?
Vielet nods and gives us a thumbs-up, so Ellie turns and heads to the kitchen. The door between the living room and kitchen is closed, likely out of respect for Vie’s privacy. When Ellie gets to the threshold of the kitchen she stops, staring at the scene before her.
Claire is unpacking her backpack at the far head of the table while Jay and Aiden watch from the north side of the table and Dawn watches from the south side. On the table before Claire there’s a pair of sea green sneakers, a handful of plastic baggies with what look like pride buttons inside, some sort of charm bracelet, and a trio of black felt baggies with drawstrings tying them closed. Claire fishes the fourth and apparently final felt bag out of her pack and zips it closed, turning her attention to the rest of the people in the room.
Ellie walks over to stand beside Dawn, her eyes fixated on the objects on the table.
“Ah ah ah!” Claire says, putting out a cautioning hand towards Dawn, who’s in the act of reaching for the sneakers. “No touchy, those are a dangerous and difficult-to-control artifact.”
Dawn’s eyebrows rise, as do Ellie’s.
“I assume you’ll give us the run down on the various dangerous artifacts you’ve brought into our home?” Aiden asks with a raised cyan eyebrow.
“Yes yes,” Claire replies, flapping a hand at him. “I’m getting to it!”
She leans in towards the center of the table and lowers her voice to a whisper. “Is it safe to talk with Vie here?” she asks.
Jay leans forward as well, a frown on his face. “We’re trying not to induct the girl into all of this madness if we can help it. She doesn’t know about the supernatural except for Ellie, Maddie and Anne’s situation.”
Dawn coughs, and Ellie radiates awkwardness as she hugs herself and glances down at the table in front of her.
“Well,” Dawn says reluctantly, “she might also know that Claire can do magic, we let that slip, but nothing else!”
Aiden sighs and Jay smiles, while Claire just laughs.
“That’s fine with me, hate lying,” Claire says.
“Well, we’ll make sure certain cats stay in the bag for now, for our fanged friends’ sake,” Aiden says with a wink.
“Right,” Jay agrees.
“In that case, allow me to enlighten you on the nature of the dangerous artifacts I’ve brought into your home,” Claire says with a playful smile.
She spreads her hands, blood red manicured nails flashing in the overhead light, to indicate the assembled objects, before leaning closer and narrowing the space between her hands until she’s pointing them at the seagreen with white laces sketchers.
“These are what I like to call the Sneakers of Speed, when worn they allow the user to travel at superhuman speeds, up to about a hundred miles an hour or so on level ground, I’ve measured it,” she explains.
Dawn whistles. “Damn, that’s fast.”
Jay and Aiden are nodding, Ellie's staring at the shoes in question with curiosity.
“Next we have the alter-self pins.” Claire spreads out the four baggies with various pride flag button pins out on the table. I recognize the trans flag, nonbinary flag, demigirl flag, and gender fluid flag.
Without preamble Claire says, “The way they work is you visualize the kind of person you want to look like, activate the pin with a drop of your blood, then the transformation will take place. A drop of blood from your transformed self on the pin anytime after it’s been used will bring you back to your original form.”
“So the transformation is permanent?” Aiden asks skeptically.
“No, it’ll wear off on its own after about eight hours, pin or no pin” Claire answers.
“Got it,” Jay says.
Claire nods, sweeps her fingers through her black-with-a-purple-streak hair, and continues, “next we have this lovely little charm bracelet!” She picks it up and holds it aloft, showing it to us all. On closer inspection the threaded blocky silver charms are composed of moons, clovers, hearts, bows and arrows, and a few letters that spell out ‘BYE’.
Claire smiles at it fondly. “This little baby will turn you completely invisible as long as you wear it and it has charge.” She sets it gently back down on the table and turns to the little felt baggies.
“Next we have...” she takes the first bag and digs inside for a moment, before grinning and pulling out... nothing. She’s just showing us her empty horizontal palm. “Ta-da!” she says cheekily. “Invisible earbuds! For communication!”
She carefully pinches the thumb and forefinger of her free hand onto the empty air above her palm and picks up nothing while moving the hand that had been horizontal as if she’s palming a small object. She fidgets with her invisible prizes for a moment, and then two small black ear buds are suddenly there clutched between her fingers.
Jay’s eyebrows rise. “Damn, I thought before invisibility was hard for you to get right?”
Claire rolls her eyes. “Yeah, when I was just starting out and had no idea what I was doing. Now, seventeen years into this craft, it’s significantly easier to get my enchantments to do what I want.”
Jay whistles appreciatively. “Nice.”
“Anyway, that’s about it,” Claire says, “these are us humans’ main legs up on the competition, probably? So we should make sure everyone’s familiar with them. Especially the charm bracelet and the earbuds, we should practice wearing them while not giving away that we’re wearing and using them.”
“Right,” Aiden says, “maybe we should do a scouting mission to somewhere innocuous this afternoon, like a restaurant or store or something?”
“That could work,” Claire replies. “When are our ‘fanged friends’ arriving?”
“‘Sometime in the afternoon’ is all that they would give me,” Aiden says with a disapproving tone.
Claire snorts. “Great. Well it’s nearly ten am, what do you all want to do with our day of prep?”
Aiden puts a hand to his chin. “I need to get my computer plugged in to Mazon’s network and get their security feeds patched through to the rest of our devices so the kids can keep watch. I’ll need a second pair of hands for that.”
Dawn nods, stepping closer to the table. “I’m your girl,” she says.
Aiden smiles and reaches across the table with a hand raised. Dawn mirrors him, and they enthusiastically hi-five. I catch a glimpse of Jay looking at Aiden with the same sort of love that Ellie’s staring at Dawn with, and I smile widely as I settle into my mental love seat more comfortably.
Jay’s the next to speak. “I’m going to get our disguises sorted out with Deirdre once she gets here, I’ll be upstairs researching good leads for that in the meantime.”
There are nods all around.
“So that just leaves you folks and me,” Claire says, appraising us with her red gaze. She’s got a playful smirk on her face.
Ellie gulps. “Yeah, it sure does,” she says.
“You kids have fun,” Dawn says with a wink at us. Then she moves to stand by the exit to the front hall and waits for Aiden.
Ellie blushes, but doesn’t comment. She just watches as Aiden, Jay, and Dawn all move out of the kitchen over the next few minutes, off to their respective tasks.
And then we’re alone with Claire.
“So,” she says, hands on her hips as she looks us up and down, “Want to learn some magic, this-world style?”
I feel Ellie grin eagerly. “Yes please!" she says.
End of
Chapter 44.m - Arming Up
Comments
PurpleCatGirl
omg lulu is adorable & precious & we love her!! we also love Claire & want her to visit us with a bag of magic goodies too lol yay for Ellie learning magic! and anxious kitty noises for the impending rescue mission!!
