bruises

As usual, I've had such a crowded week that I'm writing up parts of my diary belatedly. (I've been smoking around quite a bit, making arrangements to relocate.)

/firewall on - firewalled from those who may do harm - see now these words, obey this charm.

Morrigan and I hardly ever seem to be in Sunnydale at the same time, but we bumped into each other today and started to exchange some news. Then I noticed something that surprised me. She had rings of mottled bruising around both wrists; the purple was just starting to yellow. I must have been hanging around with the Motley Crew types for much too long, because my very first thought was that she'd been in a fight. It was only when she blushed when I asked about them that the obvious explanation hit me.

(Well, I suppose everybody's played tying-up games at some time, but it looked as though this hadn't involved a couple of strips of silk and the "80 shades of chocolate" stuff that they sell in the next dimension. Even handcuffs wouldn't have made marks like that. The bruises had an ugly, mottled look, as though either thumbs or links of heavy chain had ground against bone. Not my idea of fun, but at my age I've heard it all and tried most of it - that kind of game just ain't something I'd try twice.

Any empath who'd ever been past the Turner residence could have told you that Cole and Phoebe are into tie-up games and more - the duet can get loud. I'd never thought of the Morrigan as swinging that way, but legend said that she was just the type.)

Morrigan said that she couldn't remember how she got the marks. I probably wouldn't have said anything more, but she was fidgeting with her shirt while she was speaking and I thought she had trouble moving her thumb - so I just mentioned in passing that sometimes humans get a bit ... over-enthusiastic ... and she might want to ask her boyfriend to - well, I ain't into being tactful. I'm pretty sure I didn't say, "be a bit more laid-back about things", but I don't really know. I was interrupted by Cole Turner himself. Of course, he'd heard the wrong part of it and started asking Morrigan whether my talking about her "boyfriend" meant she'd got a secret relationship with whoever had given her the bruises!

It would have been great stuff for a Gig. Anything I said seemed likely to make matters worse - I could practically smell the smoke. Then I remembered I'm stuck here in Sunnydale and making sure they know I'm lore-abiding...

I glanced at the watch I hadn't been wearing a second or three earlier and prepared to be on my way, but Turner actually confronted me! It was tempting to leave him thinking that Morrigan was having some kind of affair that everyone knew about but him, but those types make bad enemies. So I just told him straight that when I'd used the word "boyfriend" to Morrigan I'd meant him. He went straight into the pose that an ex-dancing-partner of mine used to call "all balls and shoulders" - in his case it's fire-balls, of course...

To do Turner justice, he calmed down straight away when I pointed out that I was concerned about Morrigan. He started talking about how concerned about her he was himself. He meant it, too - you couldn't miss that even without the mojo. The weird thing is that Morrigan says that she woke up with the injuries and doesn't know how she got them. Dammit but I wanted to make them sing about it - but I was on my way to see ...{Firewall intensifies}

So, at that point Turner and I both realised that we were over-due to be elsewhere. I stepped into a shop doorway and smoked off, so I don't know where their conversation went from there.

/firewall ends/ ....

Minor Mischief.

I've been checking out the dimensional portals for a few weeks now, because it looks as though I'm going to have to bring the computer into Sunnydale to get it fixed. There's no way to smoke that over so I'd either have to use a portal or some kind of shipping. Given what I've been hearing about computers and portals the best way might be to take it in that way, but then ship it out if I had to.

The portal that Yuffie was probably taking if he was landing in Guam actually looks pretty stable - from what I hear it only re-routes to there during thunderstorms, and it hasn't been known to re-route to anywhere too nasty -not lately, anyway. There's a US network that will take you all over the place and I'd stopped off just outside LA for lunch.

/firewalled against Cole Turner.

This time, someone used the live talisman with the amber charm - that's about like a ringing cellphone. That almost had to be Astraeia, (I'd shown her how to use the two charms in combination a couple of days after I found out that the talisman is live - I'd hoped that any talismans that were around had been turned off from base, or at least separated from the invocation. The whole lore set-up means that I can't just collect any I can find and lock them up.) Anyway, the call came from just down the road from the cafe and I was quite curious about what she was doing in the LA area - if it was another rescue she was likely to need help fast, so I smoked straight over.

When I got there I found Astraeia and the Morrigan together. The only thing I could think of was that there might be more trouble with the Starlady's psycho-double, but it turned out that they meant to cause some mischief at Wolfram and Hart and needed to make sure that Cole wouldn't recognise Astraeia.

That was easy enough, Morrigan had a picture of her sister Maeve on the desk and casting a glamour to make Astraeia look very like her was a two-second job. I hyped it up to increase the likeness to Morrigan, too - Turner's quite fond of her and that likeness should have given him a helluva inhibition against harming her "sister". Magic always has a price, but this was minor stuff, and I warded off any bad vibes by telling Astraeia she'd be paying in free drinks. It's not often that they charge me for anything in Willy's anyway. It's one of the things that I like about the place - it's not a matter of the money, it's the implication that I'm welcome.

I wasn't sure what they'd be doing so it wasn't just a surface veneer; I put the makeover quite firmly in place. Apparently Astraeia hadn't asked Joan about her hair, because she suddenly seemed to realise that she didn't know how long her new look was going to last. Of course, I'm not sure either - not in this dimension, anyway. Usually all the glamours and illusions are still running when I leave - I've got no way to know how long they last after that. It might have been interesting to find out, but it the end we arranged that she'd activate the charms again when she wanted the look removed.

I smoked out quite soon after that - their idea of mischief wasn't likely to be my idea of entertainment and I've been restless for the last couple of days. Maybe I missed something, though, the nudge to remove the glamour came much later than I expected - or maybe she'd just decided to surprise Willy. I was in a different time-zone by then, anyway, and I didn't bother to work out how long it'd actually been.