Episode: 4.8

--- Luna ---

“Green.” She stated, sticking her hand out.

“Oh, one second.” Ellie dug through the pile of crayons she’d scattered, before handing her one that was a shade of green. (Just not actually green…)

She glanced at her happily doodling twin, before sighing.

(It’ll do…)

She handed her first crayon over to Reginald the Ragdoll, a patchwork doll made of various clothes, with little rounded off bulb-y limbs, and about eight inches high. Once she was sure her little doll was set, she picked up the green crayon and began doodling a series of green circles with an extremely complex array of things inside them. A new series of Spell Circuits Allister had taught her, supposedly they were good for warding off the more annoying undead, ‘specifically the ones that try singing at four A.M.’ he’d told her.

From the front door Nico called, “I’m back!” before walking into the room and collapsing on the couch behind them. Their elder (she glanced at Nico’s ears) sister watched them for a moment, before sitting up with an odd look on her face. “So, what are you two up to munchkins?”

“Ooh, ooh, I’m drawing a, a family, uh…” Ellie trailed off trying to think of the word.

“Portrait.” She filled in with out looking up from her work.

“Yeah, that.” Her twin nodded.

“Cool.” Nico nodded, with a little less enthusiasm than usual.

She stopped drawing, blinked, then frowned.

“How about you, Loons?”

She hid her frown, before pulling up her pages and showing off the various spell formula and notes she’d written down. “I’m color coding a few experimental spell codes.”

Nico snorted, before muttering. “Almost wish you did that on purpose.”

She did do it on purpose, she just wouldn’t admit to it.

“But, uh,” Nico scratched her head. “wouldn’t color pencils be better for that than crayons?”

She stared at her elder sister for a moment. “I’m a kid, and crayons are cool to kids.”

That got a slight chuckle out of the older girl. “True enough.”

She watched Nico for a moment before standing.

“I’m thirsty.” She told them bluntly, before walking towards the kitchen, where Sol was cooking dinner at the stove top.

She stared at him from across the dining table, willing him to notice her and do as she mentally demanded. And of course, he purposely ignored her, since she wasn’t using her ‘words’.

(Bleh.) People should just be able to read her mind when she wanted them to. And she was working on a spell for that. One that based on her dolls’ findings, she was making rather good progress with.

But since he wanted her to talk, she walked right up to his side and began poking him until he paid attention to her, and her greatness.

Sol glanced down at her to let her know she had his attention, despite him stirring whatever was on the stove. “Yes, Moonbeam?”

“Nico is upset.”

Sol paused what he was doing, his blue eyes locking onto her with a little more focus than her siblings would notice.

“The situation?”

She shrugged. “Don’t know, but I told two jokes, and she’s still upset.”

Sol blinked, whether because she’d told a joke, or because Nico was still upset after that, she didn’t know.

“Alright, you head back. I’ll be there once I get to a stopping point.”

She turned to leave before pausing. She then turned back to Sol and started poking his side once more.

“You need something else?”

She pointed at the cabinet of cups too high for her to reach.

Sol gave her a huff of amusement before filling a glass and handing it to her.

“Anything else?”

She shook her head, and turned back to the living room, where she set her cup down and continued working on her Spell Codes, wondering if one could fix Nico’s problem.

As she began flitting through her grimoire, she noted Sol entering the room while drying his hands.

“Oh, hey sweetie…” Sol started before frowning. “What’s wrong?”

“Nothing.” Nico tried waving him off.

“You don’t look like nothing’s wrong.” Sol pointed out taking a seat on the other side of the couch.

“It’s…” Nico shook her head. “It’s not important.”

Sol shrugged. “Maybe it’s unimportant to you, but it might be important to me.”

“No, it’s…” Nico gave a frustrated groan, before running a hand through her long hair. “Maybell’s boyfriend broke up with her.”

“Oh?” Sol nodded, managing to sound fairly interested in the teenage drama.

(His acting skills are both awe inspiring, and terrifying.)

“Yeah, I mean that wouldn’t have been such a big deal normally. I mean they break up and get back together like every month, it’s just…” Nico trailed off, her voice a little self-conscious.

“It’s just…” Sol gently prodded, when she didn’t continue.

“It’s just he said some stuff about me, and… I don’t know, it’s messing with my head a bit is all…” Nico frowned, leaning into Sol’s side. “It wasn’t even anything that major but…”

“But he was your friend and he hurt your feelings.”

“Yeah…”

Well, that was more than enough for her.

Turning away from the conversation between father and daughter, she pulled her teddy bear backpack to her, and began digging through it for her… supplies.

(Let’s see… Bit of spider silk for binding a trap… Black button eyes to see through all lies… Recycled cloth to give new life…)

She handed the various things to Reginald the Ragdoll, accidentally knocking said doll over in the process, before pausing.

(Now what should I use for the stuffing…)

She gave it a moment of thought, before digging to the very bottom of her bag, trying to find one specific little box.

(Desert sand so good fortune may desert…)

Nodding to herself she pulled a needle out of her pocket and set to work, taking the various bits and bobbles from her doll. With a swiftness and skill unfound in any other child her apparent age, she stitched and weaved her components together, until after just a few short minutes she held a small patchwork ragdoll in her hands. And while this one weighed more, making it far less mobile than Reginald, that was more than okay, since it had a significantly different job.

(Now the which codes to set to the spell…)

She pulled out the book Sol gave her, and began flipping through the pages at the end, searching for just the right spell components.

(Hmm… Symbolic connection… Physical reflection… and, hmm…)

She paused, rereading the page, before doing a bit of mental math.

(That could work… but in that case I should avoid giving it sentience, and I need to…)

Shifting through her book she began to rapidly copy and draw a handful of spells, while burning, quite literally in some cases, through three different crayons.

Once she had a fairly sized stack of spell pages she stood up and moved to an umbrella stand next to the tv, only instead of holding umbrellas it held a number of large rolled up pages, each bound in a specifically colored rubber band. She began reaching for one with a light green band, before pausing and turning towards Reginald, who had a different opinion.

After watching the doll for a moment, she nodded.

(That is a very good point.)

Instead of grabbing the first page, she grabbed the page next to it, one wrapped in a dark green band, before walking back to the center of the living room where Ellie was still drawing.

She stood there for a moment, willing her twin to move.

Of course, her sister was horrible at twin-speak, so she resorted to a (not so) gentle kick in the side.

Ellie glanced between her, Reginald, and the rolled-up page, before piecing together what she wanted. She then gathered up all of her things into her arms, and then rolled over twice, littering the ground with stray crayons as she did so.

Luna watched as her sister continued to draw from her new position, completely unbothered by the loss of half her crayons, before sighing.

(It’ll do…)

Kicking aside the various stray crayons, she began rolling the page out, revealing a large Spell Circuit in the shape of a magic circle of old, and filled with a number of smaller circles and Arcane symbols she’d copied down for easy use later, or now as it so happened.

Being sure to have Reginald sit on the opposite side of her so it wouldn’t try to roll back up, she began arranging the various pages she’d pulled out, around the large Spell Circuit. That way each piece of spell code would chain into the next, giving her the desired effect in the end, while binding to her object of choice, Once this was done she picked up the sand filled doll she’d made, and placed it in the central circle of the circuit, so that it could be properly enchanted.

From behind her Sol was watching with the same mix of caution and calculation, she used whenever keeping an eye on one of Ellie’s… ‘adventures’. “Uh, Luna, I know magic isn’t my thing, but what I’m reading seems a little… dark, moonbeam.”

Completely unbothered by her parental figure’s completely justifiable and warranted worried tone… she placed both hands onto the larger paper and flooded it with a fairly large amount of magical power, after all she wanted the enchantment to last long enough to use.

Sparks flitted around the base spell circuit, sending chains of lighting between the various spell codes she’d laid out, and the ragdoll. Bit by bit the various writings of the spell code began to glow as the edges of each page began to burn. Slowly the glowing writing began to lift off of each page, before swirling around the ragdoll. Once all of the codes were in the air, their pages incinerated, the script exploded outward before rushing into the doll in a vortex of mystic scripts and lightning.

As the last of the script entered the doll, and all of the magic done, she stood and picked up the still sparking doll. Once her enchantment settled, she gave it a once over, before nodding to herself, and walking over to Sol and Nico.

“What’ve you got there, Loons?” Nico asked, as she (smartly) eyed the doll with a wary eye.

“It has a binding curse enchantment.” She explained reaching into her pocket, before pulling out a long needle. “Stab the stupid boy with this, then put it into the doll, any pain you cause the doll will be done to him instead.”

“I’m not sure that’s a good idea.” Sol plucked the needle from her. “You shouldn’t be using curses to solve your more… mundane problems.”

She glared at him, and he glared back.

As their gazes met, a clash of wills began. The kind of clash that upon her victory, would go down alongside the greatest of legends. The kind that would shake the heavens and make the very gods themselves quiver in fear. The kind that would leave the masses basking in the sheer glory of her victory, singing songs in her honor, as they told the tale of how she overcame a hurdle far greater than any woman, and man, before her…

Sadly, for her, this was not the day of her glorious victory.

Her eyes fell to the floor and she kicked her foot. “I just wanted to help Nico feel better…”

Sol cracked after less than a minute. “Alright, you can give Nico the doll, but I’m keeping the needle.”

She nodded at him with a grin.

(He really is weak to that family values junk.)

Nodding himself, Sol pocketed the needle as he stood, before turning to Nico. “And like I said, if you want me to have words with this boy, just let me know, sweetie.”

Nico gave Sol a soft smile. “That’s okay Sol, I can handle a bit of high school drama.”

She waited until Sol was gone, and out of earshot, before turning back to her elder sister. “The needle does absolutely nothing, and the curse still works. You just need to get a bit of the boy’s blood on the doll, and the spell will hurt him.”

Nico blinked, looking between her and the doll, something that made her fidget just a little bit.

“It’s not um,” Nico’s eyes flitted behind her briefly. “It’s not one of your ‘living’ dolls is it?”

She followed Nico’s gaze to where Reginald was once more drawing spell circuits for future use and reference. The little ragdoll paused and waved at them when it noticed her watching it.

“No, it’s not alive.” She confirmed. “I just wanted to make the jerk who hurt your feelings writhe in agony and hellfire for a few years.”

Nico stared at her for a moment before giggling. “Munchkin!” Nico lunged, dragging her into a hug and burying her face in Luna’s shoulder.

If anyone asked, she’d deny enjoying the hug.

“Group hug!”

Luna and Nico’s eyes shot wide open.

(Oh no.)

A little blonde girl tackled them with enough force to challenge an eighteen-wheeler, and more than enough force to flip their couch over.

“Whatever you girls just broke, you’re fixing it!”