Active Magic (TatlTails and othyrworld)

Oh god, the fairy was throwing up. Oh god that wasn't good, well it wasn't life-threatening but it certainly wasn't good! Flora was probably gonna hate Madi for this and get all closed-off and be less willing to rehabilitate and oh god she'd really fucked up hadn't she? She tried to apologize for it, but she was freaking out so much that whatever came out of her mouth just sounded like gibberish. Her panicking only lessened to the point of shutting up when Sequoia started handling the issue (and subsequently losing her shirt for it.)

During all of this, Dagger had just hopped out of her arms, walked up to the front door, and transformed in order to unlock it. He didn't speak at all until just after the whole issue started to calm down, upon which point he opened the door.

"Now that your little incident is over with," He called out, pointedly avoiding looking directly at Sequoia because he wasn't a fucking pervert thank you very much. "Inside we have bathrooms, a laundry room, and fresh clothes, so if you would..."
 
Sequoia glared at him, deciding that she was going to do her best to stay annoyed at him for however long they stayed here. Flora mouthed 'be nice' to her with a pointed look, so Sequoia turned tail and ran into the house. She was so ready to get her hands on new clothes! Back at the circus, all they got were glorified potato sacks and itchy costumes that left her with blisters in uncomfortable places. As soon as she found the fresh clothes that had been laid, she began tearing through them.

Flora seemed more hesitant, thanking Madi for taking them in and quietly asking Dagger for directions to the bathroom. She still felt a bit queasy, and she knew that if Sequoia found something that would fit her she would set it aside.
 
The "laid out" fresh clothes were technically a large cardboard box stuffed with all shapes, sizes, and colors of comfortable loungewear. No tags, so they were all likely hand-sewn. On the side of the box was a little post-it note that said "If nothing fits, ask for Jacqueline" in pretty cursive handwriting.

Madi could only nod at Flora as she passed, and attempt to calm herself down because holy crap she'd worked herself up way too much over this. Dagger, on the other hand, had silently taken up Sequoia's challenge. If she wanted to remain petty, then two could play at that game. But Flora was less of an issue, and at least attempting to be polite. Plus he didn't want her vomiting again unless it was in a bathroom, so he jerked his head over at the stairwell and told her "Up the stairs, second door on the right."
 
Flora nodded with a quick 'thank you' and hurried off into the bathroom. her stomach felt much more present, and she didn't feel like she was in danger of vomiting, so she drank a few handfuls of the water from the tap and walked to the clothes room, were Sequoia had pulled out quite a few different shirt skirt and dresses. She was staring intently at a cream-colored blouse and a pleated black skirt. She looked up when Flora entered and gestured to the name written on the box.

"We'll need to ask about Jaqueline, Flo. There's nothing here that'll fit your wings." Flora nodded. It was a common problem, so much so that she'd resorted to letting Sequoia slash holes in her circus issued shirts. Sequoia startled, reaching behind her and throwing a pair of leaf green pants at her. "These would look really good on you though, so try them on." She kept staring at the outfit on the ground before she suddenly threw it on, using her magic to burn the circus issued clothes. Smoke swirled lazily around the room while Flora pulled on the pants.
 
While the newbies sorted themselves out, Dagger just dragged Madi into the house so she would snap herself out of the socially-anxious mess she'd put herself in. It had mostly worked by the time they saw smoke leaking out of the cracks in the girls' closed door.

Smoke wasn't usually too much cause for panic in this house, Madi made enough potions and Luke cooked enough weird foods that it was actually a relatively common occurance to see a bit of smoke floating around. But when it was coming from the same room as two people who had been prisoners and basically slaves only minutes before?

Yeah no, that required immediate attention.

Probably not the best idea to approach the situation by banging on the door and yelling "What the hell is going on in there?!" But Dagger was not one to waste time with pleasantries. At least not when there was potential danger involved.
 
Flora grinned at her friend, tossing her old pants into the blaze that was filling the room and scrambling through the piles for a shirt that would replace the one destined for the blaze. She eventually settled on a plain mossy green t-shirt that she let Sequoia burn wing holes in. It felt good to get rid of the last vestiges of the circus, as if they were burning away the past and all the violence they'd been forced to take on.

"I think we might want to crack open a window or something," She advised, barely able to see through the thick smoke that had begun seeping from under the doorframe. If they let it continue to collect, they might start to suffocate, and both girls had had enough pain to last a lifetime.
 
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Dagger had only hesitated to open the door in the first place because he had no idea if those girls had finished changing clothes or not. But when they decided not to deign giving him a response of any kind when there was smoke pouring out from under the door, small courtesies like that were immediately forfeited. So he had Madi unlock the door (because repairing it would be unnecessary work), and kept her behind him as he burst into the room.

It only took him a moment to see the blazing pile of rags just sitting on the floor and slowly disintegrating, and only one more moment to demand "What the hell do you two think you're doing?!"
 
Sequoia gave a little screech of surprise when the door was thrown open, making Flora jump and turn a full 180 so she could face the people coming in. Cat boy asked his question, and Sequoia automatically spat out the first thing that came to mind. "A cathartic act of rage?"

Flora facepalmed. Why did Sequoia always do this? She seemed content to stay in the room and argue, but Flora grabbed her by the ear and dragged her out into the hall. At least they could get some fresh air while Sequoia antagonized one of their saviors. She did her best to smooth things over. "We were...purging." She frowned when Sequoia whispered 'Purr-ging' while staring Dagger in the face, but continued. "We were getting rid of the-" She swallowed down the surge of bile that rose in her throat "-circus."
 
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...Dagger really wanted to kill something right now. Preferably the Fates? Whoever it was who dropped him into this situation where he most definitely was not allowed to kill these girls? Madi was squeezing his arm so hard it was going numb, so he knew she could tell how pissed he was. Which meant the girls could probably tell (especially the one who felt so little guilt that she was making goddamn cat puns at him), so for the sake of his pride he swallowed his wrath. Deep breath, just don't look at them for a moment. You have the self-control to handle this diplomatically, so goddammit you will.

It was still a solid thirty seconds before he spoke, but when he did, it only sounded a bit murderous. "Next time you want to 'purge' something," He informed Flora, pointedly ignoring Sequoia, "Please just do it outside. We're trying to avoid giving people heart attacks here."

While he was speaking, AKA only after it was clear he was not immediately going to commit murder, Madi snuck in the room and sealed the still-burning remains in a bubble, sending them out the freshly-opened window. It could finish being destroyed out there, while she made sure the floor wasn't too damaged and the fire hadn't spread.
 
Flora frowned but nodded, miffed but understanding. She would have been mad if she hadn't done the exact same thing in the past. Still, Dagger seemed to be far too easily angered to live in a house that housed people suffering from traumatic pasts. She filed away his rage as a warning to not let Sequoia do any experiments inside. Unluckily for her, she was too busy categorizing things inside her head to prevent Sequoia from speaking her mind.

"Excuse you! I don't know where you're from, so I won't insult myself by making rude remarks, but I just escaped from what I can consider my own personal hell, so before you think about being your pissy, self-righteous self, take a few seconds to get it through your thick skull that those shirts are still covered in my and Flora's blood. Our blood! We have suffered so much more than most people could ever imagine, so why don't you let us get rid of the worst ten years of our entire lives before we start turning to things more dangerous to everyone!" She stopped her rant, breathing heavily. Flora grabbed her hand, squeezing comfortingly, and reached over to give the 'everything will be okay' signal. A brief reminder that they would always have each other's backs.
 
Dagger considered it either a miracle or a sign of a decade's worth of mental conditioning that he didn't respond to Sequoia's venting even more viciously than she had. He wasn't so blind that he couldn't see the value they saw in what they'd done. But like hell did that mean he was going to accept their subsequent lapses in judgement, in his house.

"Like I said before," he told Sequoia, refusing to raise his voice and give her a reason to work herself up even more. "I don't give a shit that you did what you did. I give a shit that you did it in the most dangerous way possible. We're trying to save lives here, not end them. Yours included. That means we would prefer if you didn't get yourselves killed mere moments after 'escaping your personal hell'. That is my entire side of this argument. Though if I were you, I would hesitate to imply that I have no idea what you've been through."

"D-Dagger..." Madi called out mid-restoration spell, knowing even from the other room that it was best he shut up now.
 
And just like that, Flora decided it was time for her to start talking. Something about the way Dagger phrased things made her anxious to play her usual role and smooth over and refine what Sequoia had said. Sequoia took a deep breath as if she were about to spit out another paragraph of angry words when Flora stepped up to the proverbial bat, ready to defend her closest friend.

"Yes, but Sequoia said she wasn't going to remark on your past, and she avoided talking about things you went through. I understand that you may not want us setting fire to things, but I will tell you that the situation was well in hand. We were about to open a window to let all the smoke out, and if you look inside you'll see that only our previous clothes are burnt. I will say that I think you may be approaching this situation with more anger than it necessitates, but I'm sure there are reasons for that, so I'll forgive it for now." Sequoia squeezed her hand in thanks, a look of open affection in her eyes.
 
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The change in energy was palpable when Flora stepped up to the argument. While Dagger still had plenty of counterarguments to the justifications she tried to make (some including "why didn't you open the window before you set shit on fire if everything was so under control?" and "you're the ones who tried to burn our house down and you're the one forgiving me?"), he was just barely inclined not to voice them. Because at least this one was trying to be a decent person here. He was a lot less willing to be nicey-nice with someone who'd been ungrateful and pissy towards him since the moment they'd met, trauma or no trauma.

Luckily for everyone, this was the point when Madi stepped back out into the hall. She just took one look at the situation, sighed, and told the girls as gently as she could "J-just b-be more c-careful ne-next time."

As for Dagger, all it took was one glare from her for him to get all indignant, even though they both knew she'd hear his side of the story before bed tonight, and a few seconds of this silent indignance before he transformed and went off to some other part of the house. He'd fix the mess he'd made once he had some time to calm down.
 
Flora nodded again, suddenly weary. She'd forgotten how hard it was to deal with sane people who weren't Sequoia. It felt odd to interact with different types of people when for a long time she'd been explaining things to the same kinds of selfish assholes. Sequoia gave her a look that seemed to say "You okay?", answered by one that could've said a thousand things, but ended up saying "I want to sleep".

Sequoia nodded, beginning to ask Madi where the bedrooms were when her stomach growled embarrassingly loud. She flushed, suddenly acutely aware that she hadn't eaten properly in days. She was even more aware that Flora hadn't eaten for even longer. "Where's your kitchen?"
 
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Madi opened her mouth to answer that question, then immediately realized that more talking was a bad idea right now. So she just closed her mouth again, made a quick "follow me" gesture, and made her way to the kitchen.

The kitchen was one of the nicer rooms in the house, big and clean and comforting. The room was practically Luke's home, and he always took good care of it. He was asleep right now, so the guests weren't about to get a meal from him just yet, but there were nonperishables and leftovers in the cupboards and fridge, and Madi herself wasn't a horrible cook. So once she led the girls into the area, she held her arms out to the room in a gesture that hopefully conveyed both "help yourselves" and "I am here to assist you at any point."
 
Sequoia and Flora followed Madi into the kitchen. Sequoia liked the kitchen, It was nice and neat, devoid of chaos and absolutely full of food. Sequoia could get used to being allowed into a room full of food. Flora seemed to be taking the more practical approach, immediately calculating how long the food would last and how much they would take without being noticed before she realized that she could just ask and get some handed to her. Sequoia walked up to a case of Pop Tarts, staring blankly at the package.

Once she gave Flora a questioning look that revealed nothing -Flora was just as lost when it came to this strange, brightly colored food- she looked to Madi. "What's this?"
 
Madi was fine with just letting the girls wander around and get a feel for the kitchen, but when Sequoia literally asked her what a Pop-Tart was? Her first reaction was some form of instinctive shock, because it was odd they'd never once heard of such a common product even before being enslaved, and the second was a deadpan look that told the universe but not particularly Sequoia "You want the girl with the stutter to say 'Pop-Tart?' No fucking thank-you."

So she settled on saying "S-sweet. B-breakfast. T-try it, if you w-want."
 
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Sequoia grinned. Flora coughed something that sounded suspiciously close to 'hoe for sugar' earning a glare as Sequoia dug into the toaster pastries. She let out a noise of surprise, quickly gobbling down half the box before she realized that other people might want to eat them too. While she began to explore the kitchen, Flora plopped down on the floor and began to talk to Madi.

"I don't mean to be rude, but why is Dagger so angry?" She though a bit more about the question and bit her lip, quickly adding "Not that you need to tell me or anything! I just want to keep Sequoia from getting murdered. So if you have any things to avoid or..." She grabbed the nearest box of food and began stuffing her face in an attempt to keep from embarrassing herself further.
 
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Madi was honestly glad to plop right down on the floor with Flora, and if the food the fairy had chosen was shareable, she even dared to grab a bit of said food and chow down while she thought over her answer to the question.

First she made sure Flora knew she wasn't imposing by asking about Dagger's bitchiness. It was a question most people asked at some point, though not always this soon. The first thing Madi actually said on the subject, though, was "He-he's old."

Because he was. Nekos had longer lifespans than humans and witches, which Dagger liked to remind her and others of as often as possible. The next few traits, however, he was less likely to mention.

"S-socially st-tunted, p-pessimistic. Not f-from here, either. B-big mess. Lived f-feral for a while, t-too. B-but he t-tries, r-really. He'll c-calm down."

Okay, she probably had to correct that last statement. "...S-some."
 
Flora bit her lip. She didn't know much about nekos besides the obvious, cat ears and the like, but it was clear that Dagger was holding some baggage. Perhaps it was something he couldn't burn away, but now Flora really was intruding. She nodded to show she had heard and passed the box of food to Madi for a bit. She was glad he'd calm down, but it was obvious she'd need to keep Sequoia away from him so they didn't start another argument. The house wasn't big enough to keep them separate forever, but Flora could make something work

"Uh, Sequoia is... similar. She is protective and kind and wonderful, but she also holds on to first impressions for too long and can't bond with people. It's not her fault, but... Well, she's had to do so much, and it's hard for her to keep-" She was interrupted when Sequoia walked back with crumbs all over her shirt and a smile on her face. She plopped down beside Flora with a sly look in her eyes.

"Were you talking about me?" She teased, chucking a bag of chips and a turkey sandwich into her lap.
 
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