fandomhigh | Staff Meeting [Friday Afternoon]

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Staff Meeting [Friday Afternoon]

Zoe had met with the teenagers, now it was time to meet with the grownups after ~~handwavily~~ messaging them all about the meeting. There were more sweets among the sandwiches and salad for the staff - donuts, cookies, etc. - but no alcohol among the drinks unless someone brought their own. With this group, she pretty much expected it.

"Hello folks, thank you all for coming. I know some of you are very busy," she said. "I wanted everyone to have a chance to get together in case any problems have come up in your classes, or with any of your students. Also, we're going to be getting ready for the summer sessions soon, so be thinking about what you might want to teach and who you might want to teach it with. That's all I've got in the way of speechifying, so if you need anything, just flag me down."

[Going OCD-free today!]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Karla jumped, hand twitching in an aborted gesture to call a blast of power.

"Hasn't anyone told you not to startle people?" she asked, other hand clutching at her heart.

"Yes." And your point is? Parker gave Karla a mystified look. "Would anyone want to sell this, or would there be a collector for it somewhere? We could track it down that way, maybe." Here, Karla. Have a donut. Parker didn't mean to unnerve you.

Karla spotted the weird sugar cereal on the top of the donut and demurred. "I'm good, thanks."

Seriously, though, who ate donuts covered in cereal?

"It looks like a gemstone, so probably," Karla said. "And it's a reservoir for my Craft, so if there's someone out there who can figure out how to tap into it, it's worth far more than any jewel on this whole bloody planet."

People who are sort of secretly nicely homicidal eight-year-olds at heart?

"So if someone knew, a ton of money, if they didn't, still a lot." Parker frowned, nibbling. "But... that sounds complicated. Would a lot of the magic people know how to do that?"

"I don't know," Karl admitted reluctantly. The idea that her Jewel had a monetary value made her slightly squeamish. It was like putting a price tag on her heart. "My Craft doesn't work that way, but that doesn't mean someone else's can't. I'm sure that there's probably a whole school of magic that works by draining the power out of an item."

Karla suddenly had a horrifying mental image of someone draining her Jewel until it cracked. She paled and abruptly sat down, knees weak.

"You really should eat something. You don't look so good." Parker frowned, and offered a cookie. "Nobody hurt you? Or your little girl? They didn't drug you to make you sleep, did they?"

A cookie, Karla would take, with an appreciative nod and a smile that had a lot more in common with a grimace.

"No. I haven't been sleeping much. Kayla's teething, Warren--my fiancé--is molting, I'm having nightmares that I can't remember...and then I got here and exhausted myself trying to save the preserve from dying off completely."

Her lips thinned ever so slightly. "We're fine, thank you. Believe me, had anyone harmed Kayla, it would be VERY apparent."

What with the screaming and sobbing and fires and sirens...

"Good. I'm glad." She didn't want to be *around* babies, but no one should ever hurt them. "How were you saving the preserve? I just thought that was normal."

City girl here, not really at all in tune with anything like nature.

"I'm a Queen," Karla said with a shrug, like that would explain anything. "Among my gifts is the ability to Heal the land. I can feel it, when the land is sick and dying. It's one of the reasons I don't like most cities here on Earth."

Pumped full of poisons and pollutants and then sealed away. It was like hearing someone screaming through several thick walls.

"The trees and plants in the preserve aren't sleeping through the winter--they're dead. It didn't matter how much power I poured into them. Nothing changed. I couldn't fix it."

Parker just barely followed that, but did fasten onto the main point. "So what does fix it? Bringing in new plants? Or fertilizer, or something?"

Karla shook her head. "Not yet. Doing that would just be throwing good money after bad. There's something here that's sucking the life out of the land itself. Bringing more plants and things in would only mean more things to watch die."

And Karla could feel that happening.

"That's horrible." Parker had no idea how to respond to that, or how to fix it, or anything. "I-- sorry?" Sophie had not drilled her in how to react to this kind of thing. So she offered another cookie.

Karla would have stories to share if she ever knew that Parker knew Sophie.

"Thanks," she said again, accepting the second cookie. "You're Parker, right?"

She'd known another Parker, years ago.

"Yeah." Parker would love hearing those Sophie stories. A lot.

The stories about the other-Parker? If it was her-Parker? ... would be weird to hear.

"And you're a witch. A good witch. Not a baaaaad witch."

Karla had barely interacted with that other Parker, so this one would be safe from stories, at least.

"No brooms, no candy houses, no devouring children, no turning people into toads," Karla said, figuring that covered the basics. "But yes, a witch. A powerful and effective one. But as for good or bad..." She shrugged. "I try to be a good person and a good mother and a good Queen. But that doesn't mean I always succeed."

"It means something that you try," Parker said, voice flat and intense, affect going a little distant, as it did sometimes. "Lots of people don't. Kids can tell." She tilted her head, voice getting warmer again. "Well, and so can people who work for anyone. It's pretty obvious."

"I fought a nasty, bloody war in order to rule," Karla said softly. "If I didn't try, all those deaths would be for nothing. I racked up a huge debt in order to take my place as Territory Queen. And being a good one is the only way I'll ever be able to pay it back."

Good political leaders were hard to find. Parker kinda hoped Karla was like Michael Vittori and the Colonel. Only hopefully without a Damian Moreau making things difficult any longer.

"Would somebody want to take your jewel to mess with your country?"

"Because it's the key to my Craft," Karla said. "Without it, I'm far more limited in what I can do. There have already been assassination attempts. If I can't defend myself properly..." She spread her hands. Parker could fill in the rest.

"So that's a big yes." Something about that pinged in Parker's brain, and she hummed, swaying a little, trying to get the thought to the front of her mind.

Karla glanced at her, confused. "Yeees...?"

"Your jewel that's all important is missing. Our disk drive that's got tons of sensitive info was stolen." Parker was thinking out loud, getting faster as she talked. "You said someone's letter was missing?" She cocked her head, trying to put it together like three-dimensional chess. "If it's not for lots of money, it's spite. Or funnies. Because those three things don't really go together, do they? Magic and technology and somebody's love letter."

"That's what Hannibal and I were saying," Karla said with a nod. "They don't fit together. And they don't fit with why the island is dying. Our best guess is that it's meant to undermine us. Distract us. I'm damn near frantic without my Jewel."

And Jono was a wreck, not that she was going to mention that to Parker.

"It's like Three-Card Monty. Making us look over there, so we don't see what's going on over here."

"The Queen is never on the table," Parker said, bringing her attention back to Karla. "They want something else. Something we can't see yet, if this is three-card monte." She frowned. "Uuugh. I like it better when we're the ones running the deck."

"Hmm..." Karla was back to chewing on her lip. "If the Queen is never on the table, then we still don't have enough information to figure out the endgame. We're still only seeing what we're supposed to. We need to flip the table and rifle through their pockets."

And bloody their nose and blacken an eye, too.

Staff Meeting [Friday Afternoon]

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