fandomhigh | Practical Folklore, Monday 2nd period

"Welcome back, everybody," Jon began. "My apologies for last week. This week, I thought we could begin with something a bit more nebulous than the others: witches. I'm aware we have at least some people on the island who identify as witches, and there may be more I'm unaware of. Traditionally witches are women with some form of magical power; beyond that, there are a number of possibilities for narrowing it down."

He shrugged. "Honestly, in my version of Earth, witches were mostly women that knew a bit of science and didn't like being bossed around by the church, and therefor got painted in the worst possible light so as to make it easier to kill them with impunity. It's possible some had actual power, but given the rate of experiences with the Fears, I'm guessing the vast majority did not. Other worlds, of course, may have different ratios of actual power to innocents men hated.

"In folklore I'm aware of, witches are often depicted as old women, generally living alone, and run the gamut from helpful to horrendous. The one rule of thumb seems to be that you don't want to treat them poorly. Which can be generalized to 'don't be a bastard to old women', which seems like a decent rule anyway."

Said the man who pissed people off on the regular. In his defence, he often didn't mean to! "So, let's discuss witches. Are you one, do you know any, does your world have them or stories of them? What other applications can you think of other than to treat people well?"

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YUP. JUST LIKE. SO MUCH HELP.

Arden gave him a wry smile and shrugged. "At least we're in the same boat though," she said.

And then looked a little awkward. "So. Uh. By the way. My friend, Grimm. I don't want, like, any details, but was she...normal? At your brother? And stuff? I mean..." She was just gonna flail a little bit.

Another shrug. "I don't talk to Bell that much about his hookups...especially the ones with girls or girl-shaped beings." Gross. Also, Bellamy had been too far away for anything to slip inadvertently across their telepathic bond to Gray or Raiden, although Alastair in the hotel room next door might have had some notes. "I guess it was fine? Lust was definitely satisfied." The sin, not the--well, that too.

Gray couldn't tell if Arden knew or suspected something about Grimm, or was just uncomfortable with the concept of casual sex. In case it was the first one, he wasn't about to out a supernatural to someone who didn't seem to know anything about their world, so...skirting the issue it was.

Edited 2023-10-10 17:40 (UTC)

"Oh, okay, cool," Arden said, relaxing. "Sorry to even, like, bring it up, but Grimm can just be--weird. Sometimes. A lot of the time. Most of the time."

It was like she had a personal vendetta against the Detente sometimes. For reasons.

"I just wanted to make sure that she hadn't been...like..." Spilling secrets.

Okay, a djinni would never, not without payment. But sometimes she really did like to just toe the line of what she could get away with.

"Bell said she was a first for him, but he likes new things. It's rare he gets them these days." Shoutout to the water dragons, who had tragically gotten themselves all killed off before Bellamy got a chance to bag one. (The water dragons were not extinct, but Gray didn't know that yet...and Bellamy still would never sleep with one.) "But it was fine, I guess? Weird isn't necessarily bad, you know."

"A first?" she said, hoping she sounded cool and just vaguely curious, while internally going oh shit oh shit oh shit Grimm what did you say? about it.

"And I know weird isn't necessarily bad," she hastened to add, trying not to laugh hysterically because weird was her whole life, "but just...okay, so like Grimm's kinda like my...it's complicated. Grimm's complicated."

Since Gray couldn't very well ask, 'Okay, do you know your friend can turn into a cloud of apparently very sexy smoke, or no?' he went with an apologetic, "I'm not sure I should say any more about my brother's sex life," even though the amount Bellamy would care was so small it could not be measured by modern science.

Did Arden have a crush on Grimm? Was that what was going on here? "It was completely no strings attached," he assured her. "Bell doesn't like to hook up with the same person more than once or twice anyway." Not because he was a fuckboi, but for safety reasons, but Gray didn't want to explain that right now.

Skipping that question was greatly appreciated, because then Arden would break the Detente herself by first groaning, then banging her head against the desk, and then using her callstone to call Grimm and shriek about not just breaking the Detente but choosing to do so at Arden's school.

Fortunately, Arden missed the conclusion that Gray had come to, which saved her from flailing. "Oh, god, no worries about that," she assured him. "Grimm's not looking for anything more than a hookup, either. Uh, I don't think she knows how to have any kind of relationship that doesn't include an agenda." And, okay, the trace of bitterness there probably wouldn't convince Gray that there wasn't some kind of crush situation happening there. "Mostly, I'm just making sure that anything Grimm did over the weekend doesn't end up blowing back on me."

She dropped her eyed and gave a diffident shrug. "Like, you're cool and you and your brothers seem tight, since they showed up for you--" Gray might not be Envy, but he could probably still hear the buried longing in Arden's voice about that "--and I just don't want any problems. You know?"

"Oh, there definitely won't be any problems," Gray assured her. "If things got awkward with the friends of everyone Bellamy ever slept with, none of us would have any friends left. And Raiden would be really sad because he couldn't be friends with Jane or hook up with Eric any more." That would be so sad. "We're cool."

They were cool and it sounded like Grimm had had even one (1) ounce of discretion, so Arden didn't have to feign the relief in her smile. "Cool," she said. "Thanks."

Grimm had had zero (0) ounces of discretion, but Gray was blissfully unaware that was any kind of problem, so he just smiled back and told Arden, "Don't worry about it."

Practical Folklore, Monday 2nd period

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