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After getting home Sammy makes an attempt to communicate with Sylvia about the dance.

Sammy sent a text message to Sylvia early Monday evening, but figures the other girl probably missed it.  She takes the bull by the bullhorn, puts her new flying clothes on underneath her street clothing, and heads out the window.

She comes down to earth somewhere near Sylvia's home and runs up the sidewalk to knock at the front door.

Sylvia!  Sylvia!  Yoooooooo hooooooo, anybody hoooooome?

[I'll assume this is a different day than the Sylvia-Pep-Squad thread.]

Sylvia opens the door and pokes her head out.  She's looking a little strange, hair wrapped up in little-girl pigtails and dress pinned inside-out.  Mitzi must be in the middle of a fitting.  "Hey.  C'mon in."  And then, because she's always expecting trouble--  "Everything's okay, right?"

OOC: It could be Tuesday, or later Monday night.  We can play it loose until it becomes important.

[OOC: I thought it was later that night; definitely after dinner time.  At least 830.  I'll roll with it.  Could be early early Tuesday morning too, if you want to be cruel.]  


"Yeah, fine."  Sammy comes in and strips off her coat, hat, scarf, and gloves.  "Did you see the thing I sent you about being a court acrobat?  Do you want to do it?"

"Hellsyeah," Sylvia says, throwing a little vocabulary she's learned from Donnie.  "Mitzi's already patching together little pieces of Lycra.  What are you wearing?"

"Oh, Mitzi's making your costume? Oh, ok.  El was willing to pay for it.  Maybe though you should come along to the costumers on Thursday anyhow -- we're having a fitting party, you know, pizza, measuring tape, straight pins, happy band geeks, it'll be a hoot.  Bring your moms!  I'm wearing this sort of Renaissance-ish faerie queenish kind of dress.  I still need to figure out what to do with my hair though."  She smiles hugely.  "I'm glad you're going to do it.  I think it'll be fun."

"Mitzi gets off on this kind of thing.  In fact she wants to know if Sarah needs a costume, too.

"Are you the head of the court, then?  I wasn't too clear on what was going on."

"A custom costume for Sarah would be great!"  Sammy seems very enthused by the idea.  "And yeah, I'm the head of the court.  My idea, so my court.  A Court of Love, with Elrod and me as the high Lord and Lady.  Sort of like a renfair Judge Judy, except with a Valentine's Love theme.  The court will hear the cases as presented by those who feel wronged in Love, and pass judgement.  Anybody in the entourage gets to be part of the jury if they want.  I got Nick to be the court jester, so I think we'll be able to keep it pretty light-hearted." She shrugs.  "I hope it'll be fun."

Sylvia, pep-squad tryouts fresh in her mind [?], feels weird about that--about the idea of courts and passing judgment and imposing cliquish will over a school event--but she keeps it to herself.  "It'll be a dance like any other.  Maybe this time no one will try to kill anyone else."  But she doubts it.

"And, if nobody wants to play, that's cool too.  We'll still have a whole court and entourage thing.  Elrod seemed to want a group theme for our costumes."  //fly!*\\//flight suit\\//Las Vegas\\//Hoover Dam\\//Elrod\\  he thought about asking me to marry him but he didn't  //Nick\\ okay? maybe trying to let me have Nick too without being obvious
"So is Mitzi working on your costume now?  Can I see it?"


* the stuff between //  \\ is mental images rather than words

Sylvia is used to the noise.  She tries to pretend she can't hear it, can't see those thought bubbles floating over her friends' heads like Macy's parade floats.  But when she hears the "Nick, too" bit, her eyes go round, and her mouth puckers.  She shouldn't say anything.  Shouldn't ask.  Shouldn't even indulge her curiosity a little bit lest her telepathy get away from her and Pandora's box not close.  But, oh god, she wants to take a prurient peek.  Sammy's life is way more exciting than hers.


"Sure.  But watch it.  Give her half a chance, and she'll have her tape measure around you, too."

Sylvia leads the way toward the back of the house where Mitzi's converted what might have been intended as an office or a guest bedroom into a sewing room, with big windows for lots of light and counter space built around its perimeter.  There's a sense of order to the arrangement of materials, but it's a personal sense of order.  The half-opened drawers in the corner have no labels.  The yardage hung over the full-length mirror in the corner has no theme.  Spools of spangled trims and corded lace stack three feet high on one of the tables, cascading off the counter like a starburst of fireworks.  There's a lot of spandex here, hung casually on a hanger rack in the form of Cirque du Soleil-like costumes, and Mitzi, when they enter, hunches over some new project, replete with satiny diamonds in carnival colors.  Her serger hums along with the finely tuned growl and purr of a luxury sports car.

Here, the kitchen, and the organic garden are where Mitzi does her magic.

[Darren?  Playing Mitzi?]

OOC: Not necessary.  Feel free.

"Ooh," Sammy breathes reverently, "pretty..."  She steps over to the rack full of spandex costumes and her fingertips carefully brush over them.  She looks over at the work in progress.  "Syl, that's going to be gorgeous."

"Which one?" Sylvia asks, betraying the jadedness of having been Mitzi's dolly all her life.  They're all pretty, but heck if Sylvia knows which one would draw Sammy's eye.  She just wears what she's told to wear.

Meanwhile Mitzi finishes her seam and shakes out a meticulous patchwork of Harlequin diamonds.  "Hello, Sammy."  Mitzi, with her glossy Veronica Lake hair and breathy voice, never looks quite as artsy and domestic as she is, but she tries.  "Do you want a costume, too?"  She asks so casually, as if offering a glass of lemonade.

They're all so pretty," Sammy replies, "But I was talking about the one your mom is working on right now."

"

"No, thank you.  El is getting ours from some stage production costumer in the city."  That's what she says at least, but her actions sing a different song.  Her gaze and her fingers trail lovingly and longingly over the pretty sparkly shiny things hanging on the rack.  "We're having a fitting party there on Thursday after school.  You can come, if you like."

OOC: Anything else happening here?

OOC:  that is a very good question.

[Sorry!  I thought I posted something here.]

Mitzi gives Sammy a smile.  "That's a sweet invitation, but I've learned I can't be in someone else's sewing room without wanting to interfere with their work.  Of course, if you decide you don't like your costume as is, I'd be happy to make alterations."

Sylvia's eyes flash white like those of a nervous horse.  Mitzi will Bedazzle you to within an inch of your life, she warns.

Oh, really?  Maybe you ought to get her to make you a crime fighting costume.  We'll call you "The Dazzler".  Sammy smiles beatifically.  "If anything is wrong with my costume, I'll come see you."

Sylvia eyes the pile of costumes on the rack with guilt pinching up the skin under her eyes.  Mitzi shows her love through making things, and Sylvia feels like such an ingrate when she doesn't wear/use/eat them.  But she'd look silly walking around Chicago in Mitzi's loving experiments in shisha embroidery and sequin overload.  If she flew like Sammy, no problem.  But she just plods, and she plods invisibly.  Maybe that's the key:  she can wear anything as long as no one sees her.

"If you need anything else, Sammy," Mitzi says, "don't hesitate to mention it.  I imagine capes, maybe boned through the collar for that snow-queen look, in a light, icy, airy blue.  Or a genie costume?  Sylvia says you're a genie."

Sylvia raises her bowed arms over her head and does the Barbara Eden head bop.  "You don't have a bottle, do you?" she asks in sudden seriousness.

"No.  Should I?  Or a lamp?  I'd probably have to be a full djinn to turn into smoke and whoosh into a container.  But I do have this!"  She starts pulling off her street clothes.  "El had a flying outfit made for me; its made of some special material to control my body temperature so I don't get too hot or too cold."  [see description in the Sammy/Elrod go to Vegas thread]  She strips down to the costume and unfurls the material around her legs and arms so it can flutter.  She floats up about a foot off the ground and does a slow twirl.  "Nice, huh?"

"Oh, that's lovely," Mitzi exclaims.  Her fingers twitch in the vicinity of her pincushion, though, and one hand gropes toward a bolt of stretch organza.

"Mom!" Sylvia says, and stammers as she tries to come up with a distraction.  "Sarah needs a costume, maybe something like mine?  For the dance?  And since Sammy's here, maybe she, uh--maybe she could use a . . . um. . . . "  She shares the pain.  "What was it you needed, Sammy?"

"Right now?  I bet the costume is meant for indoors only, or for decent weather outside.  I probably need a cape to keep me warm from the house to the car and from the car to the gym.  I need to figure out my hair too; what to do with it, or wear in it."  Sammy grins mischieviously.  "And someday, not today, but someday, I think I'd like a showgirl outfit.  You know, with all the shiny and the feathers and the sparkly bits?"  She backs down a bit.  "Or, on a more serious note, I'm going to need a nice black and white dress to wear for the spring orchestra performance at the end of April, and again when we play at graduation."

Mitzi bites her lip in glee at the mention of a showgirl outfit.  "Ooh, maribou.  I know someone who can get me a great deal on maribou.  Well, why don't you girls get yourselves a snack, and I'll start--"  She squints at the set of Sammy's shoulders.  "--pinning out some fabric."  Her voice fades out as whatever mysterious crafty imperative directs her work takes hold, and she gets up to twist dials on a brutally used dressmaker's dummy.

"We have to go now," Sylvia says quietly.  "She can't do this while we're watching."

"OK."  Sammy scoops up her clothing and follows Sylvia out of the room.  She starts redressing herself.  "You want to do anything?  Go somewhere?"

Sylvia thinks long and hard about that idle offer.  "San Francisco," she wants to blurt.  Or "Rome."  But what does come out is the slightly sulky, "Mexico.  I don't suppose you can do the genie thing and magic up a jealousy-invokingly handsome boy to go with us, can you?"

"How about to a resort along the Gulf coast in Texas instead?"  Sammy shrugs.  "I was authorized to offer you a bribe to be part of the court.  The boy though... hmm.  I'm finding that I don't like sharing, even though I want to share myself out.  At the very least, if I have to share, I want to be sure I'm loved by what I'm sharing, and I'm not just dumping my emotions down a well...  Mixed up, isn't it?  So not El, and not Nick, and not... yeah.  So pick a target.  Dylan?"

Sylvia laughs.  "I don't know if Dylan would do the trick.  He and Donnie are conjoined twins, psychically.  He'd probably rat me out.

"I'm not serious about going to Mexico, anyway.  I'm just tired of being here.  You and John and Donnie and Sarah take off for parts unknown.  I'm stuck here with stupid Colin."  Poor Colin always gets such casual abuse from Sylvia.

"Poor Colin gets stuck here with you too," Sammy laughs.  "But I don't hear him compl... heeeey.  I've got an idea.  You've both drifted past this once or twice in conversation... want to go to that Eagle's Nest place in Arizona?  Do an overnight trip and see what its like?  I could take you and Colin.  Probably.  I could definitely take one of you."

OOC:  oops.  Didn't read much of the John/Sylvia thread until after I posted this.  Doh.

"I was just talking to John about that earlier today.  His dad can probably wrangle tickets, or whatever.  You know, clearances.  Invitations."

Then something clicks in Sylvia's head, something's she's caught in faint mental whispers from Sammy about her family.  "But they'd have to run a background check on anyone who went, he says."

Sammy must not like the idea of a background check.  She suddenly appears to be quite uncomfortable.  "Oh.  You were already talking about it with John?  Well then, um,  you don't need both of us.  He can take you and I'll just... California?  Any old friends you want to see?  Any boys there who can induce massive jealousy?  I could go poke around the place where my mom comes from, even though its a painful pimple on the hairy back end of nowhere by the way she describes it."

"You haven't been yet?"  Sylvia is intrigued by family history, having so little of it herself.  "It could be cool.  Maybe the old homestead has clues about the harem-pants-wearing side of the family.  Is your grandma still alive?"

"No," is Sammy's sharp response.  "She died a long time ago.  She was a real b... piece of work too.  A lot of mom's problems... she blamed my mom for so much. Colin... Colin found her.  He talks to dead people, and he found her.  She's with the Genie, my grandfather, now, both of them together somewhere.  Colin said she was happy, and he said she apologized for what she had said and done to my mom, but... it's too late for that."  Sammy's eyes drift over to the wall.  "He drew a picture of the two of them, so I could see what they looked like, so my mom would know what her father looked like.  I stuck it in a frame, boxed it up, and left it on the kitchen table with a warning note.  I don't know if my mom looked at it or threw it out."  She wipes at the corner of her eye.  "Maybe I don't want to go there after all.  I'll just stick with you and be your weird tagalong friend from Chicago."

Sylvia knows better than to chase those feelings.  Men are from Mars, she's heard, and Sammy's from Don't Antagonize Me When I'm Down, Venus.  "Did I hear you say you went to Arkham to talk to someone about djinn?"

Sammy looks confused.  "No.  I don't remember doing that."

"I'm confused, then.  I thought someone did.  Maybe you should.  They're the experts on all things eldritch and occult, aren't they?"

"Donnie asked some questions.  Maybe that's where he got his answers.  Colin has asked in his ways.  And John has done some reading.  Maybe I'll ask on my own someday, if there's ever a question I don't want any of them to know I'm asking.  That's bound to happen sooner or later."  Sammy tries to shift the subject away from herself.  "So California?  I made it on my own to Vegas with a passenger; I bet I could get you to California.  You're not as heavy as Elrod."

"You went to Vegas with Elrod?"  Sylvia's prurient curiosity sparkles in her eyes.  "You're not even old enough to gamble.  What did you do?"  The way she asks the last question, it's like she expects Sammy to lay out all the steamy details kiss-for-kiss.

Sammy wishes she had steamy details to march out for display.  "We left Friday after school, and I flew us down, with a couple of breaks.  Friday's when he gave me this flying rig; he said he worries about me getting cold when I am out flying around.  Once we got there -- it was easy to find from the air, its so bright, and the Luxor has that beam of light piercing the sky -- we stayed in the penthouse apartment of a really nice hotel.  A valet met us on the roof with the keys.  El had his own bedroom and bathroom, and I had mine; I had to call home to check in and I think my dad must have been wired in to the hotel security cameras since he agreed to all of it.  So we had dinner in a nice Italian restaurant, and then flew out to Hoover Dam and saw it at night; he took me shopping and bought me new clothes, then we hung around and watched movies on tv for a while.  We talked a lot about a lot of things."  Sammy examines her nails.  "Not getting married.  Nick.  Others in general.  My 18th birthday, my 21st.   His dreams.  Mine.  Lots of things."

"That's wild," Sylvia says, smiling with the exhilaration of someone reading a romance novel.  She gets the benefit of all the adventure with none of the angst.  "Are you ever tempted to just fly away?  I mean, really?  Do you ever want to see if you can cross the Atlantic or head north and see the Aurora Borealis?"

Sammy looks up and with an earnestness that is somewhat surprising, she replies "Every day.  The more I fly, the farther I go, the more I want to do.  Sometimes," she closes her eyes, "I want to launch myself into the sky and see where the prevailing winds take me.  Just drift, like a kite or a balloon, and let the world unfurl itself beneath me for my pleasure.  When I'm done with school and old enough to have a say in it, I'm going to just wander all over the place for a while.  Me and the sky."

"The sky and not the people?  Are you being literal?  Is the sky that fascinating to you?  Are you sensitive to something in it that the rest of us can't see or feel?"  Sylvia's not really grilling Sammy, but she's got all these questions.  Sammy's powers set her free.  Sylvia feels like she's still Sylvia in an annoyingly more complex and noisy world.  She'd like to be free, too.

"The sky will take me to the people; I can't float forever, I have to come back to earth sometimes.  But yeah, I guess I am sensitive to it.  Flying, being part of the air, makes me more -- alive?  definitely happier.  It's better with a companion-- it's like the pleasure is multiplied, but I don't quite have the words for how and why..."  She looks at Sylvia speculatively.  "I've never taken you up, have I?  You always have the dragons, so you don't need me.  I -- If you want, I could take you up, and you could ride along in my mind while I do it.  Then you could feel how it feels to me for yourself."

Sylvia is nervous of that, nervous of tuning into someone's head while they're in the throes of something she might not understand, but flying . . . the temptation is strong.

"Do you actually have to carry someone?  Like, physically?"  It's not inconceivable that Sammy could, all this time, have been the strong woman of the group--muscly with magic.

"I did at first because I didn't know I didn't have to do that.  Mostly now I do it when I'm not sure of the person with me; if I think you'll panic, John afraid heights falling fly you can fly I hold on as tight as I think you need to be held.  It's a confidence builder.  But all I really need to do is make a sort of air cushion, like a force field I guess, to support you.  I could even put it under a rug so you'd have a flying carpet effect.  So, if you want to go but don't want to be touched, I don't have to touch you."

Sylvia laughs.  "No, that's not it.  I didn't want you to have to carry my fat ass all over town."  Because every fourteen-year-old thinks she is a heifer.

Sammy rolls her eyes.  "Please."

"I've carried John, and Jakob, and Elrod.  Not at the same time though.  You're a whole lot lighter than any of them.  So any time you want to go, holler.  Its cold up there, colder at night, so you'll want lots of insulation.  I've been thinking about getting some of those hunters gloves and socks, the ones with battery operated heaters."

"So you can control the air but not the temperature?"

"I haven't figured that out yet.  I found out its some sort of pressure and volume relationship with temperature on the other side of the equation, and I don't know how to manipulate any of those very well.  Best I can do is wrap me and my guest up in a bubble so that our body heat is conserved and shared."