Baking is therapy! (Open RP, canon updating--SPOILERS)

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

So here's a thought exercise.

You've decided to go back home to help out your friends, because maybe you've had a long enough rest and it's time to use what you know. You get kicked out of the city you thought would accept you, and end up living off-shore on a resurrected fake asteroid that used to belong to a really bad guy who is now living with you and maybe one of the good guys. You're dealing with that, and one day you get kidnapped by demons who use your own powers against you and your friends. You find out that your parents aren't who you thought they were--and you aren't what you thought you were.

And then, just when you're starting to accept that, your mentor gets killed, and you get ordered to go back to hell to rescue the evil psycho she-demon who ripped out part of your soul. Yeah. Good times.

Megan came back to Hogwarts, less bloody and concussed than last time, but somehow twenty times more beaten-down. There was a limit, and she had just about reached it.

Moping was not going to help her. If she started thinking about it--any of it--she might very well start screaming and never stop. Instead, after 'porting back, she slipped very quietly into the kitchens and enlisted the help of several house elves. They tried to do all the work, but she needed something to do to keep her in constant motion, something to keep her from thinking.

After a sleepless night, she set out trays with heaps of baked goods in the Great Hall, all with the lumpy appearance of genuinely homemade treats. She taped up her sign ("Free! Guaranteed NO HEXES OR POTIONS!") and sat back with a sigh, wings folding neatly behind her and a slightly too-desperate smile on her tired face.

Comments

[senorcyborg.livejournal.com]

Victor was passing through the Great Hall when the sign caught his attention, so he stopped long enough to read it. Glancing at the sign's owner, he offered a smile as he said, "That'll probably only make people here assume the stuff's poisoned for sure."

He took an especially gooey looking cookie anyway, and was happy to find it was still warm. "Really good, though," he commented between bites, trying and failing not to stare at the girl. She was pretty cute. With awesome wings. And he felt like he should know who she was, but was pulling a complete blank. Hogwarts did sometimes mess with his mind like that, presumably because the anti-technology-thingy didn't agree with his being a cyborg.

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

((Right, let's see if my phone doesn't eat this reply. Also, this happened (http://scans-daily.dreamwidth.org/368162.html?#cutid1) and then they all went clubbing, but I'm fine with handwaving it away if you don't want to deal with it--I can't remember at what point you took Victor from.))

"Do you think so?" Her smile faded to a worried frown as she fluttered to her feet to examine the sign, which had been written in purple glittery letters. She took out a purple glitter marker, uncapped it, hesitated, and recapped it with a resigned sigh. "I guess people will either trust it or they won't. I promise, they're not poisoned, though, I just wanted to do something nice."

Her smile returned a little as he tasted the biscuit, more tentative and less manic than before. "Really? I hope it's not too bad. I'm a little out of practice, our supplies were kind of spotty the past few weeks, and... anyway, I'm glad to be back." She shoved a flop of pink hair behind a pointy ear, suddenly self-conscious, and then suddenly self-conscious about that. "Also, I had my hair pulled back when I was mixing. So it's safe from that, too."

[hunter-returns.livejournal.com]

After a long hot shower, Sam felt at least a little better. He managed to slip away from Bobby for awhile and wander the familiar halls. Back again. Well, it was better than being in hell. He passed by the table and snagged a still warm cookie.

"Mmf. Oh man. Those are awesome."

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

"I'm so glad you think so!" She beamed happily up at him. "Take as many as you want, I made... I can't say too many because I didn't really have a set amount, but I just kept mixing and baking, and then it was morning."

[hunter-returns.livejournal.com]

Sam recognized the routine. Hell, he and Dean had done it more times than he could count. Find something else to occupy your mind. Repeat as needed. Look around and wonder how in the hell you lost all night cleaning guns.

He returned the smile, taking another large bite. "These really are great. I'm Sam," he said, offering a slightly crumby handshake.

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

"I'm Megan." She returned the handshake, brushing off the crumbs as surreptitiously as she could. "Have you been here long? I've been here for... I'm not sure how long. It seems like a long time, but whenever I go back, it seems like no time has passed. I think it's been a few weeks since I was here last, since that's how long I was in San Francisco, but... it's so hard to tell."

[hunter-returns.livejournal.com]

Sam grinned, “I just got back. Again. So I know what you mean. There are a lot of new faces and half the people I remember are popcorn now. It’s weird but.. I guess that’s how this place is. Still, I can’t complain too much. So are you a .. fairy or some magical creature? I don’t remember anyone with wings the last time. Not that it's a bad thing.. I just don't remember faries being that big back home and.."

Oh dear. He was babbling.

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

She froze. "I, uh..." No, she'd had plenty of time to think about it, and weirdly enough she was more okay with that half of her parentage than the other. She took a deep breath. "Yeah. Half faerie. Explains a lot, doesn't it?" It came out sharper than she'd intended, more bitter, and she clapped a hand over her mouth.

[hunter-returns.livejournal.com]

He raised his hands, "Hey, sorry. Not my business. I was just curious."

Sam munched on the rest of his cookie. "Family can suck sometimes. No one screws with your head like relatives," he said ruefully.

[rat-bstrd.livejournal.com]

He was stopped by the tray of food and the sight of wings. Not so much the food- the last time he helped himself to free food, he ended up turning into a rat, but the wings jogged his memory.

"Hey, you're that girl- my sister knows you. She said you were hurt."

((He might start picking up her feelings.))

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

((Good thing she's less of an immediate wreck than last time!))

"Hurt? No, I'm not--" She thought back. The last time she had been at Hogwarts and hurt in any way, it had been after the riots, and she had been wandering the halls, bleeding and half-concussed. Someone had mentioned a brother, hadn't they? She had been scared, hurt, and confused, and her memories of that day were kind of fuzzy in large patches. "Oh. That." She laughed nervously. "I got better. I don't remember if I ever thanked your sister. Sage, right? I hope I'm remembering right, I hit my head right before I met her."

[rat-bstrd.livejournal.com]

Rat shuffled his feet. "Sage ran off. Sort of." The occasional sharing of memories with his sister could be helpful. "Do you need help with something?" He indicated the food, asking out of guilt- guilt for his sister's actions.

Some patchy, painful images leaked through to him as well. Shielding wasn't working. Stupid empathy. He made his hands into fists.

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

"Oh. Sorry. I don't--I mean, you could help me out by eating some of this, but I'm good. Really. Fine."

Eventually, if she repeated it enough, she would start to believe it, and then it would be almost-true. She could live with almost-true, right? (Apparently she'd been living with it for years, thanks Mum.)

"I mean, are you okay? You don't--I mean--do you want to sit down or something?"

[rat-bstrd.livejournal.com]

"I- are you sure this is safe?" He poked at a cookie. "Last time I ate one of the damn things, I turned into something else.

He squinted at her. "Fine? I'm ok. Good enough."
She didn't feel fine.

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, I made them all myself. No one else touched them except for the house elves who helped carry them, I promise, and I don't hold with putting things in food. I didn't even accidentally dust any of them, X-man's honor." She held out both hands in front of her. "Megan Gwynn, Gryffindor, so you can track me down if I'm lying."

She shrugged. "Suit yourself, then, you just looked a bit off, is all."

[rat-bstrd.livejournal.com]

He was more than a bit off by now, distracted by her earlier pain. It made him look a bit pissed-off to be honest.

He reached out and took one. "Good" he murmered through a mouthful of food. "You and Sage hang out much?" Of course he knew they didn't, but it was something to say.

[rose-of-powell.livejournal.com]

If Rose were the sort of girl to learn from her past experiences, she probably would have wandered off from the Doctor an awful lot less. As it was, she decided to trust the sign. "'Fanks," she mumbled at the girl who'd left them out, her mouth mostly full of biscuit.

"They're really good," she added, after swallowing. "My name's Rose. What's yours?"

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

"You're welcome!" Megan said, beaming. "I'm Megan. It's nice to meet you."

[rose-of-powell.livejournal.com]

"Nice to meet you, too. Any particular reason behind all the baked goods?" Maybe it was for a birthday or something?

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

"Oh, no. I just felt like baking, and then I couldn't stop. And since I can't eat it all, I thought, 'Well, why not do something nice for everyone else?'" She grinned, tapping at the sign. "I hoped that the sign would help show that I'm not one of the tricky ones here, but I guess it might make me look suspicious. But I'm not, really, I promise."

[rose-of-powell.livejournal.com]

"Tastes fine to me," Rose said, smiling. "And I know what you mean about needing to do something. Hey, at least you decided to go for baking instead of eating, right?"

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

"I can't say I didn't eat any." Megan looked with mixed longing and a slight green tinge at some of the chocolate chip ones. "You can't do proper baking unless you taste the dough. And I kind of tasted a lot of it. A lot."

[rose-of-powell.livejournal.com]

"Well, of course. If you're in a situation y'need to do some baking, eating the cookie dough is practically a requirement.

[calligraphywolf.livejournal.com]

It was as much the smell of delicious baked goods as it was the sense of something being not quite right that lured Amaterasu into the Great Hall. Winter flora trailed her steps, sprouting up from the stone floor and then gradually disappearing back into it after a few minutes, so the house-elves wouldn't have to worry about it.

She quickly located the source of the smell and, balancing on her hind legs, helped herself to several cookies, crunching them noisily. The winged girl was the other reason she'd been drawn there, so she got back down to all fours and pushed her broad head into the girl's lap with a friendly whine. Amaterasu was a deity, but even she was subject to certain rules which governed her interaction with others on the earthly plane; only in certain circumstances could she directly intervene in their lives, divinely speaking. But comfort was something that could be freely offered.

[my-soul-itches.livejournal.com]

Megan gasped in delight at the beautiful dog--wolf?--and reached out hesitantly to see if it would let itself be petted. "You probably want to stay away from the chocolate ones," she said, because if it was at Hogwarts it could probably talk or understand English or something. "Even if it can't kill you, I bet it wouldn't feel good. The oatmeal ones might be all right, though. I think I made plenty of those."