Sunshine Secrets [Finished!]

[Bee]

Mom was going to be coming home from the palace tomorrow. The only reason Thalia knew this was because Mom wanted to her pick up a very special plant at a very exclusive nursery, because being a King was such tiring work and when she got home she just wanted to kick back with a martini or ten and relax. Thalia was quite happy to perform the task. Though she didn't know why Mom had picked her over Mama or Elyse or even Helena. Out of all of them, she was most likely to destroy the thing.

The clerk at the garden let her in only very reluctantly, after she assured the man that she was Mnem's daughter come to pick up her purchase.

"See!" she told him. "We have the same Hair and everything." She wiggled it, for emphasis. The man lead her through the nursery, telling her to wait in a very large greenhouse as he went into one of the backrooms to get the plant. She glanced around. So many pretty flowers. Bees and butterflies.

She began to wander, tentacles absently plucking a small bouquet of the flowers she thought prettiest. Then something caught her eye. Behind some large shrubs, in a pool of bright sunlight. A Lowlander, sunbathing.

Curiously, Thalia stepped closer. She lowered the bouquet of flowers in front of her face. "For you!" she said.

[Dark]

Iskra reluctantly peeled back the semi-transparent membrane that acted as her eyelid, blinking lazily as her eyes were assaulted by a nauseating torrent of color--not so much the bouquet of flowers that had been shoved in her face, but the child holding them.

Bright, bright, nauseating child; a corvie mix that had gone wrong somewhere along the way--the tentacles were especially interesting, followed by the hair that was waving about almost like it had a mind of its own. A rather ominous aura of klutziness and disaster wrapped up the package nicely, and Iskra couldn't help but wonder what kind of parents had come together to produce such a...unique child. The kid's family must really be something else.

She forcibly focused her sleepy attention on the flowers, "Thanks, dear--nice gesture an' all--but... ain't that one poisonous?"

[Bee]

Thalia looked back at the bouquet. Sure enough, she spied the little bugger. She had never paid much undue attention to Mom's plants--even less now that Mom had moved most of them out of the apartment--but she knew which ones could hurt her. Trial and terrible, terrible error: the great teacher of childhood.

"Ah! So it is." She grabbed a little silver flower from the bunch and absently tossed it over her shoulder. "Sorry about that! I'm not, er, trying to kill you or anything, I swear. I'm Thalia, by the way, very nice to meet you." Something occured to her. "How did you sneak in here?"

The managers of this little nursery were enormous snots about it, and thus had a pretty good security system. She was curious to know how this Lowlander had evaded it, and whether it was a technique she could use in the future.

[Dark]

Now that they'd gotten the matter of possible assination attempts out of the way... Iskra shook her head, marveling at the strange creature, so wrapped up in her own amusement that she almost missed the child's question.

"'s easy; I just climbed in through the skylight," she gestured upwards. The shoppe owner left it open on nice days to let in a fresh breeze, and if the weather continued to hold he sometimes wouldn't latch it at night, either, "though bein' able to climb walls helps. M'feet are sticky, see."

If there was one thing that would make being cold-blooded worthwhile it was that, but the constant need to find an outside source of heat was bothersome enough that the ability didn't seem like much of a consolation prize.

Something clattered in the far room and her tongue forked out, testing the air, "The owner's coming back, now; do me a favor and don' mention my being here, yeah? I'll meet ya outside."

[Bee]

Thalia nodded; as the gecko slipped out of sight, the manager came back with the plant. Thalia gently lifted it out of his grasp with her tentacles; the man's eyes widened in alarm.

"It's okay," Thalia assured him. "I have impractical balance."

He looked bemused. "Impeccable?"

"That's right," Thalia said cheerily, and turned to go.

"Well--" said the the man. "Well, tell your dear sweet mother I said hello, and that I always appreciate her business."

None of those adjectives described Mom, but Thalia agreed to do as he bid, even though all the other places she went to for Mom at least gave her candy or something.

She left the nursery. It really was wonderfully bright out. She looked around for her new friend. "Miss? Missus? Possibly Mister, 'cause sometimes you just can't tell, and trust me I know 'cause my whole family's--" she stopped. Ah. There she was. "Hey there!"

[Dark]

Iskra watched the ridiculously bright furball bounce towards her, wondering why she hadn't taken off in the opposite direction when she'd had the opportunity. Thalia seemed like a nice enough kid, but she didn't seem to be exactly...sane...either.

She pondered her apparent androgyny, not really offended that Thalia couldn't seem to tell but curious about the reason. To her own ears, her voice sounded feminine enough, but her body was fairly ambiguious when it came to her gender, so maybe that was it. Huh.

"Miss, dear. Mostly single, an' all. Got a plant, did ya? Seems rather..." Iskra eyed the plant. It looked fairly nondescript to her--rusty-red leaves that were just south of being considered pretty and tiny buds that could be anything. She finished her thought with a shrug, not really sure what she thought.

She didn't know much about botany, though, so for all she knew the damn thing could be a cure for cancer or something. Huh.

[Bee]

"Seems rather lame," Thalia finished brightly. She eyed the plant. It did not look like anything special at all. But who knew what Mom was going to do with it; she was always so very mysterious about what her prized collection did. This plant would likely kill somebody in the near future.

Something irredescent and rainbowy caught her eye. She grinned widely. Bubbles! There was a little stand selling bubble wands, in all sizes and colors. She loved bubbles. These wands were enchanted to make weirdly-shaped bubbles, too, from the looks of it, some of the oddest things Thalia had ever seen. A bubble-toaster floated into the sky, dancing away with bubble-ponies and bubble-severed-heads. It was magical.

She turned to Miss Gecko with an imploring smile. "Will you hold this plant for a minute, please? I want to get one of those. I'll be gone just a moment, I swear."

[Dark]

Iskra was left standing with a potted plant, not even sure how'd she gotten there to begin with and wondering idly if she was allergic to the reddish leaves brushing up against her face. She didn't dare smell it, and kept her tongue safetly in her mouth.

Thalia was completely oblivious to her discomfort, though, caught up in a happy world of bubbly shapes. Iskra really didn't understand that chid.

"Hey, Thalia--"

"You! Stop! Lowlander scum! Stealing from valued customers!" Indignant rage followed, sputtering words and thrashing. Iskra turned around slowly, blinking in puzzlement. Was he talking to her?

"Gaurds! I'll call the gaurds on you, Lowlander-scum! Gaurds!"

Iskra grimaced, "Sir, I really think there's been a misunderstand--"

"GAURDS."

They'd drawn quite a crowd now, the majority of which was on the side of the irrate shoppe keeper. Thalia was...nowhere to be seen.

[Bee]

Thalia was quite busy testing out her newly-stolen bubble wand when she heard the commotion. She blew out one last bubble--a tiny rusty blade! How cute!--and headed back over. Miss Gecko was surrounded by the angry employees of the nursery, who had murder in their eyes. Thalia stared at them, wide-eyed, for a moment, and then dropped the bubbles and rushed over.

"No no no!" she said, trying to shove a few of the guards away from Miss Gecko with her assortment of limbs. "She didn't steal it from me, really. Um. I went away for a moment. She was watching it, yeah yeah? Just watching. She's my new friend."

The manager looked at her with pity. "What is this scum threatening you with, child? She's a thief."

"No! That's all wrong. I'm a thief. She hasn't done anything wrong, you idiot!"

"Now, now, child, no more of this. Let us apprehend this wretched woman. Go home to your mother, and take the plant."

Thalia threw herself at him, pawing at him. "No," she said. "You've got no sense at all. She didn't do anything."

Strangely, the man seemed to calm. He looked a bit like someone slipping into a trance. Thalia looked at his serene, contented face with confusion. He liked being pawed at by little girls?

What a perv.

[Dark]

Iskra was preparing herself for a lynching when Thalia finally came rushing in. It was cute, the way she took on an angry mob and a man three times her size, and if they had been in any situation besides their current predicament Iskra might have felt compelled to tell her so. As it was, she kept her mouth shut.

Until she watched the effect Thalia's pawing was having on the shoppe keeper; if she hadn't known better she might have just thought the man was a pervert and maybe called him on it, but she had seen a similar reaction before. Could Thalia possibly have the same talent she herself did?

She set the pot down, slow and nonthreatening, and stepped up to Thalia, "She's right, ya know. No harm. Just holding on ta the thing for a mo' while she got some bubbles for herself."

Cautious, she laid her hand on the man's arm. Being a Lowlander didn't make using her talent particularly easy, but if she exerted enough force she could usually get some marginal result, depending on how open the individual was. Thalia had started it; she'd finish it.

Calm. Just calm down. That's right...