fandomhighdorms | The Roof, Saturday evening

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The Roof, Saturday evening

Charlie had gone up to the roof to work on a couple stories, so she'd have something new to give A.J. the next time she saw him. The Big Epic Graphic Novel was starting to develop a coherent plotline, but had now gotten tangled enough that she had to figure out who was doing what. Plus? She still needed to figure out where to put Turtle in there.

So while she made little charts and outlines for that, she was working on the Forest Fairy Tale for Beauty.

Verity stepped lightly as she made her way into the forest, looking above her on occasion, hoping to see a bird, or a butterfly; something warm and vibrant. But the only sight for what seemed like miles was the cool green foliage, whispering to itself...

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After ~~oh-so-handwavily~~ spending the day working on...well, work, Turtle bounced up to the roof wanting to get some fresh air and maybe to speculate on whether or not it was likely to get someone with spit from up here. However, thankfully, that last part was put aside when she spotted someone already up there.

"Charlie, hi!" She bounced over to sit next to her. "What's up?"

"Hey!" Charlie grinned and looked up from her notebook, pushing her hair out of her face. "I'm trying to work on two stories at once, and one of them is winning, even though it should be the other. What've you been up to?"

"Oh, you know," Turtle shrugged absently, "running the store, becoming royalty, saving my boyfriend from an evil interdimentional closet monster than only he is affect by. The usual. Which is the story that's winning?" She leaned in, for a better look, although she knew she wouldn't really process any of what she was seeing without Charlie's permission.

Charlie debated with herself for a second, then tilted the notepad so Turtle could see it. "Interdimensional closet monster? What, again?" She added, "I'm writing this for Beauty, I don't know if you've met her. It's based on a folk tale from the forest near her home."

Turtle shook her head a little. "Probably best not to ask," she warned, "although possibly the only logical explanation." She tried to put her focus on the notebook. "I don't think I have met her...what kind of villain does it got?"

"I haven't figured out that part yet," Charlie admitted. "I've just figured out that there's a prisoner in the center of the maze in the forest with amnesia, but I haven't worked out who hated him enough to do that to him. Just that he got tricked into staying there." She frowned. "Evil sorceror, maybe?"

"Hmmmmm," Turtle stroked her chin a little bit, thoughtfully. "Maybe. Or? Better? Evil sorceress."

"Oooo. I kind of like that, especially since the story has a heroine rescuing the guy, after all," Charlie said, then had to write a new line into the story:

Verity's footsteps were soft, but not soft enough to elude the attention of the person watching her from behind a screen of aspens, eyes narrowed in angry contemplation.

"Sooo, what kind of evil sorceress is she?"

"Well," Turtle said, her tone thoughtful still, "an evil one, of course, but she should be the kind of evil that, like...well, she's smart, and successful, and that's why she's such a force to be reckoned with, you know?"

Charlie suddenly grinned at Turtle, having an image of her in her tiara from Homecoming, looking really great, but also, suddenly, evil. "Of course! She just needs a name now!"

Who was this girl daring to trespass on her domain? Why hadn't the gryphons ripped her to shreds yet, or taken her screaming away to drop her in the lake? The sorceress glared, and tapped one finger against her lips. Time to find out more about her potential enemy. She'd worked far too hard to be thwarted now.

"Hmmm," Turtle, who was tapping her chin, leaned over as Charlie wrote to read along her process. It was really good! But she still had one suggestion, and she pointed at the line.

"She should be tapping her chin instead."

Charlie looked up and caught Turtle doing that, then grinned. "You are so right." She scored through the previous line and changed it to 'chin', and then said, "Okay, check me on this: she's put the guy in the labyrinth because she wants something he has? And if he forgets he has it, she can have it instead?"

"Oooh, I like that," Turtle mused eagerly. "It shows that you should, you know, not forgetting about your things or else evil, beautiful, tyrant sorceresses will take them. But what could it be? I mean, clearly, the sorceress already has the second most successful kingdom on the is...err, in all the land, so whatever it is that this dude has, it better be good."

"Well, it is a fairy tale, so maybe something magic? Something that belongs to the prisoner?" Charlie frowned at the notebook, and explained, "Beauty says there's legends of gryphons in the area, so I'm trying to work them in. She has a ring with a gryphon carved into it in gold. She has her ideas, but I started thinking about it too hard when she told me about it, and voila, story-time."

Grinning slightly, Turtle pulled up a leg so she could rest her chin on her knee. "Isn't that how most stories are, though? Gryphons could be cool; what might the prisoner have with gryphons that the sorceress might want?"

"Oh, duh. Eggs! Baby gryphons! He knows where they are!" Charlie started scribbling even more, and said, "And he's supposed to protect them, through some magic he has. But if he's not there to do it, Evil Sorceress Person can lure them away and put them to work!"

"Cheap labor!" Turtle giggled excitedly. "Awesome, that's perfect, Charlie. We totally gotta think of a name, though, since we can't just called her Evil Sorceress Person. ESPie." She snorted.

"Hmmmm. You're not wrong...." Charlie grinned down at the notebook, then asked, "So, what would you want your evil sorceress name to be, if you were going to be evil?"

"Not," Turtle pointed out importantly, "that she's anything like me, of course, but I guess if I had to choose, it would be..."

She frowned, thoughtfully, and then nodded.

"Alice."

"Alice? Hunh. Really?" Charlie grinned, though, and said, "Evil Sorceress Person is now, Alice, Enchantress of the Silent Forest."

Turtle nodded, straightening with pride. "That's right. It's a very distinguished, no-nonsense name, as she is a very distinguished, no-nonsense sort of evil sorceress."

"Exactly! And that's how she's won so far. But-- okay, she needs a flaw if the heroine is going to rescue the prisoner. Otherwise, the good guys don't win," Charlie pointed out.

Verity stopped as a small golden feather drifted past her, and was caught in the thorns of a rosebush. Something was alive here, if that feather hadn't been blown from Zanzibar, or Timbuktu. She carefully teased it out of the roses, and turned into the wind, squinting in the direction from which it had been blown.

Turtle was leaning in close, watching Charlie spin out the story; she would be on the edge of her seat if her seat had more of an edge that wasn't, you know, a six story drop. "Oooooh," she gushed, getting rather into it, "what is it? That one of the gryphons? One that Verity would find that proves, once again, that cheap labor isn't always best? ...That can be Alice's flaw. Not properly appreciating the value of her employees."

"Ooo. Oo! Of course! Yes! It's not like the gryphons want her to win, and she's been over-confident about keeping the prisoner hidden. So they'll help Verity, and leave her clues, so they don't get punished by Alice." Charlie grinned at her, wide and gleeful. "I think it's time for a distraction. Or Alice is going to do something horrible to Verity, hunh?"

"Oooh, a distraction?" Turtle bounced a little. "Like what?"

"Liiiike...."

A wall of greenery suddenly rose, rustling and thick, to block her path and divert her away from the source of the feather. Vines twined up the nearest trees, fencing her in, sending Verity stumbling back in dismay. A hedge grew suddenly behind her, flickering upward like emerald fire, forcing her to walk back toward the edge of the forest.

She kept a hold of the feather, and didn't let go of it until she saw the road.

"'Emerald fire,'" Turtle read out loud with a grin. "Man, Charlie, you really are good at this writing thing."

Charlie turned bright red, and grinned. "Thanks. It's not too much? I was just thinking, maybe the forest has its own agenda too, you know?"

Turtle shook her head. "I don't think it's too much; and what agenda would the forest have?"

Charlie had another one of those duh moments the second Turtle asked that. "To have the birds come back, and the animals, and everything else that Alice drove away in order to keep the prisoner secret and secure. it wasn't even intended, just a side-effect of her spell! So in a magic forest, the forest is going to want to go back to normal. It's not thinking, just reacting. So she'll never figure it out!" She beamed at Turtle. "You ask the best questions."

Turtle was giving Charlie the best duh look back that she could manage over the fact that she was beaming right back. "Well, of course."

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The Roof, Saturday evening

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