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Third Floor Common Room - LUAU

Joan and Kate had worked all afternoon to transform the common room into a tropical paradise.

Inside the door, a small table held flower leis for all of the party-goers. There were garlands hanging around the room, tabletop torches on most of the flat surfaces, and paper lanterns adding festive mood lighting.

Hawaiian music played in the background if anyone felt the urge to hula.

[~~please wait for~~ OCD up! Have fun!]

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"That's always a good plan." Dinah dimpled at her. "The not-thinking-too-hard. Um. Dragons. Mythological in my world, but, apparently real somewhere else-- big giant flying fire-breathing lizards?" Her eyebrows went up. "I think the one they killed was the size of a truck or bigger."

She filed that away and the whole thing reminded her of, goodness it seemed so long ago, her research project. The filing of various beasties and monsters into a text that anyone could index or use in case of an emergency.

"Fire breathing?"

Her text hadn't mentioned that, after all.

"How is that biologically possible?"

"I'm not sure it would be, but Merlin's a better person to ask, being a wizard, and actually having seen the thing," Dinah admitted. "I don't get how half the demons we banished managed to move as fast as they did for how huge they were, either. Totally not fair. Or why nylon rope was the only thing that held them."

She considered that for a moment.

"Perhaps because of the unnatural nature of the binding?" she pondered out loud, unsure of the actual answer.

"I won't bother Merlin, though. I'll just... try and research it."

"That's what Tony said Arra said. The wizard who gave him his cliff notes," Dinah said, surprised. "Yeah. But still! Makes no sense." She shook her head, then smiled. "But I'd love to hear what you find out. Tony's kind of winging it with his magic."

"I'm kind of winging it with everything, but I've managed to get a copy of the Mythica Improbiba for myself" just as Eliot had managed to get himself another laptop "so perhaps I can look through and see what it says. Mother said it was mostly nonsense, but the way she said it just told me that most of it must be unflattering. There's a picture that's down to the last detail definitely my aunt Dallas, after all."

She leaned back on the couch.

"The rope thing makes some sense, though. There was this dagger that was supposed to be poisoned so it could kill even the Infernal, but when my dad tried to use it on someone, they'd managed to develop an antidote for it over the years and it totally didn't work. A sword that was feared for centuries, foild by modern biochemistry."

"Ha! I have no idea why, but that makes me happy," Dinah said, folding up her legs under herself, and snickering as she bit into a kiwi. "Maybe the idea of something really feared just being... useless. Because the world got smarter. You know?" She brightened at the mention of the book, and said, "Yeah, if you find anything really useful in there, that'd be cool. And your Aunt Dallas is in it?" Dinah grinned, then looked thoughtful. "How much does she look like Aprodite? Really a lot, or just kind of similar?"

"It wasn't happy at the time, considering," Fiona said with a little smile, "but I get it. Thinking back, I'm kind of glad too. It means that logic and science can win sometimes.

"But, uh, as for aunt Dallas? Really. A lot. Also, she's, um, kind of naked so it's a little weird."

Really really weird and totally awkward.

"Oohhhhh," Dinah said, blinking hard. "Okay, that's-- yeah. A little weird." She tried not to snicker, but it was difficult, because great, now she was thinking of 'Dite without the lingerie, and that was soooo odd. She grinned at Fiona. "And she's not even my aunt. Sheesh." She shook her head, amused, then frowned, thinking. "You know, I keep meaning to ask her about other gods and goddesses and the whole deal, I mean, it's thousands of years since they were all worshipped, and I get that stuff about love still gives her power. But are the others of hers around too?"

And would she have any idea how that worked for Fiona?

"It might be a sensitive subject," she said after a minute.

"I know that my family, the way they are, they all don't get along much. At least, some of them. Like... my mother has a lot of trouble with my aunt Lucia."

"Which one is your aunt Lucia?" Dinah asked, looking intrigued. "And hunh. Yeah." That would make sense with all the freaky tests they put Fiona and Eliot through, and all their issues with the other side of their family. "I guess I could see that. Still." For Dinah, this was all kind of academic in a way, but... "Have you met the angel who's living in the church? Castiel?"

"Lachesis. The one who measures. The middle Fate. Aunt Dallas is the youngest one, Clotho. She used to go by Claudia."

Fiona didn't feel like explaining the 'free love' bus or any of the rest of it.

"Castiel? Yeah, I went to go check in with him when I found out he was here. I kinda made him break a window."

"How'd you manage that?" Dinah wondered, trying to put together 'goddess of love' with 'youngest Fate' and ending up with her middle-school mythology teachers throwing up their hands inside her head. "He seemed pretty calm and all to me."

"I... kind of mentioned that my dad might visit again. He didn't seem to like the idea too much, though after he didn't 'freak', he mentioned he'd probably be okay with it."

"Yeah, that would do it... but he'd be okay with it?" Dinah ended up blinking a lot on that. "Really? He's not obligated to start something if your dad is here?"

"I guess not. Maybe there's a treaty like there is between my mom's family and my dad's family or something? I don't know. But he was nice enough. Really... stoic."

"Really really stoic," Dinah had to agree. "Not human. You could tell. Way too calm. But nice. He talked to me when I lit candles for people." She looked down at her hands, and shrugged. "It would make sense, a treaty, if no one wants the world to end yet."

One phrase caught her attention and made her quirk her head. She didn't know anything about religion, after all. She'd had a few things explained to her, but most of the nuances and the specific acts had been left out.

"Who did you have to light candles for? Did someone forget to light their candles? Or, um, get turned into something?"

"What?" Dinah blinked, then shook her head, getting it. "Oh, no. It's, um. It's a way of remembering people who died. Or of praying. You light a candle, I guess, to show you care, and... say a prayer. Castiel said there were certain saints you could pray to for different things, like having specialties." She quirked her lips sideways in an almost-smile. "I lit candles for the people who were vampires who died over there. And for me." She sighed. "To St. Jude. Patron saint of lost causes."

Saints. She wasn't quite up on saints, other than the number of them whose stories were in her mythology texts. She didn't really understand what they were.

"They're like... people-gods or something from mythology, right?"

"Umm, no." Dinah blinked again. "Okay, this isn't really my religion, it's Helena's, but saints are people who were really holy and good while they were alive. They were, um." She frowned again, trying to remember one of Helena's rants. "They helped other people, and sometimes they died for their religion, and performed miracles when they prayed for help to God." Right, okay. "So after they died, the heads of the religion would recognize them as role models and people you could pray to who would understand what you were dealing with. I think."

"...but they're still dead."

So how did that work?

"Well, yeah." Dinah blinked at her. "They're in Heaven. With God." She paused. "Sooooo, they can go talk to God, I think is the theory. I was just going to say 'hey, look out for these vampires who died, or the people they were' to God, but if St. Jude gets it better, that works too."

It really wasn't her religion. Helena was facepalming somewhere.

Yeah, Fiona really didn't get it.

"Okay," she said, determined to look it up later, "it sounds kind of weird to me. Then again, I didn't grow up with any of it."

"It's more..." Dinah paused, looking down at her hands. "It's more to make people feel better. I think. A way to say good-bye." She swallowed, looked away. Couldn't say, I lit candles for my mom two months ago. That cut too deep. "Since there was no funeral, and no memorial service, and no way to know how things came out, over there." She shrugged, then smiled at Fiona. "Books could explain it better than I could, anyway."

Third Floor Common Room - LUAU

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