taxonomites | 4. [Location: Tamper and Trick] [For Tara or other employees of the shop]

Entry tags:

4. [Location: Tamper and Trick] [For Tara or other employees of the shop]

Lorne's in a twitchy mood. Every time he turns around, he feels like someone, or something, is watching him from behind. The shadows behind the bar look alive, somehow. When he woke up this morning, he could have sworn he saw a bloodless face hovering inches from his own - but maybe it had just been a dream. The verdict is in: something's the matter with Taxon.

As he walks into the magic shop, his eyes keep darting to the corners of his vision, to dispel the shadows that constantly gather there. He leans against the counter and rings the bell.

"Anybody home?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Tara comes out from the small room behind the register. Lorne may have observed some arcs of salt on the floor; she's been trying to keep the ghosts contained, just in case. "Oh - hi." Her eyes flick to the corners, and she frowns just lightly, but turns back to him with a smaller smile. "Sorry. Can I help you?"

He looks vaguely familiar, but her memories from the glitch are a bit fuzzy, and she doesn't place him right away. Her bruises are still present, but fading a bit, now.

Lorne blinks in surprise. It's the poor, lost girl he met in the street the other day!

"Oh, honey! Are you all right, Tara? Did you get a job here? Find a place to stay?"

"Oh. Oh!" She smiles, a little shyly, remembering now, at least the broad outlines. "No, I... I was glitched. This is my shop. But thank you, for being kind to me. I don't remember it perfectly, but I have the major points."

Now that she says it, he can probably see that this Tara holds herself a bit more confidently, even if her demeanor is still quiet. She's a little rough around the edges still, from the Master's torture, but on the whole she's much less afraid, it seems. And barely any stutter at all.

"Am I ever glad that was a glitch! You looked so sad, I didn't know what to do. I'm glad you're back in your right mind," he says, giving a bright smile.

"Maybe you can help me with the potion I'm trying to brew up. My particular species of demon is mostly booze-proof, but I'd really like to have a night sometime when I can get properly smashed. I was thinking some Braznarc demon slime might do the trick? I'm not exactly Sabrina over here."

She thinks about it for a moment. "I haven't really done anything exactly like that before, but I don't know why it couldn't be done."

Her magic is coming back, slowly but surely, and potion-making is always something that's come relatively easily to her.

"Braznarc demon slime, you said?" She gets out a pad to jot it down. "I may have to do a bit of research, but at least with hatches, I know I can get any supplies I need."

"I know this may be a bit tricky," he says apologetically. "I didn't expect you to be the local expert on demon brain science. But I think that's the active ingredient, anyway. Maybe add a touch of dream-nettle?"

He shifts weight from one foot to the other and hears salt crunch under his foot. Lorne looks down at the floor. "Salt circles, huh? Seems like a smart idea these days."

She smiles, shyly. "I don't know about expert. I had some friends who knew more, but..." She lets that trail off. So soon after losing Xander, Sam, Rose and the Doctor, losing Ethan and Giles feels especially raw.

"Yeah, I don't... don't know if they're dangerous or not, but I thought it best to be a little safer? I'm trying to keep an eye on them. Are there more outside the shop?"

"Hate to break it to you, sugar plum, but this entire town's turned into the music video for 'Thriller.' When I woke up this morning, there was this face right up next to mine." He gestures with his hand, indicating something a few inches from his nose. "Though as soon as I blinked, it went away."

Tara shakes her head. "They don't... don't seem dangerous yet, but I don't want to take any chances. Ghosts sneak up on you, sometimes. Do they look like anyone in particular to you?"

"Don't think so. If I could have gotten just one more look at that face, I might have figured it out, but..." He shakes his head. "Got any theories as to what's going on?"

She grimaces. "The default answer is usually 'a glitch,' but it could be that someone did something that called them. I'm not sure, without more looking."

"'Glitch' doesn't mean anything," Lorne grouses. "A glitch is what they call it when you're watching a concert live on TV and the sound cuts out. This isn't some technical boo-boo. This is people acting like someone they're not, and the whole town turning into a Broadway musical with an extra dose of truth serum. Why do people call them 'glitches'? It's like we're some kind of program."

Lorne hunches over the counter moodily. "Cordy and Fred have been here for months and they still don't know what a glitch is. The Doctor was here for however long, he's practically a demigod and as far as I can tell he never figured it out. I've had it up to about here," he says with uncharacteristic anger, gesturing at the level of his horns. "You know what I think? Those hamsters, or whatever they are, are messing with us. And they're about to go a step too far, because Cordy had a vision, and this whole town is gonna go up in flames if we don't do something."

She looks down, hiding her reaction. Tara's still a little more on edge than she lets on, and while she agrees with him, his anger makes her feel slightly ill even when it isn't directed at her. "They took the Doctor away. Just like a lot of the others. Maybe he was g-getting close."

The whole town up in flames sounds oddly like Sunnydale. It only serves to make her more homesick; without Xander or Willow or Giles, it would never really feel like home.

Lorne deflates a little. He asks plaintively, "How do we know where they get 'taken away'? Does anyone ever come back?"

"I've only heard of it a time or two. And then they don't... they don't remember being here." Then there's the Doctor's theory. That the ones who were here are dead. The replacements might come from different universes, or from earlier in their timelines, but..

She can't imagine the Doctor getting out of his own volition and not taking more people. Or, at the very least, gloating a little in proving so many people wrong - he was her friend, but she had a sense of his ego.

"So I guess the only way to find out where they go is to take it up with the hamsters upstairs." Lorne sighs and rests his chin in his hand. "But I get the feeling they don't care what we think."

"No." She pauses, resting her hands on the counter for a moment, and says, "My friend Rose and I - before she disappeared - we put up a suggestion box. Sort of as a joke. I... I enchanted it, so all the slips come here to the shop, and it looks like someone's reading them. Maybe that was cruel, but we thought... thought maybe it would keep people a little hopeful, you know? Just while people were looking for answers."

"Sorry about your friend. I hope wherever she went is better than here." He traces random patterns on the countertop with his fingernail.

"I trust you didn't actually read what people wrote? That wouldn't be right."

"No! No, of course not. I... I do a little offering with them," she confesses, shyly. "Maybe someone better than the aliens is listening. I thought it couldn't hurt."

"Sounds like a good idea to me. Which goddess do you dedicate to?" Yes, Lorne assumes a goddess, because Tara's a witch and he gravitates toward goddesses himself.

"Aradia, usually." Tara has given this some thought, and there were several strong possibilities, but Aradia was usually the one to invoke for things and people who were lost. It felt like a good fit.

"Rose... she left before I could tell her about that part. But I hope she wouldn't mind. I just think if people take the time to make suggestions, someone should listen, even if the aliens don't."

Aradia. Makes sense to Lorne, after seeing Tara glitched. She'd certainly been lost then. Had she glitched to some past version of herself, as Spike did? He knows better than to ask. "I tend toward the Muses myself, when I'm in a dedicating kind of mood."

"I'm sure she wouldn't," Lorne reassures her. "I wish I could have gotten to know her better before she left. What I do know about her is from what I read when she sang to me." Sheepish pause. "I should probably mention that I can read people's auras and destinies when they sing. The glitch made Rose sing, so I read her. I felt kind of bad about it; usually I try to let people know what they're getting into when they sing for me."

"Oh - wow, last month must have been h-hard, then." She hesitates, but he's been open with her, so she says, "I see auras too. Not destinies, and nothing so specific that it's prophecy. More like... the state of their spirit. It can get distracting on its own. I'm sure with yours it's even more acute."

"So I guess you understand why I couldn't even look at Extras for the first week I was here. A couple of 'em sang over at Caritas." He shudders. "Even now, I wish there were more real people running things. I have to get my suits tailored by an Extra, and let me tell you, getting measured by one of those zombies with a measuring tape is like getting a patdown by Mickey Rourke after a morphine drip."

"They're not right." Tara shakes her head. "I mean, you have to deal with them here, but they're completely wrong. Not all the captives are human, but they're all people, you know?"

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only