Ring Around the Rosie

[iamnotpolaris]

Niagara Falls is gorgeous, but there's only so long you can stand at the railing staring at it. Emily is, therefore, giving her feet a rest with one of the convenient benches and snapping photos of miscellaneous attractive objects.

She isn't taking pictures of specific people, because, privacy, but in a crowded place like this you can't exactly complain if you happen to be in frame when someone's trying to take a picture of a rainbow or a flower. Or if someone happens to notice your bracelet when the sleeve of your hoodie rides up a little. Or that it's not actually a bracelet, but some kind of...vine? With thorns?

Okay, they could probably complain some about her getting up to follow them, but it would bother Emily for weeks if she never found out whether she had seen wrong or not.

Comments

[iamnotpolaris]

"Red one was cutting, right? Doesn't sound as useful as the others."

[the_greatest_show]

"If you're only going to use one flower it's kinda the best one because it's the borrower," says Cass. "After you get good enough at the cutting magic you can start on one of the other four and they're healing people, moving stuff, the weird one that's the same as the weird one from the black flowers, and light."

[gaincontrol]

"We don't know what all the kinds of magic do because we haven't tried them all yet and the ones we've tried we haven't totally figured out, but you can tell which kinds of magic are the same as which other kinds without having to use them."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I suppose the shower thing is less obnoxious than it would be if the thorns weren't hard on clothing anyway."

[gaincontrol]

"I mean, you can put clothes on over the flowers, witness how I'm wearing clothes, but yeah, the red ones are really messy especially when you're just starting out."

[iamnotpolaris]

"I just meant for putting the flowers on. I observe that you are wearing clothes. The alternative would be so much more awkward."

[the_greatest_show]

Cass snickers.

[iamnotpolaris]

Emily's phone pings. She takes it out and checks it. "My sister appears to be overreacting to my last text."

[the_greatest_show]

"Yeah?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"Well, remember that I thought you guys might be connected to a cult at the time. I told her where I was and that if I went mysteriously missing I didn't just get lost."

[the_greatest_show]

"...Do you maybe wanna tell her that we're not a cult and you haven't gone mysteriously missing?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"I didn't say anything about a cult specifically or even technically mention I was trailing anyone, but yeah, I'm reassuring her," she says, typing at the tiny keyboard on her screen. All cleared up, no worries! Also, magic exists.

[gaincontrol]

"Is she going to want flowers too?"

[iamnotpolaris]

"Probably. Do they--reproduce, once you have them?"

[gaincontrol]

"Not really. I can make more of any of them but Cass can't do pink or blue yet, you have to use the flower a lot before you can do that."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Use like be wearing, use like do magic...?"

[gaincontrol]

"Like be wearing, I'm pretty sure. It's hard to tell because it's not like we know a ton of magic flower users."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Makes sense. Do you want to exchange e-mail addresses or something? So we can let you know anything that we figure out and vice-versa."

[gaincontrol]

"Yeah, sure."

Pen! Paper! Email address!

[iamnotpolaris]

"...My name's Emily, by the way. Emily Lehnsherr."

[gaincontrol]

"I'm Anna and this is Cass."

[the_greatest_show]

"Nice to meet you."

[iamnotpolaris]

"Despite the initial circumstances, I'm sure."

[the_greatest_show]

Cass giggles.

[gaincontrol]

Anna grows four more long-stemmed flowers to give to Emily.