Welcome

[Natalie Woodcroft]

Okay, either this shop is the last biggest franchise in town, thought Natalie, as she strode past a red building sporting a massive sign reading ‘Queen of Tarts’, or I’ve gone through this block three times now. The shop in question did in fact proudly advertise having the best tarts and pies in all of Ireland, yet Nat was more inclined to think she was lost than to believe the latest biggest franchise in town would have cockroaches running about the counters of every single one of its cafes.

Which brought Natalie back to the original problem, how was she going to get home tonight? Apparating seemed a logical solution, except for the fact that at this very moment Nat trusted her apparition skills even less than she trusted her ability to orient herself, and Nat had never trusted her ability to orient herself.

Thinking in retrospective she was pretty sure she should have said no to that last beer, or the one before. In fact she should have probably said no to going out on a Sunday night altogether. Not that Nat honestly believed she was drunk, at least not completely, but she couldn’t ignore a slight spinning every time she took a step too fast or made a turn too sharp. She blamed the Italian blood, a true Irish would have never found herself in such a predicament.

Why she had thought taking that diagonal street for a shortcut was a good idea was beyond her. She knew she couldn’t handle diagonals, she also knew that Dublin’s street layout –which she was sure hadn’t been updated since the middle ages- made it the perfect maze for the distracted soul, or at least for her distracted soul. Hadn’t she learnt at a tender age to stay away from diagonals? Clearly not.

She took a deep breath. Come on Nat. You’re a resourceful woman. Think! She couldn’t be too far away from Duibhlinn Court, she had been close enough when taking that unfortunate turn, she was almost –almost- sure she hadn’t walked too far. And if she was near the Court she was bound to be near her own flat, that much she was sure of. Perhaps if I sit dow-

“Oh boy!” The last few words had come out without her even noticing. She quickly realized that seating down was clearly poor judgment on her behalf. As she stopped the world around her made its most impressive spin so far that night and her knees finally failed her. She waved her hands trying to get a grip of the adjacent wall – a desperate attempt to both soften the impact and give her fall a bit of dignity-, yet all she managed to do was slide down the wall in the most ungraceful manner still landing hard on her butt.

[Daphne Popplehale]

Inspired by a car alarm in the distance, though completely ignorant to the technology of car alarms, Daphne was doing the robot up the side walk. Unaware that without music she appeared to be under the influence of a heavy dose of chlorpromazine, Daphne lifted her forearms and moved her head in jerking motions. Her walk could easily have brought any witness back to the school day reels of wartime propaganda films featuring baby-eating Nazis. Without a clue as to how ridiculous she looked, she merrily thought about how fantastic she looked in her silver glitter eye-shadow, grey t-shirt with glittery silver bold letters spelling out "SEEKER", silver puffy boots, and metallic Rainbow Bright skirt.

I look bitchin'[/i] right now![/i] Daphne moved the words through her mind to a beat she had established as being fundamentally robotic. Her inner voice resisted her expression of pleasure and maintained its monotone as it moved along to her imaginary robot sounds.

Rounding a corner, Daphne nearly stumbled over what she assumed was a vagrant, drunk, drunk vagrant, or an alien. Suspiciously she looked at the young woman on her arse. The best recourse to such an event would doubtlessly be to continue with what she had just mentally distinguished as performance art.

"GREETINGS. HUMAN." Daphne waved tightly, allowing her elbow joint to bear the brunt of the work in her greeting. A considerable amount of effort was thrust toward trying to keep her face straight. Daphne's mind kept pushing her to give the girl further evidence that she was pretending to be a robot. The first large, impersonal word to come to mind popped out of her mouth with little time passing after her initial hello. "AFFIRMATIVE." Daphne was pretty thrilled with it.

[Natalie Woodcroft]

Natalie found herself in a rather complex predicament. On one hand, she certainly couldn’t spend the night on her bottom in a dark street in the middle of who knew where. At the same time, she was finding it quite difficult to regain enough balance to stand up. Occupied as she was with such a difficult situation she failed to notice she had company until the very moment she was addressed.

"GREETINGS. HUMAN." Natalie looked up and stared for several minutes at the figure of what reckoned to be a young woman, or perhaps a young female robot. She did have the voice and gestures, and as her vision was slightly clouded now most of what she could see was just shinny silver.

Not that she was aware of muggle science being advanced enough to create robots this realistic. On the other hand, she had never been interested enough on muggle science, or robots. And she admitted that if an entire magical world could coexist in secret with the muggle reality so could robots and perhaps even aliens. Or at least it seemed plausible in her alcohol ridden mind.

The last shred of reason that was left in her told her that perhaps she was drunker than she had first assessed. Could it be possible that she was imagining the entire situation? Could drunks imagine things this vivid? She should have read more about drunks… and robots…

She was shaken out of her tribulations once again, this time with an equally robotic, "AFFIRMATIVE." To what Nat finally felt forced to retort, partially because it seemed like the polite thing to do, partially because she feared the robot/person/something might get impatient and she didn’t want to find out what robots did when they were impatient.

Unsure of what to say she let out the first thing that came to mind, “what is affirmative?” Okay, perhaps it wasn’t the most polite thing to say, but at least it was something.

[Daphne Popplehale]

The question threw Daphne out of her role and she tilted her head with a very organic movement. "Oh. It's another way to say 'yes'." There had been no prior preparation for an examination of her linguistic skills, and the thought of being tested worked at her nerves. Without the confidence of a robot her voice had risen moderately. Even if her intonation fell closer to question than to statement, Daphne's expression had started to become sunnier: she was quite certain she had passed.

Worry out of the way and her robot routine far from the forefront of her mind, Daphne grinned at the other woman. Happily she held out her hands to the lady on the ground, offering her assistance. Before the other could take advantage of the help being offered, Daphne thought better of it, spun on her heels, and plopped down next to the woman.

"This is superkins cold" Daphne commented with an upturned nose. Thoughtfully she looked over to the other woman. "Are you trying to make an artistic statement by freezing your arse?" Her smile had affixed itself to her countenance by then. "You could call it 'Lady with the Frozen Butt' or 'Blue Cheeks'. That last one would be a good title for an anime about a colony of snow fairies. Oh my gosh, and they can only make snow and like, ice and stuff when their butts are cold. The Japanese are always thinking of coolio things that. It would be so kawaii. And wintery." While an end to Daphne's side of the discussion seemed like it would never come, the abrupt silence that marked its arrival had finally come.

[Natalie Woodcroft]

Natalie had the slight impression that the female –she was female, that much she was sure of- in front of her hadn’t quite answered her question. Although she still reviewed her statement and her own a couple times just in case she was getting something wrong.

Busy as she was, analyzing in depth both syntactic and grammar of what had been said, Natalie missed some of the following sentences. It wasn’t until, ”- call it 'Lady with the Frozen Butt' or 'Blue Cheeks'”, that she caught up with the conversation once more. Making an effort not to get lost again she tried to focus on what appeared to be a rather disjointed argument. But it seemed to her that she had missed a vital point earlier before because not much of it was making sense no matter how hard she tried to understand.

Regardless she remained patient, and waited for her interlocutor to finish. Partially because she hoped it would all make sense in the end; partially because she was slightly scared of the dangers of interrupting someone who could put the words coolio, faeries butt and kawaii all in one paragraph.

“Wait…” The abrupt halt took her by surprise and she didn’t remember which of the many questions that had come to mind in the past few minutes were more important. Yet fearing that if she didn’t interject something soon Silver Girl would start again, she shooted one at random, “why did you say faeries wanted to make snow out of their butts? Although it would make it easier to get rid of poop…" At that she shook her head energetically, in a desperate attempt to draw away the vivid image of frozen faerie excrement. Unfortunately this only added to her dizziness forcing her to lean backwards as she felt the world was going to turn for a second time.

[Daphne Popplehale]

"No, no!" Daphne shouted merrily with a shrill laugh following. "They can only make snow and ice and sleet and hail and... stuff like that when their butts are cold! They don't like, poop it out. It's like their magic only works when their butts are cold." She cocked her head and smiled at the strange woman. "Like, sometimes when your tummy is full of warm soup, you magically feel happier and then you feel warmer and THEN you can like, paint a picture. It affects artistry, and making snow is artistic because each snowflake is beautiful and unique." Daphne smiled dreamily as she thought of snowflakes and how beautiful and unique they were.

Lovely images of snowflake chains made from delicate ice crystals quickly evaded Daphne's attention. She bit her lower lip as her lower jaw moved to the right. "Pooping snow would be like, a..." Daphne blushed. "It would be like a Hentai." She looked around, because admitting she knew what Hentai was became like admitting she sometimes liked to rent them from the video store. "Because they would have to show fairy butts and the pooping, and some people think that's sexy and stuff." Daphne coughed lightly. "Not that I do." She smiled awkwardly. "I don't think pooping is sexy. I think it's smelly and gross and should be confined to loos."

[Natalie Woodcroft]

While Nat didn’t fully understand how soup could “affect artistry” she did agree that snow flakes were nice and unique, so she chose to nod silently. Hentai, however, was something she was completely unfamiliar with. Although by the description which followed she guessed she would rather stay in the dark.

Perhaps it should be better to divert the conversation from the entire poop and faeries topic. “Ermm… Yeah… That’s a good idea. My grandma has a saying,” frowning she tried to remember the exact words. “Happily pee, merrily pee, but… but please pee inside the loo. Or, well… Something like that. I think it was actually meant to rhyme.”

Why that was in any way relevant, Natalie didn’t know, and she had the feeling her topic-diverting hadn’t really been such. But with a shrug she told herself that it would have to do for now. In all honesty, all this talking about loos and such had made her want to pee, which reminded her that she still had to get home. Would it be safe to ask for directions from the other girl?

By now Natalie felt reasonably safe to confirm her as a part of the human race, rather than a tin made robot, or an outer space creature. Mostly because she imagined that talking to a robot would make much more sense than their actual conversation. But also because she figured robots wouldn’t be all that well informed on Anime and Japanese trends. Instead she gathered that the girl was either high on something or full on crazy. In either case she didn’t seem to be violent, so Nat didn’t feel inclined to fear her, not that she was in any condition to run where she to be attacked.

“Anyway, do you by any chance know the way to the Avenue?” It didn’t occur to Nat that perhaps she needed to point out which avenue. In her current state it seemed entirely reasonable that The Avenue, was Her Avenue, the one she needed.

[Daphne Popplehale]

With great agreement Daphne nodded to the woman's nana's sage wisdom. She thought it all sounded perfectly reasonable. Rhyming would have helped the saying catch on, but its message was still valuable.

"Anyway, do you by any chance know the way to the Avenue?"

"Oh, yeah!" Daphne happily confirmed. "D-" Daphne stopped herself before pointing in the direction of Duibhlinn Court's high street. They weren't far from the magical district, but they were certainly not in it. She did not recognise the woman and did not know if she was dealing with a muggle or a witch. "Dame Street isn't too far off. I'll take you there." Her recovery had been impressive, even if her stumble had been painfully obvious. That ordeal was over with, convincing or not, so Daphne dropped it.

Daphne pushed against the pavement and popped up into a standing position with ease. A second time she put out her hands to offer assistance to the stranger. "I'm Daphne, by the way. Daphne Popplehale."

[Natalie Woodcroft]

Still not realizing her mistake, Natalie couldn’t understand why she was being directed to Dame Street, while she had actually intended to head for O’Connell Street. Perhaps the other girl needed to get there for some reason. Well, whatever, they’re close enough anyway. Deciding to see her temporary companion to her destination and then follow on her own, Natalie focused on a much more pressing matter. Could she manage to stand up without monumentally falling on her rear again?

Thankfully, the blonde seemed to have thought the same, for she stood up faster and offered her a hand. "I'm Daphne, by the way. Daphne Popplehale." “Daphne Popplehale?! You’re the crazy sta-…” Surprised as she had been by such discovery, Natalie hadn’t really stopped to think before talking, and she stopped herself a second too late.

“Crazy fun star from Slytherin, promotion 2003, right? Granted, she had probably overdone it, but calling her old school mate a crazy stalker wasn’t the nicest thing to do, especially when Natalie’s safe arrival home depended on her. Not to mention she had been outright scared of her back in the day. Smiling in what she hoped was a nice honest grin –while actually producing a forced grimace-, Natalie proceeded to introduce herself, “I’m Natalie Woodcroft. I was a year ahead…” Still sitting in the ground, and having completely forgotten that she was meant to stand up, she offered her a hand to shake.

[Daphne Popplehale]

An uncertain look was given to the woman who was soon introduced as Natalie. Before Daphne had thought the young lady was an artist, or perhaps a drunkard. Now Daphne was beginning to wonder if she had found a homeless wizard, which would just be crazy. Wizards could make homes out of anything, unless they were missing their wands or their wits. Daphne's uncertainty turned to minor trepidation in the wake of her assessment. Crazy fun star? She wondered if the woman was trying to have her on, or if she was dealing with a genuine sewer-steam-dancing, shopping-tram-pushing, sleeps-in-the-church-pews nutter. The woman hadn't seemed dangerous, and her recovery had been a little reassuring, but Daphne decided the best bet was to tread carefully.

A bit stiffly Daphne allowed Natalie to shake her hand. OHMYGOSH! She's so far removed from human society that she doesn't even recognise two hands offered to a crazy person on the ground means you're trying to help them up! Daphne's stomach felt ill as she realised she was in a bad situation. Apparating would be next to useless unless Daphne could find a space that would give her at least fifteen seconds of padding between her and the weirdo.

"SO LET'S GET YOU TO DAME STREET." Daphne's voice, unnaturally loud, was a testament to her nerves. OHMYMERLIN SHE'S GOING TO KIDNAP ME. She wanted to cry from the helplessness of the situation.

[Natalie Woodcroft]

As Natalie shook Daphne’s hand she wondered why that extra palm was being extended to her. It took her a few seconds to remember she was supposed to take it to stand on her feet. But as she opened her mouth to apologize for her social idiocy, the other girl started screaming.

Why the other girl was being so loud she could not explain, but Natalie quickly attributed it to Daphne’s rumored mental instability. Yet, on a second thought, she realized perhaps the girl had some hearing issues. While she had not noticed such problems before, she hadn’t been paying extraordinary attention either.

In any case it was probably best to speak as loud as possible just in case. “OKAY, JUST HAVE TO STAND UP.” With that Natalie grabbed a hold of both of Daphne’s hands and pushed herself upwards slowly.

A moment later she was up on her feet, yet her balance was precarious. Having let go of Daphne both of Natalie’s hands were now pressed hard against the wall, the most stable object she had found, to prevent her from falling. “THINK YOU COULD APPARATE US BOTH? I DON’T THINK I CAN WALK FAR…” While she wasn’t big on giving her address to an (almost) stranger, she was even less excited with the idea of having to walk pressing herself against the wall to keep balance.

[Daphne Popplehale]

Daphne frowned deeply -- she couldn't help it! The woman had clearly been agitated by her nervously loud speech, and now was doing her best impression of a magicless sonorus charm. Daphne might have been thankful she had avoided yelling or screaming in terror, because this Natalie was clearly off her lid and would have started wailing like a banshee if Daphne had been any louder. This Natalie was too terrifying for Daphne to be thankful for small things. She settled for covering her ears and trying her best not to show her horror.

Apparating with a person who could stab in the neck was a stressful prospect. "Um. Well, where do you want to go? Still to Dame Street?"

Instantly Daphne's face brightened. She fancied herself rather brilliant and tried to remember to keep calm. In part she didn't want to get her hopes up, because even if she could find a fireplace, she didn't know if Natalie had any Floo Powder. The other part of Daphne said it was unwise to provoke crazies with displays of great emotion. She regretted sharing her love for art and anime with the other woman, because surely such amazing passion and dedication to the art of life and a life of art had fevered Natalie's mind with a madness.

"I don't suppose you have any Floo Powder?" Daphne didn't know where the nearest chimney was, but one of the entry ways into Duibhlinn Court wasn't far off.

[Natalie Woodcroft]

As her interlocutor proceeded to cover her ears, Natalie came to the conclusion that hearing limitations were not an issue. Why Popplehale had started screaming was beyond her, yet this was not longer a concern. At the moment she was more worried about having screamed at a rumoured psychopath for no reason.

“Oh I’m so sorry! I thought… since you talked so loud… Oh, nevermind.” understanding an attempt to explain herself would only make matters worse, Natalie resigned herself to the ridicule of the entire situation, and contented with letting out a loud sigh. At this point, with her head spinning, and her sleep time dropping dramatically, her one and only concern was getting home as soon as possible. Once there she could pass out in bed and disregard the entire situation as a bad dream as soon as she awoke.

For this purpose, Daphne’s newly lit features proved to be an encouragement. Perhaps they could put all awkwardness behind them and make a fresh start. Producing a smile, offered as a friendly amnesty gesture, Natalie focused on the matter at hand. “Er… Actually I was aiming for O’Connell Street.” First rule to make amends, contradict your opponent. Way to go Nat!

Resisting the urge to slap herself in the forehead, Natalie limited to broadening her smile, while ruffling through her pockets in search for Floo Powder. It then dawned her that she didn’t have any, because she didn’t even own a chimney to Floo herself into. “Nope! Sorry. But if you have some I can pay you for it.” But once again she had forgotten a key element. Having been out with muggle friends, Nat carried muggle cash only. “Or… Or I’ll make it up to you… somehow.” That probably hadn’t come out the best way possible either.

[Daphne Popplehale]

With an almost frantic motion, Daphne put her hands in front of her and waved them. "No, no. Don't worry about it! The Floo Powder is on me." She didn't want to give this Natalie her home address, because everybody knew that if you gave a mouse a biscuit, it would sneak up in the middle of the night, cut off your ear, and then chew on it while strangling you. Daphne may have been giving Natalie a biscuit, so to speak, but she had no intention of letting the mouse follow her home. Well, she would have let a real mouse follow her home, because they were adorable.

Daphne took a very slow step away from Natalie, so as to avoid alarming her. "There an older drink house up ahead, we can go there and use their fireplace." Relieved with her plan, Daphne smiled genuinely. In a public place, Natalie would be less likely to partake in any dangerous nonsense. "It's just down a corridor, between the women's and men's lavatory," she offered helpfully in order to ease Natalie's addled mind about the secrecy of the wizarding world.