Feather of Fate [M] [DragonSong]

[Juno]

"Oh." Penny felt bad and thought he might prefer it if he'd corrected her so sharply. Phoenix had just been the only word she'd been familiar with about his kind.

She stood slowly, still studying the feather with interest. "I suppose I'd need to research that, too. So much studying. Not that I mind, this is my fault." The reminder spoken aloud felt so much worse, though.

"Feel free to...make yourself at home, as it were," she told him, gesturing to the space around them as she moved to head back to the study. "I'll see what I can find out about...firebird stuff."

[DragonSong]

Shaking his head, Mal realized she'd misunderstood his attitude and felt a little bad. "You can call me whatever you like, Penny," he told her, resigned. "I was just pointing out that since we're creatures of fire, it's gonna take more than a little hearth blaze to burn that feather."

He looked around, shifting from foot to foot awkwardly. Make himself at home? "Er...what should I- where should...?" He trailed off, not even really sure what he was trying to ask.

[Juno]

She paused, watching his awkward little dance for a moment and smiling kindly for it. "Sit anywhere you like, wherever you're comfortable," she explained further, pointing to cushions upon the floor and few chairs in the main room. "Or you're welcome to come with me if you'd prefer," she added, uncertain if he would even be comfortable off on his own in a stranger's house.

Penny left him with his choice, though, and turned once more to enter the study. It wasn't difficult to imagine that information being found in a place like that, though she dreaded the thought of digging through all of Kura's awfully organized notes to find it.

Setting the feather down upon the desk she shoved her papers from earlier aside to make room for where she would set what books she might find in her search.

[DragonSong]

After hovering a moment, Mal decided to follow her, looking around the study curiously. He hadn't really bothered to take a good look before, too distracted by this ridiculous situation. Although, he supposed the situation hadn't really gotten much better, now he was just resigned to it.

"Can I...do something to help?" he offered a little awkwardly, coming up behind her and watching as she set about her work.

[Juno]

"Only if you really want to," she answered distractedly, not wanting to burden him with helping her. She was the one trying to help, as she saw it, and he the innocent bystander.

Penny paused, looking him up and down and flushing nervously for the question on her mind. She didn't want to offend him more than she assumed she already had. "Can you read? It would help a lot, but...if you can't that's all right."

[DragonSong]

Mal frowned, opening his mouth to give a scathing retort- then swallowed it down. She was just trying to be helpful. She knew nothing about him, really, why should she assume he could read.

"I can," he assured her. In an effort to prevent a future miscommunication, he sighed and said quickly, "I was raised by a human, Penny. I spent a good part of my life thinking I was human, albeit with some rather intense fire magic."

[Juno]

"Oh! Well, that's... That's nice," she nodded, a relieved smile spreading to her lips as she pointed to the stacks upon the floor. "If you see anything that looks promising on the magic-breaking front -or feather-burning- set it aside for me, would you? I'll look up here."

Penny set to her own task, poking through the volumes that packed the shelves above and carefully pulling down the few that seemed promising to hold against her hip. Nothing seemed right, though. Nothing stood out and she worried for how much of Mal's time she'd be wasting in searching for the spells she sought.

[DragonSong]

Nodding, Mal set to work. He just sort of plopped himself cross-legged on the floor and reached for the first of the stacks of books, flipping through quickly. This was rather like the work Adrian would have him do sometimes, so he knew how to keep his eyes peeled for specific words or phrases.

Unfortunately, he wasn't finding a lot. He put a few books to the side to look through in more depth later, but it was a very small fraction of the possibilities. Bored. I am sooooo bored. "So how'd you end up here with Kura anyway?" he asked, flipping through what felt like the nine hundredth book.

[Juno]

"Oh, she offered to take me in and teach me," Penny told him fondly of the memory, despite how little she'd absorbed under her care.

"I wanted to learn magic and she was bored without a student. I keep up the house for her in exchange but some things are beyond my control." She frowned at the endless books before her as she moved on to the next row. Nothing seemed right yet. "I teach myself a lot, though, she's not really one for lessons anymore.

"What can you do, exactly? What counts as 'intense fire magic?'" she asked after a pause, glancing down curiously at him in his place upon the floor.

[DragonSong]

He nodded along as she spoke, listening while he worked. It was a skill he'd developed helping his foster father with his work. "How long have you been here, then?" he asked. Then he chuckled a bit.

"Oh, me? Well, imagine any spell involving fire, and I can probably do it. Problem is, until recently I had a hard time controlling it. And fire and a lack of control..." He screwed his face up. "Not a good combination."

[Juno]

"I can imagine," she giggled, wondering how many uncontrolled fires he'd started if he'd thought to say such a think. She was a little envious, though, for he'd also said he had a better handle on it.

"If only I had such a gift," she sighed wistfully, though her words were spoken with no jealousy. "I've lived here for three -well, almost four- years now and I haven't done anything great or powerful yet. My day will come, though." She was very sure of that, the thought the only real driving force to her continued studies.

[DragonSong]

Mal looked up, face grave. "Be careful what you wish for, Penny," he said, not angrily but with some definite firmness. "That kind of gift- that kind of power- it's not easy to deal with. It's a lot of responsibility, knowing if you lose control you could really hurt someone, maybe someone you care about-"

His face heated and he cleared his throat, looking away. That was definitely crossing the border into too personal.

[Juno]

Penny looked down at him and frowned a little at his warning. "I take it you know from experience?" she assumed, slumping a little. Now she'd brought him there and brought to mind ugly memories. What a morning.

"Maybe I shouldn't wish for it, but... It seems like life would just be so much simpler if I had something. Anything. Even a smallish thing. Something to call my own." She nodded. Yes, that was it. She just wanted to feel ownership of something within herself, she wasn't out to hurt anyone. The young mage was too inexperienced to realize that those things could not always be separated.

[DragonSong]

He winced. He hadn't meant to make her feel bad. For some reason watching her shoulders slump made him feel incredibly guilty.

"Well...just keep at it, I guess. Just be careful, is all I'm saying," he mumbled, feeling very inarticulate. Shaking his head, he turned back to his task of sorting through books, wishing he didn't feel quite so awkward now.

[Juno]

"Thank you, Mal. I'm sure you only mean well by that." That was probably a little too presumptuous of her, but it felt like his words of caution were genuine.

Reaching the end of her row, Penny breathed a frustrated sigh and glowered at the small stack of books in her arms. None of them had seemed quite right, but she would look through everything they had if it was necessary.

"I'll give these a look," she finally announced as she turned to set them at the desk. Her voice took on a pitifully hopeful quality as she looked down to see that he did have some things set aside. "Have you found anything?"

[DragonSong]

Mal shrugged. "Maybe?" he offered, gathering the half dozen or so books that had looked remotely promising and clambering to his feet. He moved to the other side of the desk, sliding the books onto the surface and pulling one off the top.

"If we both read it'll go twice as fast," he said with a quick smile in her direction.

[Juno]

She reached out towards the books he'd set down, ready to scoop them up and add them to her own pile when she stopped and realized what he was offering. While she normally would have been relieved for the help Penny couldn't help but feel bad in asking, or rather accepting, further help.

"I can't ask you to do that much. You don't have to," she reminded him despite it being his own idea. She sat and almost pouted as she instead plucked the book off the top of her own pile. Cautious in opening it, she peeked inside and was relieved to see that the beginning was free of her instructor's messy notes. Flipping through, though, it seemed the subject was different methods for magically joining objects. Penny closed it and quickly grabbed the next, she couldn't be deterred by the first not yielding what she was looking for.

[DragonSong]

Mal couldn't help smiling at her a bit. She was a sweet thing, it wasn't her fault they'd gotten into this mess- well, it sort of was, but she hadn't done it on purpose. "I don't mind, really," he assured her as he opened his own book.

Flipping through, he found nothing that seemed as though it would apply, nor in the next one. "Anything?" he asked Penny distractedly as he moved on to the third book.

[Juno]

"Not really." She sighed, glancing up at him with guilt. "Unless you'd rather be turned into a goat?" she tried, smiling a little as she tried to picture what a phoenix-goat might look like.

Penny set aside yet another book and moved on to the next. Her stack was depleted before she knew it, though, and she rose with a dejected sigh. "Must be here somewhere," she muttered, returning to the shelves to try and find something more promising.

[DragonSong]

Mal sighed, rubbing his eyes. Finishing his own stack of books, he moved around and put a hand on Penny's shoulder.  "Look, we've been at this a while," he sighed tiredly. "If we keep plugging away like this, we're probably gonna slip up and miss something. C'mon, take a break."

He tugged lightly, accidentally- well, mostly accidentally- pulling her back against his chest. He wasn't in a hurry to move away though, giving her a quick grin and letting his hand drift from her shoulder to her upper arm.