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Tweak says, "I'm bringing pastry back"

ᴘʀɪɴᴄᴇss ᴏғ ᴘʀᴇsᴛɪᴅɪɢɪᴛᴀᴛɪᴏɴ (cigam) wrote in valarlogs,
@ 2017-03-28 14:39:00

Entry tags:

!complete, lina inverse, zatanna zatara

Who: Zatanna & Lina (with Amelia)
What: Dropping by for the purposes of delivering a housewarming present, and Zee shares some news
When: Tuesday night
Where: Haus of Mystery
Rating/Warnings: Pretty low!
Status: Complete

Uh -

Well. To say the house she approached wasn’t the least bit interesting would be a damn lie; its ambiance was very graveyard-like, straight out of the pages of esoteric books, breathing mysticism and something else the sorceress couldn’t pinpoint. It hit her with a wave of deja vu, reminiscent to the dimension they found an old relic of a dragon demi-god’s memories (back when she was knocked up and craving lots and lots of melted cheese). None of it bothered the little bundle in her arms, though, fashioning the bittiest pair of Mary Janes, sleepily nuzzling into her mother’s neck from the snooze in the car ride over - it’d been a minute since the tiniest Wisdom had spent time with her witchy godmother, and they had stopped by Romany’s Broom Closet for a special gift.

Hey, can’t come congratulate someone on their new pad without a present, right?

Thank the gods Amelia wasn’t too fussy after naps (she was mostly cuddly, and then pepped up when applesauce was placed in front of her, nomnomnom), so she wouldn’t be a terror in Zatanna’s presence - but the woman was an integral part of her little one’s life, putting up with those infant tantrums and soiled ‘nappies’ (as her husband with his Britishisms put), she’d be used to it.

“You can cuddle with your aunt when you see her,” she told her offspring, knocking on the door with a little hesitation before she realized it wasn’t going to zap her, and then again, with confidence.

The house wouldn’t zap Lina, no. Zatanna had specifically prepared the, ah, sentient forces which resided within the very structure itself - the floors, the walls, the ceilings, every crack and crevice and nook and cranny - for the arrival of a friend, not a foe. It was like the House of Mystery had a soul and, in fact, Zee would argue that’s exactly what it happened to be - her and John’s place lived and breathed, somewhat. And could exert enough free will to up and move itself, wherever it felt like going.

Basically, the place was an occultist’s dream come true and she was happy to show it off to one of her closest girlfriends. In terms of decor alone, it looked like a modern day Addams family abode - a design made, Victorian in nature and made during a time when the beauty of the house was what mattered. There was ivy crawling up the shingles in front, antique candelabras and lamps inside, plus furniture and an old, ticking grandfather clock in the living room. Fireplace too, along with a collection of magical artifacts and books - Zatanna could spend all day reading and still not finish all there was.

She opened the door with a smile on her face, greeting her guests. There was news she had to share and while she and John had agreed to wait until after the first twelve weeks for a general announcement, she already informed him she would be telling one or two people early. He likely wouldn’t tell anyone, but then again, she didn’t expect him to. Constantine was an incredibly private person - not to mention he was still floored about all this. “Come inside,” she ushered Lina indoors. “Meet the House of Mystery - she’s beautiful, isn’t she?”

Zee felt a swell of pride at that, prickling in the air. If this house could physically preen, it would.

“I would kill to just study this,” Lina expressed in awe, ginger brows coming together in the center in thought - really, she’d never seen anything like it. Would it be mad if she poked and prodded? It was kind of like being in the belly of some kind of beast. “Definitely a lot bigger than your old place and, oh - hey, this bag’s for you, by the way!”

No need to specify which. Her arms were full with the drowsy baby, the bag of things that were meant to travel with said baby, and what she meant was the gift sack hanging from her petite wrist. In it was a special ordered teacup set for tasseomancy and handselected tea leaves from her sister-in-law’s shop. “I bear gifts, and a kid who’s ready to cuddle.”

That made Zatanna laugh. “You can study it if you’d like. We do know it was built in the year 1748. Generally, the House of Mystery is kind of a storage chest for rather terrifying stories - so no wonder it’s such a fit for two occultists,” she grinned, walking further into the living room where the fireplace was going - it was quite cozy in here, perfect for just curling up with a cup of tea and a good book. There was a television too, but it’s not like she watched it very often. Why bother?

“Gifts? You didn’t have to, Lina, that’s very kind of you,” she said, though did her friend a favor and took the bag off her hands - the baby would come next, into Aunt Zee’s arms, and she figured she could use the practice. Her heart even jumped into her throat a bit, like it tended to do when she had those moments of pure panic ever since seeing the positive results on the home pregnancy test.

But first, the gift. Sitting on the couch, she opened up the offering. “Oh, it’s perfect!” Her eyes shone with excitement. The house seemed to like it too, a warm and positive vibe zinging through like a current. “Thank you, I can’t wait to try it out. Would you like anything to drink, by the way? Or anything for the little one?” she asked, index finger sweeping over Amelia’s baby-soft cheek.

Lina already knew Zee had her own set, but when Rom told her about some of the new stuff she was getting - that included - it was perfect, and how the hell could she resist? Maybe she’d ask for a lesson in the future, considering the art of telling fortunes wasn’t a skillset she ever practiced. Researched out of curiosity, sure, but that was the extent.

“Gotta spoil you for babysitting favors,” she quipped, as smiley as the one she carried - because now that she somewhere interesting, Amelia’s bleary eyes widened and those cheeks enlarged with a gummy grin (squint hard enough, the tips of a few teeth breaking through could be seen). The spot next to Zatanna was claimed, and the baby luggage placed at her feet. “I’m good, though, thanks. I figured it was good timing with you getting this place and all. Best part’s the lack of mortgage, huh?”

“Yes, definitely,” Zatanna agreed. “And good timing in the sense that it was just right, for us to move in together. John won the map to this place in a card game against smugglers, apparently. So here we are.” Not like those modern-day pirates even knew what the House of Mystery was - they just saw an old parchment and assumed it’d be worth something, mixed in with all the other baubles and trinkets and antique books. Oh, but it was worth something - more than they could ever imagine.

Baby time now. She shifted Amelia into her lap, cuddling her close and cooing at her softly - such a sweet little thing, and how fast she’d grown. Seemed like only yesterday when she was born. Zee recalled that day with so much clarity. “The place has a soul, I think. I was caretaker in my dreams once, but it’s passed through many over the years.”

Bouncing Amelia on her knee a little, then she cleared her throat. “But there’s actually...there’s something I have to tell you.”

A house with a soul? Huh. That wasn’t a metaphor, either. Amelia was happily transferred to another lap (all while mommy looked around, mommy was still captivated), still in that daze but easily excitable because ooohh, hair to wrap around grubby chubby baby fingers and drool on, nooooom.

Max got a spectacular castle, Zatanna got a magic user’s wet dream of a household. Combine the two of them and that’d be her ideal place. Maybe when she and Pete were grey-haired grouches, retired, and with a suspicious amount of money to blow.

“You do, huh?” Scarlet eyes blinked back to the magic mistress, and the first thought was marriage - did trench coat cranky pants propose? Lina snuck a glance at her fingers to investigate the presence of a symbolic ring, hmmmm. “Alright, spill. You know curiosity gets me antsy.”

No rings to be found, unfortunately. The day trench coat cranky pants proposed was the day Hell froze over, most likely. Constantine was still trying to wrap his mind around impending fatherhood - if Zatanna brought up marriage (and she wasn’t even sure she wanted it either), the response would probably be the man going into a coma.

She let Amelia play with her hair, the baby seeming content and delightfully curious. Zee wouldn’t knock it. “The first night we spent here - “

In this sentient house, with its own set of rules. That could travel across realms, that had its own thoughts and, yes, feelings. She really should have known. Should have been more careful, but there was no berating herself over it now.

“I’m pretty sure that was...well, I’m pregnant now.” There, breath let out, Zatanna deflated and sighed. “Confirmed with the doctor and everything. I didn’t really want to tell many people before twelve weeks pass, but since you’ve already been through this, I thought it might be helpful.” Then, she carefully looked up through those lace curtain lashes in order to gauge Lina’s reaction. Good, bad? Hmm?

There were words that needed to be said but instead they came out in the eloquence of sputter. And a somewhat inhuman noise that was too high-pitched even for this world, maybe, so if she hurt the eardrums of this house (and the occupants in it), sorry, she was just trying to collect her reaction into something cohesive.

“Shut the fuck up,” was what that sputtering eventually came to and despite the harshness of the words, they were spat with excitement - a similar reaction to when she found out Neal had a second chance at fatherhood that fateful day. Lina’s hands clapped onto Zee’s shoulders to pull into a hug, one Amelia was caught in the middle of (which meant she grabbed a wisp of her mother’s hair to chew on, too, yaaaaay), but she was mindful to not suffocate anyone or break bones. “That’s - that’s awesome news, Zee! Right?”

Yes? Maybe? There was a sigh that came with the news, so she thought it best to reel back her delight a couple notches back.

“Oof,” Zatanna chuckled as she was pulled into the hug, and an Amelia sandwich was a-okay with her. A gentle sandwich - that baby was also going to get a hairball if she wasn’t careful (was she really part cat?). Then she settled her goddaughter in her lap once more, as soon as she’d returned the hug with one arm as best she could. “It’s good news, yes, I’m - “

She didn’t really have the words to describe it, though Lina probably understood. It was just that mix of fearhappinesspanicelation that came with a surprise like this.

“I’m glad, I mean, I love John - we wouldn’t ever get to have this otherwise, in any other world,” she said, her eyes even glistening a little - maybe it was the hormones. “But I’m also scared. I know he’s scared too, and I don’t think he’s at the point where he’s feeling the joy. He’s worried that our child will inherit...too much of him, because of what’s in his blood.” The burdens and the responsibilities, the ties to angels, demons, Heaven and Hell. Having to act as a conduit for all of that nonsense, having to constantly go back and forth. Losing people. That was the worst part, the loss.

Ah. There it was.

First and foremost, Lina had to do the motherly thing and remove all that hair from her daughter’s now drooly fist, and she snatched a pacifier (shaped like a mustache) from the bag to stick in her mouth, there. That had her placated, and she suckled quietly while snuggled up in Zatanna’s arms.

“I think,” she started with a hesitant pause, sucking in a deep breath, and she reached to push some hair away from her friend’s cheek. “I think worrying to that extent shows how much you love it already, the both of you.” Oh, she remembered how terrified Pete was - not because he didn’t want it, but because of everything that could happen, everything that could go wrong. It had concerned her too, to be clear, but she was never one to let a bucket load of worries stop her from living her life or having what she wanted. And they’d both wanted Amelia. “Considering our lives, hell, it’s natural to worry. To be scared. But if there’s one thing I’m sure of is that the instinct to protect is something that’s stronger than anything else. You two are going to shake the earth and move the heavens to protect what’s yours.”

It’s something she felt true for most. Just because they knew their offspring would inherit the mutant gene didn’t stop them from having her, and whatever this place through at them as a family whole, they’d handle it - and it was their job to prepare Amelia, too. Nurture and teach her through it all to live her own life however she wanted to, whether it be elsewhere and normal or here, riddled with all things that defied conventional nature.

“Yes, now that we definitely will do,” Zatanna chuckled, dabbing at her eyes with her sweater sleeve. She shifted Amelia in her arms, smoothing the dark baby fuzz on her head - sometimes Zee wondered about her motherly instincts, if she was really meant to do this, but having more and more practice with her goddaughter definitely helped. “Him especially, I know he’ll probably be too protective. Just because he doesn’t want his own child to carry the same burdens he does - and I get where he’s coming from, I do, I was there in our dreamworld where he doesn’t even get to live his own life because he’s too much of a middle man between Heaven and Hell.”

It wasn’t something she’d wish for any child of theirs either - and too much danger, too much darkness, that was why a life like this in Gotham (a city literally built with the forces of evil seeping into it) would be damn near impossible. “I just hope that we can be happy - that we can really experience all this as a second chance.”

She’d been trying to convince John of that since she met him, basically. That their life now didn’t have to be the same, and to take advantage.

“I think you guys definitely can,” reassured the sorceress, a small smile playing her lips. "Living here, sometimes we have to fight for it more than others - but this is the place that lets us know we’ve got a different chance this time around. It’s a reminder for us to not let those chances we never got pass us by here.”

Best to take life by the metaphorical nuts and live it to the fullest, right? That was Lina’s motto. It’s not like she didn’t have a sense of urgency with all the things that could go wrong tomorrow, a week from now, next month, a year - but if she spent all that time fretting about it, then she was wasting those precious grains of time.

Almost as if on cue with her mother’s words, Amelia’s hands reached for Zatanna’s chin. Gentle grabs and curious gropes at her. “And besides, you two aren’t alone. We’re family, right?” Maybe not by blood, but by heart, definitely - she was her daughter’s godmother, and before that the two of them had tried to take down chaos itself (it didn’t end well for either of them, but the point is, they had each other’s backs). John by association. “We help take care of each other. That extends to the little jerks we end up birthing.”

Those precious, precious jerks that made the hormones wonky, used organs as trampolines, gave constipation and then when they were out of their cozy incubator? Cried all night, pulled at your nipples, and exploded in puke, shit and piss all over you.

Parenthood was as beautiful as it was disgusting.

Aw, hello there, Amelia. Zatanna took her paws (they were so small they fit in only one of the adult’s hands), a magician’s version of peek-a-boo and an uttered word later - there, a plush dragon appeared for the little one to coo over. And squeeze and pet, since it was so soft. These type of tricks came in handy, she supposed, when babysitting.

“We’re family,” Zee repeated for emphasis. “I’m glad I have someone there, who can make sure I don’t go too crazy over the next seven or so months. And who knows what the bodily changes are like, even if every pregnancy is different.”

Like right now for instance? This Princess of Prestidigitation was just sick, all sick, all the time. “One day I hope to keep real food down again,” she smiled wryly. It had mostly been ginger ale, toast or crackers, and decaffeinated tea.

Pregnancy was hell of a crazy ride, no doubt about it. It was an experience unlike any other, and she didn’t really hate hers - it would have been nice to not barf up everything that went in her mouth for the first few months, but honestly? It was all sort of fascinating, feeling the bugger move around, knowing it could react to voices even in the belly, seeing it kinda tumble under the skin (she recalled one night, where she and Pete saw an imprint of a foot).

“That might last ‘til your second trimester,” Lina forewarned, grinning. “I think you’ll enjoy it, though - you’ll get that glow, and your nails and hair will be growing insanely fast. Then there’s the more awkward changes, but.” Well. No need to gross her out there. Nature was a pretentious shit sometimes. “How do you think it’s going to effect the magic, though?”

There’d been the miraculous stunt of casting the resurrection spell (it’d wiped her out for days, god, she was not traditionally a healer by any means) very early on - it was a massive spell, and massive spells weren’t manageable for her when she got rounder. Too much energy channeling at once that could have provoked a very early labor, much earlier than Amelia had actually arrived, but it gave her the chance to crackdown and hone those more passive skills.

“I actually am not certain,” Zatanna frowned a bit, thinking. “My mother passed along the Homo Magi gene. The Magi originated on the lost continent of Atlantis, exposed to mystical energies. After thousands of years, the genetic predisposition strengthened and once the fall of Atlantis happened those who had that genetic predisposition were scattered to the four winds. Now, if a Homo Magi and a ‘normal’ individual have a child, that child will always be Homo Magi. I know my mother must have used magic while she was pregnant but I don’t know how much spellcasting she did during each trimester.”

Then there was the whole idea that John wasn’t really a normal human. He was a sorcerer, a conman, a necromantical demon hunter. But definitely not human. “I will see how I feel as the months go,” Zee said, more like cooing the words softly at Amelia, who had her chubby first wrapped around the dragon’s tail. “I figure just rest as I need to, and not do the bigger things when I feel as big as a house? I’m sure we will also want to know if the child will have the same abilities John does. But there’s nothing to do about it now, not when I’m only about six or seven weeks along.”

Not to mention she wasn’t sure how to go about testing for it anyway - a ritual, perhaps? Likely Constantine knew of plenty.

Magic here was so varied, pulled from different worlds, manifesting in all different ways that while it was fascinating, it wasn’t always a one-size-fits-all scenario - the best thing Lina could really recommend from one wielder of spells to another was caution. Zee knew her body, knew her magic, and if something felt off then she’d be the best judge of that.

“That’s pretty much my suggestion,” nodded the redhead, pushing a coil of that bright hair behind her ear. “And everyone’s different, so you’ve got the wisdom to know what’s best for you and how your body reacts to things. With the way you’re going right now, I’m foreseeing a lot of naps.” So, so many naps. Tremendous naps. No one in the history of ever would nap like Zatanna pregnant, probably. “And food definitely not being your best friend but hey, at least it’s probably just out one direction and not both, right? At least for now.”

Lina’s grin widened into a cheesy, all-teeth smile. Welcome to the gross club, Zee.

Talks of diarrhea, how nice. Zatanna sporffled a laugh, because there was just something so juvenile yet so true about poop woes during pregnancy. “For now,” she concurred, knocking on wood. “Right, Amelia?”

Squeeeee!, she contributed to the conversation. And more babbling noises, that were very wise - ancient baby philosophy, no doubt. “Anyway, thank you for the advice. In between now and then I’m also willing to watch yours whenever you need, for the practice. We can give John some practice too,” she added, gifting Amelia with a raspberry kiss on her cheek to make her giggle.

No shame, and she’d learn that soon as the body went through the motions of hormonal change. Lina wasn’t dropping bombs like ‘nipple butter’ yet. With her experience and Pete’s extensive research combined (he put that snobby British nose in just about every baby book in existence, she was sure), she had a pretty accurate idea of what Zee was about to experience.

“You know I’m here,” she laughed - the interaction between baby and godmother was cute. “And I’ll be glad to hand her over for extra practice, she loves her auntie Zee, don’tcha, bug?”

Her finger tickled Amelia’s chin and there was another giggle, even a high-pitched baby squee, the pacifier almost falling from her mouth. “You should put her down and see how she moves, though. A wiggling diaper butt’s going to get those maternal instincts going, I promise.”

It’d be an interesting ride for Zatanna and her man, but the end result - it was worth it.