[EP] A little fuss - OTA

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Some time ago, Corbie had found a calendar and counted back from the spring equinox. And then ahead from the winter solstice. And settled on a date. And then she’d done it again the next day. And again the next, until she was finally satisfied that she’d correctly translated between calendar systems and definitely had the correct date. Caroline had caught her at it and pried it out of her that Corbie had been trying to figure out when her birthday was and, wheels turning behind her eyes, Caroline had left it there. And Corbie had forgotten all about it.

Which was how she could be surprised now as she was shunted into the cafe that Caroline had bullied cake out of Pike and had possibly bullied other people around the inn to come eat it.

Okay, that wasn’t fair. It was a kind gesture, since Corbie hadn’t told anybody. Hadn’t intended on telling anybody. Growing up, her birthday was only so big a deal. She and Gran hadn’t had very much money for presents or treats, though Gran had tried when Corbie was small; they were both always more concerned with having enough to get by. Birthdays were for rich kids. Or at least bourgeois kids. And then there was just the part where… well, what was the point? They were here. It made doing anything special for anybody kind of hard. If anybody cared enough.

… Okay, she was being entirely unfair, because here were two people who had cared enough and had tried for her and it was incredibly sweet.

Unexpected tears in her eyes, Corbie laughed and flitted to the café door, calling out to anybody in earshot. “Come help me eat cake!”

Comments

[st_rikingblueeyes]

This... was complicated. Corbie chewed her lip as she thought about how to explain this concisely and well. "When my gran was a girl in Caloxa, the wizards in charge there were doing some pretty dark shit. 'Bout forty years ago there was a war that wiped out those wizards, which nobody's cried over, and annexed the country to Corambis, which people are still pretty pissed about. But Gran was convinced that they couldn't all be gone. So she hid. And she taught me to hide. And I kept hiding 'til I found somebody to teach me."

[st_illfighting]

For an instant, Dean saw Benny and how he fought against vampires - his own kind. "Maybe their not all bad, brother." He could almost hear his voice.

"They didn't know how to make a hex bag did they?" That might have seemed out of left field but it actually wasn't. Hex bags were what witches used to try to kill Sam and Dean. "Dark magic shit where I'm from."

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie's blank look probably answered that question before her words did, but she still thought about what she knew of Mulkists before she shook her head. "I dunno. But I don't know what that is."

[st_illfighting]

Dean wanted to make sure it wasn't called something else where she was from, but he had a feeling it wasn't. "It's literally a bag that wi-zards put herbs in to make the curses stronger. They usually are hidden somewhere near the victim and nine times out of ten it's used to kill."

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Now, yes, it was obvious that something with a name like that wasn't going to be pleasant, but Corbie's eyes widened in horror all the same. "I ain't used my magic to kill anybody."

[st_illfighting]

The look of horror wasn't feigned, he had a great bullshit detector, so while Dean still wasn't a fan of witches, never would be, he appeared to be able to be okay with a couple of them.

"Glad to hear it. That's what the witches in my world are like." That time he did use the term since they were clearly different than Corbie's world.

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie chewed her lip in hesitation before she asked, "... You know there's more'n just me, right?" And it wasn't like she was subtle about it. Or Illyana or Sunny for that matter, and the library upstairs was saturated with magic. Regina, Molly, Carlos, Dorian, Kash, Pike, there was a lot of magic around the Madonna and more than a few people to wield it. And most of them pretty open about it.

[st_illfighting]

"Met Pike." Dean said in way of answering her, but he hadn't known there were more. Just his luck he was tossed in with witches. There always would be a down side to the up side. His mom and Sammy, definitely up side. Hot women, another up side. Witches and a prison that was so very down side.

"But since you said more than you and not just there's another one, I'm gonna guess there's more than just you and Pike."

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie blinked slowly, trying to find words for that. This was Sam's family. She didn't want to be rude.

Eventually what popped out was, "If you been here so long and ain't noticed any weird shit yet, you maybe could put away the idea that you might have to put anybody down. We're doing fine."

[st_illfighting]

Dean arched an eyebrow at her comment. He was pretty sure she'd just insulted him. There was amusement in his voice when he spoke, "so you're saying that witches here are a lot less subtle than in my world and I should take my head out of my ass and notice books floating across the lobby?"

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"Pretty much." Corbie said with a shrug. "We been here a while and maybe someone's still hiding, but it's kinda hard to keep secrets when there's fifty people and nothing to do."

[st_illfighting]

"Yeah? Might have been a little busy dealing with a dead mother come back into my life and being jerked to a magical inn in the month and half I've been here. But, I'll be sure to watch out for others." Dean set his empty plate down.

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"There's a couple of people flying around pretty regular if you watch the sky," Corbie offered in place of trying to find a response to that.

[st_illfighting]

Dean filed that away. A couple of Wicked Witches of the West - check. This day just kept getting better and better.

"So I'm gonna guess they can't fly out of here either."

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie shook her head. "Nope. Far as we can tell, everybody eventually finds themselves turning back here."

[st_illfighting]

That information was a double edged sword. On the one hand, it sucked that there wasn't a way out flying but it also made Dean feel good that the magical people here were just as screwed.

"Makes you wonder who or what's on the other side."

At least this Purgatory didn't have Levianthans and vampires trying to kill you... that he knew of.

[st_rikingblueeyes]

Corbie shrugged. "I dunno. Not much sure I care, either. I care more about the fact we all got here somehow and no door goes only one way. But we ain't found those doors yet."

[st_illfighting]

Dean arched an eyebrow, "if you know who did it, you can figure out a weakness and take them down." Or that was how Dean handled shit anyway. "What happens if you find a way out but it's only to another prison by the same whoever?"

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"No clue who or what did this, either," Corbie admitted. That she would have thought Sam would have told him. "They ain't made any effort to introduce themselves, and we ain't been able to find them."

[st_illfighting]

"Didn't think you had." Dean said with a shrug. "Just sayin' that I'm more concerned with who's behind it instead of finding a way out." It had been his first question when he'd arrived after the where the hell am I part.

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"Might could be no one. Or at least, not anymore." Sometimes magic lingered, left echoes of itself. It didn't matter that the caster was long gone. The ghosts here made Corbie think that way, anyway, since the place had memories, and the memories would not be banished.

[st_illfighting]

"Like the Inn was on automatic pilot." It was a comment more than a question. It was a theory that worked, but Dean was still convinced there was a caretaker that knew what the hell was going on, even if it was autopilot.

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"Or it was, and it's malfunctioning," Corbie said, eyes brightening some at the budding idea. "Like an engine that's running down."

[st_illfighting]

"We just got caught up in a mechanical screw up." That sounds like his life. "And it's trying to spit us back out with the rooms that go to other places."

[st_rikingblueeyes]

"Seen it happen before. People waking up magic engines that don't work right no more." Nothing good had happened as a result, but at least the Summerdown engine had only managed to kill some sheep before it had been destroyed. "This ain't dissimilar."