#(they actually literally NEED a cake the size of the Attack Cake for this. Legitimately. there are SO MANY CURES. Plus family.)

[regallibellbright]

Sora: I want to experience this world’s weddings, too!

I was about to make a joke that she already did but you know, the dance party didn’t really have cake. And there was a lot of dancing and TECHNICALLY those aren’t their fancier dresses than usual, so it really was more of a hybrid I suppose.

I’m just saying Mashiro, you have an opportunity here!

[mor-beck-more-problems]

Face Off || Morgan & Cece

TIMING: Current

PARTIES: @thebickedwitchoftherest & @mor-beck-more-problems

SUMMARY: Morgan and Cece go digging for buried witchy treasure. Cece faces more than she bargained for.

CONTAINS: gun (salt rounds, not fired), shenanigans 

Blanche had told Morgan that having an object, especially one belonging to the spirit in life, might help the seance go better. Morgan knew from the summoning that bones would probably be the most ideal if there was such a thing, but the idea of planning a trip to Texas ahead of the one she had already scheduled between the anniversaries of her parents’ deaths was more than she could bear. The next best thing? Finding Agnes Bachman’s trove of witchcraft. “So, fun fact, I actually tried to dig this up before, but I got attacked by some wild vampires and had to hole up in that shack until dawn,” she said, looking over her shoulder at Cece. “But that’s why we’re coming back here in broad daylight! Besides, I think this is still sort of on my property line?” She gestured to the pile of rubble around across the street and the brown, barren field between it and where they stood in the Bend, shovels in hand, beneath a suspiciously robust tree. Morgan tried to run the distance measurements in her head. “Maybe not, but that’s gonna be our story if anyone comes asking. But, you know, probably not.” She stuck the shovel into the ground with her foot, pleasantly surprised when it broke the ground with ease. Zombie strength had its advantages sometimes. “So, how’ve you been?”

Drinking and researching a stolen box with Morgan? A-okay. Breaking into a woman’s home to steals some books? Great time. But Cece might have to draw the line at the physical labor. It wasn’t the trespassing on property or potential danger. It wasn’t even the casual mention of vampires attacking Morgan the last time she was here. It was mostly just the digging that Cece wasn’t up for. “We tend to break the law whenever we hang out now,” Cece mentioned, digging her own shovel into the ground and leaning against it, “Not complaining. Just a fun observation. Girls really do just want to have fun apparently.” While digging holes wasn’t one of those things that Cece considered to be much fun, the promise of some sort of buried treasure had certainly piqued her interest. “Aside from the whole being blown up in a Morgue thing, worse than that is dealing with Regan’s replacement.” Cece made fake vomiting noises for far longer than necessary and then forced herself to recompose, “Otherwise I am freaking phenomenal. Clearly you’re living your best life. Loving the Holes vibes that we have going on. So what exactly are we here for today?”

“I heard about that,” Morgan said, wincing. “Regan’s just having a time and a half right now. Hopefully it’ll just, you know, be temporary. Haven’t heard any stories about the new boss, though. Is he, what? Evil? Creepy? Mean? What’s the likelihood of your being able to hex him without him noticing? I put a monkey’s paw on Eye of Newt for a little while, and that was pretty fun.” She reached into her bag and passed Cece a thermos of mulled cider. She could see how, well, not well her share of the digging was going, and aside from the magic ability and know how to work on identifying their finds, Morgan had mostly asked her along for the company. “Here. Have some of this and sit back, I think it only takes one gal to dig a hole. When she’s dead anyway.” Morgan stuck her shovel in deeper, flinging dirt behind her. “And we’re after great great grandma Agnes’ trove of magic. She left home with one bag after the curse started taking her family, which means everything in her trove got left behind in good ol’ White Crest.” She waggled her eyebrows. “Mostly, I want something special of hers for a seance, but it’s gonna be pretty neat to see what kind of stuff she used for her magic back in olden times, right?”

“No, god, even worse.” Cece rolled her eyes. Rickers was the last thing she needed to talk about. “I can handle evil or creepy. He’s way too personable. Keeps telling me about his grandkids. It’s insufferable.” Usually, Cece welcomed casual conversation of any kind. She was a social creature after all, she liked the company of others. But something about that man made her want to jump into a river. “I could hex him so easily. He’s so gullible. Moron.” She wasn’t about to let Rickers ruin the fun though, and instead focused on Morgan’s time with Eye of Newt, “Amazing. I love being friends. Do I mention that enough?” Cece questioned, taking the thermos that Morgan passed over and taking a long sip of the alcoholic beverage. “So you’re saying you just want me to sit back, drink and chat? You get me, Morgan.” Cece happily obliged, leaning back against the grass and watching Morgan use that superhuman strength to dig holes deeper into the ground with a certain fascination. She had always wondered what having super strength must be like. Sounded dope. “Good ol Gram? Let’s hope she left behind something fun. Can’t say that I’d be thrilled about finding some magically glued dentures or alchemical ointment for her joint pain.”

“I love being friends with you too,” Morgan said, smiling bright. There was a certain specific ease with Cece that was hard to articulate to others. Their magic philosophy was different, but neither of them took themselves so seriously that it was a problem. And sharing a lack of compunctions about the law and uses of violence to get out of tight spaces was more important between friends who wanted to stay honest with each other. Morgan wasn’t even sure if Cece had a judgemental bone in her body, except for, you know, reckless cruelty like any halfway decent not-fae. But Morgan’s harm ritual wasn’t reckless. She was full of very specific intent, and every care was being taken. And giving Agnes closure with the news she was deviating the woman who’d condemned her to a painful death? Made for some very thoughtful icing on the cake. “Oh, it gets better than that,” Morgan said, grinning as she shoveled back more dirt. “She was just in her twenties when she left home. So this should hopefully have all the fun shit. Well, whatever fun amounted to in the 1890’s. Maybe it’ll be magic ointment for that poofy old-timey hair. Or old beauty charms? I’d love to see what baby witches got up to back then, like what was magic education even like then?”

Cece liked thinking about witches throughout the years. There was something fascinating about studying how witches evolved with the rest of the times, as well as how spells did. If spellcasters were ever a legitimate field of study, Cece might actually consider going back to school. For now, she’d have to settle through learning about magic through any witches she knew with a long line of witches in her family. “Great question. Can’t say that my witchy upbringing was exactly conventional. If my parents were spellcasters, being adopted didn’t exactly help me learn about it as a kid.” Cece had of course wondered what life might have been like had she actually grown up learning about magic from a young age. “My first exposure was from a coven. A very non-traditional one.”

“Your coven wasn’t with your parents?” Morgan asked curiously. She’d heard them mentioned in passing enough times that she’d just assumed it was at least partially a family thing. Morgan started digging, stopped, and looked at Cece quizzically again. “Wait, so you are this good without having to study your whole life?” She shovelled a few more times. “Jeez, are you some kind of magic prodigy?” She had a decent sized hole going. A  few more feet deeper and she’s start spreading outward and--clang! Morgan grinned. “I guess this means you get to pick a prize from grandma’s treasure box. At least something in here should go to someone who can actually use it. But holy shit, Cece. I know I say this a lot when you’re doing me favors, but you’re seriously amazing.” She started working double time until the trunk, just as impressive as you would expect from your average 19th century well-to-do family. Morgan pulled it free just with brute zombie strength and dragged it up from the hole. It was heavy,  “Now, before I literally jinx myself, do you think you can run something on this baby to dispel any magic seals and protection? As my ancestor, I’m fairly confident she wouldn’t throw this in the ground without protections.”

Cece shook her head, “Nope. My adopted parents had no clue about my witchy background. I didn’t figure out until like sixteen.” Cece shrugged. She had never considered herself to be uncommonly talented when it came to magic. She was aware that she was able to take care of herself under stressful circumstances but the thought never went much further than that. “Very funny,” Cece let out a sarcastic laugh, “I’m hardly a prodigy. The nice thing about moving around with a travelling coven is that I got to learn from all kinds of witches that specialized in different things. Plus being around nothing but other witches all the time gave me lots of chances to practice.” Morgan finally found the box she had been digging for and pulled it easily from the ground. It landed on the grass with a loud thud and Cece whistled, “Damn girl, those muscles though.” Cece sat up and eyed the box. It was larger than Cece thought it was going to be. Honestly, she was pretty curious about what was inside. “Let me take a peak and see what I can sniff out” Cece rubbed her hands together and crawled over to the box, rubbing her palm across it and feeling the magical energy emanating from it. “There’s definitely something going on here. Give me a few minutes to try to get rid of it.”

Morgan was familiar with the number of ways you could talk small magic into showing itself. In another life, her old life, she would’ve offered some ground thistle and raw energy to do it herself. But Cece had a home brew with the stuff she needed. A little Latin later, the potion absorbed into the wood, and the lock, apparently just an illusion, disappeared from sight. “I know you’re not a coven gal anymore, Cece, but I’d do you a solid anytime if you asked.” Out of habit, fae promise, rose to her lips, casual and earnest, but somewhere on its way up her throat, Morgan remembered Chloe in Lydia’s basement and swallowed her words back down, feeling sick.

A layer of dry flowers and fragrant herbs coated the items. Morgan had to sweep them all away to get to the rest. There were some things she expected, such as a handwritten grimoire, and some she didn’t, like an old party dress and petticoats. Morgan didn’t know anything about enchanting textiles, but she set them carefully aside just in case. They must have mattered to Agnes in order to be included in her trove. Beneath this were more papers, some torn from other books, ink and fountain pens, a few alchemical circles painted crudely on tanned hides, and a lot of jewelry and talismans. “So, she’s my great great grandma, so I get the pretty dress and the books, but you, my wonderful partner in crime, can pick something you like from the rest. I still haven’t thanked you for helping me go against that murder alchemist, so don’t be shy.”

As Morgan looked through the chest, Cece eyed the contents from far away. The chest’s magic had been strong, so it made sense to think that whatever was inside had been valuable to her grandmother. As far as Cece was concerned, that all belonged to Morgan. But aside from a few off limits items, Morgan seemed to think otherwise. “You don’t have to do that. I’m sure you could find some use for them. Somewhere.” But even as she said the words she slid closer to get a better peak at the contents. She pulled out a few things, including a vial of liquid that glowed a bright red color, “Hm. This is peculiar” Cece questioned, holding it up against the sun. She felt a prickling against her fingertips from holding the bottle. She eventually decided to uncap the thing, sniffing at its contents and jolting from the sudden sensation. “Hm. That shit is strong. Wonder what this stuff does?”

Morgan was flipping through the books, unable to resist the urge to find something interesting. She had to remind herself that it was all useless to her, pure sentimental and academic value, but even the method of preserving alchemical circles was fascinating. What did they use the hides for? Practice? Regular exercise? Were there research experiments in here like what Ruth had done? There were notes and letters in here too, some written in a kind of code, others in Latin. Looking at all of this, Morgan realized she didn’t actually know Agnes Bachman at all. She was the family scapegoat, but she was also just a girl when she left all this stuff behind, too terrified of being the cause of her family’s suffering to stay another year. Poor thing, she didn’t realize that Constance had covered them all. She hadn’t needed to make herself alone on top of everything else. “What did you find? Anything good?” She looked over her shoulder and— “What the fuck, who the hell are you!” She fell back with shock and fumbled for her salt pistol, aiming it at the stranger. Morgan hadn’t even heard her approach. It had to look enough like a normal one to keep the stranger stalking them on her toes, right? “Where’s my friend? What is—Cece! Cece!”

Bored with whatever the liquid was, Cece discarded it back into the pile of unclaimed goodies and moved on to see what else Agnes had to offer. Cece realized that aside from the fact that they had been spellcasters and the curse, she didn’t know all that much about Morgan’s family. Learning a bit about her family through these belongings was more interesting than Cece would be willing to admit without a few drinks. Way too sentimental. She heard Morgan from over her shoulder and didn’t even look back as she began answering, “I don’t know what a lot of it is actually. I’ll need to do some-” she was cut off by her friend’s scream. Morgan was freaking out, tumbling backwards and pulling a fucking gun on her? “What the fuck Morgan? What do you mean who am I? Why do you have a gun pointed at me!” Cece waved her hands wildly, half up in the air in surrender and half accusingly towards Morgan. “Your friend is right here, wondering if she’s about to get capped by a dead girl! You suddenly lose vision or something?”

Morgan scrambled to her feet, still holding out the salt pistol with trembling hands. The woman was middle aged, wild eyed, and a heck of a lot taller than Cece had ever been. She wasn’t sure where she got off trying to pretend they were one and the same. Her angular features had none of Cece’s stubborn charm. They gave the woman a look that was off-kilter even unnerving as she waved her arms around and cried out in her raspy voice. “I am not kidding, whatever magic bullshit you did, some summoning trick, o-or—I don’t know! But you aren’t keeping her!” Morgan shouted I am not losing one more friend to my personal bullshit, you got it? You—” It came on her slowly: the woman’s clothes looked a little like Cece’s but also...not. And she had Cece’s keychain, and there was a bottle at her feet, not quite close right, dripping slowly into the ground. Morgan slowly lowered her pistol, not quite ready to give up the pretense. “If you’re really Cece, then how do we know each other?” She asked.

Something was wrong. Whether that something was with Morgan or with Cece herself was still unclear. Cece stood up, Morgan backing away again but not moving the pistol from it’s target. “Can you point the gun away from me? This isn’t the Wild West.” Though something was clearly off, Cece hadn’t pieced it together yet. For whatever reason, Morgan seemed to think Cece wasn’t who she claimed to be. Was there some illusion? Cece stared at her hands, vaguely aware that something seemed different but realizing that she didn’t look at her hands enough to realize what the difference might be anyways. “How do we know each other? I didn’t know I was signing up for a pop quiz tonight.” Cece laughed, but clearly Morgan wasn’t joking, “Former roomies, forever besties, current hostage.” Cece quipped, “Care to tell me what the hell is going on?”

Morgan lowered the salt pistol, her face melting, touched. “Aw, you consider us besties?” Her face twisted into an expression of cringe. On Cece, that was endearing. On a crazed woman who looked like she was nearing fifty, it was a little...odd. Maybe sad. Morgan tried to find the words to explain to her friend how bewildering this looked from her perspective. Whose face was this? How did Cece change her face and not...know. “Okay, okay…” she started, tucking her pistol away. “Uh, fun fact, the pistol is salt rounds only. I just, you know, couldn’t be too careful. Also: what happened to your face! I said you could take something home, not give yourself a weird makeover!” She fumbled for her phone, still keeping her distance in case this was all a trick and she was just being stupid and gullible. “You did something!” She put the selfie camera on and held it out for Maybe-Cece to see. “A very, very weird something! Are you...mind or body swapped? Are you glamoured into one of my dead relatives? You aren’t really...I mean, look! What would you think if you were me!”

“Of course I do. There’s not many others I’ve broken into a house and been held at gunpoint at!” Despite the awkwardness of currently being held at gunpoint, Cece couldn’t stop the lilt in her voice as she confirmed that the two were basically besties. They had been through quite a bit considering they hadn’t known each other at the beginning of the year. “Well I actually do feel marginally better knowing I would have only gotten blasted with salt. Thank god I’m not a ghost.” Cece laughed, taking steps closer to Morgan following the whole debacle. “I didn’t do anything! Just rooted around in your grandma’s chest and-” Cece stopped talking when Morgan offered her phone camera towards her and Cece got a look at who was showing up on the screen. Except this was very clearly not Cece. “What the fuck?” Cece jumped back, visibly shaken for the first in what felt like a truly long time. “Who the fuck am I? Why the fuck do I look like this?” Cece began rubbing her hands against her arms, chanting a dispelling glamour effect to herself and then looked back at the camera. Nothing. “Why isn’t it going away!?”

Morgan’s face quirked into a smile. She wasn’t as vulnerable or demonstrative with Cece as she knew she could’ve tried to be. Cece was just so breathtakingly together and at ease with whatever chaos came her way, like it was no more than a fly she could spike out of her sphere with a swipe of her hand. However much she accepted the mess Morgan dragged them into, Morgan worried the limit of ‘too much’ was just around the corner. But here they were, standing over a hole in the middle of the woods with a salt pistol and dug up treasures and a haywire spell between them—and still friends. “Ghost, creepy middle aged lady, whatever comes next, I’m still glad we’re friends,” Morgan said.

But, obviously, Cece being her friend as Cece was probably best. “Idea one: this is some weird subconscious thing and you’ve got some stuff about your age or your size to deal with. Idea two: you are wearing the face of one of my dead relatives, or their neighbors, or...something. But either way, there’s a solution! We just don’t know it yet. But we will and you will look...w-well, you don’t look bad, really, when you, uh, think about it, but just more...you.” She winced and came around the side of the hole to offer Cece a hug.

Morgan offered a list of options to Cece, who hated all of them. “Definitely not subconscious. I accepted my height many years ago.” Cece waved the first away but backtracked, “That being said. I get that objectively I’m not that tall still but I do feel like a tall glass or water.” The second option seemed likely. Perhaps it was a type of hex that was put on something she had touched by Morgan’s grandma. If that was the case it was some bullshit hex. “Well either it’s a strong ass hex or some new type of magic I haven’t worked with before.” That frustrated Cece more than the hex itself. She could handle looking like this Milf. What she didn’t like was not knowing how to fix it immediately. Morgan came around for a hug and as their arms wrapped around each other Cece smiled, “You know we’re kind of like the same height now.”

“You do have the energy of a tall woman, I guess it’s just a little closer to being official now,” Morgan said with a smirk. “You’ve got, what, a whole inch on me now?” She raised her hand to touch the top of Cece’s head, fluffing some of the brown hair falling in front of her face. “Stars, if you are wearing one of my ancestors’ faces, does this make you like a temporary cousin? Temporary grandma?” She smirked at the idea. “Sorry. Let’s take everything and hit the books at your place, huh? Do some old fashioned trial and error experimenting. Whatever’s going on, we’ll figure it out.”

Though her head was still spinning at the prospect of looking twice her actual age, Cece tried to compose herself. This had been the most flustered she had allowed herself to be for many, many years. She had no interest in completely losing her cool. Morgan was right, they would fix this. Eventually. Maybe it had a time limit, and Cece would simply wake up in a day or two back to her old, blonde self. In the meantime, how was she supposed to explain this to her roommates? “That’s a good start. Whatever’s going on, I clearly don’t have nearly enough alcohol in my system to deal with it.” Right about now Cece was sure that she had far too much blood in her alcohol system. Depending on how long this lasted, it might be time for a never ending party. “I like to think I just became your cool aunt. I think the moniker suits me.”