Welcome to Gaia! ::

"Ah, well." Bronnie looked away, a bit awkwardly. I think an acquaintance of mine is possessed by an evil entity and may be stalking me seemed like kind of a bad thing to say in casual conversation. "Just... just have a lot on my mind right now. And I just got off work, too, which is no help." She forced a grin. "I work at... well, there's a little specialty deli just down the street, there. Nice little place, even if the menu's a bit weird. Not as weird as the staff, though."

Ing bobbed his head, approving and victorious. Bronnie caught him by the beak and tweaked him, absently. "I'm sorry about Ing," she said, pointedly looking at the raven. "He's crabby at the best of times, but he's feeling a bit overprotective these days." The raven cawed at her, and looked away sulkily.

"Ah, I'll figure it out," Bronnie said dismissively, hoping it was true. Ing nipped her ear, fondly; she tapped him gently on the head. "If you do head down to the deli," she said wryly, "don't freak out any if the daily lunch special is something like, um, roast dragon on a bun. It isn't like the people sort of dragon." Although it still kind of gave her the creeps. "It's the animal sort of dragon. I don't eat it, though."

"I'll take my boss's word for it that it's all right. She's... well, I'm not sure what she is, but she's not human, and she cares about stuff like that."

The ever-present faint glow in Bronwen's eyes flashed stronger for a moment, as she looked curiously, perhaps a bit enviously, at the globe of water. Ing watched, too, making a soft chuckling noise in his throat, offering some opinion on it. She didn't say anything, feeling sort of shy and overawed all of a sudden.

"I know that people who come here from other places sometimes think Gaia's sort of weird for that. I dunno. I guess I'm sort of used to it." Though she still felt like she stuck out like a sore thumb, sometimes, and would like to have been a little less noticeable.

Bronwen flexed her claws, thoughtfully. "I'm sorry. I kind of have to ask. That's... elemental magic? Water?" She gestured to it, chewing on her lip.

"It's water, right?" Bronnie tilted her head to one side, unaware that Ing was doing the same thing as he, too, inspected it. Without thinking, she reached a clawed hand towards it, as though to touch it; she drew it back as soon as she realised what she was doing. Bad idea to touch other people's magic, she figured. She had enough trouble with her own.

And then, blushing slightly because this was not the sort of thing she ever liked to be particularly open about, Bronwen cupped a hand and gathered a ball of shadow into it; it sat in a dark and insubstantial blob, quivering and faintly transluscent. "It's, um, pretty bright here, so it doesn't work as well as it might, but..." Again, the faint flash of light behind her eyes, and the shadows writhed up into the wavering shape of a flame, if cold and dark, and then settled into the surprisingly solid form of a black rose cupped in her palm. She let it dissolve in a small burst of actual fire.

"Not terribly useful, I guess," she said, rubbing her palm reflexively, though it had been a long time since her own fire had burnt her.

"Yeah, I guess so." Bronnie shrugged vaguely; Ing reached over paternally and plucked a stray hair from her face with his beak. "I just wish, sometimes, that I had some sort of guidebook for it." She laughed.

"Yeah, well, there's still a burn mark in the middle of the carpet in my old room at my mother's house," Bronnie laughs, wryly. "I didn't know what I was doing."

Ing cackled at her, teasing.

Bronwen nodded. "Sure. Take care, Surion. And good luck." She had to suppose there wouldn't be much point in giving him her phone number, if there weren't phones wherever the hell he was living. Too bad.