Maryland Science Center, Baltimore, Wednesday Afternoon

[not_every_mage]

Anders knew dinosaurs and dragons were not the same thing.

For one thing, they were from completely different worlds. And for another, dinosaurs were actually extinct, not just biding their time high in the mountains. And Anders had never seen whole real dragon bones ... but there was a whole dinosaur skeleton rising up toward the ceiling here in the science museum, each tooth in its massive jaw bigger than his hand.

He gaped at it as he groped for Kathy's hand. There were plenty of non-dinosaur things to see in the museum, but it was going to take him a while to tear himself away from this one.

[OOC: For she who is there!]

Comments

[not_every_mage]

"I'll make it up to you," Anders said, reaching out to pat her hair. "You can have an extra prancey-pony so you don't mind its adequate tiara too much."

[spin_kick_snap]

"That's better," Kathy said, mollified. "A high-stepping pony in a mostly-matching tiara is definitely the other thing I want for my birthday. And everyone to call me Princess Kathy as I trot around the island on her."

[not_every_mage]

Anders burst out laughing. "That'd be the most adorable thing I have ever seen," he said. "And now I have to find a way to make it happen, even if it means borrowing a horse. Or stealing one."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Okay, I have no idea how you'd pull something like this off, but if you do, I will..." Kathy couldn't even come up with a good reward. "Do something epic. I don't even know what. Something, though."

Though hopefully he'd be willing to give her time to come up with it afterwards.

"To turn the tables on you, what do you want for Christmas?" Kathy asked.

[not_every_mage]

"... I hadn't even thought about it," Anders admitted. "I want to start massage school in the new year, but I don't know what you need for that. Oils? Towels?"

[spin_kick_snap]

"Massage school?" Kathy asked, tilting her head in curiosity. "Like, massage therapy?"

[not_every_mage]

Anders nodded, looking half-chagrined and half proud. "I know it's not exactly medical school," he explained. "But it'd let me help people without calling too much attention to the magic, and I wouldn't need a lot of extra school. I did some research and it made sense."

[spin_kick_snap]

"No, no, that makes sense," Kathy said thoughtfully. "You could do a little bit of healing at a time and people will just assume it's the benefits of the massage. You know, talk a lot about increasing blood flow to the affected areas and soothing inflamed tissues and muscles and all the while, you're just slowly healing people a little bit at a time."

[not_every_mage]

"Right," Anders nodded, sounding more sure about the idea. "It'd be perfect cover for a healer who isn't quite ready to shout it from the rooftops yet. I could study herbal medicine, too, and help that way. Maybe add a little elfroot when I can get it. And it'd give me a space to take anybody Dante ran into who needed more than a massage."

[spin_kick_snap]

"And that place wouldn't be under the same kind of scrutiny that a regular medical office would be," Kathy murmured. "Like, you wouldn't automatically have to report gunshot wounds or anything."

Granted, that had been more of a concern of her previous pastimes than Dante's current and future one, but it was the first thing to come to mind.

[not_every_mage]

"Doctors are supposed to report gunshot wounds?" Anders asked, genuinely surprised. "That's another reason to be glad I'm not trying to become one. I wouldn't feel right bringing police in, especially not here."

[spin_kick_snap]

Kathy nodded. "I mean, I know it's the law in California and Maryland? It may not be a universal thing, but if there are any holdouts, my guess would be they'd be from the southern and midwestern states, not the East Coast, like Limbo City."

[not_every_mage]

Anders made a thoughtful noise as he took that in. "I suppose that makes sense for ordinary people," he said. "It's just a bit inconvenient for the rest of us."

[spin_kick_snap]

"It did make my life pretty eventful," Kathy said with a wry smile. "It's how I met St. George and Regenerator, once upon a time. Nick had gotten shot and we couldn't risk the hospital, so I dragged him into a motel toom and had Eliot walk me through it over the phone."

[not_every_mage]

"Were you scared?" Anders wondered.

[spin_kick_snap]

"Yeah?" Kathy said, nodding. "I was. But I loved it, too. Every minute." Her expression was wistful, eyes far away. "I felt like I mattered. Like I was so cool and so grown, holding a guy's shoulder together. Sounds like such a stupid ego-trip now, huh?" She gave him a small smile. "But, like, in that moment...I mattered."

[not_every_mage]

"It doesn't sound stupid at all," Anders said, pausing in front of a display of early mammals. "Maybe that's what I like about healing, too. You do matter when you're doing it. It helps put things right, when so much is always being broken."

[spin_kick_snap]

"It's what I loved best about heroing, too," Kathy agreed, looking up at the giant sloth from their earlier conversation. "I was never gonna be Uberman or Ratman or even the Mighty Dragon, but to the old lady whose purse got snatched or the girl whose date was getting aggressive or the small store owner getting hassled by punks...I didn't need to be. I was enough, and I made their life a little better anyway."

[not_every_mage]

"That's all I ever wanted to do," Anders said, eyeing the sloth's claws with a mental shudder. "Make things a little or a lot better for somebody. I'm not exactly the saving the world type."

[spin_kick_snap]

"I think with the right opportunity, you could change the world," Kathy said, looking at him with undisguised fondness. "You just need a big enough lever."

[not_every_mage]

"And a place to stand," Anders added, looking at her with equally soft eyes. "Not sure I have either one yet, but thank you."

[spin_kick_snap]

"But once you figure it out, you've got me to measure the angles and Dante to stomp your place flat," Kathy said and maybe the metaphor didn't quite make sense, but she thought it was pretty good anyway.

[not_every_mage]

"I don't even know how that would work, but it's sweet," Anders laughed. "Thank you."

[spin_kick_snap]

"Well, you need to know exactly how love the lever needs to be, right? And a flat place to set everything up. That's where we come in," Kathy said with a laugh, determined to sell this, dammit.

[not_every_mage]

"Of course," Anders said, eyes dancing. "You measure everything, Dante smashes whatever needs smashed, and I push the world around. It makes perfect sense, just like you said."

It didn't, but now he wanted to kiss her.