Pressing Concerns [IC]

[alderwitch]

Date: January 3rd, 2010

After arranging a breakfast date with Stesha, Taylor teleported directly to the plant controller's apartment. Rather than her usual easy landing. Taylor lurched into existance and stumbled sideways once her feet hit the ground. Muttering a stream of gritted cantonese cuss words, she righted herself and closed her eyes until the world stopped spinning with her fingertips massaging her temples.

"Would you mind if we go some place within walking distance? There's something off with my teleport spell lately." Taylor asked once she cautiously cracked an eyelid open and was sure she wasn't going to be vilely ill on her friend's carpet.

[Electra]

For all Stesha had been expecting Taylor that morning, she was still rather surprised by her friend's precipitous and unusually ungraceful arrival. A quick wave of her hand had the Christmas tree swinging its branches out of the way before Taylor could stumble into them, a few leftover ornaments clattering to the ground with the sudden motion. Stesha had never been good about getting her Christmas decorations put away on time.

"Are you okay?" Stesha asked with concern, hurrying over. "You look exhausted." That was a more politic choice of words than saying "you look terrible," though both were true. "We don't have to go out anywhere if you don't want to. I've got some breakfast food around here, I can put the kettle on."

[alderwitch]

"That sounds great. I'm starving. Can I help with anything?" Taylor asked curiously as she pushed away from the couch to follow her into the kitchen. She gestured and returned the ornements to the branches with a wave of magic. That spell at least wasn't acting up.

"I'm a little underslept I think. I keep napping on the couch and its not enough rest I think. Jack doesn't sleep at all, so unless I head into the bedroom, I stir as he moves around the apartment."

[Electra]

"So much for vampire stealth," Stesha replied dryly, digging into her freezer and pulling out a styrofoam tray of sausages. then getting eggs from the fridge. "Go ahead and fill the kettle and put it on the stove, if you would." Stesha's teakettle matched her spoon rest and her hot pads and her trivets, a bright design of abstract sunflowers that was cheerful, but made the little kitchen seem even smaller. "How long has the spell been misfiring? You've been living together for months."

[alderwitch]

"Since Christmas but only in the mornings. It might just be from being tired, I suppose. By mid afternoon I can land on a pin. As an added bonus, it doesn't make me sick to my stomach anymore either." Taylor said dryly as she dutifully filled the pot with water and set it on the stove.

"It might be a curse, maybe, but my research hasn't turned anything up."

That finished, she plcked some grapes from a bowl and began washing them in the sink, stealing one or two in between conversation, "Jack moves silently enough but not so much the conversations on the phone."

[Electra]

"You should teach him how to text message," Stesha suggested, popping the sausages into the microwave to defrost. "At least then he'd be quieter. Or you could just give in and get a good night's sleep in an actual bed. But if teleporting is making you pukey, too, that sounds like something besides being tired." She got out a couple of pans, then started cracking eggs into a bowl. "Who would've put a curse on you since Christmas, though? Have you had any big catches?"

[alderwitch]

"No big catches," Taylor agreed, her nose wrinkling up as the smell of cooking meat began to fill the air. Her stomach lurched dangerously and she took a step back from the microwave. Drawing only enough air to talk, and that through her mouth, Taylor added, "Its a weird curse, or hex. Whatever it is. Seriously, who curses someone with exhaustion and nausea. If I could still get the flu, I'd blame that."

Turning paler, Taylor was glad when the timer went off and the sizzle stopped. Hopefully the slow roll her stomach was doing would follow suit.

[Electra]

Oblivious to Taylor's discomfort, Stesha opened the microwave and took out the defrosted sausages, tossing them into the pan to cook. Soon they were sizzling merrily, releasing the smell of cooking meat into the air. While they cooked, she poured the eggs into another pan and added cheddar cheese and pepper, then scrambled them up. "Maybe it's not a curse," she suggested to Taylor. "Maybe you're not as immune to diseases as you thought you were. Maybe you're immune to most Earth diseases, but there are still some things you can catch."

With the eggs cooking, Stesha chanced to look up and catch sight of Taylor's face. "Oh, Taylor, you look awful," she blurted out, putting the backs of her fingers against Taylor's forehead. "Is it getting worse?"

[alderwitch]

"I think I'm going to be sick," Taylor knew that talking was a mistake the moment she opened her mouth. She didn't need to breathe after all but she took in air when she spoke automatically, which included the merrily sizzling smell of sausage.

Turning from sickly white to downright green, Taylor clapped a hand over her mouth and vanished, automatically taking the fastest route to Stesha's restroom. If the sausage hadn't done the trick, a second telportation certainly did.

After several minutes and the sound of water running, Taylor emerged apologetically from the restroom. This time she took the slow route of opening the door.

[Electra]

Stesha was waiting with a glass of water, looking very concerned. The smell of sausage had abated significantly, though the apartment was getting sort of cold from all the open windows. Between the cross-breeze and the plants clearing the air, it hardly smelled nauseating at all anymore. "Has that happened before?" she asked, passing over the water.

[alderwitch]

"Not with sausage but the smell of my mom's pork pull at the last family dinner made me sick as a dog. But that really never smells good. She's not a great cook, honestly," Taylor confessed, accepting the glass of water with a grateful smile of thanks. "Not that any of us would ever breathe a word. I told her I had the flu."

Taylor wrinkled her nose up after swallowing.

[Electra]

Stesha pursed her lips, looking even more concerned. "Hmm. Why don't you come back into the living room and sit down? I've got some ginger in the kitchen, I'll steep you some. It'll help your stomach settle down." She led the way back to the living room, where the broad-leaved plants were still waving their leaves, fanning the bad air out of the apartment. "Have you been sore anywhere lately, have you noticed?" Still listening, Stesha went into the kitchen to grate some ginger. For anyone else in any other situation, she'd have already jumped to one conclusion, but this was Taylor, and the situation was quite unique.

[alderwitch]

"No. I heal preternaturally fast, so I'd be vastly concerned if that was acting up. That would have to be some potent curse," Taylor shook her head grimly and fiddled with the napkins in the cheery basket in the center of Stesha's kitchen table. She sighed and sat back in her chair and switched her fiddling to the band on her finger, twisting it back and forth guiltily.

"I should probably mention it to Jack but I didn't want to worry him when I have no answers. Its not like he'll know more than I do already."

[Electra]

Stesha poured the hot water from the kettle over the ginger, then added a little honey to make it taste a bit better. She carried it back into the living room and gave it to Taylor, then sat down herself. She waited until Taylor had taken a few sips, hoping it would calm her stomach down a little. "So..." she finally asked, trying for some semblance of casual, "when was your last period?"

[alderwitch]

Taylor inhaled her tea at the question and choked and sputtered for a few moments before she cleared her airway enough to answer the question.

"Three to five years ago," Taylor answered finally. She coughed again before taking a tenative sip to soothe her throat before she continued, "And Jack's the only person I've ever been with and he's been a vampire for years. An Ubangi hex is a far more likely possibility, or a grue super flu. I hesitate to say anything is impossible but that is certainly up there."

[Electra]

Stesha shrugged one shoulder. "More things on heaven and earth," she pointed out. "As well you know. You're probably right, it's impossible, but my mom's a midwife and I grew up around this stuff. If anyone else came to see me and said they were exhausted all the time, feeling nauseous in the morning, couldn't stand the smell of greasy food all of a sudden, it's definitely the first question I'd ask. Especially for a newlywed. I guess that means you haven't taken a test?"

[alderwitch]

"I can honestly say it never even occured to me to try one. Unless I'm drinking regularly, I don't think I could unless it was the blood test kind." Taylor said as she took another sip of her tea. "Short of mystical intervention, I can't see that its possible and there hasn't been any weirdness going on to restore fertility to vampires going on. At least nothing I'm aware of. I did summon a goddess and a genie last month though so it was odd even by my standards."

[Electra]

"Before you got sick, you mentioned that you were starving," Stesha pointed out. "Was that true, or were you just being polite? If you've been eating more than usual, you've probably been eliminating more than usual too, and just not thinking about it. And hey, you're drinking now, right? On your second glass. I could fix you some oatmeal and you could take a test, and that's one more possibility entirely eliminated, right?"

[alderwitch]

"I am more hungry than usual, which is really to say at all." Taylor admitted reluctantly. She was getting that stubborn set to her features, however. The look that Stesha associated with Taylor defending Jack. Apparently it was Taylor's 'I don't like what you're suggesting' expression.

Rather than argue further, Taylor shrugged her shoulders and agreed. She personally thought the concept was rediculous but arguing further would have just been mule headed. "Sure. I've got nothing to lose by ruling it out but ten bucks on a test.

[Electra]

Stesha smoothed a hand nervously over her hair, dislodging a tea rose. "Actually," she admitted, "I have a box of them. I had a late period a couple months ago, but it was nothing. But I was nervous, so I picked up one of those big five-packs and just shoved it in the back of the medicine cabinet afterwards. You won't even have to go out if you don't want to. I'll just make you some oatmeal and you keep drinking your tea. How's your stomach doing?"

[alderwitch]

"Better. I think I'll be fine, although flying home instead of telporting. And outmeal sounds great." Taylor finished her cup of tea and set it out tothe side of the table, "How are you and Derrick?"

[Electra]

"Things are good, really good," Stesha told her from the kitchen, once again putting the kettle on the stove. "After everything that happened in November, I decided to put off taking him to meet my folks. I was just too wrung out to try and deal with any more emotional scenes. There's always Easter, right? But he understood that, and it was fine. He's always got some project or something on the other end of the universe to keep him busy anyway," she joked. "We've been spending a lot of time together, though."

She scooped up some runny scrambled eggs for herself, figuring the smell of them probably wasn't a problem, and opened a package of instant apple cinnamon oatmeal for Taylor. "I do think he's a little bummed about not being on a hero team anymore. I don't know how people go about finding those, or how many there are in Freedom City. But having people around to work with makes him happier. I'd like to see him be able to find something."

[alderwitch]

"He should talk to Ace. Ace was grumbling about the lack of a certain type of super hero team again. I don't pay much attention to his griping as I can usually tell when its going to be a clever backhanded insult at Jack."

Taylor accepted the bowl of oatmeal with a smile of thanks and began to demolish it in short order. "He does need to stop blaming himself for the fact that a lot of his friends are jerks. He takes a lot onto his shoulders, poor guy."

[Electra]

"Half the time I don't think he has any idea what's going on with the people around him," Stesha said fondly, sitting down with her eggs. "He blames himself because he can't figure out what else could be to blame. But he's getting better about it. And you didn't pay attention to Ace's griping even before you hooked up with Jack," Stesha teased. She was glad to see Taylor looking a little less rugged after some food and some tea. "I keep telling Derrick he should join the Freedom League, but I don't think he really wants to be based out in space right now."

[alderwitch]

"Well, I think Ace was talking about some Freedom League affiliate but based in the city. I don't know, he chatted me up about how the focus of the league has changed and the whole demon invasion made him see it. Yadda yadda yadda."

Taylor chuckled, somewhat inured to Danger style grandiose plans by her family's long time association. She finished the last of her oatmeal and placed the bowl off to the side as she finished her tea as well, "He's getting better at picking up cues at least. I think you've helped him a lot with that."