"Oh, come on, you stupid piece of-"

Maury roars and throws the bundle of ebony fabric onto the ground, then kicks it for good measure.

"And you can just stay there and think about what you've done."

In an effort to not acknowledge that she just punished a regular piece of cloth and expected it to listen to her, Maury leans back in her seat and diverts her attention to her magical 'Gonna get me a passing grade' mirror. It is lunch time on the other side, the two sides only an hour or so apart if the big handed clock on the wall above the bar is correct. No wonder her stomach is feeling growly. She grins and rubs her hands together greedily. It's pizza day in the dining hall.

But first, she needs to get her soul for the day.

The first couple of days, the summoning portal was programmed to send out a lure automatically at the same time every day. At night, when almost everyone over there was drunk and sleepy, it seemed unlikely that anyone would notice someone going missing. That darn waiter had noticed, though...

Maury snaps her fingers and activates the lure mechanic. Before she can enjoy her own genius, a knock shakes the door behind her.

"What!" She yells, not moving from her comfy spot. Through the mirror, she can see an old man standing up from his barstool and totter toward the back of the pub.

Words are spoken on the other side of the door, but she can't make them out. With a groan of displeasure, Maurgeth the Terrible hauls herself from her sweet cushiony chair and goes to see who dares to interrupt her.

"What," she snarls, straightening her back and glaring at the intruder. It would probably be more intimidating if the blue haired girl on the other side was not six inches taller and quite a bit broader in the shoulders.

"Hi Maury!" Pixiesnort pulls her lips back over a wide smile, small pointy teeth sparkling at the angry person before her. "I was wondering if I could borrow some enchanted thread from you. I got halfway through my top for Vicious Vestments class and ran out."

"Yeah, whatever. It's over there somewhere." She gesturs over toward the right half of the room and heads back to her chair.

"Are you finished with yours? Can I see it?"

"It made me angry, and it's being punished."

To her credit, Pixie doesn't bother pointing out the absurdity of that statement. Maury leans forward and rests her elbows on her knees as she watches the old man approach the mirror on the other side.

"Oh, Maury, there are some problems here..."

"Yeah, I forgot to make a neck hole. I'll go back and fix it later." The man stands inches from the glass, his head angled quizzically, a blank expression on his face.

"It looks like you forgot to make openings on the back for your wings as well. And everything is done with a running stitch..."

"Oh for-" Maury shifts sideways on her seat, glaring at the cheerful creature pointing out all the flaws in her hard work. "If it bothers you that much, then you can leave, and on your way out, please do let the door hit you on your a-"

Whatever Maury is about to say (we have no idea at all) is interrupted by the sound of something hitting the ground over by the mirror. She whips her head back around, but it is too late. A pile of steaming bones sits in an unassuming pile directly below the frame.

"You!" She jumps to her feet and whirls around, jabbing her finger at the other girl. "You made me miss it! I've been waiting since forever to watch it happen!!"

"Watch what happen? Oooh, are those fresh bones? How did you do that?"

Maury screams and tugs on her short hair, wishing for a half of a moment that it is longer, so it would be a more dramatic scene. "Yes! They are fresh! Fresh human bones! Smell and choke on it!" She grabs a thigh bone and shoves it under the girl's nose.

A giggle and a sigh, and Pixie grabs ahold of the taunting object. "I'm not allergic to their bones, silly. It's the dander that bothers me. Those creatures shed their little skin flakes and hairs everywhere." She shudders and brings the bone up closer to her face. "How did you get it so clean? There isn't a trace of fat or muscle left on this!"

"None of your business," Maury says indifferently, pulling the femur from the blue skinned Celestim and tossing it on the pile of bones in the corner. She gazes at the mirror, her eyes trained on the waiter boy standing next to an empty chair, looking around for the missing customer. He will be waiting a long time if he is expecting to get paid by the old man.

"You should sign up for the Rune Carving elective I am taking this term. You have a lot of material you could use just sitting there."

Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

A grunt is the only answer Maury feels like giving. She pulls the curtain across the mirror and turns back to glare at the pile of cloth that Pixiesnort laid across her workspace. Why did she think that sewing would be something she would have the patience for? Maybe the professor won't take points off for the neckhole thing. She will tell him that she meant it as a combination hood and mask. Maybe she will even get bonus points for creativity.

Pixie is still standing in the middle of her little room when she turns toward the door, hungry for lunch. "Move, I need pizza now."

"Think about the Rune Carving thing. You are going to fail Vicious Vestements if you stay there, and this is the last week to drop and pick up classes."

"What makes you think I will fail it? Maybe he will acknowledge my vision, and I will score higher than you." Dark blue eyes set deep in a light blue face give her a look that so clearly says 'that is a stupid hope and you are going to fail' that Maury blinks and stares hard at her to make sure it isn't her mother in disguise. "Fine, whatever, maybe I will look into Rune Carving. Will you leave me alone then?"

"Nope!" Pixiesnort cheerfully shakes her head, leading the way out the door. "You should sit with me at lunch while everyone else from our floor is out gathering. The younger grades can get mean if they see students sitting alone."

"Didn't they throw a cabbage at you last week?"

"I mean, where did they even get a hold of a whole cabbage? And it was such a waste, we could have boiled it and candied it."

"That is absolutely disgusting. Why...."

**********

Despite her misgivings, Maury takes her meals with Pixiesnort for the next few days. She tells herself it is because she wants to see what other cruciferous vegetables the younger students can come up with. A head of cauliflower would probably be hilarious to see bonk the cheerful girl in the head. Or maybe they would be able to find something even better from another vegetable group. When the thought enters her head that maybe she just enjoys not being alone all the time, she promptly dismisses it.

Her denial of her motives is challenged when Pixie is sick for two days in a row. She doesn't notice in the morning of the first day that the blue one is missing from class. Rune Carving turned out to be a better fit after all, so Maury dropped Vestments and swapped to that. Most of carving runes is about attention to detail when etching the runes into the medium, in her case bone since she has so much of it. (Maury has always had very nice handwriting, her writings clear and neat even when she is writing very small.)

She doesn't realize something is up until around lunchtime that first day. By the time her lure catches its prey for the day, a young woman hiding away at a corner table while she eats her soup alone, Maury's stomach is growling. The ribs drop last, for some reason, and with each plink as they hit the ground, her mouth waters until she has to suck the drool back into her mouth. The dining hall is doing ribs smothered in spicy sauce for both meals...

Maury leaves her room after checking the level on the soul crystals she has attached to the frame of the mirror, making sure everything is being absorbed alright. The thick wooden door slams behind her, a satisfying noise that echoes through the otherwise empty hall. She stomps past two empty rooms before her legs start to feel tired from the effort, and she switches to normal steps interspersed with some angry snorts.

"You're late," she hollers as she pounds her hand against the door farthest from the main stairwell and nearest to the showers. "Let's go!"

A rough, scratchy voice comes through the door, doing its best impression of a roar. "Leave me alone!"

It doesn't work. The roar is about as intimidating as a kitten with a cold. Maury continues to pound on the door until it is finally wrenched open.

"Is your brain being stored in your butt? I said to leave me alone!"

Maury raises her eyebrows and takes in the bedraggled Celestim before her. Pixie's eyes are so swollen that her irises are barely visible, and an angry purple rash covers every exposed part of her skin. "You look awful. Are you sick?"

"Of course I'm sick, you idiot. Now get lost!"

And with that, the door is slammed shut again.

"Huh," she says begrudgingly with admiration. "She is interesting when she is sick."

The rest of that day and all of the next, Maury goes to meals by herself. Nobody messes with her in the dining hall, not since that one time at the beginning of the year, when she set a table on fire after its residents threw frogs at her and Sidney. Nobody was hurt, but the kids all had to eat their Gazpacho hot that day. They seemed to have learned a valuable lesson about not messing with her. The part where she was trying to turn them all into ferrets but failed was not shared with them. Sidney suspected, but he would never tell anyone. He was afforded a modicum of respect for sharing her table.

It feels strange, she acknowledges silently as she picks at her lunch on the third day. Friends and acquaintances always seemed like so much work before. Sitting alone, building a castle out of her mashed tubers, she finds herself bored. Not that she misses Pixie's cheerful chirrups, but the other girl always provides a good distraction by being so annoying. She dumps her tray in the garbage, fishing it back out when she remembers the other girl lecturing her on only putting garbage in the bin. "Trays go in the wash bucket blah blah blah I'm so annoying." At least part of that is paraphrased, but her memories are more enjoyable when she spices things up a little.

Maury spends the rest of the day practicing drawing her runes on some parchment at her work table. She intentionally leaves all lines broken to make sure she doesn't accidentally cause an explosion. Again. Behind her, the pub begins to get busy as the dinner rush trickles in. She can't hear the noise, but the ebbs and flows are becoming familiar after so long watching the mirror, and she knows when it is worthwhile to glance up from what she is doing.

When the room is packed and the mirror shows a scene of barely controlled chaos, Maury takes a break from her runes and activates her lure. Immediately, the annoying waiter looks up, staring directly at the mirror on his side.

"Good," she murmurs, stretching her wings out a little to keep from getting a cramp after sitting hunched over all afternoon. "I'm tired of swapping collection times because he is so nosy."

He stops directly in front of the glass. Startling green eyes, slightly unfocused, seem to peer directly at her. As he reaches out to touch the surface, she cheers him on, clapping her hands excitedly. A knock on her door, oh the timing, pulls her attention away for just the second it takes for him to be sucked into the mirror on his side. Her head quickly turns back, though. Instead of the plink plink of bones hitting the ground, there is a thud, followed by swearing more colorful than anything she had been able to come up with before.