selkiesaoirse | (no subject)

Greta leaves out offerings for Sweeney all the time, and Saoirse has never actually seen him accept them. She's started to wonder if maybe he takes them at all, or if perhaps any of the wild animals end up eating them overnight.

So she resolves to find out. She sets an alarm on her phone for well after Greta and Thomas are meant to be asleep. When it goes off beneath her pillow, she almost forgets why it's set, and fusses a little.

Then she gasps and rolls out of bed. She'd nearly forgotten about the offering!

She pads down to the kitchen and peeks at the window. It's still there, good.

Carefully, Saoirse drags a kitchen table chair to the counter closest to the window, and she climbs up onto it. She sits on the counter beside the window, sort of hiding from view. If Sweeney really is taking it, she wants to see it in action. She wants to know if he does it by magic, or if he just walks up and eats it. She wants to know how it works: does he leave magic behind that gives them luck, or does that come later?

She wants to know so much!

So she sits and waits.

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It's a little late and he ought to be elsewhere, probably going to Spike's so he can work out whatever the hell it is he's still been tossing around inside his head. That's a little more complicated than this, however, and so this is where he goes. Greta's left him something, as she often does, and he's relieved she's kept it up, even if a part of him wishes she hadn't started in the first place.

There on the window sill is a delicious bit of pastry and Mad Sweeney takes it, takes a bite, then catches sight of a little face watching him through the window.

"Ain't you supposed to be in bed?" he asks through the glass.

She cringes shyly at having been caught, then giggles and pushes the window up so they can talk properly. "I wanted to see what you do," she answers. "How it works, and the like."

"You wanna watch me eat?" he asks with a smirk, popping another bit of the pastry into his mouth. Greta had mentioned Saoirse was speaking now, so Mad Sweeney has to figure she's found her skin somewhere along the way.

There's nothing all that exciting about what he does, it just happens. Someone gives him an offering, he takes it, and in return they receive the good luck that flows out of him. When the offerings stop, so does the well of good luck. He doesn't want to say that to her, though, wishes it were something more special just because she wants to see it.

She giggles again and shakes her head. "Not like that!" she argues. "I just didn't know if you sprinkled dust on Mum after having her offering. How d'you know she's left one? Is it a feeling, in your bones? Like how I always knew I was supposed to be in the ocean, even before I knew what a selkie was?"

She has so many more questions, but she tries to at least let him answer a few at a time. It's hard to answer a lot of questions at once, after all.

"Just a feelin', yeah," he answers. "And there's no dust involved, lass, I'm a leprechaun, not a bloody fairy."

That he's one of the Fair Folk, along with fairies and brownies, and everything in between, doesn't need to be said. He'll just not say anything about that at all.

"It's just magic, that's what it is," he says as he finishes the bit of pastry. "Sometimes shit like that just can't be explained."

Saoirse knows just as well as Sweeney that leprechauns technically qualify as faeries, but she doesn't argue. Instead, she says, "Like how it's magic that I can turn into a seal? I definitely can't explain that shit to people. It just happens." And she's tried, before, back when she was getting bullied at Petros Middle School. Now that she's in Brynmor, it's easier, because she didn't start there mute, and with her coat neatly in the little glass orb that Magnus made for her, she's not 'that weird girl that wears a fur coat to school' anymore.

Not that she minds being weird, of course, so long as no one is being mean to her about it.

"Hey," he says in a warning voice. "Language."

Not that he's got a leg to stand on, but he's seven centuries old. At this point, he sort of figures he's earned the right to curse as much as he wants to. But if Saoirse starts swearing left and right, Greta is going to know exactly who is responsible for that and whether or not he brings her luck, she'll come for his ass.

"But magic is sometimes just a thing that happens, ain't it?" he asks. "Whether we know why it's happening or not."

Saoirse has the decency to look contrite. She'd expected Sweeney to ignore the... Well, it wasn't exactly a slip, was it? She'd meant to say it. She'd sort of wanted to see what it felt like, to say a naughty word.

Greta and Thomas never swear. Sweeney is about the only person, actually, that Saoirse ever hears say things like that.

"Sorry," she says, shoulders lifting. "But I think you're right. And that's why it's magic. Because it doesn't have an explanation, and it doesn't need one, right?"

"On the nose," he says when Saoirse puts it like that. Of all the things that have happened to him, he has explanation for so little, beyond blaming it on the gods. But his decision to flee wasn't down to Wednesday and being a bird wasn't down to Wednesday. Some things just don't have an explanation.

Maybe they don't need one.

"So you're talkin' a lot," he comments. "For a selkie without her skin. Where ya hiding it, then?"

"Oh, my coat!" She reaches up to pull her pendant away from her chest. It's a small glass ball, and inside is a cute white coat, looking a bit like it's been paused mid-toss onto a bed or the like. "Magnus made it small, and put it in this for me. That way, I can wear it, but it doesn't cover all my other clothes! D'you know Magnus?"

Mad Sweeney leans in to look at the coat inside the glass ball, an eyebrow raised as he studies it curiously. It's a good bit of magic, but what he knows of Magnus, that's not terribly surprising. They've never met officially, but he's got an idea about the guy. Could be the guy has an idea about him, too, but he's not looking to find out one way or another.

"Know of him," he answers. "We're not exactly pals."

He's not pals with a lot of people. There are those who've slipped past, there's the fact that he's sitting here talking with Saoirse right now, he cares about her and Greta. About others, too. But he still doesn't go out of his way to make friends.

"He's great," Saoirse declares. "He's helped me a lot, and he's magic, too." Which certainly goes without saying, since he made her coat small without removing its own magic. "And he throws parties that are so much fun!" She winces at how loud her voice sounds and lowers it to a whisper. She doesn't want to wake Greta or Thomas.

"Oh, I've been to the parties, lass," Sweeney answers, thinking of the fun he's had at them. The sort of fun not to be shared with a kid, even if she's been at those parties herself. Magnus, as far as Sweeney can tell, always keeps the very adult shit very separate. Kids can't even drink without setting off some kind of alarm.

"I think everyone in this place has been to the parties," he adds. "Kinda famous, aren't they?"

"I think so," she agrees. She looks around, then ducks her head a bit. "You won't tell Mum I sat up and talked with you, will you?" she asks then. She doesn't want either of them to get into trouble, and she doesn't think Sweeney does, either.

"Nah," he says with a little smirk. "What would that get us both but a little bit of trouble?"

And he knows he could send that trouble right back to Greta if he wanted to, but he doesn't want to. He doesn't want to be put in that situation where things like that become necessary again. There are certainly people in Darrow he doesn't give a shit about, people he's happy to throw his fickle nature at, but Greta isn't one of them.

"You don't start leaving things out for me, though," he adds. "You wanna talk, you pick up the damn phone or wait by Greta's offering, but don't leave your own."

She blinks at that, and tilts her head. "Why not?" she asks. She hadn't even thought about it, really. She doesn't need any extra luck, right now. She's got her selkie magic, and maybe it's nothing like a leprechaun's luck, but it's better than nothing at all, isn't it?

Still, to be told outright catches her off guard, and naturally makes her want to do it, anyway.

"My magic is fickle," Sweeney answers. "One day the wind will shift and the good luck will go with it. Greta made the choice to leave me offerings knowing what I was and how my magic works, but I'll not have you doin' the same thing."

But if she starts, he won't be able to stop her. He won't be able to stop himself. He'll end up going and taking the offering, sure as anything.

"You stick to your own magic, lass, that's all you need. You don't need none of mine."