milliways_bar | (no subject)

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Luna has a tiara made of silver plastic and purple feathers, and a cupcake piled high with frosting and festooned with a single lit candle and a pair of spun-sugar numerals – a 1 and a 4.

Bar had given her both, much to Luna’s (pleasant) surprise. She had no idea that Bar knew it was her birthday today.

She’s wearing her crown and is sitting with her chin cupped in her hands, contemplating the candle flame. She’ll get around to eating the cupcake eventually, but first she has to make a wish and blow out her candle.

You only get one birthday wish a year. It requires some thought.

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Lucas easily spots her by the crown, something he's not really seen the likes of before. But the cake and candle explains it all to him.

Contemplating birthday wishes is all well and good but there is a pressing matter that might not wait on Luna.

"If you're not careful, your cake's gonna get waxy."

Luna looks up, chin still in her hands, and smiles.

"That's all right. It makes your hair shiny."

"Well, that would be nice," he admits.

Though he doesn't think it'll taste very good.

"So you're already 14? Happy Birthday, Luna."

"Thank you. I'm not sure how Bar knew, but the cupcake is quite lovely, isn't it?"

It had been a nice thing for Bar to do.

"Would you like half?"

She won't even ask him to eat wax.

"That would be nice. Thanks."

But there's a moment of dread.

"Oh, but I haven't got a present for you."

Luna just smiles and lifts one shoulder in a shrug.

"You're here to eat cake with me."

Luna doesn't have friends at school to mark the day with her. She's gotten cards and presents via owl from family and family friends, and Dad will make a special lopsided desert of some kind when she goes home for Easter break.

But she doesn't -- well, hadn't had -- anyone to eat cake with on her birthday.

"Just give me a moment, though. I'm still thinking on my wish."

He thinks for a moment.

"Oh! If you're still thinking, then maybe I can get you a present from home real fast."

"Only if you're certain you want to."

Luna wouldn't want him to feel obligated.

"Sure I'm sure I want to," he says.

He heads for his door, stops for a moment, and turns around.

"Can you knit?"

Luna nods.

"Tolerably well."

She even knows some spells for it.

"Okay!"

He takes off the scarf he's wearing, ties an end on each doorknob, and steps out, the scarf keeping it from closing completely. He's gone for a considerable bit on his side but not very long bar-wise and comes back with a skein of yarn. He then takes his scarf back and returns to the table.

"This is from my black sheep," he says about the yarn. "Not a lot of people like it since it can't be colored easy but I think it's the nicest."

Luna accepts the skein with a smile.

"I think it's pretty just as it is." Luna would have no trouble in changing its color, but she likes it in it's natural state.

"And soft. I'll have to think of something special to make with it."

Lucas looks very proud. He got a good gift for his friend!

"I'm glad you like it. And maybe that can be part of your birthday wish."

"I suppose it could."

Luna pets the skein of yarn in her lap the way one might stroke a cat.

"I can never make up my mind about birthday wishes. If they should be something terribly important or not."

He thinks about that for a moment.

"Well, when we get older, what's important kinda changes, doesn't it?"

"It does," Luna agrees.

"On one hand, it seems a shame to make a wish for something frivolous. But on the other hand, it seems wrong to make a wish for something really important. Because, really, wishes only do so much. You have to work for the important things."

It had been much simpler when she was six and had wished for a puffskein.

"Maybe you should wish for something nice and useful?" he suggests. "Like new clothes you like or something."

He remembers his father once giving his mother a dress for her birthday. Something she could wear every day but one she had been kind of eyeing for a while.

Luna thinks.

"I suppose I could wish for socks. I once heard Professor Dumbledore say that you can never have enough socks. And he's an exceedingly wise man."

She hasn't worked out the significance of the socks, but it percolates in the back of her brain.

"But I think I'll wish for Dad to come across a good picture of a Crumple Horned Snorkack this year. That's not frivolous, is it?"

"I don't think it's frivolous. But I also don't know what a Crumple Horned Snorkack is, either."

"They're very elusive magical creatures. So elusive that many witches and wizards don't even believe in them."

Luna nods, decidedly.

"I think that'll be my wish."

She folds her hands, concentrates for a moment, then blows out the candle flame. A curl of pale smoke drifts up toward the ceiling.

Luna opens her eyes and smiles.

"Cake?"

"Sounds like a good one."

He claps and cheers once she blows the candle out.

"Sure! Thanks Luna."

Bar obligingly materializes another saucer and fork. Luna plucks the candle out of the cake and neatly divides it in half.

"When's your birthday?" she asks as she passes Lucas his plate.

"September 10th," he says, taking the cake. "Claus is the older twin, though. By like 10 minutes or something like that."

"What do you do on your birthday?" Luna asks.

"We have cake and ice cream and Mom and Dad give us a present," he says. "Last year, Mom, Claus, and me got to take a trip up to see Grandpa, who is Mom's dad."

"That sounds nice."

Luna fork up a large gob of frosting.

"I'm always at school for my birthday, now. But Dad and I always do something to celebrate when I go home for Easter break."

"This year Dad's gotten us tickets for Toil & Trouble."

"That sounds nice," he says, a little distracted when he catches the mistake in his words.

It was three years ago and it still feels so recent.

"What's Toil & Trouble?" he asks, glad to have something to talk about.

"It's a play. A retelling of MacBeth from the point of view of the witches. The Golden Toad Playhouse is putting it on. Our friend, Mr. Spring, helped design the sets. He says it will be quite good."

Luna is looking forward to it.

He takes a bite of cake while he listens. A play he can understand but he's not sure of some of the rest.

"And what is MacBeth?"

"It's a play by a Muggle named William Shakespeare. It's about a morally corrupt king."

"I don't know much about it except that it's supposed to be bad luck to say the name of the play out loud in a theatre."

It's funny how much magic Muggles believe in without even really seeming aware of it.

"That does sound good. But the bad luck thing seems odd. How would that work if there was someone named MacBeth who wanted to act?"

"I expect they'd make him go by something else."

"My friend Archie told me about it once. Apparently people have a habit of dying during rehearsals."

Lucas winces.

"I wonder why that happens."

"I don't know. It could be a curse of some sort, I suppose."

Some witches and wizards are just nasty. Perhaps Mr. Shakespeare ran afoul of one once.

"Is there any way to get rid of that now?" he asks. "I mean, can people look into it to see if that's it and stop it?"

"Happy birthday?" Seems obvious, but it never hurts to ask.

Funny that she's only 14. She sometimes feels so much older.

[ooc: just tagging in before sleep - more tomorrow]

Luna looks up from the candle flame and smiles.

"Hello. And yes, thank you."

"How does Bar know these things, do you suppose?"

[Totally, and sleep well!]

"Magic, I guess. But it's never wished me a happy birthday." Which is just as well, since the Titans always make a party for him. "You gonna make a wish?"

Luna nods.

"Oh, yes. I just haven't hit upon a good one yet."

"What do you wish for on your birthdays?"

"Peace. Good food. Fun times." Boy, he's hungry. He almost said good food again. "Maybe a few other things." That he won't share with a girl.

There may be another person studying that candle flame.

He might also be persuaded to give another birthday wish in exchange for icing--he's steadily picking apart the fluffy blue-and-green cloud of candyfloss the Bar gave him, but it's hardly a substitute.

"Does that turn your tongue blue and green?"

One of the off-putting things about Luna is that she can ask questions like that without ever taking her eyes off of the candle, or losing the daydreamy expression.

Fin smiles, not taking his eyes off the flame but for a second to look at Luna.

"It can."

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