tushanshu_logs | OPEN | Tonight the foxes hunt the hounds

Characters: Zatanna & Open
Date: Early September
Location: Mu-Hao to start, though mostly just around Keelai
Situation: Revenge is a dish best served cold; as such, Zatanna enlists her favorite partner in crime to get back at Wan before making a run for it. In the meantime, catching up with some of the current Turtle population.

Warnings/Rating: None

She wasn't entirely sure when a single challenge had turned into an all-out prank war, but she was pretty sure it had something to do with Wan using his then-secret nature of technically-Korra-even-though-not-actually-Korra to get past her room Wards. Rude.

It was perfect. He had snuck into her room, so she would simply keep him out of his. For a little while, anyway. Jack had been all too eager to help her, because of course he was. Setup took minutes. They only had to wait until he was long gone for the morning. A thick block of ice covering his door, and a second blocking the window. He was, in essence, frozen out of his room until the ice melted.

From there, she quickly decided a clean escape while she had the chance was best. She would return to the scene of the crime later, for sure, but in the meantime, she was suddenly up for a nice, long stroll around the city.

And if someone just so happened to catch her in yet another fit of laughter, well...depending upon who it was, she might be up for explaining over a milkshake. Preferably chocolate. With extra whipped cream.

She'd earned it, after all.

((ooc: general mingle for anybody who wants to run into a giddy Zee pretty much anywhere around the city. Just specify in any starter threads and I'll roll with things~))

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"And that smug jerk knew he could use that loophole the entire time I was challenging him."

She didn't seem all that angry. Or annoyed. Not anymore.

His fingers seemed to twitch a little. Grinning, she curled all of hers except for one back, and poked him right in the center of his palm.

"I figured it must have been something like that to get you wanting a full out prank," Jack chuckled; he didn't voice that the last time she'd really seemed interested in such practical jokes was when Dick had still been on the turtle. He watched her poke his hand and grinned.

"Looking for the off switch, are you?"

"I'm honestly amazed you agreed without asking for the whole story."

Relating her renewed interested in pranks to Dick hadn't really crossed her mind. She still thought about him, of course. Constantly. She even missed him, and if anyone asked, she'd be the first to admit it. But practical jokes...sure, they had been one of his many Things, but the original prank wars had actually been instigated by Bart and Tim. Sort of.

At least, that's how she chose to remember it.

"I'm pretty positive you don't come with an off switch." She grinned back. Poking him again just because. "Does it feel any different? When I do that, I mean."

Verses when other people touch you. Verses when you were still alive.

"Guess that speaks to either how much I trust you or how desperate I am for a good prank," the spirit teased. "I'll leave it to you to decide which one."

He leaned his chin in his free palm while he watched her poking his hand. "I notice you don't say you've never looked for one. And... I don't know, different how?"

"Both."

She didn't even have to think about it. When presented with two such options, the answer was always both.

"I don't know. Different, like..." One last poke, and she switched to drawing little circles instead. "Different from someone not wearing a charm, I guess."

"Not surprised," he laughed.

He hummed a little, thinking about her question. "Well, you don't feel as warm as someone else's hand would," he answered. "But you don't feel cold either, it's kind of neutral? Like room temperature feels to everyone else, I guess. But it's not just the temperature, there's something... I don't know. It kind of resonates a little bit."

"Does it hurt? Tickle?"

The more she talked about it, the more genuinely interested she was. Her father used to explain the magic side of how the enchantments worked. Sometimes, they would experiment together. On the safe ones. Not unlike the one she wore now. But it was different when working with someone who didn't share their family magic bloodline.

"Kind of like..." He thought for a moment, trying to find a like comparison. "Like holding onto something with a really fast hum."

"Like a hummingbird?"

It was the first comparison that came to mind. The imagine of Jack holding a little tiny hummingbird....

"So like Baby Tooth, if she were still flying while you were holding her."

...wasn't much of a stretch.

He bobbed his head. "That's as good a comparison as any," he agreed. "So when we're touching, it feels like that... starting wherever we're in contact but then spreading. It's a little weird but... nice."

She smiled, bypassing the game altogether so that she could fully take his hand into hers. What he was describing...it wasn't quite the same on her end. There was no humming sensation. The part about it starting where they touched before spreading, though? Yeah, she could relate.

"Do you think it's the magic? Or is it just us?"

"I'm not sure there's that much difference," Jack replied and though it sounded like a quip, in many ways it wasn't. Magic was literally in their lifebloods... was it even possible to separate them like that?

Her own train of thought was following something vaguely similar. She was a being born of magic. He was a being reborn from magic. It flowed through their veins (albeit slightly more fluidly in hers). Every second of every day...excluding those awful times when magic had been either restricted or nullified completely. She tried not to think about those times too much.

"I wonder what it's like for other people." She purposely didn't bring up Dick, and the difference between whenever they made physical contact, and now. It would ruin the moment. "People who don't have magic. What this feels like for them. If it's different."

He tried not to think about those times too much either, and was merely grateful that whenever it had happened, he hadn't simply dropped dead in the street. Definitely, not going to bring that up.

"We could always go around touching people to find out."

Jack, that sounded so wrong out of context.

"What, like an invisible game of poke wars?"

"Maybe we should make a bet out of it," he elaborated with a wicked gleam in his eye. "Best reaction out of five wins?"

"You're on. But one condition: I have to pick your targets, and you have to pick mine."

Added challenge, just to make sure he didn't cheat by somehow picking somebody he knew would be extra sensitive to his chilling touch.

"Why Zatanna Zatara, if I didn't know better I'd think you were worried about me cheating," he said archly. "I really don't know what I think about that."

Without batting a single eyelash at the less than subtle accusation:

"You should think that it means I know you well enough, Mister, to know what kind of awful trickster you are." In other words, absolutely, yes, she wouldn't put it past him for a second to bend the rules to his favor.

"Awful trickster," he echoed with a pained gasp. "That's it, I'm retiring. I don't need to listen to this kind of slander in my line of work."

"Like you don't take it as a compliment."

OPEN | Tonight the foxes hunt the hounds

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