(no subject)

[numbered_doctor]

Thirteen's apartment is pretty much as it was last time Sunshine was here; cozy, rich-coloured, with exposed brick columns and comfy furniture. The young doctor in question tosses a lazy grin over her shoulder at her companion as they enter.

"Well, home sweet home. You still remember where everything is?"

Comments

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine follows her through, carrying her bag. "Yeah," she says, smiling slightly.

She pauses, though, looking around in slightly baffled curiosity as a thought strikes her.

"...So weird."

[numbered_doctor]

Thirteen cocks a brow curiously.

"What's wierd?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"You have no wards in your house," she says, looking at the windows and doors she can see. Despite her distaste for charms and whammies and talismans in general, only a fool would do without house wardings, and Yolande's were really good. Sunshine is used to feeling the comforting psychic hum of a secure warding line without any holes in it. A house completely without... feels rather weird.

[numbered_doctor]

The woman just sends her a baffled look in response.

"Wards?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"Yeah," Sunshine replies, glancing at Thirteen like it should be obvious. "No protections against anything."

"You don't find houses without wards, in my world," she says, still looking around as though she expects to find them hidden in the curtains or in the brickwork. "At least not occupied houses whose occupants expect to continue to do so."

[numbered_doctor]

She watches her friend look around with some amusement.

"And what exactly do these protections do, Sunshine?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"They protect?" Self-evident, says Sunshine's look.

"Most of them are geared towards preventing harmful things getting in and killing you, but the field covered by wards is wide. Anti-burglary wards, anti-lockpicking wards, privacy wards, charms to keep your food from spoiling, the wide range of wards against inhuman harm to inhabitants, anti-pest wards - though those are notoriously unreliable in the best of circumstances-"

Even a wardskeeper might have to resort to using a peanut-butter-baited electric fence to keep the deer out of her garden.

"-and more, besides. The global council-members may have wards around their persons that number in the thousands, and wardcrafters working around the clock to better protect them. Nobody else can really afford that kind of deal, but no one does without the standard wards at the very least, if they can help it."

[numbered_doctor]

Thirteen listens to the spiel with some interest, nodding where applicable.

"Sunshine, as far as I know, there is no magic in this world, and if there is, the human race has no idea how to tap into it."

[sunbaked_baker]

Sunshine thinks about that, a lopsided smile on her face. No magic.

No vampires or Others, but also no magic-handling families. No Blaises. No bad blood-crosses.

She can handle that for a while, she figures.

Rae smiles. "As I said, it's weird."

But it'll do.

[numbered_doctor]

She grins a little, moving further into the apartment and kicking off her sneakers.

"I did promise no dark creepy-crawlies, didn't I?"

[sunbaked_baker]

"You did," Sunshine smiles. "So it's a good weird."