Recent Posts

Cora didn’t seem overly confident, but Darcy had that covered for her in spades. If they managed even a half an hour at the party before ditching out, Darcy would be happy. “Come on,” she said encouragingly, taking a few steps and heading inside Eric’s little barn. It was much smaller on the outside than on the inside, but Darcy was expecting that. Eric worked with dragons and it wasn’t as if you could just carry all your dragon-sized equipment around without a shrinking spell or an expandable charm. Darcy had used a similar spell on a few enclosures to make sure all of her animals had a comfy space to lounge while staying inside her little flat.

Inside there were people dancing, drinking, laughing, and even singing. Darcy wouldn’t be suggesting karaoke tonight, but it would be interesting to hear people sing, especially as the night progressed and the booze flowed freely. “Do you want to check out the snacks? Or we can get a drink? Looks like Eric even got a bartender. So posh!”

Darcy was happy with her four pins, though she was expecting to get a little better by the end of the night. Well, better by the end of their first game at least when she was warmed up and before she insisted on playing one too many games and her arm would start to get tired. It was a nice arch of crummy to middling back to crummy but the fun would last the whole evening. Darcy took her seat behind the score card and filled in her points with the little half-pencil the alley provided, lifting her head just in time to shout “Good luck!” as Cora took her place at the head of the lane. Preparing to console Cora on a gutter ball with the standard “you’ll get it next time,” Darcy’s eyes widened as the ball curved back and slammed into the center pin, knocking them all down in the process. “WOOOHOOO!” Darcy leapt up from her seat, arms in the air. It was perhaps a tad too excited a reaction, but having never been bowling with Cora before, she wasn’t prepared for that level of skill straight out the gate. “You didn’t tell me you were a shark!”

“Tip number one,” Darcy started, “do not stand behind me when it’s my turn.” She didn’t explain why, and hopefully no one would have the pleasure of witnessing the reason firsthand, but Darcy may or may not have been known to lose grip of a ball mid- release on more than one (but less than three!) occasions. And she may or may not have knocked over a bench of elderly women who were just innocently waiting for their league match to start.

Darcy pulled off her boots and set them on the counter, not bothering to comment on the state of her bowling shoes. They had been sprayed, so they didn’t smell too horrible, but you could accurately estimate how many feet had been in them just by looking. It was all part of the charm that was bowling, though she did wish muggles could figure out a better way of cleaning their shoes that was a bit more effective. “Promise,” she grinned. Pulling on her bowling pair, Darcy needed to sit in order to tie them, so she plopped right on the floor without a second thought.

Shoes tied, she stood and headed toward lane six, scanning the racks of balls for a lighter one. If she was going to potentially throw a heavy ball around, she wanted it to be a little easier to take to the gut. “How do I look?” she asked, holding up a hot pink ball that was flecked with large pieces of glitter. She posed in several positions as she modeled the ball. “It matches my outfit, don’t you think?” It did not, but it was light and fingers fit comfortably in the holes, which was all that mattered.

Whatever the man’s purpose was with this street stall, he thankfully didn’t have too many animals and nothing of any real harm. Not that that would have stopped Darcy. She’d take home anything too dangerous to set loose and find some responsible manner of freeing the poor creatures, but technically that was considered theft and they’d already accosted this man and created a disturbance. Darcy was not unfamiliar with the charges of disturbing the peace, but she’d never falsely imprisoned anyone before. Did this count? Would she be charged as an accessory to the crime even if her wand wasn’t the one who had conjured the man-sized cage around the arsehole, or would they be charged equally as co-conspirators. This was not the first moment of their short interaction that Darcy was well-aware that she knew nothing of this newfound partner in crime, but at the moment she didn’t care. The cages were empty, except for the stall owner’s and the purple toad had been levitated to a safe distance and then banished to a nearby creek where it could escape without injuring anyone.

“Come on,” she yelled to the dark haired witch as she grabbed her by the wrist and pulled her away from the scene they had caused, leaving the man in his cage for someone else to deal with as she hollered “FASCIST PIG!” over her shoulder in the man’s direction. Darcy led them through the alley, weaving through the crowds as fast as her legs would carry her and then when they were a safe distance away, she ducked between two buildings and fell against the cool stone wall. She’d have to find Sera later, but her best friend was used to her shenanigans by now. This wasn’t the first time she’d disappeared to advocate for someone or some creature when they’d not planned for it. Doubling over to catch her breath, Darcy smiled through the stitch in her side and began to laugh as her breath caught up to her. “That was smashing,” she said between breaths. “ ‘Ave you done this before?”

Darcy was fine to go out in the dress she’d worn over here, but decided to knick a pair of Sera’s shoes instead of sticking with the thong sandals she’d slipped on as she was on her way out of the flat earlier. If there was a chance they would be wandering around Whimsic Alley aimlessly for a while – and it seemed that was likely to be the case – then she wanted something a little more sturdy on her feet. Sera waddled wet-painted toes over to her closet and Darcy watched for a moment, making quacking noises at her friend and laughing. “I’d have done a penguin but I don’t know what they sound like,” she remarked aloud, not really to Sera but not really to herself, either. She was talking as a stall tactic but it wasn’t working and soon enough Darcy had rolled over onto her stomach and then pushed herself up onto her knees. Kneeling on Sera’s bed, she announced, “I’m stealing your shoes.” Standing, she kicked off her flip-flops and squeezed herself through the doorway of Sera’s closet, rummaging on the floor until she found a pair of boots she thought would go well enough with her outfit. She wasn’t a fashionista in the slightest, but she knew enough not to put together a completely mismatched outfit. Grabbing a pair of heeled, lace-up boots, Darcy crawled backwards out of the closet and then plopped onto the bed once more, taking her time to slip her feet into the black boots and tie the laces taut as Sera did her thing. Finally, when the girls were ready, they said their goodbyes to Mr Devereaux and disapparated to Whimsic Alley.

As expected, the place was crowded with pretty people flirting their ways into bars, clubs, and each others’ pants, not to mention all the business owners trying to encourage the partiers to spend their money in their establishments over the others’. They passed one of the handfuls of nightclubs with loud music booming and multi-colored lights flashing through the opened doors, a queue of would-be patrons waiting eagerly to get inside. Darc couldn’t imagine standing in a line that long just to get onto a sweat-covered dance floor and drink overpriced, watered-down drinks all night while ignorant drunk men failed to accurately grasp the concept of a lesbian in their midsts. She’d done it before and enjoyed it all, sans the daft men hitting on her, but tonight it seemed like so much effort. She wasn’t looking for that, she just wanted a nice, relaxing evening out with her best –

“Hey! What are you doing?!” Darcy’s voice rang out loudly through the street, muffled only by the music of the club at their back. Separating from Sera without even a thought to it, Darcy marched over to a man standing at a street stall who’d been shaking the cage of a diricawl, trying to get it to perform. “That’s not a puppet for your bloody entertainment, you gigantic tit! You leave that poor creature alone!” Darcy began in on a long tirade about the proper handling of magical birds – “of ALL birds for that matter!” – and how cruel jostling the creature’s cage just to make him apparate into the empty cage on the far end of the man’s stall was. “What are you staring at? You think animal abuse is entertaining, do you?” She had turned on the passersby who’d stopped to watch the man’s vulgar display. “Shame on you!”

Quickly scanning through the book on magical lizards she’d purchased at the bookshop down the way, Darcy nearly smacked herself in the face trying to open the door to the magical menagerie that pulled out rather than pushed in. She stopped so suddenly at the shop’s door that she shopping bags flung forward into the wall, causing one of the thin paper straps to break. “Bollocks.” Darcy stooped in front of the shop to gather up the recently purchased items; books and pamphlets on fire creatures and magical pets, several copies of yesterday’s Daily Prophet to use as cage liner, and half-eaten chocolate bar that had nothing to do with her current venture into Diagon Alley. She picked up the chocolate and inspected it, relieved to see that it had all stayed tucked inside its wrapper and she wouldn’t be having to toss it in the bin. Pulling her wand from her pocket, Darcy fixed the strap on her shopping bag and reloaded her items. She then dusted off the book she’d been looking through and held it in her free hand, pulling the door to the Magical Menagerie open with just a few free fingers, continuing on with her plans for the day.

She was greeted by the sales wizard behind the counter and Darcy made a beeline for him. “Hi!” she chimed. “I need a cage that would work for one of these,” she said, flipping open her magical lizards book again and turning back to the section she’d been reading before smacking into the shop door. A black and white picture of a firedrake covered half the page, its little wings flapping as it zoomed around in the picture. White sparks burst from its tail as it flew. Darcy thought it looked very happy and hoped to be able to see the little one she was caring for at home look as pleased with himself as the one in her book. The sales wizard nodded and started talking about the pros and cons of some of their different cages, heading off down one of the aisles. Darcy followed, listening as her feet followed but her eyes were back in the book, scanning the text for any clues as to what else she might need.

Darcy had never cared for a firedrake before, but one had been brought into the shelter with a broken wing and a deep scratch over one of its eyes. The vets fixed him up as best they could, but he needed to be looked after for the next several weeks before he would be strong enough to be returned to the wild. Naturally, Darcy volunteered. Her flat was basically a revolving door for rescued animals, and she wouldn’t have had it any other way. “I’d recommend one of these,” the wizard said, and Darcy lifted her face from her book to check out the selection. “Brilliant. And your lightning bugs are where?” The wizard pointed to the far wall where a sign that said Reptile Food hung over several glass enclosures. “Thank you,” Darcy said happily in a sing-song voice. The sales wizard left to return to the front desk while Darcy looked over her options of cages, trying to reference the book she’d purchased on caring for magical lizards.

“So what’re the plans?” Darcy asked, staring up at the ceiling. The girls were having a witches night but beyond a date and a meeting location, there hadn’t been anything finalized. They were sitting in Sera’s room at the moment, Darcy laying on her back on the bed, her legs extended up against the wall. Her head was hung over the edge of the mattress and her hair brushed the floor. Darcy fixed her gaze upon her friend who, from this angle, appeared upside down. “We could go dancing,” though she wasn’t feeling in a particularly dance-y mood. “Might be able to still get tickets for a comedy show,” she offered. “I don’t think there’s anyone but locals playing but it could be fun.” She shrugged casually from her upside-down position on the bed. “Or we could just stay here and do this all night and lament about how lame we are.” Honestly, Darcy was fine to do whatever tonight. She’d had a long week of activism that wasn’t making as much traction as she had been hoping for and while there was still plenty left to be done, there wasn’t much she could do at the moment. It was ridiculous how the government all but shut down on the weekends, at least for civilians.