Blackwood Grove, Fandom to Baltimore's Anchor Market, Monday Afternoon

[witchoftheflesh]

Okay, so...Adrian's Market jaunt had been pushed back a few days. Mostly because Pam, Rey, and Lydia had all told him that they were coming along with him. Adrian had tried - briefly, and not well - to point out why that was a terrible and dangerous idea, but all of his arguments against had been taken as arguments for and eventually Adrian had bowed to the inevitable and given in.

But they couldn't just go in. They needed a plan and, even more importantly, they needed disguises.

So first, a meeting here to figure out their story and get them all into the proper disguises, and then it was off to the Market.

If he were going anywhere that wasn't crawling with warlocks, Gilgamesh's enforcers, and had a slave pit to boot, Adrian would almost be excited. Sadly, that was exactly what each Market was like and so he was filled with dread instead.

"Do you think that they'll be more willing to listen to reason and stay here today?" he asked Boston.

The cat didn't even deign to reply, just opened one baleful eye long enough to look at him and then closed it again to nap.

"Yeah," he sighed. "Me neither."

[For the aforementioned ladies please!]

Comments

[witchoftheflesh]

"Well, yes, but it would take a lot more than I thought I'd be able to get my hands on easily," Adrian said. "Unless the yew was spring-fed, of course."

Of course. That just made sense.

[mustbeawitch]

"Of course," Lydia agreed. "Not a lot of yew in these parts, is there?" Inconvenient of the ecosystem. "Well, we shall do our best, I'm sure."

Yay, shopping!

[witchoftheflesh]

Boo, shopping.

"So, I figure we'll all take Mimic potions and go from there," Adrian said. "Are you going to be comfortable in something a little more...Hollywood? Well, in the illusion of something a little more Hollywood, anyway."

Legs, Lydia. You were going to have to show off your legs.

[mustbeawitch]

That was gonna be a no on the legs. They were not her best feature.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?" Lydia asked him. "Me taking your potion, I mean. I've no idea how my magic will interact with it. You might end up having to pay when you hadn't planned to. Or I might." Although, no offense, if one of them was falling down a flight of stairs or some such tonight, Lyda really hoped it was you, Adrian.

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian would also rather it be him. If anybody ended up hurt because of this trip, he was going to feel incredibly guilty.

"Do you have anything that's a little more...uhhh..."

"Influencer," Boston said from his perch on the porch railing.

"I have no idea what that means," Adrian said, brow wrinkling.

"Lydia does and that's what matters," Boston said with a careless yawn. It was obviously nothing, Adrian, don't even worry about it.

[mustbeawitch]

"I will have you know 'milkmaid dresses' are very in for summer," Lydia told Boston. Adrian was a lost cause. "But if you really think that won't work I've that matching set I was about to return." She didn't know what had possessed her to buy it in the first place.

[witchoftheflesh]

"Yes, but Anchor Markets don't go in for cottagecore," Boston said. "For one thing, they don't pay attention to what mortals are doing, for another..." He considered. "Most of them either go brat summer or creepily manosphere."

"What?" Adrian did not know any of these words.

[mustbeawitch]

"The pink set it is, then, I suppose," Lydia sighed.

[witchoftheflesh]

Boston's tail waved in the air. "Classy, sassy, and a bit bad-assy," he told her. "Confidence level: selfie, no filter."

"This is an entire conversation I just don't understand," Adrian said, shaking his head and giving up. "I'm gonna go fetch the potion for the rest of us."

[mustbeawitch]

"I shall just go change," Lydia sighed.

She would return shortly in the pink set and enough glamour to lighten her hair and change the planes of her face a bit. No fresh bandages! She'd twisted her ankle walking in the shoes, realized that was likely to keep happening, and opted to make the best of the situation.

[witchoftheflesh]

"You...look perfect, actually," Adrian admitted. "Are you okay? Those shoes don't look comfortable."

[mustbeawitch]

"Oh, no, they're horrid," Lydia assured him, "but I mean to make the best of it." At this rate she would be able to summon up a really solid notice-me-not if they had need of it.

[witchoftheflesh]

Adrian also had plenty of those! Lookaways and Neverminds, both!

"Let me just get Pam and Rey set up with their potions and we'll be ready to go," he said. Pouring out a mug of a cloudy, murky blue liquid for both women, Adrian then drained the rest of the bottle. The results were not instantaneous, but it did work quickly. In just a moment or two, there was man standing before her just oozing smarm and punchability. He still had Adrian's tall, lean body and olive skin, but his dark hair was slicked back like an old-style gangster's, and his slim-fit Italian suit was even more atrocious. It was still black, but the faux-velvet fabric had a gaudy fleur de lis pattern. Bran, who'd been lying in the grass at his feet, had been transformed into a raven-topped cane.

"See, manosphere," Boston muttered, jumping down from the porch to saunter to Adrian.

[mustbeawitch]

Lydia sighed wistfully. "I suppose it was too much to hope to get him into another color," she muttered to Boston.

[witchoftheflesh]

"Never had a chance," Boston said.

Once he reached his witch, Adrian tugged at his suit jacket and Boston jumped in the air--and then vanished. "He's in one of my coat pockets," Adrian explained.

[mustbeawitch]

"That's ever so convenient," Lydia said. "Wickham certainly wouldn't fit in any of my pockets." If her current outfit had pockets, which it decidedly did not.

Just you wait, Adrian. She'd gotten Miss Lambe to put off those horrid greys. She'd get you into a color yet.