"But why are we wearing old clothes? What happens if we change clothes? Aedus isn't wearing a suit now." Noel was relentless, both in ignoring ancient Aedus' every compliment and in wanting to know more about the paintings. It was both cool and creepy. "Also, I mean, my soul isn't getting locked away inside or anything, right? You're not collecting virgins in the attic?"

She was a little embarrassed and flustered so Noel tried to look very closely at the painting. Were there even brush strokes?

Splap!

It didn't matter. Noel wouldn't have been able to see them anyway. A wad of cranberry sauce had just collided with both the painting and her face. That caused two very distinct gut reactions: the brunette closed he eyes and started to draw her sword.

But this was a safe place. And the pre-pubescent chuckles told her that she had just fallen to some kind of prank. Noel slammed her half naked sword back into its scabbard and tried to scoop the drippy red sauce out of her eyes. It probably looked as if her brains were showing out the front of her head. And this was a new shirt too.

"Twenty minute warning! Start gathering the troops!" A matronly voice sounded all through the house as if over a speaker system.

The brush strokes were so fine to look as If they weren’t there.

“Ah that’d be because the original painting was a Victorian renaissance piece. Not an original, but my fingers know what it is supposed to be. Oh, don’t worry they’ll stay still and clothed soon enough. And no, I wouldn’t still a soul so lightly.” Shammus shook his head and his eyes widend at the last comment. “Oh heavens no! I married once and she was more than enough woman for one lifetime, an attic full of virgins sounds like a fine solution of where to put them if they were around, but as far as going out of my way to collect them.”

Splap!

“You boys will be begging her forgiveness by the days end!” and Shamus left any kitchen raiding thought with the sight of cranberry sauce on a guest. They were running and the old man seemed to be keeping up fine.

Aedus’s hand hovered over Noel’s, just in case he needed to help her make the right decision of whether a sword was necessary. She sheathed it before he needed to insist. “I am so sorry, I am pretty sure that was meant for me.” He took her arm and attempted to lead her further into the house. A finger slid along her cheek to remove the majority of the sauce.“Let’s get you cleaned up.” and calmed down.

As for the painting, Aedus blocked the Majority of it with the umbrella and Noel had her sword drawn and pointed to the sky. The painting then froze in place with a renaissance woman with a skyward pointing sword and an obsidian guard with a parasol taking point. The cranberry sauce slide to the floor.

Aunt Aislin spoke through the house making the majority of the other guests move toward the pavilion.

Meant for Aedus? He scooped some of the goop off of her cheek and Noel heaved a sigh. Her hands moved around her face and hair uselessly. It was everywhere. On her headband, on her blouse, it was even worked into her hair. The stickiness made it pull against her scalp when she tried to un-stick some hair from her temple.

Was it silly to feel sad about an outfit she'd hardly known? "Bathroom?"

At least the old guy had run off. Talk about spry! The guy was a lady killer. Noel couldn't quite imagine what that old fart was going to do to those kids when he caught them, but she was somehow sure that he would, indeed, catch them. They would pay. She had no doubt that she would be properly avenged.

Noel was ushered into a bathroom with a pedestal sink that was shaped like a shell. The decor was burgundy and cream and gold… seriously high class stuff. The swordslinger was in way over her head.

First order of business, she splashed water on her face and neck and any affected hair. She had to poke little globs of jellied berries down the drain and just hope that they wouldn't clog something up. She rinsed her headband and tried to use a gold hand towel to smudge the sauce off of her blouse. It just made the damp spot larger than before.

By the time Noel was drying herself off and trying to put her headband back into her hair, a loud five minute warning echoed down the halls.

"Get your rears in gear, Teague family and guests! 5 minutes to prayer time!"

She wasn't sure why, but when Noel looked at her reflection now, the only phrase that came to mind was 'bedraggled gutter snipe.' Before she had felt confident about meeting the various members of his family. Now? Not so much.

Food. Food would make this better. She poked her head out from the closet sized restroom to see if Aedus had abandoned her yet.

He was going to kill the twins, they had better hope that his brother hid them from him well. hopefully Shamus had them doing something hard..Maybe they would get put on ice cream duty. between the two of them making the homemade ice cream would be a pretty rough punishment...It wasn't likely that they would be the only ones being taught that lesson though, he had faith in the old man that he would put them to work. He knew from experience, that Shamus could be a harsh master.

Aedus leaned up against the wall; next to him were five women of different ages. All of them but an older blonde looked like they were of the Teague line. But the fact that they were all family was obvious.
“These lovely ladies were sent by Shamus to help, if you’ll let them.”Aedus spoke to the disheveled and disheartened Noel, among them was Coleen.

The young woman wiggled her finger at Noel’s clothes. Where the clothes were stained, the color matched the original shade of the clothing. “Don’t worry you won’t turn bright green, cloth is what I trained on to get my powers under control, though Freckles are still troublesome.’ The girl waved and ran. Apparently she had done her part. The other four patiently waited permission before the assisted the woman. Two were later twenties and the blonde looked to be early fifties, late forties. And the last looked to be twelve, if that.

Not only did Noel find Aedus, she found a trail of women waiting for her. They were all alike but with subtle variations. Hair color here, eyes there. One had a lot more freckles than the rest. Like a cookie cutter had cut the same shape out of different dough. Or, maybe different shapes and icing from the same dough?

Coleen fixed the stain, but not the dampness where Noel had tried to rinse it out. That was where freckles stepped in. >>"Excuse me." Was all she said before she put her hand on Noel's chest. Noel would have protested, at least, she thought she would have protested, but the eldest of the women was nudging the youngest.

>"We have less than five minutes. Hop to if you're going to cut her hair, Becky!"

"My name is Wuhbecca. I'm pweased to meet you." The girl curtsied in her velveteen party dress. Noel lowered her initial estimation of the girl's age simply because of the adorable speech impediment. "I would wike to fix your hair, please."

Before, Noel had been scared for her hair... now she was wanted to saw "awwwww" and let the little girl do whatever she wanted.

>>"All done!" Freckles let Noel's blouse go and the material was all dry. Blast the cute little girl had distracted Noel from her awkwardness. In the time it took Noel to look down and then up again, freckles was gone. Flat out running to the outside door.

>"She's got a boyfriend waiting for her." The older woman (and last of the attendants) supplied the information freely. Rebecca circled around to the back of Noel.

Of the eldest, Noel just had to ask. "What do you do?" Everyone had a power. Even little Rebecca. Noel's itchy scalp was proof of that.

>"I chaperone." The woman winked at Noel and the swordslinger glanced over at Aedus.

And then at his forehead.

And then the ceiling... "My head's getting really heavy. Is that—?"

>"Completely normal. Rebecca? Don't you think that's enough?"

"I want her to have princess hair."

>"She might not want that, hon."

"Uhm. I don't really care so long as I can still move around." The load got lighter and Noel's straining neck was able to lift her head again. Sweet relief! Only, there was a soft tickling at her calves. When Noel looked down a whole sheet of thick brown hair tumbled past her shoulder and cascaded in front of her. Her hair was now longer than Rebecca was tall.

This was absolutely surreal. Noel touched it.

"You have pwetty hair." Long coils of cut hair slithered along the floor, under a door and out of sight. The way it moved gave Noel serious pause. It was like a mouse or a dog and it moved fast. If this girl could grow hair out that fast and then make it move around... she could tie people up in their own hair.

"Holy moly, was that—?"

>"Your old hair that was sticky with cranberry sauce."

This lady had a seriously annoying habit of—

>"Finishing people's sentences and thoughts. My apologies. Really I'm here to speed things along so we can all get to dinner before it's gone. Aedus? What do you think?" She didn't give him a chance to say it, though.

>"Rebecca, why don't we braid Miss Noel's pretty hair. That won't take too long and then she can have princess hair and her mobility."

Immediately Noel's head started jerking side to side with the tight pulls of magical mutational hair braiding.

>"She's going to need some kind of hair tie, Aedus? If you could oblige? We're already missing the prayer out there."

And his cousin Ciara had now been further with Noel than he had. To be fair she was trying to help, and she had to actually touch the fabric or moisture to collect it.

Aedus watched with Keen interest at what Rebecca was up to, He wasn’t going to say it but last year she was still waiting on a power. No one had mentioned to him that she had developed her skills. He just realized that Rebecca was his new best friend yeah, she lived in northern part of New York State, but it’d be worth the trip.

He rolled his eyes when He heard his aunt say she chaperoned, and he got a light smack on the back of the head for his trouble.

Aedus watched in awe at Noels hair going Rapunzel out of nowhere. He wondered if that was going to take energy out of Noel, her follicles working over time.

His Aunt didn’t let him say anything because she had read his mind and wasn’t very well going to say what he was thinking at the moment. She just smacked him on the head again.

“I think your hair looks fantastic.” It wasn’t a lie. But his aunt shot him a look anyway.Aedus reached into his pocket and revealed a pack of hair ties. “When I saw uncle Ien. He took care of it. He knows when people are going to need things they don’t have and sometimes he takes care of it for them. Thank you, Rebecca.”

He smiled at Noel as the women hurried off to the pavilion. “are you ok?” He said as he went around to her back And knelt to secure the bottom of the braid with a hair tie, the rest of it was so perfectly braid he doubted any of the rest of it would need it.

“I guess I’ll hang onto the rest of these for now. Ien’s good, he even got the color to match your top.”

> “I think your hair looks fantastic."

"It's surprisingly heavy." Noel turned her head back and forth and then put her hands against her tingly scalp to scratch at it. But scratching wasn't really what it needed. Maybe an ice pack or some time to calm down?

"Thank you." She echoed Aedus and waved to the little yet terrifying Rebecca. Seriously. Some people might miss the potential there, but Noel now had enough braid to hang herself with. Aedus would have had to kneel to tie up the end of it if it weren't long enough for him to simply pick up.

> "are you ok?”

"Huh?" She must have zoned out or something. Noel let go of her scalp and pulled her braid over her shoulder. When it was in front it was still long enough to pass her belt line. This was all just... weird. "Yeah, for some reason all these powers all in one place... it's kind of terrifying." She was glad that they were on her side... or she was on theirs?

"We'd better get out there." Noel waited to take Aedus' arm. Then she was ready.

“Well, if you want to cut it, apparently you can do so quite a few times until you are back to your old cut. And even then, we know who to call if you get a bad haircut and want to start over.” A smile came over his face. “And I very well may never have to go without eyebrows again! Erhmmm. That is probably the weirdest thing I have ever been excited about.” Aedus wrapped the hair tie around the end of the long luxurious braid and then stood back up.

He nodded to her last statement as they made way into the pavilion. “Yeah, It makes me wonder how we survive around each other sometimes. How I survived growing up. each ability on its own maybe isn’t the most powerful, though some are more daunting then others.’ He nodded at Noel’s braid. ” but once you start stacking them up and putting them together, it all becomes wonderland.

And then they were through the mansion and the looking glass into a spectacularly decorated pavilion and a wave of delicious aroma after delicious aroma. Everything was so mouth watering it made him want to just pull a chair up to the food tables. “shall we start to do the thanksgiving shuffle?” he nodded toward the line wrapping the pavilion with platter after platter of food that promised to leave even this amount of guests stuffed.

She laughed. "That's right! Here I am with more hair than I know what to do with and you're still missing your eyebrows." It wasn't a mocking laugh. More like she was considering if there could be some kind of trade arranged. He proooobably didn't want a Noel toupee, but the idea was laughable. Hence the laugh. "We'll have to track Rebecca down to fix that for you before we go, yeah?"

Over the woods and through the hills to the Turkeyday feast they went. Aedus asked if they should dive in or not, which was a bit ridiculous. "Isn't that what we came for?" The smells alone were so rich, Noel thought it was torturous to hang out down wind. But the Teague family was used to the numbers and quite adept at pumping people through the many buffet lines.

Noel tried to only scoop out a small amount of each thing. Not because she was being polite, but because she wasn't sure what she liked and everything looked good. There were certainly plenty of options. Pink meat, white meat, brown meat. Orange paste, white paste. Brown sauce, red sauce. It was like the most delicious Dr. Seuss book she'd ever seen!

At the end of all the lanes, a man with stretchy arms was handling the yeast rolls like an assembly worker. One roll here, two there. It didn't matter if the people clogged the line, he was always within reach of someone that needed a roll.

Once her plate was full and overflowing she followed Aedus toward the seating area.

“Hmmmm. I dunno, eyebrows on obsidian? Seems a bit odd. I think I will just have to make the trip upstate after I go back to mr.clean. Though I am concerned I might get the princess hair treatment.” He knew how to solve it though. He had a barber that while he wouldn’t believe him when he said how it happened he would get him cleaned up quick.

As Aedus rounded the path, he kept one eye on Noel and the other on how much space he had on his plate and how high he could stack it before it was obscene. He had four kinds of potatoes plus other vegetation and a pile of meat. He happily took bread from an outstretched hand connected to a body he couldn’t even see. He pointed out the boys that were involved in throwing the cranberry sauce. They were working a huge ice cream maker pumping it up and down. It looked like slave labor from the expressions on their faces.
After they had complete the food circuit he walked to the table, He grabbed a couple of seats toward the head of the table. It would allow them a quick exit strategy when they needed it.

"If you get the princess treatment, you can always cut it. Oh! We could braid your eyebrows! It would be so pretty, Aedus." Noel spared a hand to check her eyebrows. Nope. Hers weren't wild or braided. So that was good.

The table was long. Possibly 6 family sized tables end to end. Or more. Not that you could tell with the seamless tablecloth on top. Or the centerpiece that flowed down the length of the tables. Gourds and decorative asparagus and were those pheasant feathers? "Someone likes to decorate."

>"Oh, you think this is extravagant? Last year they had Annalee keeping live doves calm and in perches. Probably would have done the same if not for the cleanup afterward, if ya know what I mean?"

Noel set her plate down between the chatty lady and Aedus. "Live birds." The memormancer was thankful that wasn't happening this year. Yeesh! "I'm Noel."

>"Cindy. I just love Rebecca's work, don't you?" The woman showed off a full head of ringlets that would make Shirley Temple jealous. >"She is such a doll."

"Are your parents here somewhere?" Since someone somewhere supposedly already said grace, it was safe to dig in, right?

“Touche Noel touché..no eyebrows to braided eyebrows..I wonder if she can inflict a unibrow on someone.”{/color] Aedus nodded to the comment, He wondered if Noel would let him celebrate thanksgiving with her next year. Away from here and all the pomp. “Yeah, they like to do it big.”

Aedus smiled at Cindy, he had no Idea who Cindy was, maybe an inlaw…maybe a second cousin. Hmmm.
“Yeah, I thought I’d let you enjoy one plate before mom interrogates us. About our plans.” Aedus smirked.
Cindy however did not take the hint or the tone. “Oh are you too going to take the relationship to the next level? I wish Finn would get serious with me, you are lucky Noel.”

And now he recognized her, she looked different since she had aged a bit; matured a bit and all dressed up. He would have recognized her in a soccer jersey.

“Actually Cindy we are co workers, and I think Ma will have the same assumption you just made, except with a bit more enthusiasm.” His eyes turned to Noel. “ You can’t say I didn’t warn you about that part at least.” Aedus popped another potatoes into his mouth and enjoyed the best part of the event.

> “Oh are you too going to take the relationship to the next level? I wish Finn would get serious with me, you are lucky Noel.”

Noel did not know what to say to that so she quickly stuffed more ham in her mouth than was polite. Oh? Were you talking to me? Noel pointed to her full mouth and shrugged her apology. Sorry!

Only now, when she really wanted to explain to Aedus why she wanted to meet his mother, she had a whole lot of pork to get through. She ended up tapping him on the shoulder and holding up a finger. Just hold that thought, okay? Noel sometimes wished she were a proper telepath. It would make communication so much easier.

"I've seen her. No, I've seen both of them so many times that I kinda feel... I dunno. I just really wanted to meet them in person." She didn't have parents that she remembered. Noel only remembered his parents. So in a way that made her feel like they were sort of, kind of her parents too? She didn't want to be weird about it or anything but secretly (and hopefully there weren't any telepaths lurking nearby) Noel really wanted a hug from Aedus' mom.

Cindy was no telepath, but she was clever enough to pick up on mutational cues. >"You've seen them? Oooh I love this game. Rhys, Shae! Noel's got a power. Can we guess it, sweety?"

A quick glance at Aedus and Noel shrugged. Was there harm in letting them guess?

Cindy clapped in sheer delight. >"The clue is that Noel here has seen Aedus' parents, but never met them and they've never met her. Right?"

Noel nodded and scooped up some gravy with her roll.

"Oh, we will, of course we will, I just thought that after the cranberry thing, you deserved to eat in relative peace if you wanted to, I should have asked. She would hunt us down if she thought I was going to introduce you to Shamus the great and not her and Da." He looked like he would rather face a hundred demons.

Aedus Grinned. It had been awhile since he had witnessed a game of guess the ability. It wasn't as if they were going to guess about the method and he would leave giving up details to Noel. He glanced around for anyone that would be able to pick up anything mentally and he didn't see any mind snoopers around.

Shae pipped up with "'Is your power the same as hers? where you can see stuff at remote locations?"

Aedus shook his head.

Rhys tapped a finger on her temple. " you time travel and have met them in the future...wait no. you said you haven't met them... you can posses people and you met them as someone else."

Aedus laughed and nearly choked on another mouthful of potatoes and peas. he covered his mouth before anyone could see inside. he tried hard to have manners at the table. He shook his head.

Aedus was already chuckling. "Nothing as exciting as that."

The three women seemed to take this as a very serious clue.

"Not remote viewing or possession. Not time travel and nothing flashy." They reviewed their choices over a few bites this time.

"What about flying? Did you spy from the sky?"

It was Noel's turn to chuckle, but the guessing game was expanding down the table. "Too flashy."

"She's got a sword! Is that related to her power?" Someone called out over Rhys, a man's voice.

"Not directly...?" Her answer earned quite a few hmmmms and even on 'oh that's fascinating.'

"I think it's got something to do with her absolute be-utiful charm." The grand pappy of them all waltzed past the game to take his place at the head of the table. He just had to put in his two flattering cents.

"You can look into mirrors and see out other mirrors?" Head shake.

"Maybe her seeing them doesn't have to do with her mutation? Is that a red herring? Did she just see photographs?"

"Oh, pictures. Maybe it's something with that."

Another head shake.

"Maybe she's got ESP?"

"What kind?"

"Clairvoyant!"

Is that what she was? Maybe? Noel looked to Aedus for a second opinion. "Should we put them out of their misery and just tell them?"