#anywhere

"Yeah. Guess not."

Dag watches the door, still holding the pitcher.

Frank waits, offering to take the pitcher. "Dagmar. Jaymes makes that Oath to you? Same thing. He'd be your father, you his daughter, and it wouldn't ever be a situation where he wouldn't want you."

Her face twists up in a knot, and she looks away.

"Sorry about that, kiddo but... that's how we are. Maybe one reason you're so bent out of shape out it is because you know it's true?"

"I know what's true." Glum resignation.

"Ok." He gestures again. "Want to give me that? Kerri'll have my head if I don't represent hospitality well. Drinks with the food, and all."

She holds out the lemonade.

"Thanks. Come out if you want to. You know you're welcome here, I hope."

"...yeah."

"Okay." Taking her at her word, he takes the pitcher back in.

Dag sinks down to sit, her back against the fridge and her knees drawn up to her chest.

Symon slips in, then pauses just as the door closes behind him - a hand still holding it a crack open. "Want me to f-fuck off?"

Dag lifts her head, then hefts up to her feet. "No. They asking for me?"

A lift of a shoulder, and he moves closer, sliding down onto his haunches a couple feet away, back against a cabinet. Eyes flicker over the kitchen. "Not yet, but if they want me to tell stories again, I'm telling you so you can repeat it. My throat hurts from too much blabbing. I'll lose my voice."

"What voice?" An attempt at teasing, if a bit anemic.

A huff. Eyeing the range hood over the stove - tracing the pipe that leads to vent outside. Good to know. "Whispers in the dark, dark shadows for dark tales." A wiggle of fingers, spooky like. "What do -you- think is happening here? With the bugs?"

"They said it's not just my glamour making them. So, I dunno."

"You know about karma, right? Reap what you sow?" A tilt of his head to one side. "Or maybe it's more... 'no good deed goes unpunished.'" A hand trails down to the shadows, but they are empty for now - the siren song of Ham, apparently, stronger than any bond at the moment.

"Like - when you are a bad person, bad things happen to you? Yeah."

"I talked to one of my elders, took 'em a piece of that English class spider. He did a voodoo on it - it wasn't a trick - a Cantrip - I know, or maybe I'd've done it myself. But he saw a glimpse into what's going on, and it wasn't great." He leans forward, arms on his knees, long fingers dangling. "Someone wants you, and bad." A snap of his fingers - probably the loudest sound she's heard him make. "And dead."

A long look, flat affect. "....Oh."

"Dagmar, that is. I don't know for sure..." He cautions. "But it's not Sam they're after. Far as I can tell, it's something Dagmar did... or was... or might do, that has them with a hate-on for her, for you, bad."

A few moments of silence, contemplating. "Seeing as they're being the nasty ones about sneaking around and sending monsters to attack you, and Sylvi, and smash up places - that's generally not Good Guy tactics. So best reckoning is that you have the bad guys after you, you probably did something good they don't - or didn't - or won't - like."

His voice holding a bit of a sardonic bent to that affirmation.

"So... Dagmar, too. Oh. Okay."

"See, I figure it this way. If Hydra is after you so bad, you gotta have done something to deserve it. And whatever they don't like, must have been good." A twisted smile. "Ever play Zelda?"

She shakes her head. "Haven't played a lot of video games. That's the elf chick, right?"

"At least you know that's not the name of the Protag." A faint grin. "You get a nerd point. But see, the guy you play, Link - from game to game, he starts out just a dude trying to live his life. But he has this "Spirit of the Hero" so every time, he gets called back in to fight the baddies. Maybe it's not that far off. You do good in one life, your "reward" is you get called back next life to keep up the battle. Bully for you. See, as best as I can tell, I kept my head down, so no big destiny for me."

"....Right..."

He leans back against the wall, silent for a few moments. "What do you think about all that?" A pause. "I guess being all fresh to the whole whammy, it's just more on top of the 'Hey, you have a secret magical alter-ego' hammer."

A dull shrug. "Guess everything was too... don't know what I was thinking, I guess."

"Don't tell me you were hoping to be a magical fairy princess without a few dragons to fight along the way, were you?" Head tilted to one side.

A scowl. "Not some princess."

"I can't say I know what's going on. It's like... just flashes, and I don't have the big picture yet." A scowl - that bothers him. "But what I can see is that this Entomancer, they're not just some baddie that wants to hurt you. From what I heard? They want to wipe out Dagmar, like for good. And that's... well. That's killing a bit of the world we all live in. That's breaking the Big Law - the Escheat."

A pause, and he leans in, whispering in earnest. "And you know what that means?"

Another of those long pauses, face gone to stone. "Oh."

He waits, patiently, his expression awaiting an answer to the question, if she;ll give it.

"So then I'd be just Sam again?"

Abrupt - "Do you think you could be friends with just Sam?"

A contemplative look - apparently the answer wasn't what he expected. "I don't know. Maybe?" Honest. "Do you like Sam?"

She shrugs.

"Dagmar hangs out with me in the woods, and makes friends with shadowcats and magic elk and faehounds. But Sam doesn't care about eating lunch with a smelly weirdo. I guess you're both okay."

"When Ann Marie was on my case about making new friends, I told her I made one. Sam. You're not going to make a liar of me now, are you? Tell me you're not, else she might get the Lysol out."

"I won't, nah."

"Here's some food for thought, though - is what I was getting at."

He leans in a big closer, and shadows seem to loom in with him, wavering around him.

"Why do you think they're trying so hard to hurt you? Even if there are other warriors around... and even to the point of breaking the big laws to get you out of the way?"

Symon's voice is a soft, jubilant hiss. "They're -scared-."

She shakes her head. "No."

"Just means Dagmar's bad, too."

A scoff. "You're smarter than that. Bad guys don't go after other bad guys. They team up, Sinister Six style. They tried to get you with little maggots. Then with a spider. Then a big fuck-off beetle. They're amping up - that's fear. And whatever the bad guys are afraid of... that's the side I want to be on, y'know?"

"No, that's just movies. No."

"We're living a fairy tale, Dags. Where do you think those stories stem from?" He sits back. "But hey, it's not like horror flows through my veins, eh? I wouldn't smell a scaredey-cat if they pissed their bed in front of me." A thin twist of a smile. "We ARE the stories. And they - the one after you - they're afraid of what you can do, or they wouldn't be upping the stakes. And if you know it - then you can make that your power, and not be the victim they want you to be."