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[right][b]Interactions:[/b] Vin [@Fernstone] Destiny [@Evil Ghost Note]
[code]Thursday November 24th, The Hollow Tap[/code][/right][hr]

[color=51684c]”You’re fuckin’ welcome, now you ain’t gotta do any work. But I ain’t supportin’ showin’ ‘em to that rich bitch. Y’know, it wasn’t a shootin’. It was one of those [i]things[/i].”[/color]

Paloma looked up from the table she had commandeered and transformed into her cookie sweatshop, lined with bottles of icing and edible glitter that was guaranteed to be found sprinkled about the Hollow Tap for years to come. [i]One of those…?[/i] Her eyes widened in recognition as she shoved the stale bag of candy corn into the arms of one of the children. A doppelganger had attacked Freya’s shop? She glanced hopefully at the baker. Perhaps it had been a doppelganger that had said all of those hateful things, too.

She shivered. Gideon’s dumb insistence to greet everyone at the door was letting the cold in. She shot a glance towards the entrance only to see that it was closed.

[color=757566]”Hi. I…want to learn,”[/color] said a small voice.

She turned towards the child with a smile on her face, happy to recruit another laborer. At the same time the Samaritan could no longer resist its nature thanks to the overwhelming presence of needy people in such a tight capacity and flicked back on its Messiah Complex. Paloma winced as the bar lit up like Christmas, the small figure in front of her beaming brighter than the star on top of the tree. [i]Sam, enough![/i] Nearly blinded, Paloma felt her heart stop as the golden strings of light faded and revealed to her the shade of a ghost. She blinked rapidly and her blood resumed pumping as her vision cleared, the imagined manifestation of Room 513 shifting before her as it became a different girl. 

Paloma couldn’t tell if the Samaritan had just gotten confused or if it was trying to tell her that this young lady desperately needed help. She wasn’t as aptly attuned as Vin was, with her knowledge of magic still muddied by rules regarding spellslots and material components, and still mistook the occasional knock on her Emotional Field for something else–a need for a cup of coffee that was more sugar than coffee, a reminder that she should really stretch more often than she does, or in this case, the wind. So when Paloma saw the blackness of Vin’s eyes she tensed, worried that perhaps the child was a doppelganger or, worse, that Vin was about to whoop some kid’s ass. 

The revelation that Vin merely wanted to teach the kid how to fight was a relief until Paloma realized that Vin wanted to [i]teach[/i] the [i]kid[/i] how to [i]fight[/i].

[color=springgreen]“Hoooooooold on, tiger. The private lesson thing was only a bit,”[/color] said Paloma with a wave of her hand, conscientious of all the children around them. She shifted her attention to Destiny, half-squatting to lower herself down to eye level. [color=springgreen]“Hi, I’m Paloma. Vin’s just joking around: [i]they like my company[/i]. You want to make cookies with the other kids, right? It’s really easy. I can give you some design pointers if you…”[/color] 

She trailed off as she felt something inside of her squeeze as the Samaritan tried to grab her attention. Talk about [i]actually[/i] annoying. Paloma grumbled something under her breath as if she was having an argument with herself, her head rocking side to side as she mulled something over. The kid had glowed brighter than a supernova. She needed help more than anyone else in the bar. Hell, the kid needed it more than anyone else that Paloma had seen in her relatively short time spent with the Samaritan. Her mind started to fabricate the potential horrible scenarios that the kid could be involved in, each worse than the other and none landing even close to what was really going on with the child. 

[i]God-fucking-damn kids![/i] So much for scoring some information from Marco, let alone scoring with him. So much for becoming Freya’s new best friend, apprentice, and inheritor of her fortune. Paloma had to figure out what was troubling this girl to make Sammy jump around so much. If not out of the goodness of her heart–a thing she liked to believe that she had, despite some evidence or more so her willingness to destroy said evidence–then at the very least to satisfy her morbid curiosity with the added bonus of shutting the Samaritan up.

A squeal escaped from Paloma’s throat like steam out of a tea kettle. 

[color=springgreen]“Ohmigosh! I just can’t stand it. Like. [i]At[/i]. [b][i]All[/i][/b]. You’re just too cute!”[/color] She snapped her head towards Vin, slashing a finger at them like a knife as she jumped up to her feet. [color=springgreen]“We’re adopting her. No arguments. We’ll figure out who’s daddy later.”[/color]

[color=springgreen]“What is it you’d like to learn, sweetie?”[/color] asked Paloma, dropping back into a half-squat as she lowered her voice to a hush. [color=springgreen]“There isn’t someone you’d actually want to punch, is there? Because you don’t really need to learn how to fight someone just to fight back.”[/color] Paloma guided Destiny's eyes towards Vin with a glance. [color=springgreen]“You just need to know someone who’d do it for you.”[/color]