[OTA|MTW]

[archangelet]

The day Tay met Georgia Mason, she was infected with the Kellis-Amberlee virus. And, unbeknownst to both of them at the time, the virus decided that the shiny new playground of Tay's new physiology was the perfect place to go live, and Tay began going spontaneous amplification. In Tay's favor, however, was her angelic immune system and the fact

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[shotofdumbidea]

Georgia didn't bother replying on the journal system. If the request for 'dark things' meant what she thinks it does, she doesn't think Tay will be in any state to read any response she might give.

So instead, she heads down the hall, and knocks on the door - lightly, in case the poor girl has a headache. Georgia's been dealing with her own retinal condition since she was five. Tay doesn't even know what this is, if Georgia's assumption is right. Too bad Georgia only had the one pair of sunglasses on her when she came through...

"Hey," she calls through the door. "Tay. It's Georgia Mason - is your door unlocked?" She knows Tay carries a gun, probably keeps it near her bed, and she's not about to just test the door and walk in. Shaun would probably shoot at anyone who came into his room unannounced, and she wouldn't put it past Tay to do the same.

[archangelet]

The knock is enough to tell Tay that whoever is at her door is not Xander, which means it's probably Phoebe or Mio. So when she hears Georgia's voice, she's surprised but relieved. Georgia might be nothing like Buffy, but Tay felt the same sort of "click" with her, and having a friend like that (especially under the circumstances) is a comforting thing.

"Yeah, it's open!" she calls, her voice muffled by the blankets. Hopefully Georgia caught that...

[shotofdumbidea]

That... sounded like it was probably a yes. Good enough for Georgia. She opens the door, takes note of Tay hiding under her blankets, and sighs a little before walking over to the window to close the blinds as tightly as possible. It's still bright enough in the room that Georgia wouldn't take off her sunglasses without a really compelling reason, so she turns back to the bed and grabs one corner of the blanket, tugging on it lightly.

"Close your eyes tight, put your head under the pillow, and give me this."

[archangelet]

One of Tay's hands snakes out from under the blanket, gropes for her pillow, and yanks it under the covers. There's a moment of squirming going on under the blanket before a faint, "'Kay!" can be heard from underneath all of it.

When Georgia pulls the blanket off, she'll have Tay's back to her as Tay curls into a surprisingly small ball for someone who's six feet tall. The long scars that slash down her back, where her wings emerge, can be seen pretty clearly around the tank top that she's wearing, and a bit of dark hair pokes out from under the pillow.

"Make it dark, please?" she pleads from under the thin pillow.

[shotofdumbidea]

Georgia carries the blanket to the window, and carefully arranges it so it drapes over the blinds without letting any light through. She glances back at Tay, and then reaches up to take off her glasses, blinking a few times as her eyes adjust. After a second or two, the room snaps into clear focus, and she doesn't want to scream and join Tay under the pillow, so she can only assume Tay will be okay too.

She walks over to tug on the pillow. "Sit up and open your eyes." There's no room for argument in her tone. You want sympathy, you go to someone else. You want someone to explain why the light is suddenly trying to punch you in the face, you're stuck with Georgia.

[archangelet]

Tay cracks one eye open, peering through the fringe of her hair that's fallen over her face. When she's sure the light isn't going to, well, punch her in the face again, she sits up and rubs her eyes a bit, scowling.

"What the hell is going on with my fucking eyes?" she asks sharply. She doesn't really mean to snap at Georgia, she's actually very glad she's here, but even with the darkened room, she's got a headache building up behind her eyes and, frankly, she's not really pleased with whatever it is her body's doing.

[shotofdumbidea]

Georgia doesn't even have to inspect Tay's eyes very closely to see what's wrong. They're as dark as hers, in the way that only comes from an active Kellis-Amberlee infection. And since she's obviously not amplifying

[archangelet]

As Georgia sits, Tay starts to notice the discrepency between how well she can see and how dark it should be. She doesn't really have time to ponder that, however, because she gets distracted by Georgia's eyes, unaware that her own are equally unsettling. She doesn't want to miss any explanations, though, so her morbid curiosity is quickly overwhelmed by the urge to shoot things the longer Georgia talks.

"No," she responds with a sigh when Georgia finishes, "I really wasn't." She takes a moment to pinch the bridge of her nose, trying to fight back the headache and the inevitable fuzzy-headedness that comes from sleeping for three days. "Okay, so... you're saying this is permanent? It's not going to get better in a couple days or anything?"

Because that's just what every guardian wants to hear - that they have a permanent, potentially debilitating disability that could easily interfere with protecting their ward.

[shotofdumbidea]

"I've had this since I was five. So no. It doesn't go away." She wishes she had painkillers to offer the girl. She usually doesn't carry them with her since they're not safe to take in the field, and so naturally she didn't have them on hand when she was only planning to be out of the convoy for half an hour at most. So much for that.

"Sunglasses help, obviously. There are kinds of light that won't hurt so much, or won't hurt at all - if whoever owns this building isn't a complete sadist, it shouldn't be hard to convince them to install better lighting in a few places. But this is going to keep happening whenever your eyes are exposed to ordinary light without some kind of protection. Unless you're really fond of headaches, and nerve damage, and possible blindness due to retinal damage... you're going to need to learn to be careful. And get some blackout curtains."

[archangelet]

"Really really dark sunglasses," Tay mutters, and drops her head into her hands so she can think for a moment without having to worry about making faces.

She has a disease in her eyes that makes it basically visual suicide to go out in normal light without sunglasses. She's going to need to find some rally good ones or they'll be useless. And because she doesn't currently have any, she'll probably have to ask Georgia to pick some up for her.

"Fuck, I need to let Mio know what's going on," she groans. "And get one of the doctors to let the school know. And get blackout curtains..." Tay prides herself on being capable and level-headed when shit needs doing, but this is overwhelming for her. "Fuck."

[shotofdumbidea]

Georgia may not be good at sympathy, but she grimaces a little - she doesn't remember ever having to adapt to her retinal KA, it just was. One benefit of getting it as young as she did, at least. But she can imagine what Tay's going through, and it's not pleasant.

"You learn to manage it. It's not fun, but it could be a lot worse." She pauses, and then offers after a moment, "I can tell Mio if you want. And get you some sunglasses and painkillers, if you have the cash for it. You'll probably want to get glasses custom made for the long term, but I should be able to find something that'll work until then." She figures she owes the girl a favor or two, considering.

[archangelet]

Tay purses her lips for a moment, then reaches out to grab her journal. "I can handle Mio unless she wants to talk to you about it, since you know more. I'll ask her to get you some money for the sunglasses and shit, though."

She scribbles in her journal for a moment, then flops back on the bed with a deep sigh. "Why can't my life ever even attempt to resemble normal? If it's not being the first guardian anyone's ever heard of with a demon as a ward, it's my family thinking I've gone nuts or my best friend being in love with a fucking vampire or falling into a universe where almost everything's the same but the me who was here is dead or... or... AUGH!"

She does not know how to deal with this shit, and it's just way overwhelming and she kind of wants to cry but for some reason her eyes aren't even tearing up a little and--

With absolutely no fanfare at all, Tay is suddenly a very large, very fluffy dog.

[shotofdumbidea]

Georgia was just going to sit still and let Tay rant for a little while, since she seems to need it, and spend the time wondering whether or not she meant that vampire thing literally, and if other people in this universe are going to start showing symptoms as quickly as Tay or if that's just a fluke...

And then there's a dog on the bed. A very, very large dog, and Georgia's moving before she even consciously realizes it. She lunges to her feet, kicking her chair backwards in the process, and pulls her gun, aiming automatically for the thing's head. Georgia? Not a dog person. Really not a large dog person. She manages to not pull the trigger, but if the dog even looks like it's going to make a move for her, that could change.

"What the fuck?"

[archangelet]

Tay is pretty much shocked into freezing when she suddenly turns into a dog, and Georgia's reaction and the gun now pointed at her don't make her feel like starting to move again.

She lets out a soft whine that, in dog, would translate pretty closely to matching Georgia's sentiment. Very slowly, she settles on the bed in as non-threatening a posture as she can manage. Of all the things she wanted to learn about herself today, the fact that she is apparently a shapeshifter was not one of them.

[shotofdumbidea]

Georgia doesn't move for a moment or two, still eyeing the dog suspiciously even after it settles down. But after a little while, it becomes pretty obvious it's not going to try to rip her face off, so she lowers the gun slowly, and frowns.

"...Tay?" she asks slowly.

[archangelet]

Tay whines again and nods slowly. Hey, Georgia, remember how she mentioned people turning into animals? Yeah, that's what just happened. As evidenced by the fact that Tay's clothes are pretty much ruined around her - thin gangly angels do not generally wear clothes that fit big gangly dogs