Love Potion

The Blue Lotus Dress

I chatted with everyone as we bounced from shop to shop, though mostly Gray, and Kaspar, who tagged along beside us. Though we went as a group, really, we all came in smaller groups: Persephone, Gilbert and Morgaine, Mollis and Pip, Gray and... and then after thinking Kaspar was tagging along me and Gray, I realised I was tagging along Gray and Kaspar.

We went to a sweets shop (I love peppermint pinches), the equipool shop (Gray and Kaspar didn't want to leave), a weapons shop (I now have the most furious desire to own a sword, a pretty one), a shoe shop (they have flying shoes!), a games shop (Persephone bought a boardgame that looked fun, called 'Kill Your Neighbour'), and an art shop (full of moving paintings of mermaids and dragons and ghouls). The sky was soon darkening to a rich red-pink.

Me, Gray and Kaspar were talking about banshees, and a time when one actually broke into the school (I already knew of this, from 'The Boy that cried Death'), when Persephone suddenly let out a shriek of delight - she was jabbing her finger excitedly at a shop window, where a few other students were already crowded, bouncing on her toes. Pip and Mollis looked equally squeamish, and Morgaine, nodding regardfully. Seeing what she was pointing at, the boys suddenly sighed sorrily; Gray's hair turned green. They looked as though they weren't looking forward to whatever was happening next.

"Look!" was Persephone's cry. "They have a Majestio costume!"

I furrowed my eyebrows. In the window of a gaudy-looking dress shop stood a wooden mannequin (I jumped when it actually moved, gesturing its wooden arms as if showing off its garb) in a glossy, skintight superhero-like costume. It was mostly peacock-blue, with white forearms and calves, spiky green detailing, and on the chest a stylised green 'M' - the whole suit had a fibery shine to it.

My eyebrows cornered. "Who's Majestio?"

The girls gasped, then Persephone exhaled, and grinned. "I forget you come from another world... willfully living under a rock..."

"Hey-"

"Majestio is the best and most famous superhero in the Pearled Isles," she went a matter-of-factly, strutting in a circle with her nose and finger in the air. "He has dual specialties - energy palms and hindsight - and not only is he very powerful and vanquishes great beasts and wicked magists across the Pearled Isles, he's a great and benevolent man. He comes to everyone and anyone's aid, and make special visits to all the families who lose family members because of his fighting, even though it's not his fault."

"And it doesn't hurt that he's handsome," added Mollis in a giggle. Morgaine tutted, though she did steal a gaze at the photo that must have been Majestio that was set beside the costumed mannequin - I glanced at it too.

He was a handsome man, with a thatch of silver hair (though it wasn't to do with age) that mopped too-perfectly-to-not-be-deliberate on either side of his hardjawed face. He looked in his late twenties, or maybe early thirties. I couldn't be sure: he had a matured, but stubbless face. In the photo he grinned charmingly, flashing white teeth, and his grey eyes sparkled behind his eye mask.

"Hm," I said, my eyebrows raised. "He is quite handsome."

"Quite handsome," I heard Persephone mutter, shaking her head as she and the girls piled past me to go into the dress shop.

Gilbert, Gray and Kaspar were mumbling gloomily. I grinned as they followed them with clumping feet. "Don't like him?" I asked.

"He's a good man," went Gilbert with a sigh, "but I wish he was just a little less perfect-looking... I think given the chance, Persephone would ditch me for him..."