Black Saturday

V

Their lips parted, and Rahal rubbed her mouth. Shock filled Luna's eyes, bringing her to her feet.

Rahal continued, saying, 'There will be menfolk obsessed with profanity who will come along and replace wands with something else, something they find more fitting.'

Luna shouted, 'What was that?'

'That, O' My Dear Luna, was the traditional greeting of a Navian princess. Tsk! No, that was just one of my overflowing urges. It happens from time to time.'

Luna fell back onto a wall. 'You kissed me...'

'Did you like it?'And with that, Luna couldn't respond. All her muscles tensed, and she closed her eyes.
'It's the truth, though.'

Luna opened her eyes and got an eyeful of elf. There she was, right there, standing nose-to-nose with her.

'W-what's the truth?'

Rahal stepped back. 'That's how we greet other friendly princesses, by deep throating each other with our tongues. Call it a cultural quirk.'

This brought Luna to rub her lips and look at the spittle upon her wrist. 'You mean...'

'I don't know if it's a coincidence or not, that your world treats such an act as the sign of romance. Eh.' Rahal shrugged. 'Nothing I can do about your history. Nothing I can do about mine.' Luna slid to the floor, eyes forward and unblinking and mouth a tad drooped. 'Oh come off it, you liked it.' Rahal giggled. Then she pulled from her coat something much stranger than a sprata. 'Care for one?'

Luna looked at it. A mushroom.

'I've taken to these. The best mushrooms are the massive ones with quite a bitta splooge 'n spores inside, if I do say so myself.'

'Of course you'd say that.'

Both girls jumped and turned to the window. Hanging in was none other than Yoshua Solomon. His Slytherin cloak was wrapped around his neck like a scarf; otherwise, he was still clad head-to-toe in denim.

'Yoshie! How'd you survive the blizzard?' Rahal got to her feet and glomped Solomon, brushing his wiry and shaggy hair free of snowflakes.

'It's my burning misanthropic nihilism. Keeps me warm.'

'Don't believe 'im, O' My Dear Moon-Snorkack.'

The utterance of such a verbal mess snapped Luna out of her daze, and she managed to get to her feet.

'You are Yoshua Solomon,' she exclaimed. 'I don't think I've met you since the first day at Hogwarts.'

Solomon saluted her. 'Sup? You're, ah... Luna Lovegood, right?' He and Rahal swung each other around and kissed.

'This is every day now, Yoshie! When are we gonna move onto the Other Things?'

'It's not every day. This is the first time in weeks.'

Luna stepped in and said, 'Sorry to interrupt, but it's really fascinating to finally meet you personally.'

Rahal fell to the ground with a thud— Solomon dropped her and focused his attention onto Luna.

'Ow! Motherf—...'

'Pleasure's all mine.'

Luna oggled Solomon's hair, while memories flashed through her eyes. It was true what Rahal said— he really did look like a long-haired version of Harry Potter. But more than that...

'I've never met an American before,' Luna said.

'Yeah,' was his reply.

Rahal dragged herself up on Solomon's clothes and smacked him across the head. 'I oughta light that Jewfro of yours on fire.'

Luna couldn't help but to laugh.

That reminded Solomon, who smacked Rahal back. 'What's this with you getting all leslie with Luna Lovegood?'

Rahal smacked Solomon again. 'It's my custom.'

Solomon smacked Rahal. 'You don't French kiss strangers, you dilldole.'

Rahal smacked Solomon. 'She's not a stranger, yiffwizard. She's been my friend for weeks.'

Luna separated the two, arresting Rahal's arms and throwing herself in between their violence.
'Stop slapping each other, please!'

Solomon replied, 'No promises.' That made Rahal giggle.

Yet Luna pouted at him and said, 'Why are you so mean to her?'

Instead of replying, Solomon pulled a cigarette from his jacket pocket and lit it with his wand.

It was Rahal that said, 'We keep each other in line. I stop him from unleashing the End of Days; he stops me from riding the Pale Horse. It's a, how you say, mutual contract.'

'Wish to pol another demon lung?' Solomon mumbled through the fag.

'Piss off.' When Rahal raised her hand again, faint sparks popped around her fingers. Luna reached out to grab her wrist. Rahal stopped. 'Loons— can I call ya Loons?— you've gotta open your yuckholes for a moment and remember that we're not from your world.'

'I don't care! You can't keep abusing each other like this.' Rahal stepped back when she noticed something glint across Luna's cheek. 'People don't do that if they love each other!'

Quarter of a grin sneaked onto Solomon's lips. 'Poor devotchka's so naive.'

Rahal tossed him a sneer and then laughed into her hands. As she turned to Luna, she said, 'I know it's brutal... I know it's not in your culture... Hell, that's what I was talking about earlier! That's why I was saying I can't skip you across the sea to Navia.'

Rahal put her finger to Luna's head and pretended to pull the trigger. 'Your precious little heart couldn't take it. You're insulated by this politically correct society and can't see how brutish vast swaths of your own world really are— and yet you still attempt to paint a world with an alien history with your same biases.'

Solomon squinted his eyes. 'You really offered to bring Luna Lovegood— Luna Lovegood!— to Seventh Earth?'

Rahal said, 'Maybe you do need to see Navia first just to get what I'm trying to say. Who knows! Maybe it'll inspire you to clean up your own world.'

'Am I being ignored?'

Luna wiped her cheek and said, 'I just don't like the way you two keep beating each other. You weren't playing— you're bruised.'

'It'll heal. I'm used to it.'

'That's not right, though! If you're used to it, shouldn't you want something different?'

Rahal rolled her head. 'Good lord; what do I hafta say to get thro... We are playing. You don't get that we're playing because you're so unused to our abilities.'

A shriek screamed from Rahal's hand. Electricity danced around her fingers, convulsing and coalescing into a ball. She opened Luna's window and tossed the energy ball off into the field.

It exploded. The explosion sounded like a loud snap and a gale cleared a wide area of the now-grassy field as clumps of snow rained down.

Luna had fallen to her bum, and Solomon helped to scoop her up.

'Frightening, innit? That's barely enough for me to feel in my palm. If I had actually tried, I coulda leveled half your island.' Rahal stares into Luna's eyes. 'And I do mean the British Isles.'

Luna stuttered, 'But how could you actually have that much power?'

Solomon tossed his cigarette out the window. 'We've been through a lot, Loons. More than you can imagine, surely.' He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets and said, 'I'll be outside.'

When Luna glanced his way, she noticed that she saw his shadow upon the wall and in the mirror— yet Solomon himself had no figure in the mirror.

As Solomon left, he stepped out of the way of Xenophilius.

'What on Earth...!'

Rahal said, 'We're just cooking. Don't mess.'