"This is all so overwhelming."

I can relate. Imagine my surprise when I was reborn with all of my mental faculties, stuck within the body of a baby, infant instincts forcing me to do nothing but cry and shit for months. I nearly drove myself insane, unable to comprehend that reincarnation of all things was real.

But magic? Magic was all that I'd dreamed of in my past life, becoming something more than mundane, more than human. I had the right temperament to embrace my newfound abilities, the metaknowledge to know just what TVD magic could accomplish. Bonnie's inability to adjust to the supernatural world around her as quickly as I did is a little frustrating.

"I can't help it that you didn't believe me," Sheila says with a terse expression, and Bonnie side-eyes her hard. "There's a big, wide world out there, sweetheart. If not for your father, you'd have been spinning spells in your diapers."

Well, that and her mother leaving her behind after desiccating Mikael. But I digress.

I let them continue to discuss and my mind wanders once more, eyes darting frequently toward the window behind the two women. I fully expected to see Lucian waltz up to the window at any moment.

To assuage my fears, I reach into my backpack and remove the locater pen and the map.

"What's that?" Bonnie asks.

"A little device I made earlier today," I explain. "An object imbued with a locater spell."

Sheila stares at me for several moments and then looks at the necklace around her granddaughter's neck. "The comet."

I nod, dropping the end of the pen onto the edge of the map. Lucian. "Bonnie, one of the most powerful things that witches can do is spell objects. Effectively, spelled objects allow you to use magic without having to draw on your own abilities directly, allowing you to conserve some stamina for later use."

Her brow furrows. "Stamina?"

"Ask your grandmother," I say, pointing. "She knows all about witch stamina." Always thought her death, for such a simple spell, was stupid, though interesting world-building, from a certain point of view.

The ink drips from the pen, spreading into the paper for a couple seconds, and then suddenly begins to dart across the page, automatically pinpointing the vampire's location in Mystic Falls.

The Lockwood Manor. Fuck.

"What is it telling you?" Sheila asks.

I raise up the map to show them. "That vampire I mentioned. Lucien Castle? He's currently on the Lockwood property."

Bonnie's fist clenches as Sheila's eyes widen. "We can't let him hurt the town's mayor. Tyler doesn't deserve that!" Her determination is… cute, if a little out of place. Sheila has the decency to not be openly amused, but I can't help myself as I giggle.

"Honey, this man is a monster." Oh, good. Self-preservation has kicked in. Sobriety really does her life wonders. "He would not hesitate to kill anyone that he wanted, whenever he wanted. You definitely are not getting involved." She's… looking at both of us? Talking to both of us. What?

She frowns. "But I thought the whole point of this was to teach me how to do magic in order to protect the town from threats just like this?"

Superhero, Bonnie Bennet.

…

Huh. That's a train of thought I'd not considered, but I'm a little surprised that there isn't someone supernatural out there fighting crime and doing acts of kindness for ordinary civilians. Vampire abilities are insanely helpful for something like that, and anonymity is stupidly easy. Physical strength, speed, healing blood, compulsion. Just compel them to forget and then move on to the next job. Throw on a mask for the occasional surveyor you don't notice to compel and you can be a better Batman than Batman.

Maybe that's something to look into.

"Yes, it was," I admit. "And it still is. But you, and I, gotta build up to something like the world's oldest non-Original vampire."

"What exactly is an Original vampire?"

"What it says on the tin, plus a few extra tidbits," I say with a moment's pause. Sheila's reaction is terse, for reasons I can't fathom. "Anyway, there's nothing that we can do about Lucien right now. But we can begin teaching you." I gesture to Sheila. "Will you do the honors?"

The woman nods and turns to her granddaughter. Sheila's still clearly uneasy around me. Giving her the talisman, and getting Bonnie to actually sit down and not assume she's insane, are bound to pile up points in the "trust Logan" column. But she's old and I'm a stranger. These things take time.

"Magic is all about making connections between yourself and the world around you, and then using those connections to make whatever effects that you'd like," Sheila explains to a rapt Bonnie, hanging on every word. "Witches use the energy within themselves to access the energies of nature to fuel their spells. More powerful spells require more complex connections, more powerful sources of power."

I gesture to the locator pen and ink bottle. "When I made this, I used the power of the comet passing overhead. Assuming that nothing happens to it, it should work forever." Not even the amount of ink limits it. Drop a little blood from my finger into the bottle, and the ink will replenish.

Comets are overpowered as fuck.

I place the pen on the map once more and think intently of Bonnie, and the ink swirls across the map before centering in on Sheila's address. "See. It can even find you."

Bonnie frowns. "That's… a little creepy, honestly."

I chuckle. "Maybe it is. But it's going to be so damned helpful in the fight against those who go bump in the night, trust me." I'm wary to try to use it to locate one of the Originals. For all I know, one of their witches will be able to find me when I attempt it, and it seems a little premature to try.

"That's just one example of what magic can do," Sheila adds, trying to steer the conversation back to the real point. "Come here."

She leads the two of us to her medicine cabinet, where her stock of herbs is located. "Spices? Why are you showing us your spice rack?"

Sheila grins, but I take the opportunity, grabbing her jar of sage and holding it out for her. "Ground sage is considered a potent purifier, and when combined with the right ingredients, it can reverse some magical and mundane ailments."

The coven has several theories about sage, the most interesting of which is its probable inclusion in the spell used to create the Originals. One of the old Parker grimoires suggests that it might link to why vampires are unable to contract diseases and perhaps even stop their aging, when used in the spell to create them. Wouldn't be shocked if that were true, but I can't verify it with any prior knowledge that I have. I don't remember specific ingredients for spells in the show unless it was a major one.

"Jasmine is another example," Sheila says, pointing to the jar and then holding it out to Bonnie. "Burning it as incense can loosen up your mind and allow you to commune with the spirits."

Bonnie recoils, but I can already tell what she's thinking. "Before you object, I know what it sounds like, but this stuff is all real. All very real. You know that as well as I do."

To demonstrate, the bottle of sage hovers over my palm for several seconds, and then begins to orbit my arm. After two revolutions, it begins to do the same to Bonnie, and her expression is brilliant, her smile bright.

"Can you show me how to do that?"

I grin, and Sheila rolls her eyes, probably at the parlor trick. "Course I can."

.:O:.

I'm terrified to leave Sheila's later that night, but Bonnie offers to drive me back. According to the scrying pen, a much better name, Lucian is still sitting in the Lockwood's mansion. Carol and Richard are unharmed, and Tyler is across town. Far as I can tell, everyone's okay, considering.

"You're really paranoid."

She's not been exactly quiet, but she's not said much of consequence before now.

"Sorry, I can't help it. When you've been around as long as I have, and seen what I have, you'd be paranoid too." I'd get along famously with Klaus. "How are you adjusting to all this? Now that you're away from your grandmother anyway, you aren't going to hurt my feelings, long as you're honest."

She rubs her temple for a moment nervously. "It's… just a lot to take in. A couple days ago, my dad was hounding me about college applications, and I'm not even a senior yet. But now? Now it's all different."

"Oh man, you've no idea. Despite growing up with magic, with the supernatural, I'll never get tired of that rush! That feeling when you're doing something amazing, just because you hit the genetic lottery." Bonnie vigorously agrees, smirking. "But everything else doesn't really compare."

She and I make small talk about the subject, but I'm distracted because what she said reminded me of something very, very important. The map I've been using won't work, but once I get a bigger one of the state, I'll know for sure.

"I had a vision of a man and his bedridden wife a couple weeks ago," I suggest. "I figured out where the man works; he's the occult studies professor at Whitmore."

She ponders it for a moment. "Where my grandmother worked?"

I feign surprise. "I guess so? Anyway, something about the woman's condition in the vision suggested magic is the cause." Expression does this to people, apparently. "I was thinking of taking a visit, seeing if there's something that I could do to help her tomorrow. Would you like to come along?"

"Really?"

I grin. "Of course. It'd be a good opportunity for you to see magic in action and see just how it can help people."

She considers it for several seconds before finally shaking her head. "I'm afraid not. My dad's not gonna-"

"Oh, that's okay! Perfectly understandable. It was a little stupid to think that you'd drop everything."

"Right. I'm sorry about that!"

"No worries, really."

The ride is sort of tense for several minutes before we finally arrive at my little hotel room. I open the door, backpack in tow, and then lean back into the car. "Make sure you read a little from those grimoires your grandmother gave you before next week. Take good notes too; you can't play around with magic and do it half-assed."

Bonnie's talisman gleams as she rolls her eyes. "Yes, professor."

She drives off and I hurry into my room, crossing the salt boundary and then fixing it back with a word. Once I'm undressed, I fix the secondary boundary around the bed, and then triple check before I go to sleep that Lucien is nowhere near me.